Hopkins Public Schools — Transcript
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Athletics and Activities Review (2025/2026 & Current Year Outlook)
Budget Cycle and Calendar for Fiscal Year 2027-2028
Eisenhower Pool Closure and Facility Repurposing
First Reading of Board Policies
Votes (4)
Hopkins Public School Athletics & Activities Update
Dissent: N/A
Moved by N/A · Seconded by N/A
The presentation covered student athlete participation data for 2025/2026, including duplicated and unduplicated numbers, grade breakdowns, and challenges in the Lake Conference due to MSHSL rules affecting 9th-grade soccer. Successes in various activities like Royals Dance Crew and Robotics were highlighted. The new Bound operating system was praised for improving registration, scheduling, ticketing, and financial tracking for free/reduced lunch qualifications. Concerns were raised about FRL representation in activities, and ideas for better promotion of sliding scales were discussed. There was no formal vote as this was an informational update.
Budget Cycle and Calendar Presentation
Dissent: N/A
Moved by N/A · Seconded by N/A
Dr. Thomas introduced a new, regular budget timeline for Board and community understanding, developed with CISO, aiming for predictability and timely staffing projections. Highlights included expedited course registrations and planned community town halls. The board expressed gratitude for the roadmap and the inclusion of community engagement. Discussion included a request for clarification on fiscal vs. calendar year and consideration of what level of detail should be public-facing. Board members praised significant improvements in the district's financial processes, noting a dramatic reduction in audit delays. There was also a specific question about the CFAC report date in February and the need for enrollment projections to inform committee work. The calendar was presented for feedback and will be returned for a formal vote at a later meeting.
Superintendent's Report: Eisenhower Pool Closure Update
Dissent: N/A
Moved by N/A · Seconded by N/A
Superintendent Thomas provided a detailed historical account of the decision to close and repurpose the Eisenhower Pool, initiated by budget reduction conversations in early 2026 due to significant maintenance costs ($2M capital, $200k annual operating) and its physical limitations. The repurposing to a gym addresses high demand for rental space and Eisenhower Elementary's safety needs. Multiple stakeholders, including swim coaches and staff, were convened for discussions that led to the June 2026 decision. Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot confirmed that design is 100% complete and bidding is commencing, with current reservations ending March 30th. Board members expressed disappointment over communication, questioned the extent of stakeholder involvement, and inquired about exploring alternative funding or community partnerships to maintain aquatic facilities.
First Reading and Approval of Board Policies
Dissent: None
Moved by Director Hyman [01:36:20] · Seconded by Director Zhao [01:36:25]
The board reviewed several policies (102, 103, 202, 203.2, 203.5, 203.6). Minor changes were made to Policy 102 and 202. Policies 103, 203.2, and 203.6 had no changes. A detailed discussion occurred regarding Policy 203.5 concerning the process for adding items to the agenda, specifically the phrase 'may only be added.' Concerns about conflict with state statutes on public notice for action items and the ability to address emergent issues led to a decision to send Policy 203.5 back to the monitoring committee for consultation with MSBA legal counsel. The remaining policies were approved for second reading.
Notable Quotes (12)
The unduplicated is what I look at. Is really just the number of single student athletes participating overall. That duplicated numbers means that we have a ton of student athletes that are doing multiple sports activities. They're just involved in a lot of things, which is also pretty awesome.
So with this new system, we've been able to go through and actually ask parents to fill this out to actually qualify for that. So once we get them cleared, we can check a box. It marks them in the system. Nobody else has access to that but my team. So we were able to get that in, and it's helped us out a lot.
Are we a little underrepresented on FRL families? It looks like you said 13.3%. I believe our FRL rate is higher in high school. So is there- I think it's about 40. Yeah. So are we underrepresented? What can we do to raise that?
What you'll notice here is a couple of things. One, you're going to see that we're still going to be tracking for our regular audit so that we can have the most accurate numbers as we go into that formal budgeting process and tying out the previous year so that we know how to forecast all of our projections. You will also notice on this updated calendar that we have registration timelines that are expedited.
I just really appreciate that and that there's such intentional spaciousness for us to be able to See the budget, to have insight, the community, to be able to weigh in for questions that may be arising in a particular school or budget area.
Just for context, for people to be aware, at one point, we were a year plus late on our audit. Last year, we were six months late, and now by all accounts, we're going to be on time. So I really appreciate that timeliness and improvements to the control environment.
Maintaining pools, even though they're indoors, but they are a very costly endeavor. And so, we are at a point with that pool that there was projections of needing to put in a couple million dollars into that pool to really bring it into a space that's feasible for the best use, and then annually about a $200,000 cost to maintain that pool.
Currently, the pool lives inside of what we consider the elementary boundary, with the differentiation between the community center and the elementary school. And that has been one of the number one challenges around the pool is having community members in and out of that space very near and even overlapping, some with the elementary school hours.
I think I'm mostly disappointed with the lack of communication around this. I'm unclear if the right stakeholders were at the table for it. I don't see the girl's varsity swim coach on the email. I don't see the head Hurricane swim coach on the email. I wasn't aware of it until this email.
Do we know why a pool, an aquatic center, something like that wasn't a line item in our $140 million ask to the community? If we just passed a referendum, why wasn't it $150 million referendum?
So, to me that means we can sit here, and if something big has come up over the weekend since the agenda was posted, we would be allowed to add an item. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't read stuff like this all the time, but to me that's pretty clear. Am I understanding that correctly? Or is the agenda, once it's posted the week prior, that is set in stone, you cannot add a new item?
Is this for a discussion item, but not to take action? So you're adding an item for discussion, but you need three days to take action, and if it's an emergency meeting, and I don't know, there's clauses around statute for calling an emergency meeting, and there's requirements that you have to fit because again, I've been through that before as well. So I just want to make sure that you all vet discussion versus discussion and action.
Ordinances & Resolutions (9)
Equal Education Opportunity policy, minor edits reviewed.
Complaints policy, no changes recommended.
Board Position Responsibilities policy, minor editorial update.
Order of the Regular School Board Meeting policy, no changes recommended.
Meeting Agenda policy, sent back to monitoring committee for further clarification on adding items to the agenda.
Consent Agenda policy, no changes recommended.
District's strategic vision guiding community engagement.
Report submitted to the legislature urging repeal of a mandated special education budget reduction.
Referendum on the ballot for increased school funding without new taxes.