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Are you ready?
Good evening.
It is 708.
I'm calling to order the special board meeting of Tuesday, June 2nd.
May we have a roll call, please.
Yes.
Carol fox.
Here.
Tom hankins.
Here.
Bill Johnson.
Here.
Meghan miller.
Present.
Joanne rue.
Here.
Here.
Dan Schuf.
Here.
And Tia Johnson.
Here.
All members are present.
Thank you.
May I get an approval of the agenda?
So.
Sorry.
Second.
Motion by Carol fox.
Secureded by Megan miller.
Any discussion?
Hearing none.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries unanimously.
Mr. Schope.
Are there any public comments tonight?
Yes, I have two in the room and an e-mail.
Thank you.
Members of the public are welcome to attend all open meetings of the Board of Education.
Individuals attending board meetings are expected to conduct themselves in a respectful and courteous manner.
That models appropriate behavior for our students.
Individuals wishing to comment are expected to comply with the norms found on the back of your comment cards and in board policy 187 public participation and board meetings.
They're planning a respectful and orderly meeting and prevent discussion discussing confidential matters in a public form by following these norms for public comments during board meetings.
Thank you for your participation and courtesy.
Mrs. Schope.
The first person I have is Lauren.
Okay.
Good evening, everyone.
I'm Lauren Burner and despite what you might think, I'm not here to talk about your overdue library books.
I'm here once again to speak to you about the importance of our library staff.
This past week while collecting nearly 400 student Chromebooks in my building
to meet a warranty deadline that I do believe all of our librarians have or will meet.
I spent time with my fifth grade classes reading the one thing you'd save by a new berry medalist Susan.
Sorry, Linda, Sue Park.
Sorry, I'm nervous.
I don't know.
I'm nervous today.
As we read students eagerly engaged to share what they would save and why.
At first, the answers were predictable cell phones, Xboxes, favor toys.
But by the end of the book, the conversation had evolved into a much bigger question.
What would be the one thing they would say from elementary school?
Their answers were remarkable.
They used library resources, the grain screen, the iPads, iMovie, tripods.
They were so inspired that they decided to create a video showcasing the things they would save.
While I promised those easily embarrassed fifth graders that I would not share their video with anybody other than their teachers and their parents,
I can share you some of their words.
They said, Mr. Kargle, he's our school counselor, because he listens.
The track meet, even if it made me gross.
4K nap time, I agree.
And once the student simply said the library, it's the best in the world.
The library is the best in the world.
When we talk about reducing librarian staff to 0.5 per building, we're talking about giving up pieces of what makes the school meaningful for students.
We're talking about losing the opportunity for collaboration, creativity, exploration, and innovation.
We're talking about limiting access to those resources, technology and learning experiences that students value and remember.
Most importantly, we're reducing access to the library itself.
There's a very good possibility that the library will be closed if there's not a person in there.
I would love to stand here and tell you that we can continue to provide the same level of service, instruction and support with half-time staffing.
Realistically, we cannot.
There are only so many hours in a day.
The reduction to appoint staff will likely mean the library spaces will be closed, a significant portion of the week limiting access to students and staff alike.
I respectfully ask you to reconsider this reduction.
Keep librarians in our building full-time for the coming year so we continue to provide the support, instruction and opportunities for our students that they deserve.
Also for our teachers, because we're at the elementary level, we're currently part of their prep time.
If in the future there's district changes require you to revisit staffing levels, a conversation can happen when broader decisions are made about building closures or district restructuring.
But today, I ask you to preserve the rest services, relationships and opportunities that our libraries are providing.
Because when a fifth grader tells you that the library is the best place in the world, it's probably something we should listen to.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Genesis Show.
Next, I have James.
Good evening, Dr. Anderson and members of the board.
On behalf of the Boy Education Association, I would like to thank you for your work and time you have dedicated to addressing the district's budget challenges.
We understand that these are difficult decisions with long-term impacts on our schools, staff, students and community.
At the same time though, we strongly encourage the board to make budget decisions as soon as possible.
Staff members need clarity about the direction of the budgets they can properly prepare for the next school year and make personal and professional decisions.
Continued uncertainty creates stress and it makes difficult to plan effectively.
No matter which budget option the board approves, we urge the board to maintain the dean positions at the elementary schools.
These positions play a critical role in supporting student discipline, building positive school culture and helping teachers maintain safe and productive learning environments.
Elementary deans provide direct support to students, staff and families allowing classroom teachers to focus on instruction and student achievement.
The BAA is also concerned about the reduction in media specialists.
As we just heard, they provide many wonderful opportunities for our students.
And we are concerned about the reduction in the services that will be offered to students.
And we wonder what the plan is to provide coverage for elementary teacher prep time because the media specialists do provide some of that coverage.
We understand the concern with operating expenses at certain buildings and the desire to rearrange programs in possibly buildings.
We agree that some changes are probably necessary and will absolutely need to take place.
However, trying to make most of those changes for next year doesn't seem feasible.
Here we are in June and many staff members are dealing with a lot of stress and uncertainty about their job for next year.
Do they have a job? What will the job be and where will that job be located?
Trying to incorporate major reconfigurations in such a short time span is only going to elevate the stress level of staff.
Please come together as a board and make a budget decision soon.
So administration can move forward with staffing plans and principals can move forward with a plan to staff the building for next year.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mr. Show.
Okay. The email I have is from Emily.
I want to take a moment to speak about the proposed changes to our district's health services,
specifically the reduction to three nurses and the removal of the director of health without any discussion of a replacement coordinator role.
I understand that difficult financial decisions must be made, but these changes raise serious concerns about safety,
oversight and the integrity of the entire health services system.
First, reducing to three nurses across the district significantly limits our capacity to meet student needs.
The medical complexity of our student population continues to grow.
We are responsible for students with chronic conditions, emergency care plans, daily medications and mental health concerns.
With fewer nurses, coverage becomes thinner, response times increase and opportunities for preventative care decrease.
But that, I'm sorry, but what is even more concerning is the removal of the director of health.
The director is not just in administrative position.
It is the role that holds the entire system together.
This position provides essential oversight of both nurses and HRAs, ensuring that everyone is supported,
properly supervised and working within safe consistent standards.
The director also plays a critical role in ensuring that policies and procedures are in compliance with state and federal regulations.
That includes maintaining up-to-date protocols, ensuring proper documentation, guiding staff training and making sure the district is meeting legal and safety requirements.
Without that leadership, we risk inconsistency gaps in practice and potential compliance issues.
In addition, HRAs rely on strong oversight to function safely and effectively.
They are valuable members of the team, but they are not licensed nurses.
They depend on clear direction, structured supervision and access to clinical decision making when situations become complex.
Without a director or coordinator overseeing both nurses and HRAs, it becomes unclear who is responsible for that supervision and accountability.
That lack of structure creates risk for students, for staff and for the district.
When a system like this loses leadership, it doesn't just become leaner, it becomes fragmented.
Practices can vary from building to building. Staff are left without consistent guidance and critical responsibilities can fall through the cracks.
Families trust that our district has a safe, coordinated health system in place, removing both capacity and leadership undermines that trust.
This is not just about reducing positions, it is about removing the structure that ensures those positions work safely and effectively.
If changes must be made, there must still be a clearly defined role of responsibility for overseeing nurses and HRAs and ensuring compliance with policies and procedures.
Without that, we are not maintaining a safe system, we are increasing risk.
I urge you to reconsider this decision or to put a clear plan in place for maintaining the oversight and compliance that our students and staff depend on.
Thank you.
That's all I have.
This is Shelton.
Our next item is the first board action discussion item, revised school calendars 2026, 2027 and 2027, 2028.
Tonight we've got Dr. Leah Gordon-Malott and Jeff Stenrose.
And the purpose of this is to request the Board of Education approve the revised calendars for these school years.
Mr. Stenrose.
So welcome.
So we are presenting the 2627 and 2728 calendars.
I presented them previously and was presented with one typographical omission and then one that I had looked at the contract wrong in working with HR.
They had alerted me to some things.
So the first one, which was a typographical error, if you look at the 2627 calendar and it applies to that one only.
My presentation tab isn't working here.
Okay, thank you.
So what happened was in March of 2027, we had March 19 as a report card prep day and the term the quarter did not actually end until April 2nd.
So we were preparing report cards the week before the quarter actually ended.
So that and the two conference dates or the three conference dates had to move back a week.
From the 9th and 11th and 18th of March, which were in orange, they moved down a week to the 16th, 18th and 1st of April.
And March 19 as the report card day moved to April 2nd.
So that was a typographical error that 8 to 10 people, including myself, did not catch once we moved the quarter date.
So that was first and that's only on that calendar.
For both the 2627 and 2728 calendar, there was a date in August, the Friday of teacher in service week.
And then the very last teacher day in June, they were both coded black.
They were put in as compensation days for evening conferences and events as teacher days.
And via our contract, the conferences do not fall underneath the 190 day to 192 day count.
So we put those back in as teacher work days in there.
So it was a color coding.
It didn't affect the actual days that students were in session, but I want to make sure we provided clarity that they are part of the 100 or the teachers needed the two additional days in the 190 day two day contract and they became teacher work days in those calendars.
And that was for both years.
Dr. Anderson?
Is that I was the one who directed Mr. Stenvers to make that change.
It's something that I was used to in other districts that if you did tonight's conferences, then you made up with a free day.
I was unaware that our handbook had language to say the other.
So he followed my direction and we found out that the handbook stated otherwise.
So then we had to make the correction back.
So it's actually my error that you have incorporated.
Thank you, Dr. Anderson.
Is there a motion for approval of the revised 2026-27 and the 2027-28 school district calendars?
So moved.
Second.
Motion by Dan Shoeff, seconded by Carol Fox.
Is there any discussion?
Hearing none, all in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries unanimously.
Our next item tonight is the Skills USA National Conference.
This is Mr. Stenvers again with Dr. Leah Gordon-Malott.
And the purpose is to request funding assistance from the Board of Education.
Mr. Stenvers?
Yeah, so we were fortunate enough this year.
Our Skills USA group is in our second year of organization.
And we placed third in the state as a chapter of excellence.
Last year we were a gold winner.
This year we were a bronze winner, but we're the only public high school in the last two years to do that,
which also qualified us to send students to the national competition and leadership conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
We also had a state winner in Masonry, Melissa Barca.
And she, again, we had a outstanding finish.
We found out we, instead of just the top three in Masonry that we were given when they give the state results,
we found out we finished first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh in Masonry.
So with that, we were, again, state winner allows to go to nationals.
And so the students have gone on to nationals.
They are currently in Atlanta, Georgia right now participating in the Skills USA Competition and National Leadership Conference.
So with the cost of four students going and two chaperones,
the total cost is roughly about $10,600.
Give or take, there's some ground transportation and some meal pieces that we can't put an exact dollar amount to
until we can come back, but we've sort of approximated, but it is flight, hotel, registration,
some of the ground transportation that is provided for that.
My request to the school board was to sponsor this with $8,000,
with the remaining funds coming from my CTE funds that we have through Act 59,
that are certifications that these students would earn.
So that would be my request is for the full board to go ahead.
We presented this to the committee before and they had a recommendation that was different.
I'm still going back and asked for a full $8,000, not the full cost of the trip,
but $8,000 to support the students that are there currently.
Thank you. Dr. Anderson, is there anything you want to add to this?
Just I think it's exceptional that we have students that can represent our school district at the national level.
That shows that we are doing a great job of preparing these students to compete at such a high level.
Thank you. Are there any board member questions or comments?
Tom? Yes, Jeff, you mentioned masonry.
How many other areas are we involved with the CTE?
So we actually had a student place third at state and culinary.
We had students, there is in leadership and resume.
So we had five or six different areas where students competed.
And we have potentially, as we started small, but there are culinary, there is medical nursing,
there is some other leadership pieces.
So there's a wide array. We only started with participants in five different competitions at this point in time.
But if you had the wherewithal, you could have people involved in X amount of 70, 80 participants
from the Deloitte Memorial High School participating at the state competition.
Yes.
We may have a problem of having to send 10, 12, 15 kids to nationals.
You are right, Mr. Ankins.
Okay, thank you. Thank you, congratulations.
I don't take the honor. That is Joe Kluge and who is the teacher leader of SkillsUSA
and what they do with, it's a student-run organization and they push themselves.
Carol Fox?
We're very proud of these students and we're very grateful for the programs that you've put in place.
And we can improve 8,000, we can improve 2,000, we can improve nothing.
We don't have any budgets.
So if we approve it, it's going to have to come out of somebody else's budget, right?
I mean, that's the reality.
There was apparently something that somebody said was a superintendent's budget that did some board things.
If we had something like that, it's gone.
So we could say, okay, we'd be glad to do it.
Then Dr. Anderson's going to have to go look, and it's going to have to go look in somebody else's budget
and see if there's any left over.
And if there is, I'm all for it. If there's not, you know, I guess it's going to have to come out of your CTE budget.
What I would say, and it's nothing to do with you, is that as the board, we need to get out of the business
of having people come and asking us for funding for special events.
Somehow that needs to be built in to somebody's budget, either the TLE budget or the high school budget.
Or somebody's budget that is a little money set aside for people who win contests or do special things.
But to have people come and continually request things, when we would really, we don't have any funds to give.
And then it looks like we're being mean to that group because we gave money to that group.
And that's just not really what we should be doing.
We're here to support all of our groups and everybody.
So if Dr. Anderson thinks he can come up with somebody's budget somewhere, that there's an extra $4,000,
you know, so be it.
Otherwise you'll probably have to take it out of your CTE budget.
And Board Member Fox, I'm well aware that I hear that.
And it's other organizations that have been asked and have been.
And so to support my group, I have to come forward and ask for that.
And I fully understand that.
But that's also why our students are there competing now, because I said it's that important and I did pay for out of my budget,
which it takes away from something else.
And that is the reality of it.
But I did have to come forward and then request this from the board.
So thank you.
I do appreciate that as well.
And I do not take it personally.
You know, we've got to get out of it.
We've got to, you know, we just can't be continuing to have people come and request money somehow,
especially for people who win contests or do special things like that.
It needs to be built in or planned ahead.
I mean, obviously you need to start planning now because you are likely to have a lot of people that are going to be going into that.
My personal take is the Ellington thing.
They need to start planning now because they've been going year after year.
They're probably going to go again.
And, you know, we need to be getting out of the business of saying, yeah, we're just going to give you extra money.
But like I said, I think procedurally and financially we need to come up with better systems for how we support things like people who win contests
and we need to go on unexpected kinds of excursions.
Any other board join room?
Yes, thank you.
I was just wanting to say I 100% agree with what Carol is saying.
Congratulations again to the students.
Fantastic.
It's we don't have any money.
And so we need to come up with a policy or have a budget line item somewhere.
In our budget that takes care of this so we don't keep having this happen because it's hard.
And I don't know.
It seems like there should be another way.
Megan Miller.
Thank you.
When this was discussed at committee, one of the things that was and I realize this doesn't satisfy like the full purpose of your request.
But because we're having the discussion, one thing that was talked about was how do we make it easier?
How do we make it easier for the community outside of the amazing and wonderful partnerships you already have?
And I think to Mr. Stenres' credit, he did an outstanding job delineating the many, many, many ways that our business community partners do so much for our kids and our district.
And we are so grateful for that.
Beyond that, there is a greater scope of the community who is not part of necessarily that group who would love to support our students.
I'm sure many of them are here in this room.
So I guess my question would be, I think we have something on the website.
If you look where you can like, hey, make a donation to the district.
Is there something that in the spirit?
I know Mr. Shuf has talked a few times now about like marketing and things like that.
Can like how difficult would it be for us like in the meantime while we figure out our policy stuff to set something up where like if I'm a parent or I'm excited, you know, I can say, hey, family and friends, go to this website and click here and that supports Mr. Stenres' CTE budget.
And you can make like a donation directly to it.
And I realize like with Fontana net, it's more complicated.
But I guess what I'm wondering and maybe it's more of a Stephanie question is like, is that something that in the meantime we could set up?
I don't know, Miss Elwood.
I don't mean to put you on the spot, but like it's.
It is getting a little off topic.
So it is.
And so I mean, if Mrs. Elwood wouldn't, excuse me, if executive director Elwood wouldn't mind responding in email or you guys could take it off.
Off to the side, that would be great.
That's great.
Thank you.
A question.
Are there any other board member quick?
Bill Johnson.
Yes, thank you for all you do.
My cousins are teachers in California and they're involved and they sent people to this.
And I talked to him and there is a guy, I don't remember his name, but he said that the first year you win, they'll pay for the first place person to go to this training.
And I will get to the name of the guy and stuff.
He's involved with stuff like this because they did actually win the masonry there.
That would be awesome.
We will take any links or possibilities for resources that we can.
Okay, thank you.
Dan, did you have any questions or comments?
Okay.
One that I have, Dr. Anderson is so this request is for between four and eight thousand.
Where do we stand right now?
Is this something that we can do?
Is there money somewhere?
Is it a challenge to go out and find something?
Well, I would say the good news is that originally you had planned to go into fund equity, you know, to help balance this year's budget.
And it looks like we should finish okay.
So, but finishing okay means, I don't know that you're going to have much leave away for just what we normally budgeted unless you go into other funds.
So, if you're asking, you know, if we don't dip into any additional funds like the OPEB or the fund equity, which you had already approved, I guess, when you passed this budget.
Then I'm going to say, I don't know that I think we're going to be really close.
I don't know you have any.
If you want to go and use some of the money that you had originally allocated when you passed the budget for the 2526 school year, then the answer is.
Yes, because right now it looks like we will not have to go into it to balance the 2526 budget.
But in just a second, we're going to talk about 2627 and that will be, you know, a different conversation.
So, depending, could we find something somewhere?
The answer is probably something somewhere.
But we are going to be pretty close to finishing right even.
Tom Hankins.
Thank you, which leads me to a question.
The sale of a meal in the 680, I think, or somewhere in that.
That just gets absorbed into fund 10 and, I mean, it wasn't unexpected income.
I'm just wondering, because people have asked me, and I'm just asking Dr. Wayne, how that happens?
Yes, it does get absorbed into fund 10, and that's one of the reasons that you may not have to go into your old pepper fund equity to balance this year's budget, because that was income that wasn't planned on when this, when the 2526 budget was passed.
Thank you.
So, if we didn't sell it, then we'd really be in a hole.
Ask an answer.
Thank you.
Is there a motion for approval of the extended field trip to the Skills USA National Conference with $4,000 support from the Board of Education?
So moved.
I'll second.
Motion by Megan Miller, seconded by Joanne Roo.
Any discussion?
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Aye.
I have opposed.
Motion carries 6 to 1 with Carol Fox in the negative.
Thank you, Mr. Stenrose and Dr. Anderson.
Good luck.
Our next item is the budget D option.
And tonight we've got Dr. Anderson with the cabinet presenting, helping to present.
And the purpose of this is over the last couple of meetings, board members have reviewed several reduction options, staffing plans, forecasts, et cetera.
Attached is the latest option, option D.
Dr. Anderson will review this option and ask board member feedback.
Dr. Anderson?
This is a discussion we've had multiple times.
I will tell you what I hope to accomplish tonight is I'm not asking you to take action tonight.
I would like action at our regularly scheduled meeting on the 16th, which is in two weeks.
But what I would like to do tonight is I would like to be able to leave this meeting and know that I could either make additions or deletions to
the latest proposal, proposal D that will garner a majority of support for the board so that we can pass a budget and get on to
other issues we have to deal with.
The budget is a complicated item.
It's not just the dollars for next year.
And one of the things that I had mentioned and I want to mention it again tonight is I think it would be in the board's best interest if we could schedule a meeting this summer.
June or July because I know that it's busy so that we could talk about facilities for the 2728 school year.
We already know that with the expansion of the Lincoln Academy that we are going to lose students.
Now, we're not going to lose as many the first year as we had originally anticipated because we had originally anticipated that the Learning Academy would basically open up all of its grade levels at the same time.
That is not going to be the case.
They're going to do a phase in which means that we won't have, I mean, they're still going to take students from us.
However, it's going to be incremental over a period of a few years.
However, we still need to look at how we're going to use facilities because are we going to need all of our facilities if we lose another 700 students in the next several years?
The answer is probably not.
But how are we going to use the facilities?
How will we repurpose them?
What facilities do we want to use for educational purposes?
What facilities do we want to sell?
And I would encourage if we can have a discussion at the board level, then I already have right now 31 staff members signed up that would like to be parts of either the reorganization committee.
Or the student enrollment committee.
So we have staff members that are interested in being part of those committees.
I want to thank Megan Miller for giving me a list of community members.
She's the only board member who has.
So thank you, Megan.
Because I would like to get those committees operational to talk.
But I think even before those committees or in those committees meet, I think it's important for the board to have some discussion so we can have some plan on what is it that we would like to see going forward.
That maybe we keep all of our buildings open, but we repurpose them in different ways.
It may mean that we close up different buildings and we move programs around.
There are multitude of options, but I think if we don't start having those discussions, we're not going to be able to inform the public and give us time to implement.
As I mentioned in my board bulletin for the last couple of weeks, what I would love to see is I would love to see the board have a plan for its buildings that it could announce to the public in January of 27.
So that we would then have eight months to implement how we're going to make those moves.
So this might seem a little bit off-kilter, but our facilities do have an impact on our budget and it also has an impact on the referendum.
I don't want to structure a referendum question and ask for a new roof on McNeil or on Merrill if you're going to close Merrill.
That would not be very fiscally responsible.
So I think once we have an idea of how we want to use our facilities and repurpose them, if they do need maintenance work, then I know that that would make sense to put in a referendum question whether we do that in November.
Or whether we do that in April, but it would be foolish and the public would basically tell us how foolish a decision would be as if we decided to go to referendum to put a new roof on Merrill and then we close Merrill.
People say, well, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
So these things are all interconnected.
One of the things that I did after our last meeting was I sent out basically a letter to the board asking how you felt on various topics so that I could construct option D which you see in front of you.
I wanted to know about the, what was the feeling on the deans at the elementary school?
And it was overwhelmingly that I should put deans back into the budget.
So an option D, you'll see the deans are added back into the budget.
We talked about, let's take my glasses off.
We talked about the Secretaries.
I have two Secretaries that are assigned to me.
That was mixed.
Basically it was three, three, and one.
One said, the way you make a determination.
One of the things that I was able to do since our last meeting is to meet with our legal attorneys and basically structure something in pricing and use that should bring us down to $300,000.
Now that still is a lot of money, but it's a lot less than we're using right now.
But one of the caveats is that they had trained one of my Secretaries to do the open records request and that is what she does virtually for the majority of the day.
So if we do eliminate one and her position was eliminated, then the board would have, then we'd have to train somebody else to do that, which seems redundant.
So one of the things that I am recommending is that we keep both of those positions.
Michelle, obviously the board secretary and my secretary continuing.
We can take a look at how we can do note taking to make things more efficient that way.
But we can take a look then at the other secretarial position.
As I said for majority of her day has spent open records request, but the teaching and learning have their secretary has been eliminated.
So what I would recommend is that if the other secretary of position can be transferred so that there's any time that she has that she's not working on open records.
She can take up some of the secretary responsibilities that have been reduced.
We talked about career and technical education.
It was overwhelming support that we should continue with that director position.
So I have added that back into the budget in option D.
We asked about the director of school of health that did not receive overwhelming support.
So that has been eliminated.
One of the things that we do have to talk about is do we want to make that reclassify that as a coordinator position?
Because there are a list of duties that go with that position that are somehow going to have to be accomplished.
And we were cutting nurses also, so it's not that we just got one position.
We actually cut nursing positions and the director that work has to be assimilated somehow.
One option is looking at a coordinator position, but that was eliminated from the budget because it did not have support.
But I just want to remind people, the work isn't going to go away.
We have to figure out how are we going to still accomplish that work with fewer bodies.
We talked about the steam coordinator.
Steam works with science and math.
We are looking at how we can take that out of fund 10 and move that into a different funding source,
which would at least save our fund 10 because that's basically what I'm looking at the budget here.
I'm presenting a budget that fund 10, which means we're doing with taxpayers dollars.
So we are exploring the option being able to keep that position, but to move it out of fund 10.
And then I asked about the elementary alternative school and there's overwhelming support for that.
That really should be almost cost neutral.
We're going to use existing staff and move it around so there may be some costs, but it should be able to be absorbed.
But we did hear tonight, we heard about librarians because we did reduce that.
There was 1.0, we reduced it in half.
If the board has a strong feeling wanting me to add that, then obviously we have to come up with more money,
either that's coming up through using more OPEB funds, then that's primarily what it's going to be.
So what I really would like from the board tonight is option D represents what the results of the polling that was done for the 7 board members.
This is what option D represents.
If there are other changes that you would like to see made in order for you to, for me to get a majority vote,
I would simply like to know what those changes are.
If there are something that the majority of the board says, Wayne, we want you to do X.
If I know what that is, then I will work with the executive team to make sure that that is either in or eliminated from the budget when I bring it forth in next Tuesday.
But if we can have those discussions tonight, so I know what additional changes need to be made, I will make the changes so I can bring that back on the 16th for approval.
And like I had mentioned last week, I'm not looking for 7.0 vote.
First, I don't think there's any budget I can bring you would get 7.0.
But I do need to get at least 4 votes to pass a budget.
So if I know what at least the majority of the board would support, I will make those changes and bring it back so that we can do that.
This is just one step in a multiprocess.
And as Stephanie has reminded me, it's not that I didn't know it, but it's always going to be reminded, this is a draft budget.
Your formal budget doesn't get acted on until October.
Well, we know what our true third Friday count is and what in all of the other particulars.
But our school year starts July 1st, so we need some type of a plan to move forward on.
It's not that we can't make some revisions later on, but let's face it, some revisions are much more difficult to make.
If you wanted me to move people from one building to another, doing that during the school year, nothing is impossible, but it would be extremely difficult.
If we cut a position you wanted hired back, that adds a level of difficulty.
If you want something cut later on, it has a level of difficulty.
So there is many of the things that we can plan for and put in the draft budget that can be passed the better off we are.
And then what the October is, the fine tuning, as I said, once we get our third Friday count and we know what all of our true finances.
So what I'm asking tonight is if there are things that you would like to see changed in this option D, please let me know.
And if the majority of the board wants that change, then we will work to implement that change.
Joanne, Roo?
Yes, thank you.
All right.
So I got a couple of questions for you.
So some of the things are in blue.
Are those things that are added into our budget then, or new positions?
All right.
So we have the reduction of the executive director of TLE.
We did not add in that we have an assistant superintendent.
Now, why is that that we didn't add that part in?
Because we already added that into this budget.
So it's already in the 2526 budget when we made that change.
So it doesn't have to be added again because it's already in the budget as a position and it's already.
We've already budgeted for that position.
Okay.
Thank you.
And then we, the administrative assistant for curriculum and instruction was that previously listed as the two.
So because there's an admin assistant superintendent and then the admin assistant for curriculum and instruction, right?
Were those the two that were listed?
No.
No.
So there was a secretary that was designated for teaching and learning that position is now vacant.
So it was cut from the budget.
And I have the board and myself have two secretaries.
That was on the question.
What my recommendation is to take one of those and when the person has, when she's not working on open records, that she can take up some of the duties that the previous secretary for teaching and learning had.
Okay.
So, but at the current moment, we have a lot of open records requests that she's filling right now, correct?
She does it virtually all day.
That is virtually what she does.
And now, unfortunately for us, is that since she's been trained and she's been doing it now for a while.
She has, she doesn't realize much on the attorneys.
So a lot of the answers she has.
So initially, when she had that, there was a lot of attorney involvement, which meant we were paying the attorney fees.
Now that she's been trained and has been doing it for a while, she can do a lot of it with, she still has to check with attorneys on some, but it is a lot less.
Okay.
And then something else, so I see a lot of blue, blue, blue.
And then down at the bottom, there's a reclassification, but that one does isn't blue.
Is there a reason why that one's not blue then, since it's additional funding necessary?
Can you tell me which one you're looking at?
I'm sorry.
I'm still in Keck.
So it says reclassify HR benefits coordinator to manager, and it's an additional $17,000.
Because that was an additional person that we hired in the HR department.
So we've, we had hired that individual.
We recently hired an individual on HR.
So that's.
So if I, if I may.
I'm going to give this to Stephanie.
Okay.
I believe the request is to take a current position that we have in HR and reclassify it to a higher level, because with the person that we have doing that position is doing more supervisory work.
That's my understanding as well.
And we eliminated the director position out of HR last fall.
So it's, yeah, it's ultimately a cost savings to have that person pick up more of the managerial responsibilities rather than backfilling in a director position.
Okay. So then my other question is.
So James did a nice job of speaking to what teachers are concerned about.
I appreciate him talking about like changing facilities right now.
It seems like a big ask of any staff members to do.
I understand their apprehension and anxiety over all of these decisions that are being made.
He did ask specifically about prep time for elementary education teachers since if, if, which for me personally, my library and para when I was at Roy's elementary was my favorite teacher every year.
So if we did cut all of those positions to halftime, how would we cover the prep time for the elementary education.
And elementary educators.
I mean, what's going to happen is that the principal is going to look at the schedule and find out how they're going to parcel and move people around.
So will people still get their prep time?
I mean, we will figure out some way that that's going to happen because we're, and we are obligated to provide them.
I'm not going to exactly tell you how that's going to work because I don't know that I have the answer that because it might be look a little different in every building.
Yeah, I still don't understand how we can do that because, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that, that is resolved and I'm interested in looking at that.
And just a reminder, there are no cuts that we made that are not going to have a negative impact.
I mean that, I mean, in what I like to return the positions that we cut back, the answer is yes, I would certainly do that.
When I go into the various libraries, do I see the people working with the kids and the kids, the bottom line is yes.
The answer is is that we're trying to look at, you know, especially where we have, where we can move staff members around and not fill some vacant positions to try to fill up the budget hall.
That's what we're trying.
We're not saying that we can provide all the things next year we provided this year when we have less staff.
That's just not possible, but we all know that we do have to make cuts.
So we can't have everything we had before.
I understand that.
I also understand that our elementary educators get a certain amount of prep time each day.
And some of our buildings are almost at capacity or at capacity.
We have, so it doesn't matter, like you only have so many hours in a day.
And so these pair of educators in our library are taking an entire class of students so that their teacher gets their prep time.
And if we take them away half time, then we're going to create another problem that then we have to solve.
And we already have teachers filling out blue sheets because there isn't someone available to sub for a special or things like that happening.
And so this is another thing that just, in wanting to keep as many of our educators as possible,
I'm just bringing this up as something that I think is going to cause more problems down the road.
And that's part of the purpose of tonight's meeting.
If four board members tell me when we need to go back, then I will make the adjustments to make those 1.0 rather than 0.5.
But that also means either I have to find somewhere else to cut which has to be in personnel,
which is going to just create something somewhere else, or you're going to have to tell me,
will let you use additional OPEB funds, which means more use this year, the less you have in the future.
But that's what this is for because if that is something the majority of the board wants,
then that is a change that I will make.
Like you said, what I'm looking for tonight is if I need to make changes to this,
I simply need to know what changes the majority of the board would like me to make
and bring back something that fulfills those requests at the next regular board meeting.
Yeah, I understand. Thank you.
And my last question is just so some people have found out about moving to other buildings next year.
And so there are people that are saying that we've already moved forward with moving buildings or closing buildings.
That's not true, correct?
No, the only the only programs that the only program that I know that is moving buildings for next year
is I think what is it early childhood?
Early childhood special ed, there's two classrooms and they're going to be moved to Merrill because Merrill had the space.
That's what I wanted to make sure that I figured that was the reason, but yes, thank you. Perfect.
But that's the only one at this point that is moving.
Okay, thank you. Dan Schuf. Thank you, Madam Chair.
So Wayne, you talked about the big picture at the start of your comments.
I came here tonight prepared to vote and move forward with the recommendations that the administration is putting forward.
So I want to say that I'm ready to go tonight if we want to.
The reason these next 60 days, June and July are maybe the most consequential for the next decade for the district.
We have this opportunity that you pointed out to us, or this room before I was part of this group,
way back when you talked about the tale of two budgets, way back in February, whatever it was.
We have this opportunity where we could be asking the question what kind of district do we want here in Beloit
after all my colleagues here who've been here longer than me have really made the reforms, changed the leadership and done these things.
But we have this chance here this summer to have our community be engaged in this.
I think the concept of which building closing coming first before we ask the question what kind of district do we want and what would that cost?
My vision is have six award-winning elementary schools and two award-winning middle schools and the best high school in the state and a BLA that's doing great things.
I don't know what that cost. I've been asking what will that cost? What will that cost?
I haven't heard that. I'm ready for this process. We talked about meetings at every building.
As that happened, we talked about other things. We talked about multiple committees.
I thought those committees were going to be talking about what kind of school district do we want?
It sounds like we're kind of putting the cart before the horse talking about shuffling buildings and selling buildings before we find out if to give my colleagues credit.
You guys have done the hard work. You're at this table. People in this building have done the work.
The building, people in the buildings, teachers and principals and everyone have done the hard work.
And because the fiscal cliff that Wayne has described it hasn't hit us yet, we have this opportunity now to craft a vision of what we want in a district.
Now we will not have this ability two years from now. We will not have this ability to craft this after the cliff hits us or we fall off the cliff or whatever metaphor you want to follow here.
I'm anxious to, the meeting isn't next week. It's in two weeks. It's not until the 16th.
Now we'll have six weeks left before August 1st. We really got to be done with our work by August 1st to pass something by August 20th.
So, you know, I think the people to the right of me, all of these, this group deserve the credit for doing this work.
And we may now need to be crafting a district that stabilizes than grow. When I get quoted in various places, they skip the stabilized part.
But I'm not saying just add more staff. I'm saying give us a district that we want and is award winning.
So, again, I don't have a question for you. You can comment as much as you want on that. I'm ready to vote tonight so we can move on to these next 60 days of conversations about the kind of district that we want. Thank you.
Carol Fox.
Okay. Well, I'm not ready to vote tonight. And I have a lot of concerns about some of the things that are on here and aren't that are not on here.
We've been in a fiscal cliff for the last three, four years. It's not, we've been on this big down slide and we're going to hit a bigger cliff at the end.
So, we've been doing this a lot and we really have to come to grips with the fact that we're not going to be a district with six elementary schools.
We're just not. We're just not going to have the number of buildings that we have now.
And I truly believe that we need to start doing something about that sooner than later.
We have one, two, three, four. We have five buildings that are very under capacity in terms of how we're using them.
And I see no reason why we shouldn't do something to fix that in some way.
And my recommendation is that we take BLA and we put them at the high school.
If you can't do that, then maybe you put them upstairs at Merrill. But we need to move BLA to another one of our underutilized buildings.
And we need to do something different with Cunningham. That Cunningham is going to need a roof, million dollars there.
We can move, even start goes to Merrill, but somehow we need to be using our less of our facilities.
And not just because of the facilities, because we're duplicating services.
And we need to not be doing that. And we talk about all these things we want to add back in.
Well, you're right. We need to cut more if we want to add some of those things back in.
And I'm not prepared to use that amount of money, of open money. I'm prepared to use some, but not that much.
And we need to save money for some other kinds of things, like needing to add in some of the classroom teachers that we've done some cutting with.
I'm particularly concerned about the middle schools. Some of those grades, if those numbers hold, are going to go up to 32, 33.
We need to maybe have a teacher to cover that. So we need to do some of those things.
I'm also concerned that 27 of the positions on here are grant positions.
And we have not seen any program plan or any plan about how we are really planning to use the grant money to do these things.
And I look at some of this stuff, and I too am concerned about the media specialists.
But we have in the grant that we're going to add early literacy paraprofessionals.
Okay, why are we cutting our media people in half and adding early literacy paraprofessionals?
And we don't have a clue what these people are supposed to do.
So not seen a job description, not seen anything about what's going on with that.
And if we think we can do that or think we want to do that, maybe we put the early literacy paraprofessionals and combine them with the media specialists.
Can we do something like that? I mean, we need to reducing the family advocates to a .3.
I don't understand how they're going to be used or what purpose that serves.
And how is any of this, especially with the grant money, moving the steam coordinated AGR.
AGR is K3. How is that going to work?
So we need the plans that go along with some of this as well as some of these other things.
And it's a great start, but it's not enough.
And some of these things people do want to fix.
You know, I'm one that we tend to argue a little bit about deans.
I'm not saying they're not needed.
I'm saying we put a cap on it. We have a hard time getting them.
We were only able to get three out of the six to begin with.
So is there, what's the purpose?
And we had to leave the cap on or we might as well just get assistant principals.
And then we're adding more cost.
We need more information and we mean more cuts.
And I fully recommend that we close one of those buildings and do some combining.
Because we need to do some of that.
And if we do some of that, then we can maybe add some of these things back in.
And come up with your health coordinator and your full-time media specialist.
And you know some of these other positions that you're talking about.
But, you know, it's a good start. It's not enough.
Well, I will tell you that we did tour Memorial today.
So to see if it would be feasible to put PLA in there for next year.
And the truthful statement is, I don't know how we do it.
To make, I don't know how we would, we looked at where we could be a secure entrance to put people in,
how we could keep them separated.
And the bottom line, without having architects come in and tell us what we're going to do in the money to do what I'll call interior.
We could not find what I will call a cost effective way to do that.
But for me to say that, I mean one of the things that I learned under this is that for me just to tell you that doesn't make as much impact
is that if that truly is what the board would like to do, then I truly think we need to walk through the high school as a board.
So you can see the same things that I see.
So there's an idea that you have that none of us could think of.
I'd be more than happy to do it.
But we did, because just because a room, a building has capacity and it says it can hold X.
But trying to move a program into that and keep them separate, that's more than just adding numbers together.
And like I said, we went through and there was no way the group of us could figure out how we could do that if the board decided to be real honest.
I don't know if the board says, Wayne, you're going to move BLA into the high school next year.
The bottom line is if we do it, they're not going to be too separate institutions because there's no way to keep it separate.
At this point without putting in additional dollars into the building to make that.
And I don't think anybody here wants to put additional dollars into the building to do that.
So mine is that for some of these, when we say we should move a program from one building to another,
we should probably as the board go through and look at that building and determine is that a realistic asset could be done.
What I've said is I truly believe whatever it is we want to do with our buildings.
If we want to keep them all open and make changes, we need to have those discussions and we need to make that decision well in advance.
So that we have plenty of time to determine how things can be implemented.
Trying to move somebody at this point, we're in June.
You're going to pass the budget, at least my hope is, in the middle of June.
To have things, the program's moved is more than moving boxes.
I just don't see that as something that is realistic.
Not that I don't see that we're going to have to move a lot of buildings for 27-28,
but then I expect that we're going to have eight months to plan how that move is going to impact people and impact,
and if it's that we can grow it to keep it, fine.
Then what are they going to look like inside?
I'm not opposed to looking at the restructuring.
I'm just telling you that we went over, and just because capacity says it can hold those numbers,
doesn't mean we can make those two programs work the way the building currently sits.
Tom Hankins?
Thank you, Board President.
Many, many little notes I have.
I'll just start out the first one with the librarians, and I know the young lady is in the back.
Is there a way to self-check out books anymore?
I don't know if that's feasible, and I'll just leave that where it is because I don't know.
I know they're all coded.
They used to be when I was a kid.
Anyways, Wayne, how many open meetings requests are there in a regular day week?
Open records.
Excuse me, open records.
They come across since I get to see all of them because they pop online.
I would say we average three to four a day.
Okay.
And that involves, I mean, I am really naive.
It depends on the various requests, and we have some that are expansive, so the first
thing we have to do is determine how long is it going to take us to fill this request if
it's going to take well over two hours.
Okay.
Then we have to figure out we have to send the person back an estimated cost so they know
that if we fulfill this, then depending, I mean a lot of costs go to Stephanie because
they want to know, well, I'll link one up.
We want to see all the purchase orders for these companies for the last 10 years.
Okay.
I don't want to.
We have in this district and your other districts, are we above normal?
You have more, you have more open records requests in one week than I had adding all of mine
up in all of my other districts in total.
Wow.
You are, I don't know if there's any district that I have heard of that compares with the
number of open records requests.
Literally.
Right.
You have three or four a day.
And I would say a normal district might have 20 or less a year.
And some of you asked for an open records request.
It cost them no money, right?
Nope.
They just submit something.
Yep.
Okay.
Thank you.
You touched on legal in house and you touched on and you and I have had conversation with
or not in house or not in house, but you know, you live or reduction of 100,000 and you
have a conversation that they asked or they said they could trim money, money, money.
And my thought to you was back, well, where was that for the last three years?
Well, they know we're in dire straits.
But anyways, I still would like to, as a board member, one board member, like to still pursue
looking, bringing legal in house and hiring someone.
I think there's cost savings there.
I know we have to have somebody else on retainer for special cases and things like that.
But I don't want to put it aside and say, okay, fine.
We'll just keep moving forward.
And that is at least one thing that we could, I mean, that's not so much on time constraint
as much as the rest because let's say we're going, let's say that, you know, because we
track these expenses, especially legal every month, depending on what it is, we'll know
whether or not we are saying within that threshold or whether it looks like we're going to be.
And if we think that we're not going to be able to maintain the threshold, we could go out
and, you know, in post for a position and look at hiring and interviewing like we do for any other
position at any time throughout the year.
You know as well as I do, how much we're spending on legal in this district every year.
Be that it isn't me.
I also suggest to you to bring in a hiring a grant writer.
I thought, I know everybody's, I thought that there was one person but in conversation with you
and other people that, you know, if Missy has somebody she wants, you know, she does it or whatever.
And I asked you about this and you said we, you know, ballpark 70, 75,000 with your colleagues
you've talked about.
To me, that money is money well spent to bring in a in-house grant writer for these, all these things
that are out there that maybe we're not going at.
And you're correct.
Is that one of the things when you and I talked, is that there was different schools in our conference
listed various positions that they had and what they were paying them.
And there were several school districts in our conference that do employ a grant writer
and the average salary fringe was around 70 to 80,000.
Well, I just as one board member would like you to investigate that and, you know, I know it's another cost.
But I think that that would be well worth their salary.
Getting back to BLA, if my memory serves me right, they were at right before.
That is correct.
And right was set up for them.
And I know it was, it was, it's a great at school.
They were small this, small that, you know, we have, well, supposedly shuttered right, but not really
because Hess is in there.
Another option might be to move BLA to right back into right.
And that's just, I'm throwing it out there.
Yep.
And to be real honest, it may be, there's people here that understand reason.
I don't know why they were moved from right to Cunningham.
Maybe, maybe that's who does.
I don't.
I was looking to see if she's there.
I mean, that was a decision that was made.
My assumption is that there were some reason behind it.
Correct.
Because we're going to, we're going to, we put it up for sale.
So they moved them out, which makes sense.
But we haven't really shuttered the building because Hess is in there.
And we're still paying heat and electricity and all this other stuff.
So if, if you're telling us that it's not a viable option to put back in the high school,
let's just look, explore putting it back at, at right.
That's, thank you.
I'm done.
Thank you.
Megan Miller.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for option D.
And for the time that you and everybody put into it, it's, I think, a really good reflection
that's helped move us all forward.
And thanks to my colleagues for their comments so far.
So, um, I like several other folks who have spoken.
I do have a couple of specific staffing questions, but I'll just, overall.
Um, I really appreciate where, like, I'll just Carol specifically,
like where you're coming from.
Like we need to do things sooner rather than later.
I want to present an alternative perspective that's centered like yours is in, like, how
do we preserve the best possible student experiences?
Because we do seriously need to manage our budget and our budget is in service of providing
the optimal student experience that we can, right, to kids in our community.
And as, as a person who is working in schools, I would say that I appreciate where Dr. Anderson
is coming from about waiting to do, to clarify what could facilities look like based on a
facilities assessment, based on a needs assessment of the enrollment and programming needs of
the current students that we will have in our district and taking that time to be very
planful because A, that helps us make a better informed decision.
Um, I just, I don't believe that good decisions are made in urgency.
And two, it also allows for some transition time so that teachers can, um, you know, teachers,
teams of teachers, parents, administrators, uh, can take this year to be thoughtful and
plan and prepare and also help our families transition.
So I just like overarching themes, I suppose.
Um, I'm in favor of going slow to go fast and centering things on like what will the lived
experiences be for our students and the quality of education before our students.
Um, and of course the quality of the year for staff as well.
So that's kind of like my main point of feedback.
Um, for me, a couple of non-negotiables, um, if you're looking for consensus, I was very
intrigued by, I think it was Carol's suggestion about maybe rethinking how we could provide
early literacy services by preserving the full, um, FTE allotments or allocation, I should
say, for the library positions.
I think when we look at, we haven't really talked about behavior and discipline so much
this evening, but that is a huge need in our district.
And the more caring trained adults we have in buildings, the better for our kids.
So even if it isn't their specific like job to be dealing with like behaviors or, or
managing, um, anything relationship building that comes from, from having like a friendly,
safe person at the library is, is you can't put in, you can't put like a number of value
on that.
And again, as somebody who is currently working in schools, a lot of kids find safe places
and some, the ability to regulate by being able to have those safe people that aren't always
classroom teachers.
So I am not in favor of cutting, uh, the library specialist down to the point five.
I do think that we've heard some creative ideas about maybe some ways to repurpose some
roles, um, because you're right.
Like we're not going to get to a best case scenario that doesn't come at a cost.
And I hear that.
I, for me, I think the more building folks we can have in buildings consistently for kids
the better.
So that's one thing.
Another thing would be, um, on that itemized list that you provided, my gut instinct is
to say that I'm against making cuts or reductions to the arts and music positions.
I think specifically they were at the high school, but I also, to Carol's point, I would
love to see like a plan for that.
And like what's the plan to accommodate like those classes and services.
So if there is a plan in place for that, like cool.
But if not, like I'm not interested in cutting arts and music for similar reasons.
Um, there's definitely academic positions that we need to prioritize, but there's a lot
of data out there that should and just lived experience common sense that shows that, uh,
kids who can stay engaged in school who aren't necessarily like you're super like core academic
students, they find that engagement and higher attendance rates and success because of what
the arts and music does for them.
Like there's bodies and bodies of research behind that and that just seems like an easy
win.
So if there's a plan for that, amazing.
If not, I would say let's try to keep those.
Can I can actually give an answer in that right away?
Yes.
In that those were cut because the enrollments in those classes were extremely low and you
have enrollment numbers that say that a few classes that are 15 or less.
So when we looked at the various ones of what could be trimmed, those were classes that had
very low enrollment, that's the reason they were made.
And I totally appreciate that.
I will say that when I taught at the high school, I taught AP European history and I absolutely
had to, I ran a class of 12 students because there's certain times where people make decisions
like, yeah, we should follow the policy.
But, and so I would just say like that's something I would love a little bit more.
Press star six to unmute.
If there's some wiggles on that, that would be cool.
And I know Miss Carpenter has sent in some thoughts on that as well.
But just in the spirit of sharing where we are, that's where I'm at on that.
The school health plan piece, I'd like to hear a little more information on, again, with
needs assessments.
To get a little personal, it is the anniversary of my best friend from high school's death.
She died of an asthma attack at the age of 15.
And I literally just like a month ago, almost to the day, just received a really comprehensive
school district nurse that included what are the protocols and emergencies for kids who
are having an asthma attack.
There's some recent legislation around that.
And I have no doubt that our district is well on top of that because we have a health staff
that's really committed and fastidious about that.
So I share a lot of concern around that.
But I also believe that a lot of thought has been put into this plan.
So you've already said that there's going to be future discussions about how to meet those
needs.
And I really, really appreciate that you shared that, yeah, we still have to meet the needs
that are there.
I would love to add that, prior to or at that 16th meeting, like hear a lot more detail
about how we're handling that.
So I just want to be clear.
When we cut positions, here are guards where we cut them.
We are not going to be able to absorb and provide the same service we did.
So like for nursing and the director, there is no plan that I can give you that says that
we are going to be able to provide the same level of service this upcoming year that we
did this past year.
It's not feasible to do.
So what it will be is there will be certain things that will have to prioritize that these
are the primary things that the role has to be done.
These are things that we were doing that we now have to put aside or we maybe have to put
into, you know, some things are not going to get done, some things other people are
going to have to do.
I don't want anybody here to think that we're going to cut positions anywhere and still
provide the same service.
That is a fallacy.
That is not going to happen.
We can still provide services, but they're not going to be at the same level.
And I don't want anybody confused thinking that we can cut irregardless and provide the
same service because I don't believe that to be true.
No, and I appreciate that.
And just, you know, as a parent of my youngest child has asthma.
And that's certainly not the only thing.
But I think we heard in public comment a couple of weeks ago too.
And it's not really news to anybody.
Rock County and particularly Beloit, we have some of like the worst air quality levels.
I just got a notice in the mail a couple weeks months ago from the city about, hey,
check, make sure your pipes are made out of lead because that's your homeowner's
responsibility.
I mean, we have issues here that disproportionately impact us in Beloit.
Maybe in ways that other districts aren't impacted.
And so I just, I would just urge us as a decision-making body as much as is possible to prioritize
like the immediate health and well-being of our students, right?
And that's not to get down to the dollar value of that.
But I mean, that's, that's a huge enrollment issue.
Like parents need to feel safe sending their kids to school.
And I want to make sure that as we are communicating out, here's, here are the cuts and changes
we're making.
Here's how we are maintaining prioritizing student health and well-being.
Because I know that it is everybody's intention here to do so.
So I hear what you're saying.
And if it's a matter of like, you know, here's how we've tiered our support like response
services to prioritize making sure we have like adequate health staff, like these places
at these times to hit like these needs.
But here's where some other things are going to give that's like maybe like the Band-Aids
didn't get refilled right away.
I mean, like, you know what I'm saying?
Like, I think that's a level, I don't want to get too into the weeds.
But I do think like when people hear we're cutting nurses and we have so many health problems
that require so much attention, I think that has, there has to be a little bit specific
detail in terms of like the strategy that we're using to make sure that our kids are safe at school.
So that's, that's in feedback.
And again, 100% we're not getting out of this like unharmed.
I get that.
And I, and I think you've done a really good job communicating that.
So thank you.
Just needed to bring that up.
And then lastly, as I'm thinking about Mr. Shoe's comments, like my brain makes a t-chart.
And I think about what are the cuts that we are making that we should make because we
are reshaping our district to thrive in a new normal with like different enrollment numbers.
And that's my goal here as a board member.
Like, I'm, we are going through transition time and enrollment is going to fall.
We can look at this like this is like the car is on fire and we're spiraling out of control
and emergency or we can be calm and level headed about it and say, hey, things are going to
change.
What, what do we want them to look like when they change and how do we make really good
decisions about what to cut and reshape in order to create and grow a thriving district.
And so like I'm there, I think there are this side of things where yeah, we should be making
these ultimately like these facility changes and things like that.
I think in the spirit of not only visioning, but preparing well for a future referendum,
there's got to be that other side of the t-chart which are things that we are cutting this because
we have to right now because of the fiscal metaphorical whatever.
But we want to bring these back and here's what this will cost.
So I think it would be really helpful to me and to probably like the staff and community
members that will be on the committees for us to sort of categorize those pieces because
this is a lot for people to digest even in this room right now.
And we have to be mindful of like how are we communicating that well, right?
Like to our stakeholders and inspiring confidence and trust in people's,
people are sending us their kids so we don't get 700, 500, you know, whatever open records
request of a month or whatever we're getting right now.
So that's kind of my large scale feedback and so I guess just to summarize,
I'm just hopeful that we are going to see a budget on the 16th that prioritizes like
just the sustained well-being and quality of instruction as much as is possible
and experience for students and staff something that's based in a needs
not a big long months process, right? But just an assessment
of what are our needs and how do we best meet them now and what are we building toward?
So like I feel like it should be needs driven and I guess
and just thinking too about like how are we communicating clearly with our stakeholders
that we're doing this kind of painful stuff and it is in service
of providing the best quality, you know, care and experience for our kids.
Quick aside because I just saw a note that I wrote to myself we have
in the past contracted with a grant writer so if that is something that we want to explore
that I don't know if that's causing these or not but anyway thank you very much.
I know I had a lot to say so I appreciate your time.
Thank you. Bill Johnson? Yeah I think pretty much everything
is covered. I didn't see anything or some of the extra
coaches we had that we had talked about reducing. We had
now since we had run over the last couple years a hundred thousand dollars
approximately over budget. We kept so
we are taking a look at, you know, like what coaches
do we have that may be in our lower
number sports so we are going to maintain our budget
which was a 280 that we've been overspending to make sure
that we spend that amount so it's not that we cut it
but you've spent overspented by a hundred thousand each year
actually we're taking the steps so that it's not overspent.
And the other thing is I agree with
Tom about VLA I think
I used to deliver food there and you know
if we could save money by being there because for some unknown reason they spent
about two hundred thousand dollars on the kitchen before you were here
at Easter break and closed the school in June
Thank you Bill. Before I cycle back through
board members comments I want to remind board members of our
policy 610 fiscal management goals
basically the development of a budget will be allocated for the greatest
educational return and some of the bullet points include
maintain adequate fund balance reserves while we blew that
a while back maintain the level of expense needed for
high quality education within the ability of the community
to pay again we haven't had a referendum pass
in the in the last three years utilize
long-range budget forecasting in a conscious
effort to maintain a balanced budget
maintain the present priority of PK 12 curricular and program
articulation Carol Fox
Okay well and I
I agree with a lot what Megan was saying we do want to do the optimal
experiences and you're right we can't provide the same level of services
which is why we need to talk about consolidation right
because when we start consolidating things
and and putting things together then
we can provide better service I mean you know
I don't know how often BLA needs a nurse but if they're in a facility
where a nurse might be more available then the nurse doesn't have to run over
for that you know we've been having discussions lately about
cleaning services one less building to clean
maybe that might give them more ability
to do a better job in some of the other buildings
and then there's the staff pieces that go along with it
so I still don't understand
how we can have a building that large and we can't figure out anything
but there should be still some other options right we could
you know Maryland's half used be like it go upstairs
the little kids go downstairs figure to see if you can figure that out
how about moving them over here to Colac
you know it's just
the more we can figure out how to consolidate services
we can offer better opportunities
for our kids running a building
like that is also not very fiscally responsible to our community
she just read something about
how you know we need to do it within the balance of the budget
within what the community can afford and we're looking at a 5.7
million dollar deficit we haven't passed referendums
and the community can't afford to be running buildings
that are heart hardly used
the final comment is I do think that if we want to pass a referendum
we do need to be doing some more
braver things maybe that I don't know if that's the best term
but we need to be doing some things that get people's attention
because if we don't they're going to continue to think
that we don't really have the problems that we say we do
that you know we can come up with the money
somewhere because we always have we always will
well we aren't and we can't and so
we need to be braver and we need to do some braver things
and I guess I have one more and that was
you know we did talk about how we wanted to maintain the focus on
the buildings and on the students and on the classrooms
and so if we can work on figuring out ways to save money
by not having to do facilities
that we shouldn't be using then maybe we can
put some things back in that we think we really need and the media specialists
the one that comes to mind because that was the subject today but
there are other things that we want to make sure that we have for our kids
in the buildings. The one thing about moving buildings though
in June we're talking about something would have to be done
by in August. It's just that
moving programs is more than moving desks and students
and I just
I recognize our buildings could look different
in the future. I'm just telling you that
to try to make something work and work
from now to August
I think that would be a rushed decision that we're not talking
you mentioned Merrill and mine is there's been no discussion
do we want to mix elementary kids in BLA?
I just think you need to have discussions on those things before you
make those decisions because
that's why we prefer to put them at the high school but you
are suggesting that there's no way that we can do that and there's no way that that can happen
either and I would tell you that this district has moved
people a lot we've moved people often when things weren't even ready
the teachers moved into Cunningham when the building wasn't even
finished so I think that
I know it would be a stretch and I know it would be hard and I know there
be some things that maybe didn't get moved right away
but I think if we come to grips with it we can do it
thank you
so the board has received
option A, option B, C and D
and I will point out
to everyone that all of these are
deficit budget options
none of these are a zero balance
budget
if we go with any of these we will have to dip into
resource money which I am not a proponent
of that's why when I first looked at this
I just went right down to the bottom line option B
option B is the one that's got the
focus to a balanced budget for the 26-27
school year and I do think that we have to
get creative this year with what we are
doing and spending our money on because of the huge
financial cliff that we will be facing
next year I know moving
programs isn't easy it's not fun but I think we
have not taken a good
look at why BLA was placed at
Cunningham and whether or not that was a
wise fiscal choice looking
at a earlier board meeting I had
compared the energy cost per student by building
and questioned why Frusan was higher
it's a newer building but per student at BLA
we're spending over $900 a year for energy costs
well that got me thinking well if we took it a step
further what are our staffing costs per student
so I did that calculation and
lo and behold we're spending
over $11,000
per student per year at BLA
compared to our lowest building which would be
Robinson at 5286
per year comparing putting these costs together
per student BLA
we're spending almost $13,000
$12,747 per student
again Robinson
I know Robinson is full and I know they're short staff
but when we look at how much we're investing
per student this is
for as wonderful a program BLA is
and for as long as we've had it I appreciate it but we are
at the point now we need to as board members ask ourselves
do we want a program or do we want to ensure
the viability of the school district of BLA for three years
from now five years ten years from now because some of the decisions we're making now
will have that carry over impact
especially if we don't have confidence from our
constituents when it comes time for the board to go
to a referendum if we are continuing
to have deficit budgets hoping and relying
on some situation that might or
may or may not present itself
we won't have people have much confidence in us and in the decisions we're making
I'm not in favor
of option D not because of the
necessarily the cuts or things in here it's just not enough
and we are still
1.7 million away from
a balanced budget with option D and to me that's
I can't in good faith go to
our constituents and ask them to support us in a referendum
if we can't do better
coming up with a balanced budget
Megan Miller thank you so much so in the spirit
of consensus building I want to
raise my hand to respond to something Carol had said but I'll iterate something for you as well
so I love the idea miss box like when you say
consolidation can potentially provide better services I fully
agree and I think that that's exactly the right kind of mindset
that we need to approach all of these things
I had a couple of other thoughts
when you mentioned acting you know with courage and then TF just in response
to what you were saying I'm still
I am still happy to vote for some form of option D
and I guess my question to the board
and to the administration is we do we have two weeks between now and the 16th
I agree with the sentiments expressed
by the BEA and by Dr. Anderson that we should be
setting off to do a longer very
thoughtful facility study and make recommendations and I'm not
saying we should my question and listening to what Tia just said is would it be worthwhile
for us prior to the 16th to sit down
and find what
possible potential facilities changes
could look like and I mean for the record I'm not in favor of moving BLA
to the high school
I don't think I have enough information to know
where we are facilities wise and I don't know if it's right to explore that between
now and then but I definitely appreciate where both of your comments
are coming from and I do think of course consolidation has to be the way forward
at some point so thank you.
The mention of BLA and the cost per student
you have to remember the cost per student for the alternative
the educational programming and the
basically the number of students per staff
at an alternative school and at an elementary school
that's not a comparable factor I mean
the programs are vastly different if you compared
to TOD okay it's the same type but these programs are entirely different.
Yeah I understand that and I was just comparing the two
outliers so let's compare BLA to B MHS
so BLA 12 747
B MHS 7369
we don't legally have to have
a BLA that's that's something that we the
district years ago decided to provide us as
an option I think we need to get
the cost for if we are going to continue to have a BLA
program we need to get these costs much more
in line with something like the
high school cost I'm not saying they're ever going to be
the same obviously well higher needs students higher
needs cost but this this doesn't make sense
to me as a school district employee
taxpayer. Dan Shuf
Thank you Madam Chair. I have a couple questions
so is that read the agenda
today I don't know who answers parliamentary questions
and inquiry the agenda is listed
as a board action and recommended action
if needed so under
this is the question for Mr. Schope we could
take action on this if we chose to tonight it's been noticed appropriately under the open
meetings law
okay so I've said earlier
that we really need the time
to make the discussions to talk exactly what
Tripperson-Johnson and Mrs. Fox
are saying and all the other board members are saying about these important decisions
we need to make just don't know how we make all these decisions
and the time we have so
Dr. Anderson you
gave us option C earlier as something that you were recommending
is that correct that is correct I gave option
C and then when we had the
the questions about various other proposals I
you know I crafted option D based on the board responses
to those okay and then you support
you are recommending to us option D
at this point yes okay but I like I said
is that if there are changes that need to be made
the thing that I want the thing that I want to do is I want
to make sure we get a budget passed so that I can move on
once these decisions are made then we can start making other decisions
before these decisions are made then I can't
if you're asking me do I support option D when I recommend that the answer
would be yes okay so I'm going to make a
a motion here for tonight for us to
to discuss I'm going to move option D
with one monetary change which is to keep
the library media specialist at 1.0 as part of
that motion I'd like to also direct the administration to
bring a plan back to have Cunningham
and Wright completely closed for next year when I don't we can't
do that until we act on the plan but I'm direct we would part of this motion
we would direct you to bring a plan back to do that as you
heard from the consensus here on the
board so I'll make that motion
I'll second
would you accept an amend or I guess I can I'll wait for discussion
for Mr. Schop did you get that?
I just want to clarify that I did
receive it correctly I have to move option D
approval of option D with keeping the media
at the media positions at 1.0 and then to direct the administration
to bring a plan back that would have
both Cunningham and Wright closed for next
school year for like the start of this coming school year that's correct
then yes I did get it and it was seconded by
Joanne Roo can I add an amendment
I think Megan first requested an amendment
yes I did but actually before I request an amendment
I have I have a clarifying question for Dr. Anderson and then I'm going to decide
whether or not I want to make an amendment is that okay with you
President Johnson Dr. Anderson
I am wondering because what jumped in my mind right away
is I guess I don't want to restrict
any kind of facility recommendation that you or the administration
collectively might make so would you be comfortable
with the language as presented in this motion or would you prefer
if there were going to be an actionable like here's what we're bringing to the next meeting
discussion about facilities to have to broaden the
language to be facility recommendations for the upcoming school year
where we can consolidate
I'm not quite I have an wordsmith that but do you understand what I'm asking?
I know what you're asking.
I think what the what the issue is is that
I believe moving programs facilities
details lots of discussions with lots of parties
you're now asking me to come back with a plan in two weeks
on how we're going to close two buildings
between now and the end of August
No I don't think that's I think he
means next school year Mr. Schoof can you clarify?
I was heard from
Ms. Fox that we wanted more details on how
to you know essentially remove
Cunningham from our portfolio and you know to do that
we need more information from the administration so I didn't put it I didn't put a deadline
on it I said to bring a plan back it's not
that plan would have to be approved by this board and you have to get four votes
so the the budget would be done you'd have budget
guidance and you have one you know homework item to bring back to the
board that's my that was my intent of the motion
and it was specifically to Cunningham not to
leave open this conversation about Merrill and other places until we've had the broader community
conversation that we need to have as part of the next few months
and I guess that would be my other is I do think all of our buildings
have to be taken as a whole so that
if I empty out Cunningham and we look at where we're going to move it
what is the plan for kind I mean I truly
believe we need to have lots of discussions and we need to start
the board what do you want this to look like facility wise for
twenty seven twenty eight I think it's just makes it more difficult
if you do piecemeal
will I will we do that the answer is
we will certainly if that's what the board decides we will do that but I think
facility wise we would be much
we'd be much better off if we took a look at all facilities in our district
and we said based on what we want the district
to look like and what we think we can afford all of the factors
what is it that we want how do we want our
buildings to look like at the beginning of the twenty seven twenty eight school year
and to have a plan and then to as I said earlier
make a motion let everybody know by January
so that we have eight months to implement it I think that is a fruitful
discussion I would just say that if you try to piecemeal it
it makes it more difficult so then thank you so much for clarifying
then I suppose the the amendment that I would recommend
I can I can support the first part of the
motion I would like to suggest an amendment
or move an amendment that we instead
ask the administration to bring back its recommendations
about how best to move forward with consolidating facilities
and the reason that I say that is that it gets to the spirit of what we're hearing
it doesn't disenfranchise people who in our community
who might want to see Cunningham utilized in lieu of
it still gets to the consolidation piece
Madam Chair on the on the motion
go ahead so I've only been on the board
for a short period of time but
even before I was even before I was on the board
and we're invited into a conversation I've been saying
we need long-term modeling I learned tonight it's in our policy
I've been asking asking asking for long-term
financial modeling tied into what kind of district
do we want I think I think it's the exact same thing almost every
member here wants so I do not want a discussion that
puts the cart before the horse which is facilities versus what the district we want
so my motion tonight brings in
I'm just asking the administration to bring a plan
you may bring the plan back that does not get the support of this board
but we need to put this budget behind us
we need to get on to the big question on the long-term
financial modeling of the state of the district that's
I think all of our goal here to we all can make tough decisions
but we have to have the time to make them
so that's why I do not want to broaden this because that's not
the intent that's not my intent we are going to have those conversations
once we answer the question what kind of district we want
then we'll ask a question of all of our board members if we support
a referendum that gets to that amount that we need
and then if we agree to that then we have to ask our community to support that
there's a lot of effort that would take to do that
but from that we will be able to answer our questions
you know what how many facilities we're going to need and
going forward I think the broader question is premature
is there a second
on the amendment there's an amendment on the floor to
have the admin come back with a plan to best utilize
facilities.
No second so that
amendment dies
and this is fox you
had a recommended amendment
and I don't maybe Dan can
talk me through this to see if it's part of it I am concerned that we
approve this without seeing the grant plans
and there's an awful lot of grant stuff on here
so if we approve it like I said there's
like there's the
the coach not the coach the para educator for
early literacy we don't we've not seen anything about it we have no
job description we have nothing so I'm a little
concerned so you know my amendment would be that we
also have a plan for how they are planning
to utilize these grant positions.
So may I answer that Madam Chair is that correct so
I think those are the DPI literacy are they the DPI literacy
Stephanie is these are the DPI grant that we got the new grant from DPI is that what those positions are?
yeah no
two of them are not the
para's
the other
is a grant that we received for additional
literacy from DPI
no and um
that makes sense to me as it you know
that makes sense to me to
have more information on this
I would like to put the budget to bed tonight though
in terms of we're passing a draft budget it's not the final
final budget it's not our process but we can get on to having the
broader conversations the fiscal modeling all that
I'm supportive I consider you're you know a defriendly amendment to say you
bring more information back about the grants and if we hate what we see we can change
it that goes also for for Megan's amendment I
don't want to take any action tonight that speeds up the process
of closing Merrill I don't want to take any action there tonight
and doing that so that's why that's why I know Merrill
because a broader thing will quickly turn into needing to close
Merrill that is part of a broader conversation
so
Mrs. Fox do you have an amendment or are you
good with it as it is yeah I would like to amend it
to say that we need the plan for with the
addition of the plan for the grant positions
at least you know I'll second that
and
Mrs. Schop did you get that
okay so that was seconded
then by Dan Schoof is there any
discussion on the amendment
Megan Miller
thank you so much may I ask a clarifying question of Mr. Schoof
thank you Mr. Schoof I just I think I might be
missing something so I would appreciate an explanation so
I am hearing you say that you would like to direct
the administration to bring back a plan and I believe you said
it included closing right and conning
him that's what I have down is that correct yeah
and then we would have to approve that plan got it okay thank you
may I clarify why those two specific buildings are in
your motion in lieu of a plan to consolidate
which implies closing one or more buildings and the reason that I ask
is because Dr. Anderson just explained he would like to take the time to look at
all of this all of the facilities prior to bringing forth a recommendation
so I can only speak for myself
I don't want to push the cart before the horse
I think we have to answer the question what kind of district do we want
I think we need to get to that tomorrow and through
it's only 60 days before now and August 1st
we really need to work through these questions
and if we're going to do a referendum or not I don't know
if we are or not and I don't know if we'll agree on it but
that will drive whether we have massive consolidation
buildings or things like that and
so I'm trying to craft a motion today that puts the
budget to bed I heard what my colleagues say I didn't bring up the Cunningham
thing they heard what my colleagues an emerging consensus on the board I was trying to
react to that so that's why I included them together but I think they lived together
and again it may be untenable we're going to listen to the professionals
it may not work or it may make a lot more sense for the year after
let's direct them to do the work that Carol's asking for
they know I want the work of doing the financial modeling and you all want that
that will come as part of this 60-day sprint to August 1st
Thank you so much for clarifying because I think when I hear you say
and this is what I just I'm not it's not congruent in my mind right now when I say
we don't want to put the cart before the horse but then you
are naming specific buildings that the board has not discussed because
I do have thoughts and opinions on facilities but since that wasn't the topic of discussion
this evening since option D does not include those items
and option D is the agenda item listed I as one
of seven don't feel that we've had a satisfactory discussion to build consensus
as a board about where we specifically want to go with facility
so I otherwise wholly on the same page I
love the idea of moving things forward so people can move forward in clarity and I
100% agree that a plan going forward will include a consolidation
of one or more buildings where I am uncomfortable
is naming those specific buildings without I'm not ruling either of them out
but I'm I just I don't even I don't even have a sense
of where we're going with that okay so right is closed
it is 905
we are over our two hour limit I will entertain
a motion to extend the meeting by half an hour so moved
motion by Carol Foss is there a second by Bill Johnson
all in favor aye aye aye aye
any opposed motion carries unanimously
Mr. Schofall I'll let you respond
so to respond to
Member Miller's question
I'm trying right is closed we are
essentially occupying it a little bit for insurance purposes as I totally get
because I ran facilities at the college I totally understand that
but I heard a consensus on the board
that they want to look a real meaty idea
I mean we heard it's not feasible a couple different options
but I heard also at the table from the leaders that have been on here longer than me
that they want to see a plan on it and so
I'm not saying I'm going to support the plan when it gets here because I don't know what it's going to look like
I haven't seen anything on him so I I'm voting for it
so I can see meaty detailed information
on it it may not be possible so when you say
it you specifically mean cutting him in that facilities in general
okay so mrs. Schofall that's what the motion is would you please read back
and we're talking about the amendment not the motion
the amendment would you please read back the amendment
the amendment that Ms. Foxmate
yes that's the only one that had a second okay
so that amendment I have says move to amend with the addition
of a plan for the grant positions
is there any discussion
on this amendment
we're going to take a vote only on the amendment
not on the original motion so we're only
taking a vote to add that grant
phrase into the original motion
on favor
aye
aye aye
any opposed
the amendment passes unanimously
now mrs. Schof would you please read the motion
with the amendment added to it yes
so the motion would be to move approval of option D with keeping
media at 1.0 FTE
and direct administration to bring back a plan for closing
Cunningham and Wright for next school year
and to
bring back a plan
for the grant positions
thank you is there any questions or discussion on this
Ms. Fox
I just want to say
the idea about Cunningham didn't come out of thin air it came out of option B
okay so
it's even only part of option B but it seemed the most doable part
in my humble opinion
and we're not talking about selling Cunningham we're not talking about changing
doing anything different with the facility except not
using it next year so that we can continue to have a broader
discussion about how we want to use all of our facilities
doing this one thing is not
going to change the dynamic about the broader discussion about our facilities
Dan Schof
I have my hand up accident sorry no problem
Joanne Roo yes so
my thoughts in doing this like
bringing back the information about Cunningham will help it be more clear
to the board and to the community why either
it is a good idea or it's not a good idea President Johnson
I have heard lots of positive responses
in the community when you talked about maybe we need to re look at special ed
and and how we're staffing it how where in our buildings
we're putting it and BLA is
our best example of that in action
and my own child was one of those super expensive children
he was in a classroom where I think there were
eight children and three adults all the time
and so yes
we do need some of these specialized classrooms and yes
they are very expensive and they do need enough space
to do it properly so I'm really
interested in what Collek staff
comes back with as in response to
this information that we're asking for about BLA because
I think it'll help highlight what good things you're doing over there
Megan Miller thank you
I have two questions one is a clarifying question for Dr. Anderson
is that okay we're President Johnson okay so Dr. Anderson since we've had
more discussion now about the intent in clarifying what that motion
is are you still in a space where you would prefer
to take more time before bringing something forward or
has your position changed?
as Carol mentioned if I bring back a plan and the buildings are simply
empty for a year it doesn't change the larger
concept it's just
we have two weeks to try to come up with a plan and we will if this motion
passes we will do our best
okay so then yeah I just my my second
this is just if we could do a roll call vote please
certainly Tom Hinkins yes
listening to my colleagues and I've always been in favor of
doing a facilities planning session Dr. Garrison
Dr. Wayne it needs to be done before
we hamstring admin
into saying the board chooses to close these two buildings without
any reconsideration I think I agree
with Dr. Anderson we put all the chess players on the board all the pounds on
the board and how do we reconfigure the district
not hamstring them by saying okay we're gonna close this we're gonna close that now how do you do it
I do not want to tie into building
closings into this budget thank you
thank you
and I it's shuddering
so we wouldn't we would not sell
or get rid of cutting him because we don't know
if we are going to need that because right now cutting him
is capacity wise
our second largest building and
in terms of there not being enough space at
memorial for another 118 or 110 students
and considering our enrollments
continue to go down again from the presentation
the functional capacity based on desire class size
at BMHS is 2472
enrollment as of May 1st
was 1,131
don't tell me that there's not room for another 100 students there
that to me that math
just doesn't math because
running the numbers on this right now we could
appellate memorial put the light memorial
BLA, Fruzen, Aldridge, Merrill and heck we could put all
of Colac staff there too based off of these numbers
now would it be comfortable no would people be on top of each other
is what I'm suggesting no but what I'm saying is
this is why we keep having
financial crises year after year after year
we're not pulling ourselves out of this situation saying
let's kick the can down the road I cannot support
option D I can't
support option C I can't support option A
again right now the only option that comes close
to a balanced budget is option B
if there's no further discussion
there's a request for a roll call please
okay
Carol Fox
Aye
Bill Johnson
Nay
Joanne Roo
Aye
Tom Hankins
Meghan Miller
Nay
Dan Schuth
Aye
Tia Johnson
Nay
Emotion failed three to four
Madam Chair may I make a motion?
Certainly
I'll move option D
with restoring media specialists to 1.0
Second
There is a motion and a second
Any discussion?
Could we have a roll call though please?
Certainly miss the show when you're ready
Clarification what's the second?
Joanne Roo
Who made the second?
Meghan
Dan Schuth
Aye
Megan Miller
Aye
Tom Hankins
Nay
Carol Fox
Nay
Bill Johnson
Aye
Joanne Roo
Aye
And Tia Johnson
Nay
Motion failed three to four
Dr. Anderson do you have any questions of the board?
We're in the same spot before when I started two hours ago
in that
my goal is
I don't know what to do
to get a majority board vote
That's the conundrum
I don't know what to do
to get a majority
board vote
If
That's what I'm hoping
That's what I was hoping for tonight's meeting
To me to bring back another option is pointless
It is
We are
You have different opinions
And I respect that
And I'm glad you're doing the opinions
But for me to come up to get a majority
I am no closer now
Than I was two and a half hours ago
So when
If the task is
What do you want me to bring back in the 16th
The bottom line is
I don't know
And it's not because I can't be creative
I can't be brave
I can't be all those things
The bottom line is
I don't know what the majority of the board
Is to support
That's what I need direction
If I know what the majority of the board
Will support
I will make the changes necessary
To bring something back
But if you want me to try to guess
Where it's going to be to get the magic
Fourth vote
That's not my skill set
So
If someone can give some direction
On what changes you would like
For me to make to bring back
I would be happy to do so
But right now
I am no closer than I was
Two and a half hours ago
So I do not have an answer
Madam chair, point of clarification
Yes
I have a parliamentary question
So my understanding of the
Robert Rules of Order book that we were given
Is if you vote in the affirmative
You can move reconsideration
Do any parliamentarians agree with me on that?
So we
So
Let me make a point of order
Or a point of personal privilege
Briefly
I know we are up against time
So
Mr. Hankins
The second motion
Was attempting to get you and Mr. Johnson's vote
For to vote for option D
Which the superintendent
Is recommending
That was the goal of the
Taking the Cunningham out
I would get us moving on the big picture
Which you all have been working on longer than I have
So that's why moving
Reconsideration because I really would
Would like to have Mr. Johnson
Mr. Hankins consider
Supporting the motion option D
And giving the administration
Option D with the
Media specialist added in at 1.0
And we can get on to the bigger question
Of the planning for the district
Which includes everything
All the members on this
Dias have agreed on
We have to work on all the issues mentioned tonight
So I move reconsideration
Is there a second?
I'll second that
Motion for reconsideration
By Dan Shoe
Seconded by
Joanne Roo
Any discussion?
Tom?
Yes, I mean, there's many
Mr. Shoe
I'm not going to vote for
A
Unbalanced budget
And the ones presented
Are not balanced
And I'm not going to go forward with it
And Mr. Dr. Wade is talking about
How, how does he get consensus?
Well, I think a good start would be
To bring a balanced budget forward
And there's nothing to do with your
What your
Amendments were
To me
There are good things about
A, B, C and D
I don't whitewash them all
I just
Again, none of them
Get to where we want to be
At the end of the day
And as you, everyone's brought up on this Dias
Forward
Our optics are
Very visible to everyone out there
It's kind of redundant
So
I just can't be a party
To
A deficit budget at this time
Without
And I understand open and I understand
Fun balance and all that
But I just think that there's more we could do
There's gotta be
That's just my opinion
And that's why I voted in the negative
And I will vote again in the negative
Thank you
Thank you
With the board members
Mind if we just went down
And each board member in
Two or three statements
Explained to Dr. Anderson
Why you
Didn't support it or what changes
You want to see
So Mr. Shuf, I will start with you
Yes, I'll be quick. I know what the time is
The discussion of a
Balance budget
Where we would be spending some of the dollars
Returned to us by the state
Means we have to make 1.7 million dollars
More of cuts
I don't even want to know how many teachers
That means
I don't even want to hear the number
I mean, we just, you guys have been doing
The work of cutting
You have been doing this work
And
That would be a scary number, so
Joe Andrew
Alright, so I've been clear
Keep staff because
Or keep the staff that we have here
Pay them a livable wage
Make sure that we're
Protecting prep times, all of that stuff
I don't want to slash and burn us
Into a balanced budget
Because it's only going to cause
Bigger problems for us down the road
That's what, I'm fully in favor of
What we came up with tonight
With adding the media specialists back in
And I am
As a parent, if we were desperate for
Taking care of the children in my home
I would use my credit card if I had to
We don't even have to do that
Oh, PEP isn't alone
It's money we have
And so I am fully in favor of
What you brought tonight
Adding in the media specialists
And using OPEB to balance the budget
Carol Fox?
I think we need to think of OPEB
Like fund balance
It's because our fund balance is so low
That we shouldn't be using the OPEB money
Just because it's there
I'm not opposed to using some of it
But I think 1.7 is pretty high
So I'm leaning more towards option B
And I know we can't do all of that
But we can still do some of that
And I think we can get us much closer
To where we need to be
And like I said before
I think we need to be braver about what we're doing
And make a statement
Tom Hankins?
I'm good, thank you
Tom, can you just give Dr. Anderson
A quick explanation of why you either
Strongly supported or strongly opposed option D
And what ultimately you'd like to see happen?
Well, not getting into specifics
And I know that's probably what he wants
But to me, ABC and D
All of their high points and low points
And I know, you know, putting them into one option
You know, to get a hybrid of all four
Or five or six, whatever
You know, I understand when you're in the position
You're at Dr. Anderson, you want to get four votes
And I understand that
But I think
I'd love to get seven, but I'm being a realist
Exactly, that'd be wonderful
But I think bringing a balanced budget forward
Would be a step in the right direction
To me, and I understand
But I'm just saying that's my preference
And not that I wouldn't look at anything else, that's not it
But I think there's
You know, I understand, I just want to make sure people are aware
When you say a balanced budget, that means that
Somehow we go back and cut 1.5 million or more
Which means there are no other places to cut other than staff
So realistically, you're looking, trying to do math in my head
20, 25 staff
That we are going to have to have less than we have now
And I understand, I'm empathetic with where you're at
And what you're trying to do, but as a citizen of the district
And a taxpayer, they're looking at what we're doing
And saying, well, you know what, you're already going to lose 700 kids
I mean, that's the other side of that coin
And I'm not a big proponent of that
I'm just saying it's realistic
And I don't want to touch, I don't want to touch any staff
That is face time with our students
And I know you're saying that, that's where the, that's where the meat is, that's left
I do understand that
I guess just as one board member
I want to be fiscally responsible
I want to be able to go to the public and say we've done everything we can
And when we do decide to go to referendum, I can stand up earnestly
And ring my cowl bell and say please vote for this
Because you know what, we don't have any more money
Megan Miller
Thank you, so I would first like to echo everything that Joanne said
I'm entirely the same page
I'm going to add two additional comments
One, I just want to commend the administration because I think you brought us a budget
That was very responsive to the feedback that staff had provided
And they're the ones who have to execute the vision and budget that we set forth
So that is one additional reason that I support
Option D
And the second comment I'd like to make is for us as a board to exercise some flexibility
And thinking about the vocabulary that we're using
When we talk about what the community can or cannot afford
I as a member of this community wholeheartedly believe that we cannot afford
To make $1.7 million worth of cuts to the investment in our children
And I will cite one of many studies on this subject
Which goes back to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
That for every dollar you invest, particularly in early childhood education
It yields another $8 in the gross domestic product
It's particularly to local communities, there's a Kalamazoo study
There's all these different examples we can look around and see
So to me, I find it to be extremely fiscally irresponsible
For us to make unsustainable and frankly untenable cuts
That are not necessary at this particular moment to our district budget
So that is why I will continue to fully support Option D
With the addition of maintaining our library media specialist at 1.0 FTE
Bill Johnson?
Thank you for all your work
I don't want to spend any more, excuse me, old-fed money than we have to
I know that it's a hard decision, but these are all hard decisions
And I just don't want to see, you know, a deficit budget
I know you're doing the best you can
And it's just, I just can't support it
Dr. Anderson, any other questions?
No.
Okay.
I just have to make the decision to be real honest
That I will, I don't know that I can lead your district, I'll be around
I don't know that I need you to consensus
I don't know at this point if I'm going to be the right person going forward
So, and since I don't have a contract for next year, you may have other options
I'm just going to have to think about that
So we can, if I can't lead you, it makes no sense for me to be here
It's just something I have to think about because you need someone who's going to be able to lead and direct
And right now, I don't know that I can do that
Thank you for your honesty, Dr. Anderson
Michelle Shope, would you read the motion on the floor right now?
I withdraw my motion for reconsideration
Okay.
Thank you.
Our
Next agenda item is
Executive Session, a motion may be made and a vote taken to convene the Board of Education
And a closed session pursuant to Section 19.85 Paran 1 Paran F of the Wisconsin State Statutes
For the purpose of reviewing the expulsion orders of the Independent Hearing Officer
Pursuant to Section 120.13 Paran 1 Paran E4 dot H dot of the Wisconsin State Statutes
The Board of Education shall upon review
Shall upon review approve reverse or modify orders
Is there a motion?
So moved.
Second
Motion by Joanne Roo, seconded by Carol Fox, Mrs. Shope
Dan Schuth
Aye
Meghan Miller
Aye
Joanne Roo
Aye
Bill Johnson
Aye
Carol Fox
Aye
Tom Hankins
Aye
And Tia Johnson
Aye
Motion carried unanimously
Thank you.
The Board of Education may reconvene to public session in order to take any action if necessary on items discussed in closed session.
We are going into closed session to review the Independent Hearing Officers expulsion orders.
Thank you.
Have a good night.
Everyone else has left the call.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.