[Music] Good evening. The time is now, okay, let me see what what the time is now 6:10 p.m. The Visetta Public Schools Board of Education special regular meeting for Monday, June 23rd, 2025 will please come to order. Will the clerk please call the role? Heidi Kedar here. Sheila Prior here. Sarah Johansson here. Harris Bendy here. Valentina S can uh I do here making a note that she's on Zoom. Dan Janestra here. Milan Sahonyi present. Chase Anderson here. Thank you. We have a quorum. Director Ays has joined us today via Zoom. Hello Valentina. Okay. Okay. The first item on our agenda is the approved approval of the agenda and the consent agenda items. There is no consent agenda for this meeting. Is there a motion? I move. Second. Moved and seconded. Would now be the time for me to move my amendment? Absolutely. All right. Well, Mr. Chair. Um I motion to amend the um agenda as it stands to add an audience opportunity to address the board. Okay. So noted. A second. All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. Wait a minute. What are we voting on? Voting. Are we voting on the amendment or are we voting on the agenda? So we need to state that the agenda. Okay. Director Jinestra has asked for an amendment to add an item on the agenda to add the public opportunity to speak and he has moved that and ID is seconded. But due to the remote okay so that is that is what we are looking at. We are voting on the amendment to the agenda. Uh so this will be by roll call. Uh Sheila Heidi Kedar. Yes. Sheila Prior. Yes. Sarah Johansson. Yes. Harris Bende. Yes. Valentina Ays. Dan Dan Janestra. Yes. Milan Sahony. Yes. The amendment passes. We we so now we go back to the the whole agenda, right? Okay. So, who wants to move the agenda with the amendment? Final agenda. Second. Moved and seconded. This is also a roll call vote. Sheila, please. Heidi Kedar, yes. Valentina Ays, Dan Janestra, yes. Sarah Johansson, yes. Paris Bend, yes. Sheila Prior, yes. Milan Sahony, yes. The motion carries. We have an agenda. So, what we'll do, Amy, is we'll add the public uh comments before any of the other items. So, uh we have somebody, right? We have uh Sher Olen. Does she need to fill out a form? Well, has she has she filled out a form? Okay, we'll let it go. Okay, we'll let it go. That's fine. Sheru, please. Thank you, uh, school board for allowing me to speak. I really appreciate it. Um, and I want to say thank you for serving in this role. You have to make a lot of hard decisions. And I'm here to speak on one of the decisions you'd like to make tonight. I have concerns about the vote to move uh schoolboard elections to even years. Um, it's long been a controversy whether that's a good thing to do or not. Um, I have long supported oddyear school board elections for many reasons. I believe you have a possible larger and higher quality pool of candidates that are willing to run and serve on the school board when elections are held in odd years because of less partisanship and the zoo that a lot of elections have become. I also believe that it's an opportunity for community to learn about and focus on local um issues and their local leaders instead of being distracted with larger elections, many multiple candidates that they need to learn about and make a decision on. I also think that it helps it helps to keep the partisanship down. I know there was a long discussion at the May work session and partisanship came up a lot and I agree that there's not a lot we can do about it seeping into our elections and our school districts. But why feed that? Why create the opportunity for a school board election to be viewed as partisan and have your candidates forced to talk about issues that maybe don't affect our district or um put their lawn sign next to one candidate or another. And right away your community has put you in a box and they may or may not respect or listen to your opinion while they're serving down the road. Uh that said, there are many benefits to moving the elections to even years and I think it's important to acknowledge that there are benefits that we could see. Saving the money of course is I think a top priority for this district because we are fiscally conservative and I can appreciate that you want to save the money. Um, I think a lot of the discussion at the May work session had to do with saving the money, the benefits of all elections being at the same time for our community. Um, it lowers confusion when we have to have consolidated polling places during the schoolboard election, etc. So I'm not saying it would be a tragedy to move our elections to um even years. My main objection is the process by which it reached this point. I think that you're making this decision with next to zero community input. I think that there was um a conversation at a March or April work session and that was because the legislature was thinking of moving it to be mandatory to move elections. Okay. When that didn't happen, you then had a long good conversation about whether to do this or not about four weeks ago, I believe in the May work session. It was a good conversation and I would encourage anyone in the community to watch the YouTube recording of that conversation. All of you had very good thoughts on it. I think that one of the arguments in that conversation was that you wanted more opportunity for the community to vote because there was larger turnout in even years. That's true. But you're taking this vote with no community opportunity for input, thoughts, or anything. I think tonight is the opposite of wanting community involvement and transparency. And please, please, please don't act as a body in a way that continues to erode public trust and confidence. That's all I'm asking is for you to please consider that. Thank you. Thank you, Sher. Okay, let's move on to the next uh I'm sorry there's another Oh, sorry. Okay, welcome Rachel. Hello. Good evening. I wasn't planning on speaking, but since uh I have the opportunity, um so we just heard David give a board presentation on on funding and um on behalf of uh families, I have my own students in the district and I'm a teacher and on behalf of the other teachers, I'm also the teachers union president. Um looking at currently we know that um the in the next bianium we are expected to receive that inflationary increase but um we know that in the following bianium we're probably going to have no increase at all. Um potentially even cuts and we were hearing we were asking questions about special ed funding and that's real concerning. um the savings of over $100,000 every two years. Um that's pretty significant. Um looking at reducing class sizes, relieving teacher workload impacting special education. Um prioritizing putting the funding into classrooms and teachers. Um when we look at the community survey that went out um and by and large what the community was saying was classrooms and teachers are are where the highest impact we know is for our learners and um I the optics of it are what's I feel the most important um and looking at just the financial impact alone um just given what we know is on the horizon to me um having to prioritize that and putting that funding where it really matters just knowing that we don't know there's a lot of unknowns um as we just discussed and we're listening to David um I ask that you really think about that as we're looking we don't want to end up having to to cut teachers having to be um increasing class sizes again and losing good teachers and having it affect our our students. So, thank you. Okay. Thank you, Rachel. No more, right, Amy? Yeah, that's it. Okay. All right. So, let's let's move on. Um, we have two items on the agenda this evening. The admin reports and recommendations. And the other item is the board action. In the first administration item, Dr. Anderson will seek board approval of the identified official with authority, also known as Iowa as required annually by the Minnesota Department of Education. Dr. Anderson. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. I'll share the following information from the board packet in regard to what this action item entails. Minnesota Department of Education requires that school districts must annually designate an identified official with authority uh to comply with the MNIT, which is the Minnesota Information Technology Enterprise Identity and Access Management Standard. It's a mouthful, which stands that all user access rights to Minnesota State Systems must be reviewed and reertified at least annually. The identified official with authority will assign job duties and authorize external users access to MDE secure systems for their local education association or agency. The board recommends to authorize Chase Anderson me to act as the identified official with authority for public schools. Recommended action. Uh we'll uh turn that over to the board to read the action and uh you can take it from there. Thank you Dr. Anderson. So colleague, the recommended action is to approve the attached resolution naming Chase Anderson to act as the identified official with authority for Visetta Public School District. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Is there a discussion? Hearing none. Oh, sorry. Valentina, go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Um I will be talking maybe a lengthy way but uh the whole idea why I am joining is that I am trying to also participate. Uh what happened is um I want to say thank you first of all to Amy uh who went above and beyond organizing that I can join this meeting and I can participate in Milin for sharing some information. We had the general planning meeting where we discussed about possibility since uh this is important topic uh allowing all seven of us to participate and somehow I I am on I was on vacation in fact I'm still on the way back home uh severely jetlagged somehow the move the discussion about moving this meeting to 24th 25th or 26 changed um I don't know how even though during agenda planning meeting where uh chair vice chair and superintendent was present and I was present there there was no opposition can you hear me um to to be honest when I I heard that about nonpartisan I this is the first sign for me how partisan it can be because Again the discussion was doing it from different date. I don't think she Valentina can can Valentina can you hear can you hear me? Valentina can can she hear you? Yeah. I don't Valentina can you hear me? Yeah I think she can hear you. Okay. Can you hear me? This is Yeah, we can hear you. Can you hear us? Okay. So, can you can you hold off on that for for a later item on the agenda? Let's just discuss the the motion on hand right now. Approval of Dr. Anderson for the Iowa Authority. So, we we have we have moved that seconded that and this is a discussion on that specific item. So if you could please hold off on your comments for we'll let you talk but not at this not in not in this item of the agenda. Okay. So so so hold off on that and then we will we will finish the discussion. We'll take a call. Yeah. Maybe that's the microphone. Okay. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me better? Okay. So, I think we turned the position of the microphone that you were listening to earlier. So, maybe this will work better. Okay. So, what I was going to say was let's hold off on your comments for now. This is a discussion part of the vote on the approval of Chase Anderson as the authority. Okay. And so if you do not have any comments on that, let's let's move on. Let's see if the rest of the board has any comments and then we'll do a roll call vote. Okay. Anybody else has a comment? Do you have a comment on this specific item, Valentina? Do you have any comment on this specific item? Okay. All right. So, let's let's go with a roll call vote. Sheila will call the role. Sheila Prior, yes. Heidi Kedar, yes. Valentina Ays, Dan Janestra, yes. Sarah Johansson, yes. Harris Bend, yes. Milan Sahony, yes. The motion passes. Thank you. Congratulations to Dr. Anderson. All right. So the next finance director David Dascoich will seek board approval for the prelim budget for fiscal year 202526. David. Good evening superintendent Chase board members. uh district administration recommends that you uh recommends the following revenue and expenditure budget by fund for FY2526 fiscal year. Um I know we went over this through a presentation during the work session. So I'll just skip to the end. Um revenues over revenues over expenditures. So the revenues will be 277,672,519. Uh total expenditures for 2526 will be $285,992566. Um my motion is or my recommendation is to approve the preliminary budget for the FY2526 fiscal year. All right. Thank you, David. So board members, the recommended action is to approve the pre prelim budget for the 202526 fiscal year. Is there a motion? I so move. Second. Moved and seconded. Is there a discussion? I have a comment. Thank you. This is the most important job that a board can do. It is our number one job to approve a budget. It is not something that happens in 30 seconds at a board meeting. It's a it's a multi-year process. Thank you to the team for guiding our district to this point. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. So, if there are no comments, this is also a roll call vote. Uh, Sheila, if you could please. Paris Bend, yes. Sheila Prior, yes. Heidi Kedar, yes. Valentina Ays. Dan Janestra, yes. Sarah Johansson, yes. Milan Sahonyi, yes. The motion passes. Thank you. And thank you, David. Thank you. Okay. So the final item on the agenda this evening is board action regarding even one-year elections. This item is brought forward to establish if the Wisetta school board uh I think we lost connection did we? Okay, never mind. Okay, sorry about that. This item is brought forward to establish if the Wisetta school board will be pursuing changing from odd year to evenear elections. Should this initial vote pass, the school board will vote on which of the two resolutions it plans to pursue. Should the vote on changing from odd year to evenear elections not pass, there will not be a follow-up vote on the election resolutions. The motion statement is to um is to adopt a resolution moving visetta school board elections from odd years to even year elections. Is there a motion? Second move and seconded. Is there a discussion? Okay, go ahead, Valentina. No, you can continue where where I cut you off. I'm sorry about that. But yeah, you can continue, I think. Mhm. No, actually I I would say our technology department and Amy works so well. She fixed it. They fixed very quickly. I hear very well right now. Okay. Um I just wanted to say that uh as I said, I wanted to say thank you to Amy for doing uh going above and beyond and organizing this uh meeting this way. I had been out of the country. I am in fact still on the way back home and um this is uh how technology allows to participate. I just wanted to pointed out that uh we had agenda planning meeting and I was involved there. Chair, vice chair and superintendent were present there. We discussed about since uh it's quite a sensitive topic that all seven of us should be present and especially when we had work session where you can already gauge who is leaning uh towards what uh kind of decision uh just simply eliminating somebody can change completely the outcome. So this one uh um me being able to uh connect via Zoom allows me uh to participate. Bonus thing. I'm not sure why uh when we made decision that we will change the date all of a sudden within two weeks uh things changed back to 23rd. Yes. The discussion was maybe that it might be saving $350 because of the if you ch if you meet on different date then it's $50 per uh schoolboard member need to be paid but we're talking about $100,000 here. So I'm not sure what is comparison and as I said again um we I just started hearing about nonpartisan this is one of example when I I almost got eliminated but again thanks for several um people at our board um this allowed me to participate um and uh another one was discussion was brought up that this um keeping election during odd years allows us allows people who have less money to participate. I have to disagree with it because as if right now we have uh in many school districts teacher unions supporting certain candidates and choosing not to support others. we cannot compete with uh teacher union's money for example and I would like to point it out I have nothing against teachers in fact I'm working at school myself so it'll be odd uh if anything I would say probably teachers also not all teachers sign up for um uh social emotional uh teachers probably sign up for this job because they like teaching but all of a sudden society is asking them to do more uh almost like to parent. Uh so arguably I would say that probably not all teachers would like to be parents to students. They just want to teach students and uh be mentors in their lives. Um uh in another one I wanted to point it out that um perh at work session we uh presentation we found out that in the past was just 5% of uh electorate was participating. So uh it's 5% of people who are making decision uh for school district. uh 2021 changed uh the picture more people uh started participating for some uh reasons because and I don't think it is uh so much to do um party lines and all it's just that like I we heard even during presentation from Hazel that uh we as a um I mean district number one in education we're missing about over 900 students because other families are choosing to go somewhere else because values do not align and it it's nothing wrong uh that some parents disagree and it allows parents to participate in elections and then uh to say their opinion. um I don't think that 5% of people uh should be making decision for school district and uh moving to even year election first of all I would say I mean it's small but still it will eliminate additional work uh for Amy she has to hold quite a bit of um things and I'm going to say also clarify that Amy had been if anything Amy had been very non partisan. Uh she never showed any um her opinions. Uh and a second one is uh yes it's 100 um $100,000 but it's still money um every two years. So you can use money that money for something else. But for biggest uh one for me is that moving to even years it allows I I mean to be honest if you look at the uh what happened I mean historically more people will be participating and that allows then uh from I mean more more people are making decision for school district not just 5% not just uh groups uh groups groups on Facebooks, groups on um organized groups uh so to speak uh and um uh um just a minute. Sorry. One um one more thing I I wanted uh to say that um the last the last uh election when I I was participating I want just to remind that teacher union was uh supporting free candidates. Arguably, I would say that then these three candidates should not be involved in uh contract negotiation because it show it um uh there is a conflict of interest there and it was with previous teacher union um representative. Hopefully with um this um with new teacher uh represent u union it'll be different because again I don't know why some communities um are not eager to hear a different opinion. Just because we have a different opinion it doesn't mean that we are completely opposing something. In fact, actually being at school board, um I found that with some school board members, we can actually work across the aisle and we can uh discuss things because we have common um we need to find something in common in us, something in common. I believe it is uh free hours, reading, uh arithmetic and uh writing. That's the most important thing why we're sending our teach our students to school and our um arguably again teachers uh not all teachers have psychological degree to do social emotional uh teaching and I think that parents need to do parenting and schools need to uh to bring free ours into um system into back to back to basic we are not asking a lot. Um so my opinion uh would be that I would uh support moving to even year election and um moving to a three-year cycle. Hold on because I feel it is odd for me to Valentina can you hear me? that three year is not we are we we may get there but right now we are we are focusing on just whether we want even year or odd year elections on I just to be honest if we never ended up that de uh I would not be able to voice that that opinion that's why I'm just saying uh and I'm done uh my point is I don't feel comfortable extending uh one more year for myself it feels like you know a politician just choosing I feel like it will be more transparent if we uh u we come up to even years by uh by uh doing free years. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Any other any other comments? Any discussion? Yes, I do. So, I just um I think it's important to have this whole picture in context, right? So, a few months ago, um it was suggested at the legislature um that there there might have been a requirement for us to go through with this vote. However, um the when the omnibus bill was signed, which I think was what May 20 something, May 23rd, 25th, something like that, um which was after our last work session, it didn't move forward. And so in my perspective, that rush of having to make the decision is not there anymore. And so that the the slide that's up on the on my screen right now was when we were trying to figure out how this would work if the legislature had put that into the omnibus bill. So we don't have that right now. Um so the the action that's in front of us is not a recommendation through the administration. Um and I think it is a recommendation from the chair and you can correct me if I'm wrong. Um, but I also have concerns that we have not appropriately engaged our school community in this decision because we don't we're not at this point of the rush to have to make the decision. And so at in my perspective at a bare minimum we could have t we can now take this to our citizens finance committee to talk about that angle. We can take it to scite. We can take it to our liaison committee. we can take it to our strategic partners. Um, the way that Weisetta has typically done things is in a very measured way. It may take some more time, but we get it right and I want to get this right. I am not in opposition of us saving money 100%. I want to save money any which way we can so that we can put it into our classrooms. I think there are more creative ways that we can do that. I think that we could talk about aligning our board votes with levies and bonds because it's my understanding that our levies and bonds come up for a vote for election as our school needs them. And so is there a pathway for that? Are there different ways that we can come by this money rather than having to make this fast of a decision? So, um that's kind of where I stand. Um I have more questions but I'll let my colleagues speak. Okay. Go ahead. So I have a question about that with the levies and bonds and the things that I know in the past when we have had you know when we like the tech technology levy we had some flexibility in when we could have it because um you know you had like a buffer you could you could kind of choose your year. So when we had that with the technology levy, would we not also have that with other things that we're bringing to the voters? So if we if we moved to even years, then we could kind of get on that schedule as well to save money with elections, which is why we moved the technology lovely to when it was. It's my understanding from asking that we would not be changing the way that our bonds and loveies are run. we would be continuing to do them as needs arise. So, for example, we have an April uh potentially potentially an April vote on a referendum. It would continue to stay that way. Right. So, but that has so that's going to be in April. That's already not in November. So, we're choosing to do that outside of the normal election time anyway. Correct. And to run that is also the same cost as running a schoolboard election or we have every reason to believe it is. We don't, you know, we haven't done it yet, so we don't know for sure. But as far as I guess I don't see how the two are related then because if we're already doing that and it's not related to elections, we're just talking about elections. I just want to make sure I'm clear on like what any So my point is anytime we're going to the ballot, anytime we're asking people to come out to vote for things for school, it costs us $100,000, right? So we we could rather than having in my perspective, we could try to start getting on a different schedule so that we have our schoolboard elections and our bonds and levies happening on the same ballot so that it's schools happening all at once. You're asking people to focus on schools. I said we're not we're not talking about that right now. I do not see how they're related. We could maybe choose to do that later, but right now we're just talking about board elections on even or odd years. And yes, it would be great if everything else was aligned. But what I'm saying is we could come up with more creative solutions rather than just having these two in front of us. In my perspective, these are not our only two options. I I just need to make a point of clarification and then I'll speak later. We have aligned general operating referenda with school board elections and the whole purpose of that was that we were engaging our community in a conversation that centered our district and our district leadership. 2017 was the last example of when we did a general operating levy and a schoolboard election and at the and it worked really well for the two. This most the one that's coming up soon though is going to be in April and not in November. I think that that is a portion because they when we're doing a building in construction um as you as was noted tonight and has been noted in the past, there's a number of timelines and things and as we think about when we need to have the money ready. Um and so we take a number of different votes where we go out and ask our voters for money. One of them is is on a on a bonding bill or facilities that may have some other constraints or timelines depending on when it's when we can get the money and when we can do the construction and when we can get the supplies and all of those things. There's the general operating levy in which we ask the voters to renew. I know there's been given some board authority to autorenew those. That's not a conversation that we've had at this table yet and I know we've had a preliminary but that's not there. But there has been a consistent commitment and again 2017 was that one when we go out and ask the voter ask the voters for our own directed referendum that doesn't connect with construction that that has been tied to schoolboard elections and that timing has been serendipitous in centering district issues. Yeah. But I Heidi um even I had similar question um and again Sarah to your point whenever there is a need like let's say potential April 2026 yes unfortunately we'll have to go off cycle whether it is odd odd year or even year right and then wherever possible again we want to align it with schoolboard election whether it is odd year or even year so again that's where I agree with you I don't see how they are connected and again whether we move odd or even year we still have to make every attempt to align all these levies and everything with whenever the next school board election is. So again I I'm not able to connect the dots. Again fully understand your point that hey it has to be together so we don't spend more money either even year or odd year. So okay go I I go ahead. I have more comments but I'll let you go. So to your point Heidi about the legislature not doing anything with the omnibus bill. We have always complained that the legislature does not let us have local control. This is a great opportunity for us to have local control and we are now saying we want to wait for the legislature no to do that. Right. So so I I didn't I didn't get the connection for that. Let me let me finish first. The other thing I heard saying somebody saying that there is no difference in cost whether it whether the referendum is held during an odd year or during an even year. then why are we even bringing that into this picture right and that is what I think earlier we in an email conversation that is what I heard or saw somebody's mention that that the that the referendum for example we have next year in April will have the same cost whether we do an odd year election or even in year election so that's that number one number two to me the most important thing two most important things are the cost savings and the phenomenally higher voting percentage that we see in even year elections. All this not talk about nonpartisanship, partisanship, I think is overblown. Like I mentioned in my in in the last meeting, I gave me gave my personal example of how somebody in an a year election put me in a democratic bucket. They said I was a democrat because of my values, because of what I was running on. So how can how can somebody say that this will not happen in an even year election also you know it it it doesn't matter which year election you have if you have values if you stand for something people don't take that take a minute to label you as a democrat or a republican it doesn't matter they they are they become partisan right away thank you then well thank you you know we've had a I think a very diverse and dynamic conversation on this issue for a while now. And I think as I've been reflecting and thinking on what everyone said, I think I'm drawn in many ways to a larger point that I think goes beyond the budget or spending or turnout. Um, it is a question of whether or not we want to make the investment in having an election where we can tell our own story, talk about our own challenges, our own needs as a district without that national rhetoric that is so misleading, so based in not what public education does or not what school boards do. Come on in. And we have two great examples, I think. One is 2022 where we had a special election for school board. The other is 2023 we had an year election. And we look at what happened in 2022 where all the rhetoric was. All right? We were hearing stuff about oh there are these books that need to be banned. We were hearing teachers are teaching things that are inappropriate. There's stuff in the curriculum that's not acceptable. And the common thread through all of that was people need to run for the school board so that they can ban the books. so that they can discipline the teachers, so that they can rewrite the curriculum to their own ends. Those are not things that school boards or schoolboard members do, period. Yet, because of the national rhetoric, that national narrative, people believed that. We fast forward one year later and our teachers feel safe doing their jobs. We've made this critical investment, as we have now for many years, in telling Weisetta's story. So, we're talking about how we can lower class sizes. We're talking about the district's budget. We're talking about our spending. We're having an election that is based in Weisetta public schools, that is based in facts, that is based in our ability to tell our story. Sarah has the floor to you. Go ahead. all that we can sit down at the table and we can discuss because all parents uh and teachers we are concerned about uh I mean we have similarities we don't have that kind of big uh issue uh how we don't have complete different values for us some things We might disagree but that's that's what we need to be able to discuss. If you like even right now it's happening don't want us to uh to voice our opinion. Uh well to be honest school district schools uh belong to all of us. We are talking about equity here. I would like to be uh equally um being involved in our kids education and I mean as a parent and to be honest as a um myself u being able to take advantage from what my teachers were able to bring. So I'm not sure how can you separate uh national level and uh local level you want it or not it's still affecting many school district uh in Minnesota have exact the same issues and they move to even years without any problems and in fact actually quite a bit uh thanks to Amy quite a bit of school district did even five year um like I mean extending their servings so that school district don't have to have I mean in our case it's hundred thousand dollars more spending and I was actually I even checked with our school district um asking if uh community opposed or um they had some backlash community in many school districts actually took it as is. uh I have myself personally difficulty with that but what what I want to point out many school district in Minnesota moved to even years without any problems and I'm not sure what is the difficulty here to be honest thank you okay I have a couple of points so every election is open to every student every citizen candidates and community members actively engage and getting out the vote efforts including information sharing, directions to polling places, calling setting up calling trees about voting. There's a number of get out the vote efforts that happen. Um, extended polling opportunities, rid shore services. I align that that does not always produce large amounts of voters in elections and that is really um an important factor. At the same time, there's also a number of efforts that show that the people that have made the efforts to go to the polls have learned about school issues and they are voting because they have an opinion and they want to express it. I fully ex support the need to increased informed turnout in all elections and I agree as well that there are um merits to even an oddyear elections um and that warrants information collection community input and seeking understanding. This is not the time or the process for this school board to make this decision. And I'm going to give a couple points why. The June 9th board meeting, we heard um in public comment about the level of intentionality that previous boards went into in holding elections in the odd years. Um and they did so to ensure a focus on school specific issues. They did not do it rash. They did not do it quickly. They sought input and they made an informed decision. Our community deserves the opportunity to center our children and our schools in a time and space where district issues can take center stage. Second of all, we have a strong commitment to nonpartisan. This is almost impossible to do in 2025. I've talked at nauseium about that. Um this cannot be uh it it it's hard to avoid in oddyear elections. um it will um I I think our speaker just said something about um you know we will only feed it if we do it in evenear elections. I would like to draw into point the 22 special election um where there were three candidates uh the parties lined up for each candidate that they thought best aligned with theirs values and there was one candidate that was out in affiliation. that candidate identifies it as being beat up by both sides and could not get airspace in any place and can detail specific examples of their negative experience. The financial considerations I um I think you heard me talk a lot about fiscal conservativism and and and spending and and I am first to say that we need to be cautious. We have a $277 plus million budget. The cost of a $100,000 election is 0.000036%. And um this will not eliminate our need to hold um off-year elections. We we need to be conservative. We need to look at class sizes. We need to create excellent opportunities for students. 0.000036% 00036% is not going to move that needle. mindful effort from this body in collaboration with the administration might. Next, ARS, who's a partner of ours, wrote in their newsletter recently to all school districts that um and it was sent to all newsletters that it will be even and I quote now it will be even more challenging, contentious, and loud to run elections in even years. And this will take more a person could fill in the blank funds, staff, etc. to get attention. that will happen for school districts going out to ask for votes. That will also ask that will also impact our candidates. We want candidates who are dedicated to this district and who can speak eloquently about school district issues and they deserve the attention of our community. So that leads me to what is the problem we are trying to solve and what is the urgency. We don't have to make this decision today. That doesn't mean future boards wouldn't make that decision, but we have a precedent to be informed. We've not reached out to district liaison, the SEFAC, um, engaged Morris Letterman, or sought any formal public input. We are holding this vote at a special meeting in the summer when previous materials indicated a vote at the regular meeting on June 9th. There has not been adequate community input. We owe it to our community to take the time and to seek the input and to educate ourselves to ensure that all considerations and impact are explored and understood. This vote is in direct opposition to intentional actions by previous boards. And I I will just underscore again that we owe it to our students and our community to pause, to learn, and to engage our stakeholders in this most consequential decision. Anyone else? Yeah, like to say something. Um, so when we found out how much money we would be saving, I think that was that came as a surprise to me. Um, I I've thought long and hard about this issue. I'm very I mean $100,000 every two years that's the equivalent of a part-time teacher. I mean that's another um that's another PLC coach. That's another um part-time specialist somewhere. You know, I when you think of it in those terms, I would like to put us on the path to those cost savings sooner rather than later. Um, I think in terms of an investment, if we're looking at this as an investment, what are we getting from our investment? I don't think we're getting much from our investment. I think we're getting we Yes. So, I had the, you know, the pleasure to run two years in a row. I ran for the special election to replace CAM Falconer and then I ran again the next year or so because that term ended. So, I ran in 2022 and 2023. um the level of partisanship was the same in both years. I think that is just the the world we live in right now. Um so I don't know that keeping partisanship out of it is is happening. So why are we spending this money on it if it's not happening? Um if we want to talk about community input, we did receive a lot of emails. Um we've had people come talk to the board. Um, I don't know. I mean, my impression is that it's kind of cost or partisanship and that those are kind of the main issues and so then I ask again, if we're not getting if we're not keeping partisanship out, why are we spending the money? Um, in terms of awareness of school district issues. So more voters mean or you know more people coming out to vote means more people being aware of the school district issues because voters know they need to be informed on election day and the even years but in the odd years most of them don't even know there's an election happening. So in some ways I I feel like it's what I'm hearing is almost counterintuitive. I'm like you will get more people to know about the things if you make it in an in um in an even year. So I you know I would all right I I just want that's all I have I just want to make a can I can I speak first okay want to make a comment on the 0.36% and that brought back memories for me almost 24 years ago I was laid off in 2001 couldn't find a job for a long time and my friends used to tell me oh unemployment is very very low. You shouldn't worry. It'll it'll happen very soon. And I could not find a job for 18 months for somebody that is unemployed. The unemployment rate is 100%. For for kids or teachers that have lost their jobs, kids that have that cannot have access to books or curriculum because of that. 0.36% for them it's 100 100%. So to to say that 0.36% does not matter I I don't know if that is appropriate because those 0.36% adds up to the 100%. Every every penny that we can save we should be looking at and trying to save. And like like Sheila said I I'm not convinced that we will we will remain nonpartisan if we continue with our years. It's it's not going to happen. This is not the age we are living in. Thank you. Yeah. Well, you know, we've had um I think a lot of important questions asked and um I think I'll try to do my best to to answer a lot of them. Um you know, I think one question, you know, put forward was um you know, what are we getting in return? Um you know, to me that stood out very obviously. um were not fighting national battles at the local area. When I listen to candidates who ran in 2022, people who were involved in those elections, um what I hear is that it was all about these controversial books that weren't even in our library, weren't a part of the curriculum or anything like that. So, we're having to play defense on something that isn't part of our story. We talk about the money. $100,000 could be the cost. It could be much lower. We don't know. And so it's also important to consider how those dollars would hypothetically be spent. I think when we talk about a $277 million budget, I think we know there are a lot more needs, a lot of needs. And so it would appear, I think, very logic or realistic to say that well those dollars are probably going to be eaten up by some other more immediate need. Okay? It's not going to be sling we can allocate, you know, toward hiring a teacher and bringing them into our Weissa public schools family. I wish it were so, but I think that's unrealistic. Um, we talked about just getting our message out and how much challenge there is there. Um, you know, and so what are we getting? We're number one on people's ballots. I'm going to read to you next year 2026 an even numbered year who all is going to be on the ballot. All right. US Senator, US Congress, Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Auditor, State Senate, State House of Representatives, County Park Commissioner, County Sheriff, County Attorney, City Council, Mayor, and then school board. I think I probably brought up some offices who you couldn't name the person. So, we're already talking about lower name ID in an even year election to begin with. And so, when you do the counting, Wisetta Public Schools Board of Education, that election could be 15th on the list. Okay? And this is going from random where I picked Plymouth Precinct One, which is the northwest corner of Plymouth. I drew precincts by random. So, it is an incredible benefit to tell our story in an oddnumbered year, to not be waging defense and having to do damage control for something that doesn't even relate to us, having to have a stance on these very national sensationalistdriven narratives. um we can tell our own story, you know, run our own campaigns, not be fighting it out with so many other people running so many other offices to just have someone host our lawn sign in their yard, let's say. Um and we can raise engagement. We can have candidates, you know, who put their best foot forward, who are, you know, knowledgeable and engaged and do wonderful, wonderful work. So to me, the vote to stay with oddnumbered years is an obvious one, but I respect those who will say go to even. Um, and that concludes my remarks. All right, if there are no other comments, no, no more discussion. I'm going to read the motion statement again. Adopt a resolution moving Visetta school board elections from odd yearar to evenear elections. Uh moved and seconded discussed. This is a roll call vote shield. Dan Janestra. And for a point of information, a yes vote is to move to even years. That is correct. Okay. I vote no. Sarah Johansson, no. Paris Bendy, yes. Sheila Prior, yes. Heidi Kedar, no. Valentina Ays. Milan Sahonyi, yes. That's four yeses and three nos. Sorry about that. Yes. So, the motion passes. Thank you. All right. So, as I said earlier, because we are we have voted to go to even years, now we have to decide as the chart on that screen shows whether to I I'll read read the comments first and then you will understand. I'm going to go with uh with the five-year option where we extend the term and I'll tell you why we we did we we do this. I have spoken to MSBA and basically what they said was most of the uh districts that have moved to the even years in the last decade or so have chosen to go to the five-year option and then we will have a discussion on that. It doesn't matter. I could take the three-ear first or the five year first. It probably won't change the change the final result. So um so next we have a resolution providing that school board general elections held after 2023 shall be held on the even numbered years. In accordance with the attached resolution, the Visetta Public Schools School Board shall extend the current district members terms by one year. The term of office of school board members that would otherwise expire on the first Monday of January 2026 shall be extended to expire on the first Monday in January of 2027. The term of office of school board members that would otherwise expire on the first Monday of January 2028 shall be extended to expire on the first Monday in January 2029. The school board shall notify the county auditor of its determination to hold its general election in November of the even numbered year to 2026 and thereafter. So the motion statement is to adopt the resolution adding one year to all current Wisetta school board members terms resulting in E1ear election henceforth. Is there a motion? Is there a motion? No. The motion is to extend the term of the board members by one year. So I'm asking for a motion. I This is my second call for a motion. Is there a motion? Yes. Motion. Is there a second? Is there a second? Is there a second? Hearing none, the motion fails. All right. Next, we have a resolution providing that school board general elections held in 2025 and 2027 shall be three-year terms and elections held after 2027 shall be held in the evenumbered years. In accordance with the attached resolution, the Visetta Public Schools School Board shall transition from elections held in oddnumbered years in odd number year to elections held in even numbered years. The terms of office of school board members elected in 2025 and 2027 shall be for three years. The term of office of school board members elected in 2028 thereafter would be elected for four-year terms. The school board shall notify the county auditor of its determination to hold its general election in November of the even numbered year in 2028 and thereafter. So the motion statement for this resolution is to adopt a resolution establishing three years terms for the school board members elected in 2025 and 2027 and four-year terms for school board members elected in 2028 and thereafter resulting in one-year elections henceforth. Is there a motion? I move. Move. Is there a second? Second move and seconded. Is there a discussion? I guess I would like to explain my vote in this case. Um it does feel better to not extend my current term because when I was elected the voters did not elect me for five years. Um, we will not re we will not see the cost savings now until 2028, but we will eventually see the cost savings. Um, I did really struggle with this particular part of the decision because I do want to see those cost savings very soon, but I feel for the voters and for transparency reasons that the three-year term is the right choice. Anyone else? Yeah, this has been really difficult for me as well. Again, my primary driver was operational efficiency. Uh again, trust in our community and then obviously the financial benefits. So, if I apply those three, then ideally we should have extended this one-year term for everybody. But again, I understand that is not what everyone voted on. So, again, it was hard. Um, I'm still going to go with one-year extension because that's why I voted yes for the first resolution. But that no way in shape means any disrespect towards anyone who voted and put their confidence and trust in us. Again, um, just want to say that when I as I would. Thanks. Yes, ma'am. I will be supporting shortening our upcoming school board terms as elected um by one year to three years to get us on the evenear cycle. It affords the people the right to vote. It provides for that transparency especially in the leadup to a very um significant vote um coming up next spring. Okay. I'm going to just make a quick comment like Paris and Sheila. I I struggled with the five year versus the three-year uh choice and I agree with Paris that saving $200,000 because if we move to a fiveyear extension that saving is right away we won't spend any money henceforth. But I also agree with Sheila that that's kind of a you know kind of a compromise by not having a year elections at all but having this three-year term and spending another $200,000 we have spent so many thousands of dollars over the years. So I I am leaning towards I'm leaning I I think I'm going to report a yes on the three-year u reduction of term for the next election and then the election in 2027. Anyone else have a comment? All right. If not, I'm going to read the motion statement again. um is to adopt the resolution establishing three-ear ter three years terms for the school board members elected in 2025 and 2027 and four-year terms for school board members elected in 2028 and thereafter resulting in even one-year elections henceforth. This is a roll call vote. Sheila Valentina Ays yes Dan Janestra yes Sarah Johansson no Paris Bende no Sheila Prior yes Heidi Kedar no Milan Sahony yes that's four votes yes three votes no the motion passes thank you very much Okay, this concludes the Visetta public school special regular board meeting. The next regular school board meeting will be on Monday, July 14th. And I forgot to thank Amy again. Thank you Amy so much for for I I cannot tell you how grateful I am for all the effort that you made and Valentina for you to be able to join and uh and I I really appreciate that. is actually is very dear and near to me including everyone in our decision as much as possible. So thank you Amy for all the work you did. This concludes the Wisetta public school special regular board meeting. The next regular school board meeting will be on Monday July 14th. The time is now 7:19. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. Second. Second. All in favor? I'm sorry. This is also roll call. vote, right? Yes, it is. Sorry. Sarah Johansson, yes. Harris Bend, yes. Sheila Prior, yes. Heidi Kedar, yes. Valentina Ays, yes. Dan Janestra, yes. Milan Sahonyi, yes. The motion carries. The Viserta Public Schools Board of Education special regular meeting for Monday, June 23rd, 2025 is adjourned.