You
Good evening everyone before I call tonight's meeting to order I just want to take a moment to remind everyone of some
meeting expectations based off of last our last meeting I would like to
remind board members of a few procedural expectations under Robert's Rules of
Order. First the presiding officer is responsible for determining the order in
which members are recognized to speak and reading Robert's Rules explains why
this is the procedure and expectation. Secondly only the presiding officer has
the authority to recognize speakers and grant the floor. I appreciate everybody's
eagerness to have questions but to have a better board meeting process and
efficiency I'd like for us to be cognizant of those. I also want to remind all staff
members of our district policy 522 staff conduct which states all staff are
expected to maintain the highest level of professional behavior. The hallmarks
of professional behavior include but are not limited to honesty and integrity
treating individuals with courtesy respect and dignity and working in a
collaborative cooperative manner with all other staff as well as policy 522.4
staff code of ethics the Board of Education expects employees to conduct
themselves with respect to their work honesty openly and with complete
integrity. Both of these policies align with state Wisconsin state statute 19.59
code of ethics for local government officials employees or candidates so
this implies to all of us up here as well and also board members we also have our
board understanding of the collective commitments we have decisions to make
tonight I don't believe we're all going to be in agreement with everything but
once the board makes a motion we support that that's that's the will of the board
as we proceed through tonight we one of the things we have is the the basis what
was what did you call it the basis foundational budget or something whatever
I would like for us before we move forward in our long line of things we
need to decide if we could all come to an agreement and vote on that first and
then the more detailed ones after any questions before I call the meeting to
order okay thank you it is 502 I'm calling to order the special board meeting of
June 23rd 2026 mr. Shope me we have a roll call yes Dan Schuth here Carol
Fox here Bill Johnson here Megan Miller present Tom Hinkins here Joanne Ruhl
here and Tia Johnson here all members are present thank you mr.
Shope me we have an approval of the agenda so moved second motion by Dan
Schuth seconded by Carol Fox any discussion hearing and seeing none all in
favor aye aye aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously our first item
tonight it looks a little different because this is a special board meeting
and according to board policy 187 participation at board meetings it states
special board meetings will not have a designated time for public comment I feel
we should give the public another opportunity to be heard due to the
topic of tonight's meeting I am requesting the board to waive policy 187
for the purpose of permitting public comment for up to a total of 30 minutes
allowing a total of three minutes to each speaker waving no public comment
time to another speaker and speakers to be ordered in a rotation of subject
matter is there such a motion so moved also have a question I'll second we have
a motion by Megan Miller and a second by Carol Fox miss Miller thank you so much
I didn't want to get into amendments all that but I just wanted to clarify in
question if we're limiting it to 30 minutes is there a reason that we want to
also not give people the extra three if I was anticipating a large turnout
tonight I'd say I was maybe wrong well so to that end because I don't want to
interfere with your original vision for that would it would you be open to
amending them could we amend the motion to remove just that piece of it
yes so defaulting to the yeah so one speaker one person yielding time a total
of six minutes yeah I'm fine with with that is there a second to that amendment
second we are voting on the amendment by Megan Miller seconded by Dan Shoe
all in favor aye aye aye aye any opposed aye motion carries unanimously now we
any other questions or comments we will vote on the original motion all in
favor aye aye aye aye aye any opposed motion carries unanimously miss this
to show, do we have any public comment tonight?
Yes, I have three.
Unit, do you, or?
Yeah, okay.
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 behaviors for our students.
Individuals wishing to commit,
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 at board meetings.
We ask that each of you contribute to a maintaining
a respectful and orderly meeting
and prevent discussing confidential matters
in a public forum by following these norms
for public comments during board meetings.
Thank you for your participation and courtesy.
Mrs. Scho.
The first person in the room I have is Ashley from Wallworth.
Good evening.
As a teacher who has worked in Beloit Learning Academy
for the past 12 years,
I understand the difficult financial decisions
facing our district.
The budget challenges outlined in the presentation are real
and I appreciate the work that has gone
into identifying possible solutions.
I'm not here to argue that nothing can change.
I'm here to ask that student outcomes
receive the same consideration
as facility utilization and cost savings.
Over the past 12 years,
I have worked with hundreds of students who arrived at BLA
after struggling with attendance, engagement,
credit completion, anxiety,
or success in a traditional school setting.
While every student has a unique story,
one thing has remained consistent.
The students who succeed at BLA often need
an educational environment that better matches their needs.
Alternative education is not simply a location.
It is a specialized environment designed to meet the needs
of students who have not found success elsewhere.
Wisconsin DPI describes successful
alternative education programs as creating sustained
family-like support systems of peers and caring adults.
The presentation includes enrollment numbers,
capacity studies, and financial projections.
These are important pieces of information.
What I have not seen is the same level of analysis
regarding how each option being considered tonight
will affect the students currently being served by BLA.
At this time, we anticipate 103 students attending BLA
this fall, including returning seniors and students
already referred from Memorial.
These students and families continue to choose this program
because they believe it meets a need.
As you evaluate the options before you tonight,
I respectfully ask,
how is the impact on student attendance, engagement,
credit completion, and graduation being weighed
alongside facility utilization and cost savings?
The presentation provides detailed analysis
of buildings and budgets.
I would encourage the board to apply the same level
of analysis to the educational impact
of each option under consideration.
As changes are made, I ask that the board ensure
that cost savings do not come at the expense
of relationships, structure, and supports
that make alternative education successful for students.
Our students, all students,
deserve the same thoughtful data-driven analysis
that this board has requested in every other area
of district decision-making.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ashley.
Ms. Schol.
Next, I have Stephanie from Janesville.
Good evening, Dr. Anderson and members of the board.
I'm here to speak on two subjects.
The first is public education.
I am a staunch supporter of public education.
I just finished up my 41st year of teaching,
all in public education settings.
And I just would like to remind our school board
that public education is what we really
should be focusing on.
It really dismayed me a few months ago
when we decided to sell McNeil to Rock County Christian,
knowing that it is a voucher school system
and will be taking money away from our public education.
Competition is not good when the money is going
with the students, so I just would like
to kind of remind our school board of that.
Second, I would echo all of Ashley's remarks.
I'm also here to speak about BLA.
Many of my former students attended BLA,
and I can assure you they would not have been successful
if they had not.
And I do not feel as if moving BLA into the high school setting
is an appropriate response right now.
I understand that we need to sell maybe a building
or we need to worry about finances,
but we also need to look at exactly
like Ashley said, the success of our students.
And many of them not only behavior issues,
but also anxiety in larger settings.
They need that smaller environment.
They need a place where they know that they are welcome
and they can succeed and putting them back
into that gigantic high school over there
is not what I feel is the best solution for these students.
So I'm just here to ask you to please keep these things
in mind when you make your decision
and think of those students and the success
that we've seen with the BLA program
and the success that we've seen with these students.
So thank you.
Thank you, Stephanie, Mr. Schop.
The next person I have is Jodi from Delavant.
Hi there, Jodi Jackson.
I'm Assistant Principal, both at the high school
and the Beolite Learning Academy.
I've only been here a few months,
so thank you for hiring me, first of all.
I just wanted to share, I feel like I have a unique perspective
and that I am in both spaces,
and no one asked me before,
so I just wanted to share.
Public education is also very important to me,
and I think we really need to be thinking about this
as a business right now.
I've been in two other districts that have really
had to tighten their belts and get more frugal,
but I also think you need to make sure
that you're keeping your systems strong
and that you offer a unique product.
And I think that our offering of an alternative education setting
is something unique to us
that we really need to think about in Beolite.
I do not think that it is, I am enjoying
that we are working on our systems at the high school.
To be strong, I work with the ninth graders
currently as the freshman principal.
And I think we're really working on our systems
and structures at the high school
at adding alternative education into those systems,
I don't think it serves that.
We want to make sure that,
like we said, I echo both sentiments
that students needs to be met.
They're even in a different type of grading system
at the Beolite Learning Academy.
And I think in meshing the student services
and the administration possibly,
I think it would be very sticky.
So I just would encourage you to,
I understand, Beolite may need to find a different setting.
I don't think that the high school should be it.
Thank you.
Is that it, Michelle?
Yes, that's it.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Okay.
Our first agenda item tonight
is the 2026, 2027 preliminary budget.
The purpose of this is to share with the board members
the budget reductions administration is proposing
for the 2026, 2027 preliminary budget.
The administration has brought forward several options
and is now presenting an option based on feedback
from board members at the last meeting on June 16th,
as well as several other meetings beginning in May.
Administration has also taken into consideration
other factors including staff feedback and suggestions.
We do have Dr. Wayne Anderson listed first
as presenting in this
agenda item.
I did contact Dr. Gordon and Dr. Anderson
and requested that Dr. Gordon take the lead
on doing the presentation as she will be
the interim superintendent who will have to implement
the changes and the decisions made by the board.
With that Dr. Gordon.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you for the introduction, I appreciate it.
Our public comments were very good and very rational
with where we were kind of at.
Everything has been taken into consideration.
As you know, it's been a very long process
that we've been going through several months worth.
So tonight we're looking to just kind of go over
where we're at, what we need to do
and what we need to do to move on from the place
that we've kind of been stuck at for the last several months.
Stephanie has graciously offered to flip my slides for me.
So what is our goal?
Our goal is one central mission, right?
It's like writing a lesson plan.
How can the Board of Education reach a consensus
on a budget proposal that reduces the annual budget
by five plus million dollars and requires little
or no support from OPEB fund or fund balance accounts.
So some of the ideas have been to close schools,
relocate schools and reduce and repurpose our staff
as well as some other smaller items
such as curriculum changes, field trip changes,
things like that.
In March our Board presented to us a guidance document
that was adopted at the end of March.
Ms. Fox had made this for us
and we keep referring to the Board guidance,
the recommended guidance that the Board wanted us to consider.
And within that guidance document,
we're looking at teacher pupil ratio,
focusing on staff retention,
which is everywhere, every district,
prioritizing our programs and initiatives
with that focusing on the academies, the DLI,
and minimizing enrollment patterns within our district.
So students enrolling out.
In addition, Ms. Fox had requested some staffing plans
and the potential cost savings, which we will talk about,
providing plans for academic and literacy coaching
based on any plan reductions, which we will also get to,
and how we're going to utilize Title I and AGR funds,
which is a little tricky, but we're gonna get to that as well.
Contracts, addendum contracts,
plan looking for increased efficiency and cost savings
for legal IT services, custodial food services,
any other contracted services,
and providing a professional development plan,
updating the short and long-term facilities plans
to respond to our facilities and maintenance needs
as we move into being a smaller district,
and moving forward on efforts to sell vacant land
that the district does not appear to need
at this point in time.
And the recommendation to form a finance committee
was also made and have that committee be extended
through the 2728 school year and the predicted future,
carry with us to the predicted issues in the future
for our school district.
So moving on, what does that mean our board would like?
Overall, our board wants us to use OPEB funds
for longevity pay that was discussed,
I think back in March or April,
but overall the consensus is to use as little from OPEB
and fund balance as possible.
There's been discussion about alternative education,
where we're going to go with that,
what we're going to do with that
and what that might look like.
Having a staffing plan aligned with our budget,
keeping our highly qualified staff, excuse me,
forward planning for additional budget reductions in 2728,
which we now are going to be much larger
than they are this year,
but also the tricky part is creating sustainability
within all of it, within all of that.
The next part, our board developed some board goals
last summer, my understanding is with the help
of Dr. Earhart, there four board goals
were student achievement, student attendance,
student conduct, behavior and safety,
staff retention, compensation and wellbeing.
So of course, all of those things have broader or more
concise pieces that go with them,
but overall that is what our board is looking for
and all of those areas are impacted by our budget as well.
So it's important to keep those things in mind
as we're planning future forward.
In March, we gave our staff a survey,
it went to all staff and we asked about budget reduction,
different categories about technology,
operational and facility ideas,
and there was, I think there was about 15 questions,
Stephanie, if I'm recalling that, correct?
Yeah, about 15 questions.
So we went through those survey results back in,
I think it was April at one of our April meetings,
but in summary, if we turn to the last page of that,
Stephanie, is the staff survey response summary.
Our staff were adamant in their survey responses
about reducing administrative
and non-instructional spending,
rethinking technology investments.
So how can we be a little more creative with that?
Increasing operational efficiencies,
protecting our classroom impact and student support,
as well as avoiding long-term negative consequences.
So avoiding cuts that could drive our students
into larger class sizes,
which would be impactful for learning,
staff retention and all things.
Our projected budget shortfall.
This is where we kind of land for tonight.
Every year we've lost about 200 students in our district.
So we're looking at the 2627 column.
Our revenue limit has increased,
and if you look ahead to next year, 2728,
the 600 student loss is asterisk
because we don't have that figure for sure.
We do lose about 200, like I said,
but we all know that TLA is opening another school.
They are taking students grade level by grade level,
so it won't be all of them at one time.
But we also have OLA across town,
which has an enrollment as well.
So that number is a little bit hard
to predict at this current time.
So we are focusing on the 2627
and trying to get that budget done this evening.
And so we can flip ahead there, Ms. Stephanie.
And the next pieces are our revenue limit worksheets,
which we have looked at time and time again,
the last few months, and our budget forecast,
and our increase in mill rate for Deloitte.
And you can see the forecasted for 2728 and 2829
as we're planning forward
and what that might have to look like.
And moving forward again into our historical
enrollment context, you can see that we're lowering
our enrollment, and this is not an uncommon thing
throughout school districts, throughout the country.
It's not a Deloitte thing.
It's not a Wisconsin thing.
It's a United States thing.
It's very prevalent in every community.
There are more options out there for students and families.
So charter schools, publicly funded charter schools,
private schools, families choosing to home school,
lots of different school options.
So again, we are not exclusive, but it is hitting us hard
and is definitely needed to make us look at our district
in a different way.
The DPI would define us now as a small to medium size
district.
We used to be in that kind of larger size district area,
but we're not, we're more of that mid-size.
So we can think of this, I put this in the slide,
we can think of this kind of in terms of dieting, right?
So we need to look at our district like refashion it.
So if we lost 50 pounds, would our clothes fit?
Nope, we've needed a new wardrobe, right?
So how is our district change?
We've lost 200 students per year.
So put that in perspective, how is our district change
every year that we've lost up to 200 or more students?
Have we adapted?
Yeah, sure, we've adapted.
We've adapted somewhat along the way.
Our most recent reconfiguration was when we closed
McNeal and sent the kids to Fruzen and Aldrich,
and then the fourth and fifth graders came back
to the elementary schools, which has been great, by the way,
having them back in the elementary's.
But the most recent reconfiguration,
we kind of closed a school, the school got sold.
So you get a little bit of a benefit from that sale.
We did eliminate some positions through attrition
and some moving of positions around.
But then again, we've had three failed referendums.
So we've tried to buy new clothes for our body
that they haven't fit, right?
Three times that we attempted and it didn't fit.
So just like dieting, we are having a hard time here.
So our changes have not kept pace with the changes
that we are experiencing in our district.
Our changes are happening kind of fast,
and they've been progressive over time,
but we have not kept pace with that.
So in terms of our district, we do need to write size.
So looking at the district as a big picture
and thinking in terms of what we used to have
versus the size of our district now
and how we can use what we have
and come to an agreement that it's not gonna look
like it did seven, eight, nine, 10, 12, 15 years ago.
It's just not.
So that 7,000 student district that we used to have,
it's not there.
There are options for parents.
And I know Dr. Anderson has said this before
and I say it too, it's parents have choices
and we want them to have whatever choice they feel
is best for their child, right?
And they've chosen other entities, but we are an entity too.
We are not going away and neither are the other entities.
So it's very important that we do the right thing
and we resize and move forward from our resizing,
but also keeping our economic issue in check, okay?
So moving on, why are we here?
Well, we need to approve our 26 to 27 budget.
What we know so far is now it is urgent,
time is our currency and every delay that we have
reduces the options.
So we are sitting at June 23rd
and every delay now kind of intensifies
what we need to do for our 27, 28 school year two.
So the less we do now, the more we do next year.
So sitting in June 23rd, we have about a month
through July and then our elementary principals
come back August 1st to work.
It's game on, right?
The school year has begun.
So we have about a little over a month
to make things happen before people are back
in an action in all the buildings.
And then the kids come, you know, September 1st,
we're ready to go.
And that happens fast.
Summer for some reason is the fastest season of the year
and it just happens.
But again, every delay also erodes our culture.
Like if you were to go out and talk to some of our staff,
there's a lot of anxiety, you know,
and very well warranted, right?
If you don't know where you're gonna be
or what might happen to your school,
that is a big cause of anxiety for our staff.
It's uncomfortable not knowing where you're gonna be,
what you're gonna do.
And even if you do know where you're gonna be
and what you're gonna do,
it's just hard to know that the state of the district
has not been settled yet for 26, 27.
So that's a hard way for our teachers to have started.
There are some of our teachers and staff.
And then every delay does diminish staffing.
So we have staff leave the district.
If you don't know, you're gonna look
for something elsewhere for stability.
And then to decide, are we gonna close buildings?
So we've been talking about closures, right?
Our talk has been to perhaps send BLA to the high school,
perhaps send BLA to Merrill,
or there's even been talk about eliminating
the BLA program altogether.
We've mentioned putting a collac up for sale,
moving our collac staff possibly to the high school.
Of course, there's other places
that collac staff could be located to,
but the high school has been probably the biggest talk.
Locating our even start and our other programs,
the GEDO program, the SAIPAR program,
some of the other programs,
do we relocate them to Merrill?
Could we relocate them to high school?
Where would they be a best fit?
But not deciding on a budget is kind of deciding on a budget.
The longer we put this off,
the further we're gonna have to dig probably
into some funds that we don't want to get into
because it's getting late.
So this is something you've seen several times.
This is the base reduction summary.
I know we've gone over this.
Dr. Anderson went over this,
I believe a couple of times.
This really hasn't changed,
but you can look at each one of these line items.
And if you were to choose to approve the whole thing,
that is wonderful.
If you were to pull things in and out,
push things in and out of this base reduction
and summary plan,
then you would get your dollar amount
to approve in the base summary.
The base summary does come out to the reductions
about 4,073,616 dollars.
So that means we have over a million
that we still need to cut about 1.7 million,
just under 1.7 million.
So when you look back at that base summary,
there's been some questions,
perhaps the biggest question we've gotten
has been about how do we count $100,000
from the Beloit virtual school?
That is an option that parents have
for our elementary students
as well as middle school and high school.
That would mean limiting some of the elementary enrollees.
So keep it to those who are in the expulsion realm
and then allowing the nine through 12th graders
to enroll in that,
or excuse me, the six through 12th graders
to enroll in that as an option.
So the cost per student is different
through those programs.
For grades six through 12,
it's $290 per student or per semester course.
And so if we took 90 students
with three courses in two semesters,
that's $156,600 per year.
That's where the figure comes.
And then K5, it's $1,000 per student.
So if we had 24 students,
then the enrollment cost for that would be $48,000 per year.
So that puts us at about $204,600 total.
If we were to keep that number,
that's why we did the reduction to $100,000 on that.
Dr. Mott, can you repeat that?
But a little bit slower so that I can absorb it.
Sure.
Because I did ask for the enrollment
of the virtual school by grade level.
And I was still having a hard time understanding
how reducing this by $100,000
and eliminating the elementary level
is going to save us money.
Because if you look at what the state revenue per student is,
it's more than the $100,000.
So if you could.
Sure.
And I may have been into Stephanie
to answer a little bit of that as well.
OK, thanks.
Or Dr. O'erndestrin.
But the K5 students, it's $1,000 per student
to register them for the program, OK?
So we pay $1,000 per student.
The 6 through 12 graders, it's $290 per course per semester,
OK, per semester courses.
But 90 students times three courses times two semesters
gives us $156,600 per year.
But the request is only to eliminate the elementary.
So the elementary, I try to remember correctly,
was much fewer than 90.
Correct.
You want to jump in?
Actually, the reduction is not from the elementary.
The reduction is that right now we
have a lot of students in the high school
that take it as an alternative to taking the regular course.
So rather than taking like sociology at school,
what they do is they sign up to take sociology
through the virtual school.
And we have found that when the parents and students
are looking at it, a lot of them are looking at an option
and they're not very successful.
So what we're looking at is actually
limiting in it more at the junior high and high school
level to those either where the counselors recommending it
or where it may be being recommended because of an expulsion.
But those that are just looking to not take it
in the regular in front of a teacher,
but taking it this way, we found that's not been successful.
So that's actually the number we're reducing.
Greatly to save us 100,000.
Thank you.
OK, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I appreciate that that makes it clearer.
And now I understand that it makes more sense.
OK.
Did any board members have any questions
on the virtual school reduction?
Joanne?
As of this today, there are about six.
No, I don't.
Thank you.
Thank you.
There are about 62 enrolled for 2027.
From grades 1 through 12.
So then you have two pages of base reductions to look at.
And then the overall, if you approve
the whole base reduction plan, you still
need to eliminate $1,626,384.
Do you mind if we pause at this point in your?
No.
Presentation.
Are there any changes, alterations,
you as interim, coming interim, superintendent,
that you have any pause or hesitancy with?
There are positions on the base reductions
that some of this is going to be a little fluid, right?
Because some of them are like they reduced the gifted
and talented person that we had one, that person retired.
There are still two left, OK?
So that is title funds.
Stephanie, can you go to the next page?
The TLE curriculum savings, for example,
that 125,000, that is a low estimate.
We have not gone through all the curriculum yet.
So again, that is a little fluid.
It could go up, go down a little bit.
The reclassification of library media
para to early literacy paras.
We've kind of talked about that last time.
If we redo job description and really work with that,
work with Rachelle Elliott and literacy coaches
and the library media paras, we can reclassify some of that
and use both title funds and our fund 10 to pay people.
So again, this is a draft right until October.
But this overall is the dollar amount for your base budget.
So this is looking at these reductions
is probably going to be your top dollar of reduction.
So if you were to not reclassify the media paras
to early literacy paras, we would have
to put them back in to the regular budget.
And then the proposal on that remember
was to have them at 0.5 at each building.
If we considered keeping them as library media paras,
but also had them doing literacy focus with our K3 students,
then they could be remained full time 1.0 in the building.
So they'd be paid 50% from title funds and 50% from regular funds.
So there's some discrepancy.
You have to play with numbers and that.
Thank you, Dr. Gordon.
Do you have any objection if I have the board ask questions
right now on the base reduction plan summary
and we take action on that?
OK.
Do any board members have any questions or comments?
It's Tom.
Thank you, Board President.
Dr. Gordon and Dr. Anderson, as we've
gone through this budget cycle, there have been many things
that we've talked about that I don't
see in this base reduction plan.
We talked about Director of Nursing.
We talked about Nursing.
We talked about, and I believe I can say this out loud
because I thought you said it out loud,
that our president legal service that they could have,
they will save us $175,000, and yet I only say $100,000,
and we also talked about an in-house attorney.
We also talked about reductions as minuscule,
as bringing our own water to the board rooms and stuff like that.
And I know those are tiny, but no, the bigger ones
are Director of Nursing.
We talked about that at length, and we
talked about nursing in the schools.
And reclassifying those.
But I don't see those in this base plan.
And then what really, the legal is a big price tag.
And everybody knows how much we paid in legal services.
And quite frankly, if I'm wrong, but you told me
that Bucama associate said they could shave $175,000,
and I don't only see $100,000 reduction.
Thank you.
Dr. Anderson?
I'll let you respond.
And while you're coming up to the podium,
I did talk to our legal, the board attorney, Lauren Beren.
And she did say that they are working with Dr. Anderson
to reduce legal costs and has given some examples of what
she meant by that.
And she's willing to have a meeting with the board
if we need to meet with her, if board members
have specific questions of the little better.
Dr. Anderson?
In the dollar mall was $100,000.
So when we talked, it was that when I talked to the legal,
is that they felt they worked the other way,
could shave off the $100,000.
We do have that recorded already on the base reduction split.
And some of the other things that you mentioned
in the upcoming slides for the base reduction.
So let's say the board passes this.
Then at least we have a level to start off
with at $4 million.
We know to get to, not using Op-EB funds, indeed 1.7,
there are several options as we go through
that the board could take in one of those deals
with nursing services.
I really am trying to be quiet, but I'm not good at it.
No, no, I asked you to do it.
OK, so we will go through those tonight also then.
Good, thank you.
Any other board members?
Joanne?
Yeah, so this is just the first step, right?
Time was asking.
So could we make a motion and then have discussion
and vote on it so we can keep moving?
Correct.
OK, can I make a motion then?
Go ahead.
All right, I move approval.
Are we calling this the base reduction final option
plan for $26.27 full year then?
Yes.
One dated $17.26?
Yes, please.
OK, so I move approval of the base reduction final option
plan for $26.27 school and your dated $6.17.26.
Second?
We have a motion by Joanne Roo and a second
by Megan Miller.
Are there any board member questions or comments?
Carol Fox?
Yes, I'm perfectly fine with that as long as we can say
with additions, because I'm not approving it as it's written.
I'm approving it that $4 million with additions.
I believe that's what they said that they want to do, right?
So the answer to both of you is yes.
We, Carol, if you want, we can move
to have additions to this base reduction summary plan.
We will be going through some of the other items
in the PowerPoint after this.
And this is a preliminary budget.
I would really like for us to have a motion on something
so that our HR department and our finance department,
all of our departments can start moving forward
and preparing for next year.
So this would be the we are proving the preliminary budget.
It's subject to change up through October something.
The budget hearing should be in October.
Yes, thank you.
Well, I'm hoping it's subject to change this evening.
Correct.
It will.
There's more.
There's more.
Tom?
I'm saying the same thing.
I'm just wondering if we could call it the preliminary
base reduction plan.
I'd feel more comfortable with that.
Is that a motion or I'm sorry, an amendment?
Yes.
OK.
So, Tom, my understanding is you want to move an amendment
to the motion to add the word preliminary to the title.
Or at least, well, I know it will be discussed,
but yes, I think that would make me feel more
comfortable that it is everyone knows.
I know it's preliminary.
It's inherent in that, but I just want to say that to the public.
Thank you.
I'm not disagreeing.
Is there a second?
Second.
The second by Bill Johnson.
Any discussion?
Yes.
Go ahead.
I just want to make for clarity purposes.
So this we're calling the base reduction plan.
So this is a start.
There will be several options that come from this point on.
But remember, for any of those options to be added or subtracted
from the amount, it means that four of you have to agree.
So, I mean, to Carol's point, you could vote on this base
reduction and come to no agreement on any other item.
So, I mean, I just want to be clear and forth right is that this
is our base for us to get started.
There's several items after this, a multitude of items.
But remember, if no of those items get a majority vote,
they don't get added or subtracted.
So if you were deadlocked the rest of the night,
this could be where you're ended up.
And I just want to make sure there's clarity for everyone.
Thank you, Dr. Anderson.
Any other board member questions or discussion?
Megan Miller?
Thank you so much.
Just two things.
One, yeah, Tom, I think that the preliminary is important in
terms of communication.
We talked a lot about communication up here.
So I think that makes a lot of sense.
Just as a point of clarification, we can't even pass like a final
budget until the state releases information on October 15th,
also in the interest of clarity.
So no disagreement or dispute there.
I am totally comfortable with the word preliminary,
because that is, in fact, what this is.
And I just wanted to echo Dr. Anderson.
If, and I hope that that's not the case, but if this is the only
thing that were to pass tonight, we still have between now and
really the end of October, right?
And so I just say that out of full respect to everybody on here
that it could feel like there's a lot of urgency.
But I have total confidence we'll get there.
But I agree with Board President Johnson.
Just wanted to clarify our clarification.
But thank you.
So, Bill, go ahead.
I just say let's vote.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And to be clear, to summarize what Tom and Megan are saying,
we are in a budget cycle.
The budget is not finalized tonight.
It's finalized later this year, and we can continue to make changes.
That is absolutely legal.
With that said, we are voting on the amendment.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
The amendment carries.
The original motion.
Any other discussion?
I do have a discussion point.
I would like to see a motion to add a provision to the item
reduction in field trips cost that we have a policy drafted and
moved to the 26-27 school year, addressing the issue of teams and
clubs requesting field trip funds from the Board of Education.
Madam Chair, I have a quick clarification.
Go ahead.
So, I appreciated your comments at the start about the
prerogative of the chair.
And so, your suggestion of a motion would make sense.
We're going to have a list of motions.
So, you set the rules of order for the night, and we all agreed with
them.
So, I would just say that that is a perfectly, and you have the
right to make that the first motion after the fact.
But we, I understood your intention was to do the base,
preliminary base reduction plan summary first, and then we can,
we have that Google Doc.
We have a whole bunch of, I assume we're going to try to go
through anyone that gets the motion in a second.
So, I would just request that we just, you could do that as your
first motion.
Otherwise, there could be a list of, I mean, the reason is, and the
reason for my point is not to pick on your motion, but then what
stopping all of us from making all of our individual motions is
part of this when the intent was to do the base one first.
The reason why I'm adding this, why I wanted to add this to this
is because I'd like for us to get the base done in over with and
then move on.
That, that was my reasoning behind that.
I promise as policy chair too.
Why, why, why thank you?
And for as much as I appreciate that and I appreciate you.
I, I want this in the minutes.
Okay, so I, I'll, I'll come back to that.
So, all in favor of approving the base reduction plan.
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.
Any opposed?
Motion carries unanimously.
Now, I would like to add a provision that we have a policy
drafted and approved to address the issue of requests for field trip
money.
So moved by Megan Miller, seconded by Dan Shuf.
Any discussion?
Tom.
Just a question.
I think you went over it.
So this is, it will be in effect as of September 1.
So this upcoming year.
And that's why I'm thinking the expediency of getting this policy
changed.
So we start the new year with this policy in place.
Yeah.
And I'm not saying what that policy is just that we just got to,
it's got to be done in the next month or.
Correct.
Yeah.
And I believe that they're in the process of, of working on it.
And yeah, I'm not saying that, you know, I'm, I'm just saying
that we have something in place guiding all of us guiding our
administration to, you know, follow these policies where it's not
all kind of chaotic.
Any other comments or questions?
There is a motion by Megan Miller, seconded by Dan Shuf.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries unanimously.
Dr. Gordon, thank you.
Thank you.
Ready to move on?
All right.
Okay.
So now you have other decisions to do, right?
So, um, for a long time, we've been hearing about capacity and the
utilization of the capacity of our buildings.
Um, you will see all the buildings listed.
Um, the maximum capacity and the functional capacity and then the
enrollment.
Um, the enrollment was taken on May 1st, um, of 2026.
So when students were still in school.
Um, on the next page, I have the class size policy.
For all the grade levels.
Um, elementary 3K through, um, third grade teacher class size 22 to
one.
So 22 students, one teacher or 30 students to two teachers.
So it just kind of depends on which school you're in and how that might
look.
Um, elementary school, fourth and fifth grade students.
Um, those teachers in fourth and fifth grade have, um, 30 students on
average.
Um, middle school, six through eight.
Um, generally the core classes, 30 students to one teacher.
Elective classes, 30 to one or a 15 to one minimum.
So if there's not 15 students in the class enrolled, um, need to take a
look at whether we need that class that or not.
And then Phi Ed class, 30 students to one teacher.
And then, um, high school is very similar to the middle school.
Um, 30 students to one teacher and a minimum of 15 to one.
And if they don't have 15 to one, we look at, um, what we might need to
do to, um, change the class selection.
So, um, thinking back to where we were on the capacity plan or the capacity,
I guess, study, if you want to call it that, um, converse, I'm going to use it as an
example because that's where I was at last.
Um, so it's familiar.
The capacity, I believe, said 412.
Okay.
So I just wanted to put this out there.
Um, we get funding in our district called AGR funding and AGR funding, um, is,
it gives us the opportunity to have either lower class size.
So the, the lower class size is 18 students to one teacher.
Um, tutoring, which has to be done, um, one on one with students by a
specifically licensed individual or coaches.
So we do know we have coaches in our, in our district, right?
Literacy and math coaches.
But we also use, um, some of our AGR funding for classrooms to have,
if we have a classroom that is a teacher with 18 students or less, we can use our AGR
funds from the state, from our AGR funds to pay for that teacher for the year.
So if we were to maximize our AGR funds, just at converse, and this is not what
happened last year, not at all, but just the example I'm using, um, if we were to maximize
our AGR funding and, um, look at where we are compared to the capacity, we could
only hold 410 students based on where we would be according to, um, board policy
for students in seats and what we would need to do for AGR.
So I just wanted to put that out there, that just because it says we can have so many
kids in a class or in the building, um, there, if we're using specifics for, um,
funding for, you know, for our AGR funds or for looking at board policy, those numbers
might have to be a little bit different, might be, um, a little off from where the capacity
study says, so I just wanted to bring that to your attention.
Dr. Gordon, and just, again, for clarification, AGR funding can be applied to what grade
levels?
K through three.
K through three.
Yup.
So K through three, um, 18 students to one teacher or 30 students to two teachers is how
they, um, parse out that AGR funding.
Thank you.
Any other questions on AGR funding or?
Okay.
Okay.
So this is how we used our AGR, um, fund money and title fund money from 2526.
And you can kind of see on there, um, where we applied title one funds, where we applied
AGR funds and where it does say classroom teachers where it says TBD, some of the
schools had teachers being paid through AGR funds, some of them did not.
Um, so that is very fluid and, um, throughout the year, students leave our schools and enter
our schools.
So it kind of goes up and down.
So the AGR fund money, um, gets put in the teachers get put in the end of the year in
the staffing plan.
Okay.
So that's why that is like that.
So if you had started the class or the school year with 18, but then at the end of the school
year, you had ended up with 23 in your class size, we can't pay you.
We can't use the AGR funds to pay you.
So that comes out of the general.
Okay.
So, and then there's the rest of the, um, the schools that utilize the title funds and
AGR funds.
So the middle schools don't use, um, AGR funds, but they do use title funding.
And then BLA also had a position, but they did not hire would were not able to hire
there.
It was a vacancy.
And then that's just our district wide.
So we have title funds for some of our liaison positions.
The graduation coach, um, like I said before, the advanced learning teachers came out of
title.
So we have had two, um, what we had three, one was, um, paid for, with district funds
and then two were out of title.
Um, and then the bilingual family support coordinator gets split between three title
budgets, title one, title two and, or excuse me, title one and three, not two, sorry,
two budgets.
And then, um, our early childhood teacher gets paid out of that.
So if you can really tell that a lot of our staffing depends on what we receive for title
funds and AGR funds.
So you can tell the predictability is a little bit hard sometimes because we don't actually
get our budgets finalized until later, right?
So it's kind of, um, like a puzzle, you know, what we're going to do, um, where we're at,
um, with our funds in the district.
So, and it's not just the light, it's everywhere, right?
But we have to anticipate where we are going to use those funds for 26, 27.
And I will show you that in just a minute.
This was our enrollment as of May 8th for, so for the last school year.
Um, so kind of where we're ending the school year, 4,000.
I think it does a six or eight at the bottom.
I'm not on like 6,082 92.
So not too bad.
And then we're going to talk a little bit more about maximizing our funds.
So this is where we are right now with our AGR and title funds.
But like I said, we don't have the for sure with the title funds or the AGR funds.
We can guess we have a guesstimate of where we might be and who we are going to utilize
those funds to pay for.
But again, um, you know, we don't know where it says classroom teachers to be determined.
We don't have all of our families enrolled yet.
We won't even have those numbers in September.
Um, so it, it's fluid as far as how that works as well.
You can, and then it just goes on through the district.
Um, on the bottom of this page, you can see that we have some new positions.
You asked about how we're going to use funds to improve our reading and our academics.
So, um, there's been some early reading professionals that have been, um, included in our title
funds if we have those positions, uh, posted so our, our people can apply, but they will
get specific training on our literacy programs and what, how to work with kids and have some
specific professional learning opportunities.
And all of that is to support our students in grades K through three with their specific
learning needs specifically in the area of literacy.
Um, and then academic support, um, there will be, uh, academic, academic support at the elementary
levels.
So, um, Converse Gaston, Meryl Robinson, um, so there'll be kind of split around and
then, um, behavior interventionist, maybe, um, we had, Eric, we had recommended too,
but there might not be room in the budget there, but we put that on as a line item anyway.
So again, it's a little fluid with our funding, but how we would plan to use it.
Are there any board member questions?
Carol?
Um, yeah, in the 26, 27, we still have the, um, family support at point five and yet on
the preliminary budget is point three.
Are you changing that?
Yes.
No.
It can be.
We can depending on what our funds look like.
Okay.
Any other board members?
Dr. Malat.
Okay.
Um, something else you had talked about was possibly looking at, um, some freezes.
So we have on this slide, you have each, um, salary group, I guess, if you will, um,
and how that would be impactful if we were to freeze, freeze a salary, but they are the
2.63% move is also there as well because that was proposed earlier.
Are there any board member questions on the raised distribution by group?
I just want to thank you for this information.
It's really helpful as we, for today, didn't going forward.
So thank you.
Dr. Gordon, do you have a recommendation for the board on raises?
Well, of course I would like everyone to get one, right?
In an optimal world, it would be the best thing.
Everybody should get everything, right?
In the optimal world, we wouldn't be sitting in this position, right?
Um, so honestly, I feel our teachers and paras, you know, par, teachers, paras, secretaries
are, you know, really essential, um, health and resistance, critical staff, um, you know,
I would rather, I would rather give a raise to a teacher than get a, um, salary increase
myself.
Um, and I'm not sure everybody feels that way, but that, you asked me my, my recommendation,
I would, um, give them the raises, everyone.
I would give them prioritized teachers, paras, um, the hourly staff.
Okay, would you like a motion on the raises?
If you would like to do a motion, okay, um, do any board members have any questions before
I ask for a motion?
Yeah, just a clarifying question.
So the, the base budget we passed had the 2.63 and for, for everyone correct.
So we would need a motion if we were going to subtract any raises out of these line items
that the idea.
Um, my understanding is if the, we all understand that the base may fluctuate with some of these
subsequent motions.
Is, is that what, is, is that does everybody understand that?
Because what we decide, if we decide to close 3 schools, obviously the base is going to,
to be modified.
Yeah, I'm asking just a, um, a new person question here.
So, um, if we do not, if we don't do a raise motion, uh, the current guidance that you
all gave to them, to the administration was to give everyone 2.63.
So that's in the base.
So we need.
Yeah, that was in your base.
Okay.
So we need to do a motion if we want to make it higher, make it lower, take different lines,
but that, that's why we would need, I'm asking, that's why we would need a motion.
Yes.
Okay.
And, and I'm not suggesting one way or another.
I just know that we have been receiving, um, different, um, suggestions from community
members, from staff members, and maybe some of us have heard, well, maybe not everybody
really should have a 2.63 raise.
Maybe some may need, uh, 1% raise and that should be good for that class or, you know,
we, we are not, um, we're not committed to this 100% if, if somebody, if the majority
of the board wants to change that my question has been answered.
Thank you.
Joanne.
Yes.
Thank you.
Yes.
Thank you.
Um, so I just am asking for clarification, Dr. Gordon.
Um, so were you referring to teachers, admin assistance, clerical, instructional support,
paraprofessionals, maintenance, and permanent subs, you mentioned hourly employees.
Were you just taking out the administrative ones?
The ones that are listed at the bottom.
As the administrator and cabinet, directors, principals and assistant principals.
Yep.
If you were going to not give a category a, um, bump, I would not give that category bump.
Okay.
And then I have a second question.
Um, I think Dr. Gordon salary is less than what?
Dr. Garrison or.
Dr. Anderson.
We're receiving.
Did we put that into the budget for reductions that we've made so far to.
It is not in there.
Okay.
So we need to make sure we update that to right.
Stephanie said yes, it will be.
Okay.
Thank you.
Those are my only questions, but just to remind everyone.
So these raises are currently built into the budget.
So if you give, if you raise it up, then of course we have to find more money.
If you decrease it, then of course, there's less money you have to add, but these are already built into.
The budget as it stands.
Correct.
Any other board members?
Megan.
Thank you.
So given that last question on that sort of changed my position on where I'm at, um, I am not opposed to making a change to administrative pay.
However, one of seven, I would feel a little bit more comfortable making that change after we have like 100% like updated numbers.
And the reason for that is not to be nitpicky, but it's, it's nice to be able to say, okay, well, we're saving this exact amount here and that offsets that.
You know what I'm saying?
So I can go either way, but that would be my preference.
Okay.
Anyone else?
Tom.
Again, clarifying.
So the motion will be.
A raise to all or a raise to everyone but administration.
Um, we have decided that if you, if you want to, so right now.
We have it set.
So every employee gets the 2.63 raise.
If we want to say, wait a minute, um, rather than, um, giving administrators who usually are on the higher side of the pay scale, a full 2.63.
Raise, we could scale that back and say, actually, we'd like to give them 0, 1, 1.5, you know, anywhere in, in between that.
Yeah, we could technically go higher, but I don't would not recommend that whatsoever.
So that's, that's what that is.
And Megan is correct.
We don't have to have that solidified tonight.
Um, I think it'll be easier that, you know, the more we can get through this tonight, everybody can go have a good 4th of July holiday.
And we, you know, if we need to make changes at our next board meeting, we can do that.
But, um, I know our staff also deserve a certain level of respect and peace of mind.
And this has been a very long process and the sooner we get through this better bill.
Did you have any comments or thoughts?
Okay.
Um, if there's no motion, Dr. Gordon, I'll have you continue on.
Okay.
The next area we talked about, um, have been the elementary dean positions.
Um, so the question is, does the board want to retain the elementary dean positions?
In 2526, we had allocated for six, um, FTEs for our deans.
We only had four actually in place.
Um, and one was actually, um, 0.5 at Merrill.
Um, but the cost, if we had had six was $588,000.
In 2627, we could, um, proposed eliminate the deans.
So six at about 98,000 a piece.
We could split the deans, um, between the six buildings.
So essentially have three deans, which would cost you about 196,000.
So on the bottom, I have put what your budget, your base budget was that you recommended for approval.
Um, plus the staffing, the dean staffing from last year.
So that gives you 4,661,676.
You're getting a little bit closer to what you're wanting to be with zero and with the, um, deans going between two buildings.
So 0.5 Dean at each building, um, gets you a little bit less close to the, um, 5 million, but you have your two figures there so that if you had, you approve your base preliminary budget.
So these are your two figures. If you want, um, to eliminate the deans, you know, that would save you 588,000.
If you want to split them, then you, you say about 196,000.
Any board member questions?
Again.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Dr. Gordon, do you have an opinion on what the board should do on this?
This is a specific one.
If you're listening to all of the principal speak, they would like to have the deans.
It is a position that has been utilized in the buildings that have the dean has been utilized to a high capacity.
And, and so I would think that they would want to keep, they want to keep their deans.
I know Merrill had a point five because of the, the lower enrollment.
Um, and the point five worked very well there. Um, when principal McAllister moved over Robinson.
Um, Mr. Williams did follow her to Robinson because the need for a full time dean was there.
Um, so it was necessary. Um, behave, they're very instrumental in helping with behaviors and situations.
Um, calming kids. So it is an essential part of the admin and slash student services team.
Um, it, you know, it's a, it's a great, it's a great resource for our kids and it is a great asset to our building principals.
And real quick follow up. Just, um, so if we were to do the point five in, you know, half of them, um,
0.5 and all of them. So we have half as many. Um, would, would that work where you would hire a half time person?
Or they go between two buildings or how has this worked when you had the point five?
Yeah, it's difficult to hire a half time person. Um, Mr. Williams is, um, an amazing person and he was fine working half time.
Um, because he's worked here for many, many years, but finding a half time individual is, is not easy.
So typically, um, we would recommend a 1.0 and then have them split between two buildings.
All right. Thank you. Any other board members?
Carol.
You need to go back to that screen. Yes, you do.
Um, depending on what other cuts we make, um, I can see that we could leave the deans with the exception of Merrill school.
I think we need to cut that. Um, we don't, shouldn't need a dean for a school that is projected to have 150 students.
And also we're putting in a 0.5 counselor there. So they'll have, um, that support that they didn't have.
So instead of a dean, they'll have a 0.5 counselor.
So, um, we should be able to eliminate a dean position for Merrill Elementary.
Sorry, you're so the deans are in your preliminary to.
Because we didn't eliminate them. They have not been eliminated yet either. So this is, you know, another thing that you need to think about.
Okay. Are there any other board questions or?
Go ahead.
Do you want to join?
Yes. Um, so I, I would like to, but I don't, I think we need to know more about.
Okay, let me back up. Sorry.
First, I agree. I've heard from lots of teaching staff and support staff.
How important our deans are. So I think that, that what Dr. Gordon said is, is very, is, is clear to a lot of people that are in the buildings every day.
Um, I would say we need to wait until we've made some other decisions, whether what we do with the dean from Merrill. I think Merrill has shown that they, they need extra support.
You know, all the, all the data that we get from there. So I, I think, um, once we make some other decisions that it might be more clear what we need to do as far as the D net Merrill.
Megan Miller.
Thank you.
I just want to go back. I really appreciate how you started the entire presentation kind of on like, what is the foundational question and the considerations and one of the things that, you know, in our board guidance, we highlighted with sustainability.
And so when I think about the dean positions in addition to the obvious benefit that it gives to supporting children who have challenges with behaviors and of course, supporting teachers so that they can prioritize academics.
Um, just from like a logistic standpoint and a planning standpoint, we want to grow leaders in our district.
We have a fabulous homegrown leader standing in front of us right now.
And I think giving teachers the opportunities to get that administer, like sort of at least pseudo administrative experience as deans is really nice. Like, hey, we've got people kind of on deck to help grow and sustain our district.
And I think stability and leadership across the board. If you look at all research and high performing schools is always a key factor. So in addition to those reasons, I'm in support of maintaining deans for that reason as well.
Thank you. Any other board members?
Dr. Gordon, do you have any recommendations or thoughts on the dean position in terms of the salary?
Because we did, we did approve that position about a year ago or so, whatever I forget exactly when with a very specific salary range and with any job description.
Are there any changes that you would recommend? And I'm asking because obviously we don't have all of our dean positions filled is the problem, the salary.
That's a good question. So I believe the reason we don't have all of our dean positions filled was because of the way it was rolled out last year. It was rolled out way too late.
Many of the applicants that we had applied and then things took a turn. The salary fluctuated. It wasn't transparent. They went back to their old district or took jobs somewhere else.
I believe in transparency. So if we were to hire our deans now, we have several still, they're hoping they have a job.
We have several and we have applicants in the dean pool on weekend. So if we get this together and we roll it out the correct way, I don't see that we need to do a huge jump.
But everything has inflated. If you have filled up your car, it's very obvious.
So a 2.63 at very least would be appreciated for our deans, but perhaps looking at where they are as far as education or where they've been in the district for a couple years, that might be something to look at with HR.
Thank you. Any other board questions or comments? Okay, Dr. Gordon.
Okay, the next part is just for a showing of where we're kind of sitting at Colac.
In the 2017-2018 school year, there were 54 employees listed as being at Colac. And then the 25-26 looks like we have about 30. On any given day, there's probably not 30 people here.
At Colac, but the number of directors has gone down, the number of execs have gone down. So you can just kind of see that they've been working on downsizing here as well.
Because there is that perception that Colac is very heavy, but it's really not anymore. Perhaps a couple years ago it was, there was 24 more employees here.
But they really have downsized their departments and teams quite a lot here at Colac. So just wanted to be transparent with where we're at with Colac.
Any board member questions? Bill?
I think that needs to be get out to the public that how many years down when people keep saying, you know, there's somebody there or whatever and show them that stats right there.
It's not true what they're saying. Right, thank you.
I do have a question and it doesn't need to be answered now, but I'm really perplexed that in the 2017-2018 school year we had 11 academic support.
But then the other two years represented there aren't any.
Yeah, I believe, and I don't have the full details on that because I was in a school very deeply.
I was talking with a couple of folks this morning and a lot of people have resigned, you know, throw attrition or those positions have been repurposed as well.
Thank you.
If you'd like, I can add some more context. Oh, perfect Michelle. She's been here forever.
So at that time that academic support number is also for we had.
Math support teachers that were in Colac. That was their home base. They would be there.
Like once a week usually. And so they were counted on the org chart.
Because that's where this information came from was the org charts. And so they were housed at Colac and that was their home base. And so they were there.
The gifted and talented program. They were all housed in Colac at that time. They're not housed here anymore. They don't have office space here.
So that's why those numbers were higher because they're considered the academic support. There's some other various sundry people too that were considered academic support like under the curriculum department.
And they're no longer in this building. They're either out in the district or the positions were eliminated.
Thank you, Michelle. Tom.
Okay.
Anyone else?
Go ahead, Dr. Gordon.
Okay. The next thing are there is the health services staffing that has been up for a couple months here.
In 2526 we spent quite a bit on our health services staff. 140,000 for director of health services.
463,500 for nurses. And 413,600 for our health room assistance. Our reduction options for 2627 are on the right in the blue.
Reduce two FTE nurses. Add a health room assistant. And reduce the director position for total cost savings adding back into your base budget of 273,700 dollars.
I do want to just mention that the delivery of services will look different if we kind of restructure the health services department.
There are HRAs in our buildings. They're a huge resource for our kids and our families and our teachers. They're amazing.
So I just want to put that out there that the look of what our folks do in the buildings might shift.
The nurses are the ones who do prep all of the field trip materials. So they take in all of the medications.
So when students and groups go on field trips, the nurses have to distribute all the medications out and make sure everything is legal.
Everything is signed. The teachers are trained. So the health room assistance don't do that. The nurses do.
So I just wanted to let you know that our services will look different.
If we reduce the two nurses, but then add in a health room assistant, that's amazing, right? Because we're actually putting another health room assistant out there.
But just reducing the nurses is going to spread our nurses a little bit thin. So if you were to do that, I would recommend that you think about some sort of a stipend for a nurse to be like a coordinator or something, which is not up here as a recommendation.
Because they are going to have a lot extra. The beginning of the school year is very intense for our health office staff because everybody's coming.
Medications are coming in, new medical situations that we don't know about are coming in. So I just wanted to be very transparent about that.
That our nurses are quite busy, very popular at the beginning of the school year, especially for the littles.
And then at any time there's a field trip, they're running like crazy. So they would have to definitely kind of alter the way they do things and the picture of how they do things would look different.
And I can't tell you how that would look personally because I'm not one of them. That would be something they have to work out together in their department and kind of facilitate who's going to do what and how that will work within them.
Thank you. Joanne Ru.
Yes, Dr. Gordon, what is, what would be your preference for how we do health service staffing?
Well, we are getting to be around a, around a 4,000 student district, correct? So it's really important to kind of take in that student, student staff ratio as a, as a figure.
Our students do come to school with a lot of health conditions. We seem to have an influx of asthma these days here.
And there's a lot of kids with gosh, there's a lot of diabetic students these days.
And so there's needs that our health room assistants and our nurses are definitely needed for.
Back in the day, our secretaries kind of dealt with the sickness and the medications and things, but it has become very much necessary to have a health room assistant in each building and then have the nurse be kind of checking in daily with the health room assistant.
So I know at the elementary level, the nurse would be on a rotation.
So she might be a half a day at one building and a half a day at the other or one full day at a building and another full day at a different building.
So I want to say that I would envision every school has a health room assistant and that there is a nurse that could cover two to three buildings.
I think that would be appropriate whether or not that's doable.
That is difficult for me to to decide I'm not a medical person, but there is there is a high number of needs here.
We do our nurses do food to feedings.
A lot of really, really intense stuff for some of our kids.
So just keeping those things in mind and they have a heavy job.
Joanne, did you have any other questions?
No, thank you.
Megan.
Thank you.
I'm so not happy, but happy that you mentioned asthma because what I was going to share is it's been kind of headline for quite a while now for a variety of reasons that Rock County has a disproportionately high rate of children and just people with asthma, there's air quality, etc.
So one of my questions about this item, kind of the piggyback off of Joanne is when, and I tried to chat down what you were saying just now, do you in order to, and I realize that you're not speaking from high.
I'm a medical expert, right, but from just from a district administration space.
Is there, do you think that those numbers like, like, would it be both financially responsible and also student need responsible, which is a theme that we've heard throughout the night, right?
We need to focus on needs over the numbers to reduce maybe a nursing position.
I liked the, I really liked what you said about having like the health room assistant at each building that seems very logical to me.
But again, I also don't have a medical background.
So I'm just speaking from my vantage point.
I would be curious to know, and I don't want to kick a can, it would be nice though to see a plan for how are we going to like looking at what our health room data is by building with the proposed options still meet those needs because I'm not saying we can't.
And it sounds like you don't necessarily have that information, which is okay, because that's very granular.
So while that would be my preference, do you have a sense of like the degree to which there is wiggle room between cutting one or two FTE nurse positions or any nursing positions to still be able to add a health room assistant.
To, you know, like to the total body.
So we'd have one at each building.
Yeah.
I mean, if you, if you call one, you'd have half of that 185, right, you can add that back.
I mean, there's thousands of health office visits a year, just honestly, and it's not just like, hey, I need a band aid.
It's stuff.
And so, you know, that's a very difficult thing for me to say.
Our student services and people services staff, excuse me, could answer that.
Michelle keeps very good detailed.
No, it's about that, as she needs to, about how many health office visits, ambulance visits, all the things I do have something, but I don't have it with me.
So it is, it is essential.
So anytime there's an ambulance call, the nurse comes over to the building if they're not in the building.
So they're, they're kind of all over the place.
So I know one day when I was at Robinson, there were like two ambulance calls at Converse.
And so the nurse that was at Merrill, Stephanie, got to Converse, left, got halfway back and came back to Converse.
So it's just a lot of, a lot of moving around for them.
I really appreciate that.
And I, I guess, and then I'm good.
I'll just clear if I'd love to hear whatever Ms. Beavers has to say, or if she's getting information, but I am really uncomfortable, one of seven, making any cuts really to health services.
And again, just not weighing out, not to diminish the value of anything else we've looked at.
But we're talking about like literal medical life saving situations.
So one of seven, my preference would be to cut nothing from health services, but I would love to hear whatever information we have about what the needs are and how, how we might best optimize staffing to meet those needs.
Dan Schuf.
Just a clarifying question.
Our base, base budget includes the 2526 staffing on the left.
Is that correct?
Dr. Gordon?
The base budget we passed includes the director of health services, five nurses and eight health room assistance.
That correct?
I'm getting there.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
And then this option that's in the blue box on the screen is to keep the director of health services, reduce two FT nurses, but add back in another health room assistant.
Okay, it's reduced the director position as well.
Does it take any, is there any interplay with the Medicaid billing that we're software we're trying to capture more MA costs?
Is there any difficulty with achieving our goals if we make these reductions?
I don't have that answer.
I can find that out for you, but I don't have that at this time.
That would have, there would have to be a plan developed on who's going to manage that.
Are there any other board member questions or comments?
Carol?
Do you want me to do this information?
Yes.
I was not happy to see that this was not part of the base plan because it's been part of the plan for a long time.
It is adding a health room assistant.
So there's health room assistance in every single building.
And we would still have three full time nurses.
You know, if you want to do anything, you could maybe add one more nurse.
But I went looking and it's like, you know, some of these places, like Sun Prairie, maybe their needs aren't as great, but they have 8,500 students.
They have two nurses and health room assistants in every building.
That's it.
8,500 students.
We have half of that.
I think we ought to be able to do it with three nurses and health room assistants in every building.
You know, it may be a bit of a struggle, but I think we ought to be able to do that.
You know, Janesville has 9,000 students.
They have six nurses.
So, you know, I think it's infinitely doable.
It'll look different.
Yes, you're right about that.
And there's some things that have to be changed.
And I do think that setting aside some coordinator money so that one of them could maybe become a coordinator and you would do that.
I think that's appropriate.
But I think we need to stick with this plan.
Any other board member questions or comments?
Tom?
Bill?
I agree with Carol.
Dan?
Just a procedural question.
So, is this where you, if people were to make a motion on this, this is where they would make it now.
Is this going to go through everything first?
How do you want to do this?
Yeah, I guess I am with Carol.
I'm a little confused that this wasn't in the base reduction as at least the director position was in options ABCD.
F final E enhanced.
Whichever option we had.
And this has been discussed, Dan, before you were a board member, this has been something that's been discussed for well over a year.
Looking at the, as we are making reductions, as Carol pointed out, other districts that are larger than we don't have the director position.
And Dr. Gordon, can you refresh our memory?
Right now we have what for our health care staff and in which buildings?
Okay, you're making me think here.
So, there's an HRA.
I believe in all the buildings except for BLA.
Is that correct, Missy?
No.
Oh, that's right.
Meryl does not have an HRA.
There's a nurse that is at Meryl and then there are three, five nurses total.
So, and they rotate.
They have buildings that they're assigned and they rotate.
Okay.
So, yeah, Dan, if somebody wants to make a motion on this so we can move forward, I would appreciate it.
So, real quick, once I'm not going to make the motion, but just want to have a point of discussion here.
To sort of achieve Carol's thoughts, you could take a quarter of.
So, you have those, the two FTE nurses save 185, 400.
A quarter of that is 46,500.
So, if you, that should be plenty to have the administration work out this sort of, you know, with fringes and everything lead a lead person.
So, that would be to make a simple motion would be achieve the box on the motion.
The motion would be the blue box to try to achieve 227, 200.
And give the administration the flexibility to work out a plan that has a lead or, you know, whatever they want to do from a health care perspective.
I actually think we're fine with just doing it as is because the director position actually is more than $140,000.
So, I move that we utilize the health plan suggested previously.
We eliminate the health school director.
We reduce the RNs to three positions, and we add one HRA position.
So, all buildings have a health room assistant.
May or may not have had one, but we budgeted for it.
I'll second.
We have a motion by Carol Fox and a second for Tom Hankins and just for clarification.
Carol, did I understand right?
So, you said reduce the nursing staff to three positions, not reduce it by three positions.
Correct.
Well, you reduce it down to so that we have three positions.
Okay.
We eliminate the school health director.
We add one HRA position so that all the buildings have a health room assistant with the total of nine.
And did I put in the, add a stipend for the coordinator position?
I don't know that I did.
So, we'll add that to the motion because nobody's seconded yet.
So, oh, Tom's seconded yet.
Okay.
But that's doable.
Okay.
Michelle, did you get the motion?
I think so.
Would you mind reading back what you have to make certain that we're all on the same page?
Yes.
Thank you.
Ten seconds.
Take your time.
Okay.
So, what I had for the motion was to move to reduce the nursing staff down to three FTE at 1.5 HRA position.
So, there's one in every building and eliminate the director of nursing services position.
Is that correct, Carol?
Okay.
So, any discussion, Joanne?
Okay.
So, we're going to eliminate two nurses and then ask at least one of them to pick up extra duties along with the extra duties from eliminating two full time nurses is that I'm just making sure I'm clear on this.
We'd ask one of them to take on some coordinator duties depending on how they, how they put themselves, you know, make themselves available to the buildings.
Megan.
Thank you.
I'm just going to say again, we've heard from a couple of different administrators over the last few weeks that while there is a, you know, we are making numbers, we're trying to make the most sense out of the numbers that we can that we haven't actually seen a plan yet for how those needs are going to be met.
I am not against making changes.
I would just prefer that we make changes when we see a viable option that meets the health needs of our current currently enrolled students.
And I know, like, I've already got a voicemail that I still need to return to a school nurse.
I mean, they're going through and updating all this information now, like, for the upcoming school year.
I'm not sure how long it would take to get just a, hey, here's our basic needs.
We have professionals who understand how best to meet those needs and just base a recommendation off of a plan that we can see, just like we were really like, we need to see a staff, see a staffing plan.
I just agree with that.
And I feel equally as strong that we need to see a plan to meet these health services.
So I'm not against making changes.
I am not in support of this particular motion at this time because we just haven't seen that plan.
Thank you.
Any other board members questions or comments?
Tom, Bill?
I will remind folks that I know at least in 2009 to 2012, we had many more students and we had two nurses receive a stipend to take the position of lead nurse.
And it worked.
It worked well.
And I don't know of any other public education position that has a director of nursing at this salary with these qualifications.
In fact, when even talking to people in the health field, it's startling.
And I don't know when or how we got so out of whack, but here we are.
And we do have to look at our finances.
I know we don't want to have to prioritize that.
We want to prioritize the needs of our children.
But we also have to be realistic where we're heading.
And I think I am definitely in support of this motion.
And I want the board.
I would prefer the board to support Dr. Gordon in making it work.
Joanne.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
I think it just is reducing to full time nurses and the health director at the same time seems like a lot.
Because we're going to be asking at least one, if not two nurses to pick up extra duties.
But they've already, they're already going to have to pick up extra duties.
Depending on how many nurses we reduce as well.
Would you like to make an amendment, Joanne?
I don't know.
Okay. Well, think about it. Sorry. Don't problem Megan.
No, that's okay. And I just in the spirit of collaboration, I thank you for saying what you said.
And however we roll forward, 100% committed to support, you know, we got to do what we got to do.
And I appreciate you creating space for us to, you know, they're just important.
There are things that have to be solved now or later, right? So just part of the discussion.
Given that I would be willing to make a motion to amend the motion that's on the table to remove the first bullet point,
the reduction of the two FTE nurses.
And this isn't part of my motion, but just with the understanding that this can come back, right? So.
I'd be willing to again, move to amend the motion that's on the table.
Just to remove the first bullet point, which says reduce to FTE nurses for the $185,400.
Oops.
Is that a motion?
Yes, it was.
And okay.
I'll second that.
Okay, so Joanne, just.
Just to make certain that you heard correctly, the amendment was to remove the first bullet point of reduced to full time employee nurses of $185,400.
Right. At this time, like, I hear what Megan saying to that, like, this is again something that, I mean, we still have some time before, even before school starts.
But yeah, I think there's some moving parts that we need to shake out before we decide for sure. And I think are, yeah, exactly why. Yeah.
We have a motion amendment and a second. Any other discussion on the amendment?
Hearing none, all in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Aye.
It sounds to me like the motion, the emotion to amend fails five to two.
If I did not hear any board members correctly.
No, that's fine. Can we get a roll call vote for the next one? No, just because I had a hard time hearing. Okay. Thanks. Yeah.
Can I, wait, can I ask Dr. Gordon, like, does Dr. Gordon feel that this is manageable having these three positions removed and adding the health room assistant?
That is a tricky question. I'm not a medical professional, nor would I ever want to speak to anyone like I am.
I do believe that this is something that will have to be reorganized through their department and there's going to have to be a understanding of what duties and responsibilities are.
So what is going to have to be clearly spelled out because the nurses are going to have to handle things in a different capacity as are the HRAs when the nurses are handling their duties. Thank you.
Before we move forward, is there any appetite from the board to consider reduction of a single FT E nurse rather than two?
Yeah, I'd be supportive of that. I think I'm hearing, looking forward to the work we'll do over the summer.
And I heard very loudly from Dr. Gordon about our resizing ourselves as we move to a smaller district. So I'm, you know, we're going to have to make that second reduction when attrition happens and probably the next year or the year after.
So, but I'd be supportive of making that reduction.
I will move that we reduce it to one FT E nurse.
Make an amendment to the motion.
Okay, so we have a motion to amend by Dan Shuf seconded by Joanne Ru.
The amendment is to reduce the original motion from reduction of two FT E nurses to one.
Dan.
That's correct.
Okay, your hand was up. I didn't know if you had a follow-up comment. Any board questions or comments? Bill.
As we go along, we can take a look at this and make sure that everything is working and we can't. We'll have to just change something around.
Yeah, correct.
So are we still planning on adding the health room assistant?
If we add another nurse, do we need the health room assistant?
I believe that was, yes, I believe that was a yes to have one in each building.
Any other board member questions or comments?
Mrs. Shope, when you are ready, a roll call vote, please.
And we're voting on the amendment to the original.
Do we know who seconded? I'm assuming.
Joanne, it was made by Dan Shuf seconded by Joanne Ru.
Thank you.
Bill Johnson.
They.
Joanne Ru.
I.
Carol Fox.
They.
Megan Miller.
I.
Tom Hankins.
They.
Dan Shuf.
I.
And Tia Johnson.
I.
Motion carried four to three.
Thank you.
Now we are voting on the amendment.
The real motion.
I'm sorry.
The original motion with the amendment and so that we are looking at reduction of one FTE adding a full time.
Health room assistant and reducing the director position.
Any questions?
And Mrs. Shope, may we have a roll call?
Yes.
Bill Johnson.
I.
Joanne Ru.
I.
Dan Shuf.
I.
Tom Hankins.
I.
Carol Fox.
I.
Megan Miller.
I.
And Tia Johnson.
I.
Motion carried unanimously.
Thank you.
Dr. Gordon.
Okay.
The next thing that has been on our list for quite some time is additional district office positions to be.
Eliminated.
So on there we have had the director of CTE and alternate Ed has shown up a couple of times.
And then the superintendent administrative assistant has also been proposed.
So you have 140,000 for the director of CTE and 78,000 for the superintendent administrative assistant.
We are working at total savings of 218,000 in the proposal.
Do any board members have any questions?
Joanne Ru.
Thank you.
So Dr. Gordon, your position that you're in right now already had its administrative assistant reduced.
And so the superintendent administrative assistant is kind of being shared between.
The superintendent and the assistant superintendent.
Correct.
As much as possible.
One of the assistant.
Assistance is processing open record requests most of the day.
Yes, which.
Yeah.
And we only get the bill for actually pulling the records, but not for redacting them.
Right.
Or there something about redacting isn't included in.
Costs or something. And so.
So we were already underwater when it comes to trying to get those requests filled in a timely.
So it seems like we really actually need.
That person.
And then the director of CTE and alternative education is also responsible for writing lots of grants.
I don't know.
Does someone have like.
A dollar amount for any of those are around.
An estimate of how much money is brought in with through grants through that position.
So I'll take your first comment first.
The superintendent administrative assistant does as much as she can to do both jobs at this point.
And the director of CTE and alternate Ed does bring in grant money.
And those grant funds are utilized mostly at the high school level for the alternate Ed programming.
So the CTE programming and all Ed programs.
So those funds are used for, you know, we have the auto shop.
We have the, oh gosh, the culinary.
We have the academies and so the funds are spread throughout the departments at the high school.
Stephanie.
So just wanted to make a comment about the Perkins grant.
So we have no one in the district that manages the Perkins grant.
So we contract with CISA to help us manage our Perkins grant.
And that is one of the CTE grants.
Now Jeff Stunrus, the director of CTE does like work with all the CTE teachers to make determinations about what they're going to purchase through their grants, but the actual management of the grant happens through CISA.
And that grant last year was close to $100,000.
The other funding that we get that has managed through the CTE office is the certificates that the students are earning through the CTE programs.
And that's called Act 59 or what's.
It's not Star College now.
No, it's not Star College.
Yeah, it's a.
That's what I wanted.
At $59.
So it's the dollars that the state gives us for the children that complete those certificates.
So he's not right.
There's not an actual grant that you write out of that department.
Can we go back to the first part where you.
The we have no one in the district to do this grant, but we have a direct CTE director.
Can you help enlighten us.
So there is a district licensure you have to have in order to be the recipient of the Perkins grant.
We don't have someone on staff that has that licensure, so we have to contract with CISA.
So we pay CISA a portion of our Perkins grant to because they have that licensure.
A portion of the $100,000.
That is correct.
Can you share that portion?
I don't know that I have the exact dollar amount in front of me.
Rough estimate, do you know?
I believe in the past it was close to 30, but I think we re negotiated that and it's much lower now.
I want to say it's.
To around $10,000.
Okay.
Okay.
Any board questions or comments?
Come.
Okay.
So if my question goes in and it's very interesting about the licensure that our CTE director doesn't carry.
And I know it's probably an accreditation.
Some kind of thing he has to go through or that person has to go through.
So if there is no CTE director, the job responsibilities falls to who?
Exactly.
Like I said before, when we're re landscaping the district, it's going to look different.
So there's going to be more responsibilities on more people as we do more with less.
So if that were the case, we would have to parse out his duties and assignments to other folks who can try to manage them in addition to all the work that they do now.
Yeah, you're welcome.
Any other board members, Carol?
I'm okay at the moment leaving those positions as is.
I think one of my recommendations later is that the positions that COAC need to be totally re-looked at, re-titled, redone, and figured out, you know, how those jobs need to look.
And that would be one of them.
I think we already had a discussion about moving the superintendent administrative assistant to work part late with TLE.
I think that's appropriate.
So I'm okay with both of those things.
My sense is that if Mr. Stenerus is going to remain the director of CTE, however, he needs to pursue the license.
Megan Miller?
I was actually literally going to say basically the exact same thing.
So I guess I'm just wondering if, and I don't know what, it's a can of worms to say we would find resources
to support licensure because that's a huge slap in the face to like every employee, myself included, who's out of their own pocket, got an additional licensure.
But I think, you know, maybe having a conversation and letting us know if or how we could support that would be great.
But yeah, there is fully agree with Ms. Fox.
I think the reorganization, again, by need, right, is totally spot on.
Thank you.
Any other board members, questions or comments?
Bill?
Yeah, I'm kind of new, but I'm always wondering, like, when we renegotiate, we always seem to get a lower.
Why hasn't anybody done that before?
Well, it's kind of like when you buy a car, right?
They give you the top dollar and then you can kind of get them down a little bit, negotiate.
It's, you know, you've got to do the same thing.
We did that with some curriculum resources too.
I mean, we tell people we don't have money.
So they sometimes do for us, just got to ask, right?
You don't ask the answer, though, it's no.
Sure.
Yep.
I just want to clarify.
So the position we are talking about is actually titled the director of secondary education.
CTE and alternative education, where the CTE is just a part of that overall title.
Dr. Gordon, what's your recommendation to the board?
I like Ms. Fox's idea of keeping those positions because the question is, what do you do?
That's a huge title, right?
And with that title comes a lot of job responsibilities, so that Mr. Stenres is everywhere.
But I do, you know, we can encourage him to pursue that CTE licensure part of his job.
And that, you know, in the end, that just makes him more valuable as well.
And as far as restructuring Colac of the TLE department, absolutely.
We can certainly work on that as we resize everything else.
Thank you.
Yeah, I think the entire Colac structure system needs to be looked at.
And also for clarification, the superintendent administrative assistant.
And keep it as just in the superintendent's office or just keep it working between the two,
which it sounds like if that's the case where we need a new job description.
I would put her between the two, yes.
Okay.
And that's what you meant, Carol.
Yes.
Okay.
Tom.
And I don't want to get in the weeds on the CTE director, but I know that CTE department is very critical for our school.
Boy, Memorial and the success of that.
But I'm just wondering, I'm licensed and sure as I've learned, you know, sometimes there's not a waiver.
But if you're working towards something that you can, you know, you know, I'm talking about Leah, that if, you know, somebody has something,
but they're a superintendent or, you know, a principal's working towards this, you can maybe get a break or something.
Sometimes we can ask.
Was this part of the base reduction plan already?
Do we need to take a motion or action on this one?
It was not on the base reduction.
Okay.
And because we're keeping basically, it sounds like the will of the board is to keep both of them.
I mean, it doesn't sound like we need emotion if we're keeping both of them.
And you'll just bring that one position back, back with a new job description.
Correct.
Or both.
Yeah.
I'm sorry, both.
Thank you, Tom.
Okay.
Next item.
Just double checking.
Sorry.
Okay.
Oh, no, no, no, sorry about the next one.
That's nice.
Oh, you know what?
It is seven o'clock.
Is there a motion to extend the meeting by half an hour?
So moved.
Second.
Motion by Dan.
Shoe seconded by Bill Johnson.
Any discussion?
Hearing none.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries.
Okay.
Thank you.
The next part.
Moving students and moving students.
So moving Merrill students, the proposed reductions.
The total you have there is nine hundred ten thousand six hundred forty four.
And there is a breakdown in what would be reduced and how that would look.
These are in addition to the base plan.
And moving would mean Todd Robinson.
I do want to just remind you that if we were to put the students from Merrill into Todd
Robinson at this point, that would impact the class sizes.
So potentially could impact how we use AGR funds.
If we were to use AGR funds for reduction in class size.
Just as a reminder.
Thank you.
Megan Miller.
Thank you so much.
A couple of things.
First of all, I really appreciate you delineating all of that.
I think we've heard a lot about communication and transparency.
I think it's absolutely important.
Like I think like what Bill was saying earlier to have that information visible and out there.
Given the unknowns like that you just mentioned about AGR allocating positions class size.
And also the additional I'm really concerned, I guess about the transportation costs and given, you know, and I keep saying that sorry, but looking at gas looking at that.
And I don't want to say, you know, it is extremely costly is like disproportionately it seems costly to our budget to deal with transportation.
I think that it is responsible for us as a governing body to keep options all on the table.
I am not at this time in support of making this move.
I do want to thank though, Dr. Gordon and the entire administration for delineating those costs because like again, that trust building and transparency is really important.
So at this time, I'm not in favor, but I do appreciate the information.
Yeah, you bring up a good point with the busing.
If we were to move those students, it would be a potential additional three bus routes for, you know, two hundred and ten thousand dollar price tag.
And your utility savings is only about thirty thousand.
So it's not a really even trade off.
Thank you.
Joanne.
Yes.
Okay.
So, um, on, on slide thirty eight, it talks about a gr funding for Merrill being three hundred ten thousand dollars.
If we, if we closed Merrill and move those children over.
Would, I mean, is it.
Do we get money per building? Is it per student? Is it per classroom?
So this three hundred ten thousand dollars, what happens to that?
If we eliminate the Merrill school.
So that's a really good question. We did reach out to DPI to just to be clear on how that would work.
The AGR funding would follow the students.
However, it would just kind of eliminate the possibility or really decrease the possibility of being able to use the AGR dollars for smaller class sizes.
Because putting more students at those two buildings that are already pretty full.
If you look at their, their enrollment, it would, it would increase class sizes in some classrooms.
So just, just wanted to be transparent there.
But that money does follow the students.
So if, you know, thinking about that for now or in the future.
If we continue to receive AGR funding, the AGR funding will follow our students.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Just to be clear, I'm totally not in favor of closing Merrill at this time.
I think it makes more sense to think about other ways to use the whole building there and keep Merrill there for this year than to close it all together, especially, especially considering class sizes.
I think as one of many teachers who say this often.
One to 18 is way, way more manageable than one to 25, 30 kindergartners.
Carol Fox.
So AGR funds allows us just to pay for any staff member.
If the class sizes is under 18 in K through three.
License teacher.
Yeah.
So if we can continue to run Merrill and make sure that all of their classes are below that, then all of those teachers would be paid for the K three teachers could be paid for out of AGR funds.
If we can do that, absolutely.
That's a goal.
Okay.
My concern also with the AGR funds is not so much the Merrill funds is, is the funds for Todd and Robinson that we make those class sizes so large.
We couldn't use those funds either.
And that is really problematic, I think.
So I'm also at this point, not in favor of closing Merrill because of that reason.
I think we just would lose more money than we would gain by closing that school at this point.
I think we need to close it at some point.
But as an elementary school, I'm, I'm sure we can repurpose the building perhaps for something else.
But I'm not, I think we're risking more money than we'd gain at this point.
So as we move forward, we really need to think about how, how we can figure in what we do, how that's going to affect things like AGR and Title 1.
It's a good learning experience that way too.
Thank you. Any other board members who would like to weigh in?
Bill.
Oh, do you know what it'd be like a 50 50 split.
Marrow would have the kids. We don't know yet.
That's a good question. So it depends on their boundary where they live.
So we would have to kind of do some redistricting and see who should go where based on where they live and what the transportation would look like for the kids.
So the closest bus route is usually, you know, so they, the bus company works with us on that and they would help with that.
But we would try to make it as even as possible. But, you know, they're, it just kind of depends on what, what that would look like.
Maybe we could fit some of the kids into the classroom to get the money or.
If we have to play with the numbers.
Yes. Okay. Thanks.
You're welcome.
Tom or Dan?
No.
I'm not in favor of closing Merrill elementary as an elementary school right now.
You know, I know, I know that it may be something we have to consider down the line, but looking at the.
Additional money for the transportation.
To me, we would be doing a disservice to those families and staff members and taxpayers because it's not the.
Bang for the buck that we would really need.
So if board members don't, if there are no objections, I will ask Dr. Gordon to continue on.
Dr. Gordon.
Thank you.
Okay.
The next one, BLA.
Moving BLA BH or BMHS so kind of creating that school within the school.
So if we were to move BLA to BHS, there's various places that have been looked at in the building. Stephanie had had sent something.
That looked like they could fit it, you know, kind of in a wing.
There's lots of discussion about how that could look or where they could go.
The proposed reduction for relocating our BLA.
Group to BMHS is about 382,200.
And then the reductions that are listed there are in addition to the reductions that are in the base plan as well.
So, you know, is it a huge difference?
I mean, over a quarter million, sure.
So it's just, it's moving, moving kids.
So that's a lot to think about when we're moving, moving people, moving kids is, is hard sometimes.
So I think, you know, thinking about where you put kids in BLA or in, excuse me, in BMHS would need to be carefully considered.
You know, how are we going to facilitate that?
How is that going to look and operate?
So just keeping those things in mind that, you know, moving them there might incur some costs.
Because my understanding is there would need to be some partitioning or something done to kind of separate it out to make that school within a school.
And then there's been some good points raised about how students would actually get some of the services that they need,
utilize the lunchroom, the gym, some of those things, because it would be a common shared space.
So some difference in scheduling and things like that, too.
So I just wanted to be transparent about that.
But your overall reduction is 382, too.
Dan Schuf.
Just a request of the chair that we go through all the BLA options before we do motions, if that makes sense.
Certainly.
I have no problem with that.
Thank you.
Okay, next is eliminating BLA altogether.
In this, the students would go back to the high school or be offered virtual school.
We'd estimated that we'd have probably a loss of about 30 students.
You could guess maybe more that would result in a loss of revenue that we get.
And then the proposed reductions are down on the right side there for a total of 1,200 to 32,600.
And those reductions are in addition to the ones in the base plan.
Just kind of keeping in mind that is a loss.
We are projecting that to be a loss of students.
And some of our students who are more vulnerable may just say goodbye to school as they move forward.
So again, thinking about how we want our students to move forward.
I think that's a really important thing to consider.
So how do we want that to look as a district and what are we okay with as a district?
And then the last option for BLA is to move BLA to Merrill.
So we would keep Merrill on the first floor at, or to keep the Merrill kids excuse me on the first floor and put the BLA group on the second floor.
So they would have their own floor level.
And so your reductions are there.
Currently Merrill has a principal FTE and a secretary FTE open.
And then there would be a reduction for a social worker.
So your reductions there are about 299,200.
So while there is some movement of students, there is an ability to separate a little bit easier than the high school.
So just thinking that into consideration, we hope our students would stick with us if they were to move to Merrill.
But your cost savings is not as great in this move.
There are several other programs that are housed at Cunningham.
So within the BLA current school.
So we have the teen parent program even start the GEDO program and the bridge program, which is our students who are 18 to 21 years old.
So those programs could be relocated and there could be relocation to either Merrill or the high school, depending on the group.
On the bottom of the slide here, the relocation doesn't really impact how Cunningham would operate.
It would be shuttered for the year.
It would be closed for the year.
So about a $50,000 estimate on utility savings, but shuttering that for a year would give an opportunity to perhaps, you know, if we were able to do the rough.
Maybe something like that, because looking ahead, it's, you know, maybe a building that we have to put to elementary schools within in the next year or two.
Is that it for the BLA Merrill?
Yes.
Options.
Yes. Thank you.
Okay.
Any board member questions?
Do you have a recommendation for what you believe should be done about cutting him and the late learning academy?
I absolutely do not think we should eliminate BLA as a program.
In my opinion, that is giving kids permission to just not attend school anymore, and I cannot support that.
If I hear the concerns about going to the high school, I really do.
I have a hard time kind of wrapping around that.
I think there needs to be further conversation around that.
It does feel like now we're kind of getting to crunch time.
I do think the easiest thing, if we're going to look at shuttering Merrill, or excuse me, shuttering Cunningham for the year, if that's the direction the board would like to go.
I do believe the easiest move would be to relocate BLA to Merrill at this time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I want to go back to something actually where President Johnson that you said at our last meeting that really resonated with me, which is that if we're going to move kids, like we're going to move them once.
In the spirit of compromise, I can see some wiggle room and the options that include moving.
I would support Dr. Gordon's recommendation not to eliminate the program.
And I think, again, if we open to those, given the crunch time piece and given we're not sure exactly what we're going to do with Cunningham, I would be in favor of leaving both of these options on the table.
But it's not something that I'm interested right now in doing for the upcoming school year.
For looking at the highest one was $382,200, to me is not the right.
I mean, if we're talking like this is going to make a critical change in our budget outlook, I feel like I would feel differently.
And I'm not trying to, you know, $382,200 is quite a bit of money.
I understand.
I don't know that it outweighs the cost to the uncertainty and potential frenzy it might cause in trying to do this starting on June 24th.
I guess last thoughts on that, like I'm still teaching right now.
I'm teaching summer school and I've spent quite a bit of time and energy thinking about just even just like one specific kid I have right now in my jumpstart reading class going into third grade.
And I can't even imagine trying to prioritize the needs of your kids going into next year while trying to figure out, okay, like, what is my teaching situation going to look like at these two completely different buildings and re so I total faith that we can reimagine
and read to use your word refashion.
I feel like I would like to give using our currency of time or staff the time to do that really effectively.
So, that's where I'm at.
Thank you.
Tom.
Okay.
Joanne.
Yes, thank you. And speaking to administrators, I was not able to find any administrator that was in favor of moving the LA to the high school.
Like I said, last time, I think at this point, we are so late in the game that it causes more harm than good moving children at this point.
The relocation impact.
There's 50,000 for an estimate there that doesn't take into consideration the loss of teachers having summer to restore and rejuvenate before they head back into the school year.
I'm not sure if the relocation estimate includes all the communication we're going to have to do with families.
Sometimes it's even hard to find our families to communicate with them about moves like this.
So, I would rather go slow and do it well than to try to jump and do it now. I understand Jane still had to move a building in a, I think they took two weeks to move them.
But if you talk to the staff up there, it wasn't good and it caused a lot of problems too. And they did it because they had to because they absolutely had to.
And I would prefer to take care of our children and our staff and do this in a way that's very thoughtful.
Thank you. Any other board members comments or questions? Carol Fox.
You know, we're needing to cut $5.7 million. And again, what we don't cut now, we're going to cut late. You know, it's just going to get worse if we don't if we don't buy the bullet and do some of these things.
And I'm sorry, you know, we still have July and August. It's just, it's, I don't think it's all that late. I think it can be moved.
My preference would be to move it to the high school because I fully believe that that's where it belongs and that's where it's going to wind up.
We can move them to Merrill. But I don't know that I don't foresee Merrill or any building being set aside specifically for one alternative program.
Our buildings are too big and aren't really going to do that.
So if we choose not to move BLA this year, we'll be moving BLA next year and we will most likely be moving BLA to the high school.
So it seems really short-sighted to me to wait and not just do it. We do have the time to do it. We have found some space to do it.
Things are going to look different for that program too. But I'm not sure that that's such a bad thing.
I mean, I also looked at some of the things about Beloit Learning Academy and, you know, I granted that some of the data is old.
But when I look at that data, it's not very good.
And the chronic absenteeism, not, I don't have it for this, just this most recent year, but the year before was like 86% chronic absenteeism at BLA.
So things aren't all that hunky-dunky over there either.
Or we wouldn't have that kind of chronic absenteeism going on. The academic things aren't all that stellar either.
So I think it's an opportunity to really take a look at that program and change it and make it more effective.
And, you know, putting it in the high school gives opportunities to do some of those kinds of things and work with that.
Yes, it needs to be alternative. Yes, it needs to be a separate space because the kids need that.
But I truly don't think that we should be waiting to do this because we need to start fixing that program.
Now is a good opportunity to do that. We're going to move them. Likely they're going to wind up in the high school.
I don't understand why we wouldn't do that now. We have some spaces that we could use.
I would not recommend waiting.
Dan Schuf and then Tom Hinkins.
Thank you. So Bill and I are into our whatever month here of service.
I'm going to get over that.
I'm learning that we reference a lot, this board directive on budget.
You guys did a direction of motion and the administration is great about following that.
But I am learning that there are times where people say things are going to happen and they don't happen.
So in April, when we first got elected, we were going to have community meetings in every building.
We were going to do these things and I understand that we didn't pass a budget.
So I'm interested in making a motion that my motion would be that the district shall undertake a comprehensive space utilization study and come back to the board by December 1st of this year.
This does not preclude any of these things that we're doing here.
But let's require that we do a comprehensive space utilization study that we can take other action tonight.
But that way there will be something that is going to happen, not just something we're talking about.
So I'll make that motion.
Thank you, Dan. Would you please repeat your motion to ensure that Mrs. Schof has it down correctly.
And then I will ask for a second.
I move that the district shall undertake a comprehensive space utilization study and report back to the board no later than December 1st, 2026.
I'll second that.
We have a motion by Dan Schof and a second by Joanne room.
Are there any board member questions or comments on the motion?
Megan Miller.
Thank you so much.
So Board President Johnson is okay to direct the question to Mr. Schof.
Just a clarifying.
Yes.
Oh, thank you.
Okay.
So just so I'm clear on what we're voting on.
When you ask for a comprehensive utilization study and you had previously mentioned like listening sessions and things like that, can you just help me bring me in a little bit more with a little more detail into your vision and like what that entails?
Well, you've heard me say that I respect the professionals that work for us.
So I'm trying not to over prescribe this, but so much of these decisions that we will be needing to make for the next year have focused on our facilities, our space we have.
So, you know, I'm not prescribing what that would be exactly.
Except these professionals know how to do this work and we will just get more information.
My bet is we'll get information a lot sooner than that, but this way there is something we have requested formally and we'll have it to help us make better decisions in the future.
Thank you. That is extremely helpful.
And I agree with the spirit of what you're saying 100%.
I would just say that if this motion were to pass, we can discuss it at another time, but I would be very interested in the board also, you know, doing some some input and listening sessions to hear from people who are impacted.
You know, neighborhoods, traffic pattern, you know, all the things just so that the board can engage in that work as well. Thank you.
Thank you. Any other board members have questions?
Joanne, is your hand up or is it still up?
Oh, it's it's up about the LA still not about dance motion. Sorry.
Oh, okay.
Then are there any other bill?
Do we know if if BLA moved, would they still use the food in the kitchen and they'll all come out of there where we'd still be using cutting amper something or not?
That I'm not able to answer. I don't think so.
Okay.
Yeah.
And the other thing is, I was never in favor of fourth graders being with eight graders.
So I wouldn't be in favor of the LA being at Merrill.
Copy.
Thank you.
Any other board members?
What about what he said?
Yes.
Right. Right. Right. Right. Dan, there's a motion on the floor about a facility's utilization under utilization study and discussion.
Carol, do you have a comment?
No, I just I had the same motion on my list. I was going to do it later.
Okay.
Executive Director Alwood, the district recently within the last few years, there was a facility study done by EUA, I think was the group.
So I'm thinking we don't have to spend more money to invite another agency or organization to come in and do a study.
Or what I mean, what is your thought on that and how much did we spend on that study?
Those are very good questions. I'm not sure the exact amount we spent on that study, but it was a very extensive study that we had done three years ago.
I have shared some of that information with the board already.
So I think we would need to have some probably some conversations about what exactly we want another company to come in and tell us for utilization because we've already got like the base counts for the buildings capacity.
Well, I'm sorry, I wasn't certain if I had gotten it down right or not, but I thought an underutilization study or what Mrs. Shel, what was the exact wording of the motion?
The motion is that the district shall undertake a comprehensive space utilization study and report back to the board no later than December 1st, 2026.
Okay, so Mr. Shuf, you're talking about an in-house study.
Yeah, just whatever the administration decides is the best and most efficient way to help us make these decisions that we're going to be making due to the size of the district and what we're going to need.
It'll help us in a lot of different ways.
Well, thank you.
I do agree that the district should have an internal study or review of the information we already have.
None of the sizes of our buildings to my knowledge have changed in the last three years.
But I don't, so I'm in favor of that.
I'm not in favor of that with a delay in moving BLA.
That's costing us a lot of money.
And I think we're missing the big picture here.
I have not heard any parent, no parent called me and said or emailed me and said,
my kid is having a hard time with anxiety and can't be at a big school.
Again, Memorial as of May 1st had just over 1100 students for a space that is capable of over 2000 students.
I, you know, I trust you guys, but I have a hard time believing that we cannot find space in BLA.
I mean, in a boy memorial for BLA.
My heart goes out to these students and these families.
I understand the anxiety issue being a mom of a child with anxiety.
High anxiety, I understand it.
We also have to take into consideration the financial situation of the district.
We also have to take into consideration.
Do we want to order?
Yeah.
Let's do the motion about a facilities thing and then move on to BLA.
I think we're conflating the issue.
So I just, I want to make certain the board understands.
The study is one thing coming back to BLA is another.
We're not going to leave tonight without action on what we want to do with BLA.
Okay.
Okay.
Any other discussion on the motion for the study and then we will follow up with BLA.
Megan.
Thank you.
I'm just a follow up question to our administration.
So are we or, you know, for President Johnson, if it's okay to direct that.
I just want to make sure that I respect where Dan is coming from about like we need to like.
Not prescribe what's happening.
We do trust our administration to do that.
Is that something that.
Do you feel like us passing this motion would create any, any barriers or issues on your end or is it.
Something that would fit within what you're planning to do anyway.
I just, I don't want to unintentionally cause an issue.
Okay.
The motion to do the study or the motion to move BLA.
Right now the, the only motions on the table is to do the study.
The study.
Well, we have, we did do a study.
We can look at the study.
We can compare the study with what we see in the schools now.
So there's no problem.
Like this isn't creating an issue if this passes.
No, it shouldn't be.
We can look at enrollment where we are in, you know, third Friday, count in September.
Look at the facility study.
It should not be that difficult.
Thank you.
Yeah.
There is a motion and a second.
Motion by Dan shoe, seconded by Joanne rule.
Any other discussion?
All in favor.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Hi.
Hi.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries unanimously.
It is 732.
Is there a motion to extend the meeting by another 30 minutes?
Some of.
Second.
Motion by Megan Miller, seconded by Carol Fox.
Any discussion?
Hearing none.
All in favor.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries unanimously.
So now the discussion for what to do with BLA.
Can I like to make a motion?
Go ahead.
I move that the Beloit Learning Academy be moved to Beloit Memorial High School, utilizing
a school within a school model, allowing BLA to remain as a separate programming option for students.
Second.
We have a motion by Carol Fox and a second by Bill Johnson.
Michelle, did you get the motion?
I got about 90% of it, I think.
So I have moved to move BLA to the Beloit Memorial High School, utilizing a school within a school
model while.
And then it was something about leaving it as a allowing BLA to remain as a separate programming
option for students.
Thank you.
Joanne.
Ru?
Yes, thank you.
So one, I am a mom of a child who is medically complex.
He's got a whole grocery list.
And I was so thankful that he got to go to right school and attend BLA that it was important.
I can't imagine him being over at the high school.
With that being said, I would rather rely on what our administration says.
And these are the things that were points that I would like to share.
Our students would still need to move about the building for lunch.
If I had utilizing the nurse, student services, office staff, administration.
And then another thing that was said by a different administrator was that.
Many of BLA's kids were unsuccessful at Beloit Memorial for various reasons.
So moving BLA is more than just finding a space for the LA's kids.
So those were their their thoughts.
After reaching out to them multiple times.
Thank you, Joanne.
Megan Miller.
Thank you.
Like I think we kind of said last time, all of these changes, wherever specific people and places land are coming.
Nothing that we do or don't do tonight is going to stop the entire reorganization that needs to happen for the school district.
And as a parent, obviously I think about my own kids experiences, but we're not here necessarily as parents.
Right? Like we're here for every child in this community, whether or not this applies to our kids.
And so I believe that everybody on here is coming from a place of doing what is best for children because saving those dollars that we're looking at will benefit our kids.
I think what will benefit our kids more given that these changes are coming anyway is that we give our administration, our teachers and our families time,
which is I like how it was put in the presentation, a currency that we do have to make sure that we do this really well.
Because again, the thing that resonated with me and I've been really has really landed in my perspective and how the lens that I'm trying to use to help make these decisions
is really what you said, word President Johnson, we've got one chance to do this.
I don't want to move kids around and I know that nobody in this body has any interest in causing harm to children.
My concern is that well-intended actions that look really good on paper do not always execute well,
and something that I find myself reflecting on quite a bit professionally is the concept of theory versus practice.
And I agree with everything I've heard.
There are things that have been presented that could absolutely work in theory and they might work in practice.
I would like to rely on the currency of time, which is costing us less than $400,000 in a millions of dollars budget issue
to make sure that what is priceless, which is the experience of our students, is executed in the best possible way.
So with full respect to what I've heard, 100%, I don't know that it is worth less than $400,000 to not just go through the extra steps of planning and executing a move for BLA well.
So at this time, I cannot support moving BLA to BMHS for this school year, but believe that all options should remain on the table because of the situation that we are in.
Thank you. Dan Schuf.
Thank you. I'll put my hand down now.
It's good to do that.
So I think if we're reading the room and the virtual member, that we'd have seven votes to say we will be moving BLA to one of two locations for the next school year.
At some point, you may get to four votes for one of these options.
My fear is that we'll pick the option that our new administrator doesn't want, and that's not a great way to start.
That's not the beginning of a wonderful relationship to do that.
So I would be supportive of being very clear, taking board action that we will be moving BLA out of Cunningham for the next year.
I don't know if we can get consensus on the location, and we can maybe ask Dr. Gordon a little more information about the two options.
I will say this. When we are budgeting, there are one-time budget items. We're going to consider a big one-time budget item later, and there's ongoing issues.
So whenever we do this, we're making these cuts permanently.
So we would be losing the first year of these savings, but we would be giving people a lot of time to plan for it.
So I'm supportive of moving BLA out of Cunningham for the next school year, and I have a preference unless Dr. Gordon softens her opposition to the high school for it to be at Merrill, but I'd be willing to have more discussion about that tonight.
Okay, and so for clarification, because we technically are still in the 25-26 school year when you say next school year.
Yeah, the 20-27-28 school year. Most of these things we're discussing are for the 26-27, and so I'd be supportive for the 27-28 school year.
Thank you. Tom?
Thank you. There's a couple other things to consider in facilities, and I was hoping Scott Lad could be here because it's going to take time and energy to move all these people and making sure that the high school and or Merrill or wherever they're going.
I mean, we can't do everything in one fell swoop next year.
We got to start this relocation ASAP, meaning this summer, and if we throw Colac in there, Scott Lad and his group are already taxed, and Scott has told me they could do the two that we're talking about, but now you're talking about kicking everything down the road.
It's unfeasible.
Any cost savings will be ate up by hiring Kristofferson or somebody else to help move, in which we might as still do anyways.
The other point I wanted to bring up was someone brought up Washington School.
I'm sure that was hundreds of students. We're talking about BLA, which has 103 students.
I said someone projected into 26-27, and I'm not saying they're not very important students, but we're talking about 103 students, and quite frankly, if I'm wrong, but they self-transport as it is.
Is that correct?
So, we're not talking about moving kids and bus routes or things like that.
We're talking about 103 students and their parents and notifying them over the summer that this is going to happen.
We just can't keep pushing things down the road, because guess what?
We're setting us up for failure, and to not do something for this next school year is ridiculous.
Thank you.
And I know a rush to judgment is not good, but these things we can do.
Thank you, Tom.
Carol Fox?
I just, and I probably said enough, but I mean, I know it's going to be a bit impactful on the students.
I know that.
But this truly is one of the least impactful things we're going to be doing in the next couple of years.
And I think we can make it good for the kids.
The staff may be a different story, but I think we can make it good for the kids.
We can make a separate space, whether you use Merrill or not, but I think we can make a separate space.
They'll be on a different schedule.
They can have a different entrance.
I think the kids will roll with it, and yes, it will be impactful, but I think it may be a benefit.
Bill.
Yeah.
I don't think BLA starts till nine.
Anyway, now high school would be at eight.
And I think it was three years ago, they moved them all from right over to Cunningham and it was in June.
So if they could do it then, I think we're better now.
We can do it.
Joanne.
Yeah, so someone mentioned.
BLA having to be at the high school the following year.
I think we can also consider BLA and all the alternative programs.
Eventually all being at Merrill since we're looking at combining elementary schools at some point.
The reason why the reason why BLA was moved out of right was not because of decisions made by people at the building level.
It was people at central office saying that they didn't want them at right.
So they moved them over moving them back to right doesn't make sense because of it not being updated all our other buildings are updated.
And so.
Administration at the building level say that they are that they can see it being a building that they could use down, you know, next you're using the second floor the following year using the whole building and using it.
Well, there are some amazing programs that they have over at Cunningham that if they were allowed the whole building at Merrill to do all of what they were doing over at Cunningham, it would be right sized.
And it could be done well in a way that really serves our students.
I these these these are some of our most fragile students and look at how much we've moved them in the last few years.
I think it's taking our time and doing it well is is what makes sense.
Megan Miller.
Thank you so much.
So I would like to first of all say I fully agree actually with everything that Joanne just said.
She's articulated something that I hadn't put together.
I mean, even just thinking that.
I think the nature of the motion that we were just on about like kind of the facility study has a lot to do with like brainstorming and figuring out like what is the potential.
Right. And so that's actually not why I had raised my hand, but I just want to say I fully agree with that.
And it kind of goes back to that point of we only want to move kids once if we need to move them at all.
The two things I guess I want to just put into the conversation is that Mr. Hinkins like I totally agree with you 100%.
I know that we have to be really mindful of like the whole like the whole picture, right?
Like those moving plans and everything else.
Mr. Johnson, you just mentioned the right move was done in June before those were plans though that were made well before June because we voted on them and we voted on them in April.
So they were plans that were made well before.
So I think that we're on to something here though.
And I think what we're on to is we want to be as fiscally responsible as possible.
And we want to have a really good plan for how we are using resources to make sure that however this whatever our district is going to look like in the 2728 school year is going to be a situation that sets our students up to thrive.
And a situation that fits into the very abrupt new realities that our budget will be because it'll be a lot different right with those numbers.
So to that end, I just have to say again, it seems to me like we have the best possibility to have that whole picture.
And I always screw up this expression, but it was like the 5,000 foot view, right?
To make sure that we're being purposeful with like moving costs and all of the, you know, double in the detail kind of stuff.
If we make this move now without having that complete picture, can we really say to our families and to our community, we're 100% saving you the best dollars that we can in the best way.
I'm not sure I can say that, but I feel really sure that I could say that if we work with our administration to come up with that whole district plan, we answer the question that we asked in our board guiding document.
How do we best utilize this space?
We have to create optimal learning experiences for all of our kids.
If we answer that question holistically, are there opportunities, right?
To be efficient with moving costs and things like that.
To me, $400,000 is a small price tag for the possibility of future savings, efficiencies, and just a better, better best case scenario for our kids.
Thank you, Dan Shuf.
Can you remind me of the motion that's in front of us?
The motion is to move in essence moving BLA to BMHS as a school within the school model.
All right, thank you.
Yeah.
Any other bill?
Yeah, I'd just like to clarify something about the board new in 2023 that they were going to move Colac or move BLA to Cunningham.
Are you asking me a question?
That's what you just said.
Go ahead, please.
So, from what I recall, we were asked to make a vote in April about all of those moves.
And the reason that we were asked to make the vote in April is that we were told by our administration at the time that they would need all of those months to plan and execute those things.
Well, actually really much, very much to Mr. Hinkins point that he just made.
And so,
thank you.
Bless you.
The whole, like, there were the two things, right?
There was the grade band change.
So we went back to a middle school model, the six through eight.
And then after that, we looked at, well, how do we best use the buildings that we have?
It was not a fun vote.
But given we have kind of a similar conversation that we're having now, like, how do we set ourselves up for the best case scenario?
And I believe that was part of that move.
That would have had to have been because otherwise cutting him at the time was a school that was being utilized very differently.
So, yes.
So the board approved over $250,000 for the kitchen and closed it six weeks later?
I don't know that detail.
I think that's an excellent question, though.
I do.
And I think that's also really irrelevant to the conversation that we're having.
Thank you.
Let's get back on focus of BLA.
And this process, but in the spirit of that conversation, there are districts across Wisconsin and Illinois, and I'm sure probably elsewhere in the country, that at this time are having to make very similar difficult decisions in closing schools.
It's just the reality of public education right now.
One of us like it, but here we are, and we have to deal with it.
And I think as we are looking down the line, the enrollment of BLA is going down.
And I don't support moving it once this year to Meryl and potentially having to move it again next year.
I mean, we don't even know how big the program will be next year.
I would prefer moving it this year to the high school.
To me, this makes sense.
I hear people saying, well, the students don't want to be at the high school.
I get it.
You know, I would love to have a gazillion options that I could choose from in front of me, but we don't.
That's just not realistic.
I hear the concerns about the student services.
We have students at the high school right now who have anxiety, who have ADHD, who have oppositional disorder,
who have all kinds of different issues, and we have support services there.
The one issue that seems to be most prevalent that is not really being discussed is the behaviors.
And I have had staff members say to me, the behaviors is a major issue why we don't want the BLA students at Floyd Memorial.
This is coming not just from below high school teachers.
It's coming from teachers throughout the district, and they're concerned with how those students are going to behave.
I have a huge concern that we are avoiding this discussion and moving BLA to the high school is causing such distress.
We should not be looking at moving a program or not because of behaviors.
I have been told that we have security guards, our internal security guards that don't want to be placed at BLA
because of their concern for their physical and emotional well-being.
We need to do better with behaviors.
I support moving BLA to the high school as a school within a school model
with the understanding that we will address behaviors according to our board policies.
I hear stories from the community of what's happening at BLA, and I'm like, well, I have no evidence of that.
There's nothing that I have seen before me.
Give me a report.
We've had a couple of one or two expulsions from BLA.
We have had more expulsions from our elementary schools.
If BLA is that much of a concern, what are we doing wrong, folks?
Really, we need to not spend so much time on budget items so we can start addressing these issues.
All of the board members got the CISA 5 report.
What's going on with that?
Why are we not addressing that as well in terms of the budgetary mens?
This is the opportunity.
We can say, hey, there's a reason why we're in the situation we are.
We are losing students.
Why are we losing students?
We can get another committee.
I don't think we need another committee to tell us why we're losing students.
We have central enrollment.
Why are they not doing exit interviews?
We all can really be pretty confident we're losing students because of behaviors first
and foremost, secondly, because of academic achievement.
I am in favor of moving BLA to the high school as a school within the school model with the understanding
that it will be run as similar to what the Aldridge School within the school model is.
They run a tight ship and that's, I think, what we need to start looking at.
Any other board member questions or comments?
Joanne?
Yes, the behaviors and all of that.
We're already struggling at the high school.
I think I just keep going back to if Emily and Betsy say, this is not a good move.
They're in the buildings every day.
They know their students.
They know their staff.
They know the security officers that they work with.
And if we have to move, if we have to have to move,
Meryl is the school that is being said is the better move.
I prefer no move, but I can't vote for something that the people that are in charge, doctors
in charge in the two buildings are saying this is not a good move.
They know the kids.
And they've both been part of our district for a very long time.
And so I trust them and their judgment.
And I'm going to trust that they know what's best for the kids right now.
Did they have any other options for almost $400,000?
I mean, they're not in the position to, I mean, they're not making those decisions and they
don't really want it to happen.
But there's no suggestion of other ways to do things or other cuts to make or other things
to do.
I disagree, Carol, because Betsy, we had lots and lots of people call, email, stand at the
podium, don't cut my program.
I understand you have to cut a lot of money, not my program.
Betsy is not saying don't cut my program.
She's saying, I understand you have to make hard decisions.
If you have to move us, this is a better move.
The Lloyd Memorial High School is not a good move for all the reasons that they've listed.
But all the common people that they have to share, they have to, they are to school within a
school.
They need to eat.
They need to get their lunches.
They need to go to the nurse.
They need to go to the office.
They interact with other people in the building.
They're going to be in the building and these children, some of them have been moved out
of that building on purpose.
And we listened to person after person the other night with success stories.
So, yes, BLA doesn't work for everyone.
Remember, we're working with our most fragile population there.
But it does work.
We had a chef stand up there.
And I watched Sue Bailey and Betsy and wiping tears from their eyes.
Like they knew them back when they were hard kids and didn't know if they were going to
make it.
And now they're somebody and it's because we invested in them and we need to continue to do
that.
And I don't know.
This feels like a, like a, when we trust the people in charge and they say, this is what
makes sense.
We do better.
When we don't trust them and we make decisions based on numbers, then we're set up to fail.
I don't know.
I won't vote for it to go to the high school.
I can't.
Thank you, Joanne.
Megan Miller.
Wait, I'm sorry, Megan.
If you don't mind, it is almost eight o'clock.
Can we get an extension?
Motion for a 30 minute extension.
Second.
Motion by May Miller, seconded by Carol Fox.
Any discussion?
Hearing, seeing none.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Sorry, aye.
Motion carries unanimously.
Megan.
Thank you.
So, I want to just respond if it's okay to Board President Johnson, what you're saying
with the kind of the behavior concern.
You were saying that we haven't heard a lot about that.
And I mean, I think we haven't heard a lot about that because there's not a lot to hear about
it.
I've also talked to several folks.
I mean, I have a daughter going into ninth grade next year of friends with her parents,
you know, all these kinds of things like her, you know, their friends, parents and things
like that.
I have not heard concerns.
That's not to say that you haven't, like I hear you.
That hasn't been the focal point of discussion.
And so I want to take us back to what has been, which is we have one thing we haven't discussed
that is important is we've talked a lot about what are we going to do, right, to build a
thriving district.
We are like, I think Dr. Gordon said earlier, we're like reclassified, right, in terms of
size.
We've used the word actually going back to Mr. Johnson, what you were saying before.
I mean, that was what drove our conversations before was like, we have to start that process
of right sizing.
And I think as you rightly pointed out, and I don't have the details on me.
So I don't mean to be argumentative.
I just truly don't can't recall in that way.
We don't want to be in a situation where we try to do something well to right size and
it ends up costing something that look in retrospect.
It's like, oh, shoot, we should have waited or should have done that differently.
I don't want to come from a place of fear or like a scare it because I don't believe
in making decisions based on fear.
But what I will say is that we do know with certainty what does work.
What works for high achieving districts of all sizes is to have school boards that engage
collaboratively and from a space of trust with their administration.
And we have heard from multiple administrators here in the board room and apparently some
of our members have heard from other administrators outside of the board room that at least at
this time, this isn't a move that we're going to make that will make them feel trusted,
respected or supported.
And I don't believe that the intention of anybody on this board is that.
So just to summarize from a fiscal responsibility lens, when I do my own household budget,
I don't make a decision on what I am or am not going to spend or renew without having
my whole sheet for the year filled out knowing what all the things are going to be because
I have to know, am I going to have the money that I need to pay for dance tuition if I
do this by that time in this year?
I think most of us budget that way as well.
I would like to take a step back, give ourselves the time to make that plan and make sure that
we're not spending $250,000 or whatever it is on a facility one place because we find out
down the line on being known to us now that there's some issue with some other facility,
now we got to do something different.
I don't think that I have not heard bad ideas or thoughts.
We're coming from a good place and we very well, we may end up at the high school.
Whatever happens, I just think it would be an exercise in trust building with our new administration
and honestly fiscal responsibility to our community and certainly honoring the most important
in this conversation, our students, to afford ourselves the time to just be planful and make
sure that we have that vision and those steps to execute this really well so that we only
need to do this one time.
Dan Shuf?
Yeah, so I've heard from my colleagues that there's a majority that wants to do the BLA
this year so I can see that happening with a majority is going to vote to do that.
I want to point out that the move and the numbers that are in front of us and were provided to us,
the move to the high school, it's suggested that that'll save $83,000 more per year than the move to
Merrill but there's some question about the reconfiguration that will have to happen in there
and I've already asked some questions about ADA accessibility and some other issues there.
So $90,000 as you all know is one tenth of one percent of our budget.
I think we would, you know, Joanne who's done a lot of work on this would be supportive of moving to Merrill
and I think she said that she'd vote to move it this year even though she'd prefer to wait a year.
So as I understand through the reading these lines, we don't have a principal hired for Merrill next year.
Is that correct, Dr. Gordon?
That's correct.
And if we did the Merrill option, which is your preference as our new superintendent,
you would have the BLA principal become the BLA and the Merrill principal, is that correct?
Correct.
And tell me, I don't know the principal at BLA so I've less information than other people.
Can you tell me about this person?
It's Dr. Betsy Schrader.
She's been here yesterday.
No, she's been here a number of years.
I'm trying to think when I was like 2011 maybe.
So we'd be putting a very experienced principal in the Merrill and they should be doing double duty.
So yeah, she would have, you know, between the two buildings be a little over 200 with the students.
Okay.
All right, thank you.
Any other board member questions or comments?
I have a question for Executive Director Elwood.
In these numbers, does it reflect the HES staffing?
And the reason I'm asking is because we have heard from our own student board representative
that the continued condition of the restrooms at the high school is less than desirable.
And to me, that's one more benefit to moving BLA to the high school.
But I don't know if those numbers were included in any of this.
Thank you.
No, there were no reductions in HES services considered in these moves.
We would need to re look at that after we made decisions.
So we could in theory have whatever HES is happening at Cunningham happen at the high school.
If BLA is located at the high school.
Well, we would need to also consider the other programs that are still in Cunningham.
For posing to move them.
Oh, you would.
Yes.
If you moved all the programs, yes, there would be no HES services on there.
Yes.
Thank you.
And we feed students, you know, wherever they are, they will be fed.
It's not like we're not going to feed the students.
If there's no more discussion, Bill or Tom, did you either of you have any less thoughts?
Mrs. Schope, may we get a roll call on the motion by Carol Fox with the second by Bill Johnson?
Yes.
Carol Fox.
Aye.
Bill Johnson.
Aye.
Joanne Ruhl.
May.
Tom Hankins.
Aye.
Meghan Miller.
Nay.
Dan Schuth.
No.
And Tia Johnson.
Aye.
Motion carried four to three.
Thank you.
I would be interested in taking a five minute recess if no board members have any objections to that.
Okay, we are.
Hi.
We're going to recess until eight twelve.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening, everyone.
It is eight thirteen.
We are reconvening back from recess and Dr. Gordon.
You've got the floor.
Okay.
The next part is moving staff out of Colac.
So in the past couple of budget conversations, I hate to say that word, but we're going to use it.
Conversations we've had about the budget.
We've talked about selling properties.
And so there's been some smaller properties that have been talked about.
The ops building has been talked about right school.
We recently sold McNeil, but the question has always come up about Colac, right?
So, and that's kind of been ongoing for the past number of years.
So what would it look like if we moved staff out of Colac?
Well, we can never guarantee what real estate is going to pay out.
So we don't know what we could get for the building.
Probably would be a loss.
I know Tom had mentioned that last meeting that we had.
And that's probably accurate.
We'll be upside down on that.
But there's some financial impacts if we were to list the building for sale and whether we move out right away.
Or if we stayed here until perhaps it was to be sold.
The reduction in utilities is one of the cost savings.
We have some areas where we could move our staff to moving to the existing places in the high school.
The ops building has not been largely looked at.
So that would be a place that we could go.
But there are some other considerations that we need to take into account.
Our technology department right behind us here and behind this wall is quite a large operation.
And so they would need to review some spaces that they could possibly relocate to.
And my understanding is that the phone hub that we have with the my telephones and such is quite an operation as well.
I know Dr. Anderson had gotten some information on that just about how costly that could be and how much work it might be to reroute the phone hub that we have here.
So that would need to be considered as well.
And then the other consideration is where would we have board meetings and how that might look moving into the future.
Where would we want to set up for board meetings so that we would have accessibility.
Would we want to be streaming things or just recording and posting and how much space would we need to utilize for that.
So other options that have kind of come up renting a portion of the building moving all the staff to one floor and then renting out the other floor of the building.
So we could fit all the staff probably on the first floor of the second floor and rent out one or the other.
So it's just something to consider.
The public is largely interested in having us so collect because you know we have so many people here and so we have such a big building.
So it's just one of those optic things to you know as we're downsizing our district it is a beautiful building.
You know it's hard to let things that you love go but could it be one of those things that we need to say goodbye to as we resize our district.
Thank you Dan Shuf.
Thank you Madam Chair.
So thank you for bringing this up to us.
I've done a little digging on this.
Just as a way of background I ran our facilities at Boy College.
Last couple of years we did a very similar thing where we sold a dozen buildings the houses and other things restructured the campus in a kind of a.
Needed to get our enrollment back up after COVID up to the numbers and so we sold about two million dollars worth of property.
So I went back and did a research on this building.
So there's a large article from the Bullied Valley news in the summer of 2019 that this building was going to open.
I like to call 2019 that before times.
So obviously the world was a lot different than.
But it's really interesting because if I'm just using the estimate that the newspaper used of this is a 26,000 square foot building.
You know of course if we can go back in time we would tell that board don't do that.
You know probably you know still get out of Roosevelt the rising tides doing great stuff for the city.
That was a great decision of that board to sell to them and they're doing wonderful work and needed to get out of that building.
Could have gone somewhere else.
But we built it for 5.5 million again according to the newspaper article that was the district leadership was on the front page of that and everything.
You know today this building would cost about 10.4 million to build.
So there's been a huge run up in construction costs since 2019.
So a head of inflation construction costs have gone up faster than inflation.
So really maybe even more than 10.5 million to build this building today.
But at the same time commercial property sales have cratered.
So the market's completely upside down.
The entire Regal Bullied building sold for 1.2 million.
Beautiful state of the art fortune 500 company fortune 1000 whatever they were.
They were on the S&P 500.
They sold for 1.2 million.
So the open meetings law would actually has an exception for real estate considerations.
So we don't want to give away what we would take for the building or anything like that.
But I'll just throw out some numbers at $100 a square foot that would net 2.6 million.
We built it for $212 a square foot.
That's 5.5 million.
But today you'd be building it for $400 a square foot which is about 10.4 million.
So I'm with the Dr. Gordon that this would be the time for us to put this on the market.
We of course would hire a commercial realtor.
Tom, others on the board have experience on this and the administration would help guide us through that.
You know, it's not what we would have wished in back in 2019.
But this would, you know, if we sold this for a chunk of money, this would let us replenish our reserves if we closed during this next fiscal year.
And let us get through those other conversations and make sure we're telling our community that we are trying always to increase revenue which is the lawsuit, recruitment of students,
and a possible referendum which of course draws down a lot more state money.
And the same time we're making deep cuts like we just did.
I think our scorecard is that so far today we've cut $4.64 million, $636,816.
I don't know if you have that same Stephanie.
So right now we would have to set aside OPAB of $1,063,000.
So selling co-actor in this year would help us symbolically not have to take anything from OPAB.
So replenish our reserves.
So thank you for your time.
Thank you, Dan.
Megan Miller.
Thank you so much.
I feel like what Dan just described makes a lot of sense.
And I have no opposition to that.
I did want to share that Ms. Ellwood was kind enough to respond to a question that I had earlier and I just had the email up a moment ago and seemed to have lost it.
But while I pulled that up, I had a couple of different community members approach me over the last couple of,
between the last few meetings about the possibility of leasing out right the second floor like Dr. Gordon just described to us.
So just so that we're all on the same page and this was shared with Carol and Tia as well.
That the total square footage of COLEX at 27,437 square feet, second floor is approximately 12,000, usable office space may be less.
However, using 12,000, approximately 12,000 square feet at approximately $18 per square for the rent for the year would be around $216,000.
So the only reason I want to throw that in there, I have no objection to putting COLEX on the market, but given just the logistic lift that we may need to consider regarding all the things that Dr. Gordon just delineated.
And also in the spirit of the points that I made about the last item, about sometimes you got to go slow to go fast and make better decisions.
I would not object if there's a desire from the administration and the board to maybe at least as a first step in that direction, seeing how things go, relocating to first floor so that we have some time to manage the phones and all the things.
And seeing if we actually are able to generate income by leasing space.
Final comment on what Dr. Gordon shared and I'm really glad she did because I'd forgotten about this and I'm glad she brought it up.
Regarding like how we do our board meetings, I actually think it would be really cool if we could make all the stuff work to be in school libraries and maybe in a circle so we can talk to each other.
And so that could be like an added benefit and something to consider as we continue to discuss facilities and how we use them.
But just to conclude, I'm not in any way against selling COLEX.
I do think again, we can give the gift of time and possibly generate some income in the meantime if we consider leasing out the second floor.
Carol Fox.
Yeah, I agree.
I think we need to look at all options.
We might look at just renting out the building period.
And while we explore things and maybe they'd let us use the boardroom and keep our phones where they are if that kind of stuff.
But yeah, I sell it, rent it.
I think we need to explore options.
I'm a little concerned about renting part of it.
But like I said, maybe if you rent the whole thing and then they just let us have board meetings here or wherever.
But I'm in favor of having board meetings at other people's libraries and things like that.
I think that'll work.
And in the meantime, you can look for what would be appropriate spaces for COLEX staff in other buildings.
So yes, I'm in favor of do you need a motion?
Because I move forward that I move that we direct Dr. Gordon to move forward with developing plans to sell CoLEX and move CoLEX staff and other programs to appropriate spaces and maybe to sell and or rent CoLEX.
Before there's a second, can I just ask a clarifying question of.
Yeah, I'm Dr. Gordon.
Is that already the plan?
The motion that was just made.
Well, I mean, if it's not this year, it probably would be right.
So I mean, downsizing is our, so what we have to do.
Right.
So is emotion and now that I 100% agree, Carol, where you're coming from, is emotion necessary at this time?
That's up to the board.
Okay.
Selling properties is the board's decision.
So yes, emotion is would be needed.
Can I ask a clarifying question before we finalize the motion?
Go ahead.
Member Fox, I think there, you know, in the commercial real estate world, it's a big difference between selling and renting.
Okay.
And just from our budget perspective, you know, to our bottom line, you know, to our balance sheet selling, we would net the sales.
Neither one is going to pay off our debt, but that's just something that happened in 2019.
So I'd be more supportive of just selling.
Okay.
But this is my own opinion.
So you want me to leave the Andor rent out Tom Hankins?
I agree with Dan.
I think if we're going to do this, what I'd like to, yes, go ahead and do this, but staff, I, administration has come back with a plan on where they're going to go.
So I don't know, you know, the car before the horse.
If we're going to, is that in the timeline?
If we said tonight, yeah, go ahead.
I'm not going to list it tomorrow.
So you got to come up with your own plan and where's the goal at going?
Madam Chair, should we, I could give the second?
I don't know if we ever got the motion.
And that was my next question is before I asked for a second, excuse me, before I asked for a second, I want to ask Vice President Fox.
If she wants to keep her motion as is or make any changes before we get a second?
I'm fine with keeping it as it is.
Do you want me to read it again?
I move that we direct Dr. Gordon to move forward with the plan to sell Colac and move Colac staff and programs to other appropriate spaces.
Second.
We have a motion and a by Joanne Carol Fox and a second by Dan Shoeff.
Mrs. Shope, did you get the motion?
I'm not sure that I did, but I'll tell you what I have and then you can correct me.
I have moved to direct Dr. Gordon to sell Colac and to move staff and programs to an appropriate location.
Is that to move forward with a plan to sell Colac?
To move forward with a plan to sell?
Okay.
And move Colac staff and programs to other appropriate spaces.
Dan Shoeff.
Madam Chair, just to get to Member Hankins question and just for the public and others.
So practically, I think how this would work, not to micromanage it.
The administration would seek a realtor or one that's worked with the district.
Okay.
So great.
So we get the help from the realtor.
Then really, commercial buildings like this take a while to market and sell.
And you'll have time.
You know, you put a plan together.
You probably don't need to execute your plan.
There's not any people that buy a 29,000 square foot.
There's time to do that.
And then you have time to make those moves.
So practically, you can, we'll have reviewed a plan.
We have approved a plan, but we don't really need to execute until they're moving towards closing,
which usually takes, you know, three to four to five months to close.
Thank you, Mr. Shoeff.
Megan Miller.
Thank you.
And I guess what I was getting at asking earlier, just to clarify.
And I want to make sure that we're factoring this in is like, yes, the board is going to
have to authorize, right, the real estate piece.
I guess what I'm wondering is like, do we have enough planning done, like in terms of
all those things that you just delineated about, like the facility, like, is this like right
now the appropriate time to do that or like do we, and I mean, I'll vote for emotion for
this.
Like, are we going to maybe like with the understanding that the timeline is going to be dictated
by all of these ducks getting in a row, right, that Dr. Gordon just said?
I just want to make sure we're on the same page there.
I believe it's embedded in the motion in that it's to move forward with a plan.
The plan.
Okay.
So the plan is inclusive than of being able to, you know, so we're not going to be like
in next week, like, Hey, where's what right?
So you're going to come to us and say, Hey, we figured all things out.
Here's the stuff.
Here's our realtor.
Beautiful.
Okay.
Thank you for clarifying.
Any other board member questions or comments?
Bill?
I'll keep you updated.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Dr. Gordon, it sounds like there's probably support for this.
And we appreciate your suggestion of this, your recommendation for this.
One thing I'd like for you and the administration to consider is we're moving BLA to the high
school.
It might not be a bad idea to put Colac staff within that proximity of that school within
the school program.
I think that would be greatly appreciated from the high school staff.
That's just my my two cents.
Yep.
That's kind of included on our proposed relocations.
And now it's just a little sort of plan there, right?
So once once we know where they're going to be, we can kind of move that direction too.
So things have to happen kind of in an order.
And then we can look at that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other questions or comments hearing none all in favor of the motion by Carol Fox with
the second by Dan, thank you.
All in favor?
Anyone?
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries unanimously.
Dr. Gordon, okay, we're getting near the end here.
So this is just the sale of vacant land in Colac, which we kind of just went over.
Our smaller lots we've we've talked about before, about thirteen five per lot.
We have eight lots.
So they've been sitting there for quite some time.
So hopefully, you know, we can't guarantee profit on real estate, right?
But maybe the right buyer will come.
And then again, with the sale of Colac recommended, so we can't build that into the budget exactly.
But if we do profit from some of those things, that will help us out tremendously.
Thank you.
Do any board members?
Okay.
Are you done?
I'm first, I'm going to ask if there are any questions for you.
Do any board members have any questions?
Dan?
No.
I am curious of the location of these eight lots.
I don't have that info for you, but I know Stephanie has been to them.
Yeah.
Executive Director Elwood, which could you enlighten us?
There's a sprinkling of the lots around this area.
There's a bunch of lots on 6th Street.
And I think there's some, there might be one or two within the city, too, but I'm not
a hundred percent sure.
Mike Marquette has a full list of all the lots.
And we can get that to you.
There's a couple here on 4th Street, too, I think so.
Yes, I believe so.
Yes.
It sits back in there, yeah.
Is there a motion, Dr. Gordon, is there a recommended motion that you would like us to
have or just move forward with the sale of the land?
Okay.
Is there a motion?
So moved.
Second.
Motion by Dan Shoeff, seconded by Bill Johnson.
Any other discussion?
Hearing none, all in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries unanimously.
Dr. Gordon?
Okay.
Now we're looking at Opab.
Opab has been talked about in all of our budget presentations.
It's a one-time funds that remain available.
Last year, or this school year, 2526, we had $1,937 and $1,937,222 budgeted for potential
use for the 2526 fiscal year, and we didn't have not used that yet.
So that is a good thing.
Eligibility benefit or update benefit eligibility for the sole retiree person who was part of
the Opab stopped receiving their benefits in October of 2024.
So that money does generate interest per month.
And I think Stephanie said about, what, $33,000 a month, right?
Okay.
Okay.
It was quite a nice number.
Yeah.
It was a nice number.
The total available balance that we had as of February 28th, 2026, $4,603,418 and $0.62,
which is likely to be higher now.
Thank you.
Are there any board member questions?
Just a clarifying question.
Go ahead.
So my understanding is the budget we were in this year had Opab at what I'll call a backstop.
And we didn't need that because of vacancies and such.
So practically, maybe it's a Stephanie question, practically we would, if this budget would
authorize $1 million in change that is an Opab backstop, we wouldn't take that out until
the tail end or would we have to take it out for cash flow purposes earlier?
What's your current thinking on that?
Thank you.
The same process we've used for the last two years, we would put the budget in to use
the money, but not actually touch the cash unless we absolutely needed it at year end.
And last two years, we have not needed to move it.
Still looking at being fairly even for the end of the school year, there are quite a
few entries that still have to happen for June to close the year, but it's looking pretty
good that we will not have to use the Opab dollars for $25.26.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
Executive Director Elwood, can you please explain the Opab accounts?
My understanding is Opab is split into two different accounts.
One is more of an investment account.
Another is more of an interest bearing checking account, or something like that, can you help
me out here?
Yep, that is correct.
So we have a little over half the money is sitting with Associated Bank in a managed investment
account that does fairly well.
We just met with them a couple of weeks ago, and then the rest of the money is sitting
at First Med Bank and an interest bearing checking account.
The account that is the investment account since it's been started has increased.
How much?
Roughly?
I'm sorry.
I don't remember off the time I had, and I don't want to quote numbers without having
it in front of me.
It's doubled.
Yeah.
It's doubled since it's been sitting there.
Yeah, because they put money in there at the start of it, and they never put more additional
dollars in there.
And yes, there's quite about sitting there.
And the reason I'm asking is I think it's important that, and I appreciate you inviting
me to sit in on the annual bank meeting.
It's important for board members to understand that we don't have many opportunities to
have accounts that are sitting in an investment account.
That's highly unusual, and I would encourage the board to think about this because a lot
of the things I'm hearing tonight is, oh, the passport, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da,
da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da,
decision, or that decision.
Which I will also say a passport, or somebody made a decision to put that money into this
account.
And it's there to save our butts if we need it.
And I'm hoping we don't need it.
And I would—I'm personally okay with us saying, yeah, let's put money for longevity
pay out of O 19
to also show future boards and future school district of
Deloitte our faith and our hope and our generosity to them and let
that money sit and grow. We while we are continuing to write
size that's you know just my personal opinion. Any other
questions or comments? So the is there a motion? Nope. Is
there a motion or was there? Okay and I would also prefer
that we not make the decision of whether to use OPEB tonight.
We still have a lot of work to do on this budget and I don't
know of how the other board members feel about that but that's
just where I am. I do have a couple of other motions. I didn't
get through all my motions. For OPEB? No for the budget. Okay before
we get to your motions I think Megan has a question or comment
on OPEB. Thank you so much. I just want to clarify too I think
Mr. Johnson brought up a relay at some point earlier about
communication and so with specific specifically with regard to
OPEB but I also believe that this applies to a number of other
items that we've discussed this evening. I do think number one
specific to OPEB it's really important for us to as part of
our next steps as a board. OPEB was put aside as funds for staff and
we need to define like we've brought this up a number of times
in fact that was the basis for our use of approving OPEB for
the longevity pay was that that's money that was set aside for
staff that you go to staff. I think it'll be helpful for future
budget discussions if as a board we clarify like when we say for
staff like how narrow or expansive is that because I think
where perhaps some of the push and pull of these conversations
is lies in how we define like what is or is not for staff so I
think that would be productive to help us build consensus and
increase the constructiveness and future conversations. Secondly
there is a lot of confusion about everything involving school
budgets and school funding and I'm not telling anybody in this
room anything that they don't already know so while we're on
the subject of OPEB I do think it would an ask not emotion but
an ask that I have would be for us to find space in these next
discussions for how we will best communicate the key factors
not just in what we are doing but why because like again Mr.
Johnson I just want to lift up the point you made earlier there
are people who would swear by things that are a hundred percent
not true and it's because they truly believe that those things
exist so I think Miss Johnson just made a lot of really good
points about OPEB and how it's used and all these things I
would I think it's going to be crucial for the trust building
that has to happen and how we are budgeting and doing all
things for us to have a really intentional plan for how to
communicate the financial pieces of that so I'm an answer it's
an ask I'd love for that to be woven into these some of these
future discussions now that we're moving some things forward
thank you.
Dr. Gordon is there anything else or I'm sorry I'm
need to open the thing where you are.
Carol.
Okay I have a couple of other motions that I want to put
before the board we did vote to move BLA but we didn't vote
about the other programs at Cunningham so I moved that the
other programs at Cunningham are moved to appropriate spaces
and that Cunningham school is shuttered for the 2627 school
year.
Is there a second.
Second.
We have a motion by Carol Fox and a second by Bill Johnson
Mrs. Schope did you get the motion.
Any discussion.
Okay Bill.
Is a room at Merrill for all them programs.
Sorry if yes if we're not going to move BLA students to
Merrill then yes we will have room at Merrill for those other
programs for sure.
Thank you.
Any other board member questions or comments Carol.
No I just didn't take it down.
Okay Megan.
I'm just a question I'm board president Johnson if it's
okay to direct to Vice President Fox with the okay if you
can help me understand in the language for your motion you
talked about appropriate places right.
In the inappropriate spaces so in the interest of consistency
and clarity.
What is the criteria that we are using or asking or assuming
that our administration will use to determine appropriate
places or spaces because we just a few motions ago.
Determined with our own set of criteria what appropriate
meant.
So what is your vision for that.
I think it has to do with age and the type of program it is
and there's like four of them so.
I I I think that you know I think they can go to Merrill they
could maybe it's modern to go to high school but that's big
that's the age and the what other opportunities there might be.
So then we're we're going to trust our administration to
determine the appropriateness of those spaces.
I guess yeah.
Oh thank you.
Any other questions.
We have a motion on the floor and if there's no other
questions I will ask all in favor.
Do we have a roll call vote please.
Sure Mrs. Schope when you're ready.
Dan Schoof.
No.
Joanne Ruhl.
I believe she's left the meeting.
Megan Miller.
Nay.
Bill Johnson.
I.
Tom Hankins are you with us.
Okay he's left the meeting.
Carol Fax.
I.
And Tia Johnson.
I.
Motion failed.
Well.
It it carried its bardax does something funky with the not
present people.
So it carried.
Thank you Mrs. Schope.
Thank you Mrs. Schope.
Carol Fax.
I do want to go back to the dean of students positions at
Merrill School.
We are adding a half time counselor there that wasn't
there.
They had a half time assistant principal.
I think the half time counselor can sort of fill in that gap.
And again it's like going to be like a hundred and fifty
students.
I think with a social worker a counselor a half part time
counselor and a psychologist and a principal they ought to be
able to meet the needs of a hundred and fifty students.
So I move that we eliminate the dean position at Merrill
Elementary School.
Is there a second.
Dan your light is on.
Okay.
Director executive director Elwood.
Thank you.
I would just request that you also add in the motion that
you're going to leave the five other deans in the budget for
twenty six twenty seven because they were only approved to be in
the budget for twenty five twenty sixes of one year program.
It's in the it's in the base budget but I can do that.
I you know I move approval of five elementary dean positions
for the twenty six twenty seven school year with Merrill
Elementary and not receiving one for the that particular year.
Second.
We have a motion by Carol Fox and a second by Bill Johnson.
I have a question discussion.
Go ahead.
Dr. Gordon do we know anything about.
The who the principal will be at Merrill and whether or not we have
any behavior issues that we need to have a dean there.
What's our what's our current staffing plan for Merrill.
So at this point we will look at our staffing as it kind of
trickled down this evening as we shift students to BLA.
We will have possibly a principal and a secretary that will
need to either be integrated into the high school or shifted to Merrill
because there is not a principal or a secretary as of right now.
There's a posting.
So that is a possibility not a guarantee.
I cannot guarantee if there are not behaviors that will occur.
And what was your last part of your question.
Sorry you covered them.
Okay. Thank you.
Any other board member questions.
Dr. Gordon of the positions how many of them are filled of the counselor
the pupil services and admin positions at Merrill and I just heard you
that we don't have a principal or a secretary but what about the
counselor and pupil services positions.
I would have to look that up for you on we can.
I can do that for you if you want me to do it now or later.
I guess later later is thank you.
Megan.
Thank you.
I have some concerns about civil rights issues regarding the actions
that we're taking this evening already but specifically this one.
If we are willing to approve deans at our other schools.
With like aged children in in like you know organized buildings.
But we're not willing to approve a half position which makes sense.
You know I understand what you're saying based on needs right needs
and not numbers make sense to me.
But not even willing to prove the half position at Merrill.
I have.
I have a really hard time coming up with with something that's
defensible if like a civil rights complaint were to come up because
I can tell you that as a parent if my children went to an elementary
school that were already you know struggling with staffing.
And there was not at least a good faith attempt made to hire
appropriate staff and I and I'm going to just qualify what I'm saying
what I mean by appropriate staff is if our board is going to vote to
say that we believe it is appropriate and worth funding.
This position for every other elementary school.
To me it would be indefensible to not do the same for another elementary
school.
So I think given that it is like half a position that that is being
requested and I you know.
It's not a half position.
It's a full position.
Oh well that's even better.
I would love to see a full position at Merrill.
So if I can just finish my comments without being interrupted please.
I would appreciate it.
So thank you.
I am not interested in supporting this and I would be wary if I were I just
want to caution my colleagues on the board that we are establishing a
pattern of behavior this evening that is questionable in terms of how we
are treating the most vulnerable students in our school district and I
think it would be indefensible to not allocate a position the same to
all elementary schools.
Thank you.
Those are the conclusion of my comments now.
Thanks.
Thank you and I appreciate the energy and the emotion behind all of this.
These are difficult questions as we navigate them and I would appreciate
that we all respect one another and our suggestions to come up with
solutions and we use the term the most vulnerable students a lot in
this board room and I think the fact of the matter is almost all of our
students are extremely vulnerable and we are a vulnerable school district.
We have to protect the school district where right now Merrill as of
May 5th had an enrollment of 178.
I can appreciate Vice President Fox's concern that that is half all of the
other elementary schools.
178 times two is 356.
The only one that comes under that is gassed in 355.
I appreciate the looking for all possible places we can save money and if
the other positions in fact are filled I would be comfortable saying okay
there is support in that building for that many students but I don't know
if those other positions are filled.
I don't know how difficult it's going to be for them to be filled if they're not
filled over the summer.
So I mean I am okay either taking action on this tonight but I would
prefer actually if we could get more information and have it at a subsequent
meeting.
Any thoughts?
I'm okay with that.
Anyone else?
Mrs. Fox did you have any other motions for tonight?
No and I withdraw that motion.
Thank you.
Any other parting motions or anything we did not cover?
Dr. Gordon?
Dr. Anderson?
Okay.
Then I will entertain a motion to adjourn.
So moved.
Second.
Motion by Megan Miller, seconded by Carol Fox.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion carries.
We are adjourned at 855.
I know.