Thank you to our voters. Thank you to many of you in the room that voted for our November 4th capital projects levy that was renewed for 10 years with a 69% success rate.

But policy 601 and 603 are two very very big important policies. And so while I want to be uh uh you know respectful of how we go through this process and ensuring that all of our per policies are current and have the the appropriate cross references, policy 601 is our school district curriculum and instructional goals and and and then 603 is how we how curriculum is developed. And so those are really big items. And so my hope is that we get to those uh together fairly soon.

The district community is growing, not only Lakeville, but all the other communities that we serve are also growing in some shape, form or fashion. And then of course you know that lends to increased enrollment uh and then we need to respond with that with appropriate infrastructure.

I think I am having some immediate reactions. Um and I want to think about this from the lens of how do we be strategic across everyone um in terms of what the priorities for the district are overall. Um, and so the phase I mean I I'm with Director Thompson in that there's a obviously a very immediate need with the middle schools and we've [clears throat] been hearing time and again about early childhood and so that makes sense that there's an immediate need there and it does feel like the um Pathways was never a great option.

But when I think about um equity within our students, um our ALC campus gave up their entire building to give the district $1 million to to to uh help with those budget cuts. And um when I see that we are upgrading stadiums and bathrooms and performing arts centers and we have a whole student population that is in the basement of a building, um I find that hard to swallow.

I'm a huge fan of having a tech center like whether it be a corporate office where you've got a floor dedicated for you know pathways a floor dedicated for STEM a floor dedicated for AI technology training? like like our kids, they've got to make we've got to make sure that beyond just education, they've like are we are we positioning our district's uh curriculum in a way so that uh you know they've got a right pathway forward, but then then the buildings and the facilities need to be designed around that future student in 10 years.

It does solve your problem. What I would offer to you, sir, is when we look at long-term, we truly don't know. And you made a great observation in terms of the southwest of of southwest of our district. We don't truly know if we burn a lot of our tax tolerance on $28 million. Now, that takes away a little bit of flexibility in the out years because now we're going to have to bond again for another school that would probably be close to probably two uh probably close to $200 million.

I see a pattern in 194 of being really reactive rather than big thinking, big planning. And so I want to make sure whatever decision is made on this and many other things like teaching and learning, reducing class sizes that I understand they're from different pots of money, right? Technically, but from the community it's one pot, right? It's our it's our it's our personal finances and so what is the tax tolerance and what are all the needs and what are the things that our board most cares about and I feel like we set that with our metrics plan.