Okay. Can't wait to read this. >> I'm glad I didn't wear my green dot last night. I realiz my pants to breathe. Okay. All right. >> [clears throat] >> This regular meeting of the Independent School District 535 school board is called to order at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 21st, 2026 in room 137 of the Edison building. Present at this meeting are school board members, Superintendent Kent Pel and non- voting exeicio member and assistant school board clerk, Miss Anne Kramer. Miss Kramer, will you please call the role? >> Here, director >> here. >> Mlin, >> here. here. >> Here >> the board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral lands of the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples. At this time, we offer the opportunity to say the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Our next item is our Rochester Public Schools mission, vision, and values. Board members, as usual during this agenda item, I'm going to draw [clears throat] your attention to the connection between one of tonight's agenda items and our mission, vision, or values, and welcome your comments on this and any other connections during our agenda item discussions this evening. I'm focusing on agenda item 6.1 facility strategy recommendation and financing plan which demonstrates the value of ensuring excellence through evidence specifically making intentional decisions supported by proven practices is reflected in the district's meth methodical planning process that has been used to get to the recommendation on this agenda. The recommendation resulted from a year-long evaluation of district-owned buildings, commercial leases, and renovation costs while considering projected enrollment changes, and deferred maintenance needs. And the agenda item includes detailed online feedback responses and community questions, demonstrating that the administration is being guided by research and data when refining the proposal. Our next item is the approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? >> Move approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded to record uh to approve the agenda. All those in favor say I. [clears throat] >> I. Opposed. The agenda has been approved. The agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at rochesterchools.org back/sembly. There are no comments to the board this evening. So we'll move on to information and outreach. Our board member updates. Does any board member have updates from committees, community events, or any other information to share? It's the dead of summer. All right. and we'll move on to our consent agenda. Item 5.1 through 5.3. Um would any board member like any item removed from the consent agenda for separate consideration? >> Move approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The consent agenda has been approved. Then we will move to our first prep for action item. The facility strategy recommendation and financing plan. This is a prep for action item and we are scheduled to take action on this item at the August 4th meeting. Superintendent Pel. >> Thank you, Chair Nathan and board members. You can see that we have our director of finance, Andy Crogstead, and our director of facilities, Mike Stock, and our chief operating officer, Jackie Peterson, are coming up. Um, we do have a presentation and a PowerPoint for you. As board members are well aware, this item is on your agenda in the prep for action category tonight, which means that you will not be taking a vote, but that that vote is impending on August 4th. And so there are not many times uh as board members know that I read a prepared statement uh to the board. I usually like to speak a bit more [clears throat] extemporaneously, but I think there are certain moments, and I think uh this decision qualifies as one, where it merits um making sure that I'm uh covering the key points that I'd like to make. I don't anticipate um either repeating this statement or even making a statement next meeting. That will be a time for you as board members to uh grapple with the issue. And of course, we'll be pleased to provide you with any additional information that you need at that time. But uh for tonight, uh before we get into the PowerPoint, I'd like to note that the core presentation before you, the core recommendation before you remains unchanged from the last time you saw it on June 9th. But that is not because no additional work has taken place. Very importantly, we've developed developed a financing plan uh in uh consultation with our financial consultant AERS uh incorporated. We've prepared updated maps related to the Churchill Hoover proposal. We've provided a written overview of the many other options that have been considered in bringing us to this recommendation. And then we've gathered additional feedback from the Churchill Hoover community and responded to the questions and concerns that were raised through that feedback form. The recommendation remains the same because I continue to believe that it is in the long-term interests of the students served by these schools and programs and of the district as a whole. It's important to understand as board members are well aware that this recommendation has been developed within real constraints. Constraints involving funding, facilities, enrollment, and the availability of appropriate learning spaces. If those limitations did not exist, we might be able to address every concern raised by every stakeholder. That is not our reality. I believe this proposal achieves several important goals for students while operating within those constraints. It's not perfect and it involves real tradeoffs. The appropriate question, however, is not whether the proposal is perfect, but it is whether it is better than the status quo and better than the other alternatives that are available to us. I also want to address the process that has brought us to this point. The formal process began with a schoolboard study session one year ago in July. More broadly though, it reflects a priority in our previous strategic plan using the district's financial, physical, and human resources as efficiently and effectively as possible during a period of very tight funding and declining enrollment. We have met with staff, parents, and where appropriate uh students uh based on their ages in every building that would be affected by this proposal. We also used online feedback forms multiple times so that people who could not attend those meetings could provide input. The proposal changed several times based on that feedback. One important example occurred when PEK students and staff raised substantive concerns about moving the program away from the RCTC campus. They explained how such a move could interfere with students participation in courses taught by RCTC faculty alongside full-time RCTC students. We listened to those concerns and changed the proposal. We recognized that not everyone who wanted to participate was able to follow every stage of the process. At the same time, a process that has lasted a full year, engaged hundreds of stakeholders, and resulted in multiple changes cannot fairly be characterized as hidden or rushed. The standard for evaluating the process should not be whether every stakeholder believes they had enough opportunities to influence the outcome or whether everyone agrees with the recommendation. The more appropriate questions are whether substantive concerns were surfaced, whether they were seriously considered, and whether the district provided reasoned responses. I believe the materials presented on June 9th and again tonight demonstrate that we have considered and responded to the substantive questions, objections, and alternatives that have been raised, even where reasonable people disagree with our conclusions. And importantly, this board's process is not over. You will make the final decision on August 4th. If you need additional information before making that decision, we want to identify those questions tonight and provide the requested information before you vote. The agenda materials also summarize the many alternatives that have been examined during the past year. The board can direct us to revisit those options or analyze additional ones, but any further delay should be weighed against its real costs. Construction costs continue to increase everywhere around the country, but especially here [clears throat] in Rochester given the growth that is happening tied to Mayo Clinic and Destination Medical Center. Prolonged uncertainty also affects students, families, and staff. Finally, as board members know, we also could decide to do nothing, but maintaining the status quo is also a decision and it has significant consequences. If we do nothing, students who want to take care and technical education courses at CEK will continue to lose approximately two hours of their school day traveling to and from a self-contained RPS facility in which they learn only with RC RPS teachers and RPS students, but on the RCT RCTC campus. That structure limits access and has not produced meaningful growth in participation in career and technical education courses at CEK over the past decade. If we do nothing, Churchill Hoover would continue to operate as a divided elementary school with grades K through two in one building and grades three through five in another. That configuration limits coordinated support for students, collaboration among K- through5 staff, and the development of a unified school community. The school's principal told this board at your last meeting that she does not support continuing that structure. And notably, the structure originated when space constraints made it necessary. Were we to suggest splitting another K through5 elementary school in Rochester into two separate campuses, I think this board can imagine what the reaction in that school community would be. This is an opportunity to fix a structure that is not educationally advisable. If we do nothing, Gagege Elementary will continue to operate at less than half of its capacity rather than using the building more fully and creating greater continuity between early childhood programs and elementary education for families who choose to have their children remain at Gage after they start in the early learning program that would be relocated there. The district would also, if we do nothing, face a substantial indoor air quality investment in the Fidell building. even though that building was not designed as a school, has significant educational limitations and may ultimately have greater value for redevelopment because of its location. And in addition, the middle school alternative learning center and Rochester Academy for Independent Living would remain in spaces that were not designed for their programs and do not adequately meet the needs of the students they serve. And finally, Phoenix Academy, our setting for facility for students with the most significant disabilities in our district, would continue serving students in a building without a functioning kitchen capable of preparing hot meals, a true cafeteria, or appropriate gymnasium space. It is a facility that does not provide the educational environment or dignity those students deserve. Every available option, as this board knows well, involves costs, disruption, and trade-offs. The choice before the board is not between this proposal and a perfect alternative. It's between this proposal, the alternatives we have examined, and the consequences of leaving current arrangements in place. And it is for those reasons, board members, that I continue to recommend that you approve this proposal um and the changes that it would bring about. If I could ask uh Jackie to move us forward, I'm just going to kick us off very briefly here with the overview. I believe that I touched on a number of these points uh in the statement that I just read, but critically the drivers of change behind this proposal uh declining district-wide enrollment, the need to uh as this board has already approved uh uh in several instances use our facilities in the most efficient way possible. Um and use them in the most educationally advantageous way possible. Um the need to be mindful of deferred maintenance across um facilities such as uh the Fidell building. um the need to uh find space for valuable programs that are growing like our middle school alternative learning center um and our rail program. Um and then the fact that this board has just navigated and made difficult decisions to close an $ 8.3 million deficit during uh for the upcoming school year. Um that said, we also have wanted to minimize the impact on taxpayers, which I'm pleased to say uh would be nothing um if this proposal is approved in terms of what they are paying directly uh for this for these investments. Um and I know uh Mr. Coxstead is going to outline that for us in detail in a moment. um uh we want to make sure that we are using uh one-time funds efficiently um reducing long-term borrowing costs and preserving the district's financial stability. So, that's the big picture and here are the five critical priorities which uh board members will be asked to vote on um uh on August 4th. The first would be shifting our CEK courses from the facility that I mentioned a moment ago on the RCTC campus into our high schools. That would come at a uh cost of $4.5 million. The Churchill Hoover engaged shift would consolidate those into uh one building and shift some early learning programs. That would come to 3.54 million. Um, moving our middle school alternative learning center and the Rochester Academy for Independent Living into Churchill relocating those programs would come at a cost of $1.65 million. um putting an addition um at the Churchill building as we call it now to allow the rail program to grow and for instance to meet the significant demand we have for those services for students who are not living in Rochester though we'll always serve Rochester students first um would come at a $14.97 million cost and then renovation of Phoenix Academy our setting for special education facility would come at a cost of $19.1 million as board members know we would retain the Fidel building for one year for Phoenix to move into that facility while that um uh upgrade is put in place. And so there's a cumulative cost of 44,560,000 um including $500,000 for a project contingency. So I want to now turn it over uh to Mr. Cogstead, Mr. Stock to give you um an overview of those recommendations and we look forward to answering any questions you have and providing you with additional information before you vote on the fourth. So thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Pel, members of the board, thanks for having us again this evening. I'm going to take just a few minutes and talk through the financing components of this plan. As Dr. Pel stated, we did work closely with our financial adviserss, our municipal adviserss, Ellers uh on some of the components of this plan, primarily that which we would borrow potentially for and how that would impact uh the taxes of our citizens. That was obviously a priority of ours to either mi to minimize, mitigate, and or maybe perhaps keep them at zero, which we've been able to accomplish in this plan. The one thing on this particular slide that I want to make sure we point out is the actual what we expect to be some annual savings by the decentralization of CEK. Uh these are actually really firm numbers in terms of our actual savings. For example, the lease that is exactly what we're paying this year. 192,000 we're paying to RCTC for CEK lease. There is a PEK lease that is separate from this particular lease component. So I want to make sure everyone understands there are two different programs with two different leases. Um so we would uh obviously reduce and um completely eliminate that particular lease. In addition, several thousand dollar or $200,000 or so of transportation costs and then just some other operational efficiencies in terms of uh items from um uh supplies for cleaning um janitorial services, other things like that that we believe would be um would be some savings. Churchill Hoover we've spoken about obviously uh not a whole lot more to talk about on this particular slide with that other than to mention um we do believe um once we are able to sell the Fidel building as we consider the expansion costs the operation costs of an expansion at Church Hill Hoover we understand with the new construction the systems that are in place energy efficiencies that um are brought into those projects now we anticipate um there to be obviously some increased utility costs, but offset by a about $110,000 of utility costs uh at the Fidel building. And so uh we believe that ultimately the net utility cost would be somewhere in about the $50,000 range. So adding significantly more square footage. However, from a utility cost perspective, realizing uh added benefits of higher energy efficiency as we think of the uh other three components of this plan which really focuses in our special education and programming space of those three uh programs ALC rail and Phoenix. Uh again, we've spoken about what these components are. Uh but I just wanted to remind everyone of some of the uh the costs as we looked at how do we fund all of this because there are several funding sources that we identified as potential options and we discussed those at our last meeting when we uh rolled out this plan and uh for the most part that stayed in place with the exception of one component of that plan. So let me actually break this down now. How are we going to fund $44.56 million? And we're very confident in this plan. Again, we had lots of input from our financial advisors and really helped us understand what is going to be our best strategy. Before I get into the details, the one thing I want to point out first and foremost is we are we are proposing not issuing capital facilities bonds, which we did have in a previous proposal. The reason we can realize savings of almost [clears throat] $900,000 in interest costs if we don't issue those particular bonds and we believe instead we would fund those with cash reserves and I'll get into that in just a moment. So, as we think about the project, about 46% of it is going to be funded through long-term facilities maintenance. And we've had conversations two meetings ago or no, last meeting about our LTFM plan, which is on the agenda later for approval. And these projects are part of that plan today. And they're part of the $20 million that you see there. that is not just this next year but for two and three years depending on how long uh these particular projects take to um to complete uh the remodel and renovation of the ESC uh building being that which would be the furthest out. Secondly, uh and this is unchanged, how would we fund an addition for the rail program at uh Churchill? State statute allows us to issue certificates of participation and what we do in those in that situation is we issue bonds similarly and uh we ultimately lease back that building from the bond holder until such time that we've paid off the bonds and then we m then we receive ownership of that building. So that's what a lease purchase agreement is in this particular case. Uh almost 15 about $14.9 million would be issued. How do we pay for that? We would pay for that through increased levy. When I'll get to that on the next slide. If we increase the levy, doesn't that mean we increase taxes? No, not necessarily. It's a funding source for us to pay back the lease um uh the lease cops, but it doesn't equate necessarily to a tax increase, and I'll explain that in just a moment. So, it's really important that we identify that this plan is a tax neutral plan. And we have a strategy in place that we've developed with Ellers to ensure that our long-term facility maintenance plan that you're going to uh review later and the lease purchase plan that is part of this together the revenue that we generate through the lease would be costneutral to our taxpayers as it compares to the taxes that um those uh individuals are paying today. of course uh market uh market trends or I should say uh valuation increases obviously that that is not something that we can control but it's really important that we identify this as a a net neutral the committed fund balance which we've talked about before that's still in the plan that's the dollars that were uh committed last year when this plan first came into existence or this conversation first came into existence those dollars are uh still on the table and intended to be used entirely in this project finally ly the unassigned fund balances and this is the trade-off for the capital facilities bonds. We have u a a an assigned fund balance that permits us to cash flow essentially in some ways almost borrow from our internal reserves to pay for these projects upfront. And the mechanism that we would use to return funds back to the general fund would be the sale of the of the Fidel building which is estimated to be anywhere from 3.6 to $4.3 million. So, we're really comfortable in saying that once the Fidel building is paid for, we're able to take those dollars back into our general fund. They would be they would be in a reserved account. So, they wouldn't be the same as unassigned, but we have those same expenditures that we could use those dollars on. We have those expenditures each and every year. And so, ultimately, we have a need for those dollars. They can be used for technology purchases. They can be used even to fund technology uh staff. They could be used on other uh facility improvements. Those are things that are part of our budget today. We would just use those dollars first as opposed to any unassigned fund balance. So, I want to make sure that we understand it's a trade-off temporarily. The biggest advantage is that we're not going to issue additional bonds and incur additional interest of approximately $900,000 over the life of those bonds. So, how does this all come together? It all comes together again these three revenue these three sources that we've discussed. The LTFM revenue which um we which is the same revenue source we talked about two uh two weeks ago at the last meeting that funds our LTFM plan. Again, about $20.5 million. So, um a great percentage of the overall project is going to be funded through LTFM. that is an ongoing source of funding that the district has um available to it and we believe is the appropriate use of these dollars in this case. [clears throat] Highlighting once again and I can't emphasize it enough, no additional tax impact. No additional tax impact, the lease purchase agreement, um this is just a little bit more detail on that. Approximately $1.2 million in annual principal and interest payments. uh those dollars um would be paid for or those those uh expenses would be covered with additional levy authority that the board has at its disposal and uh those dollars would be combined with the LTFM revenue dollars in terms of additional um levy authority and finally again the fund balance and the sale for Dell. Um this is just sort of a recapitulation of what I spoke about previously. How do we get to a net impact impact? Again, let me just uh explain that one more time. When we work with Ellers, they're very good at strategizing our borrowing schedule. And our borrowing schedule for our LTFM plan, our certificates of P participation that we issue for our technology purchases each um which we issue every three years. And now the new certificates of p participation for the uh addition, they look at those costs. They look at how those costs are are um incurred annually both the principal and interest rate and they forecast that out uh actually it's forecasted out I think about 20 years and within that plan they're also adding additional LTFM projects uh based on our needs that we've provided to them and so they're able to take that entire plan over the course of 20 years and and identify if we borrow this much this year here's what your tax impact would be if we borrow a little bit more next year we can keep our tax rate still where it needs to be. Oh, maybe the following year we need to borrow a little bit less, but we can still continue to do the projects that we prioritize. And so, it's really the strategy of how we time and how we uh align the borrowing schedule that allows us to make sure that we do not raise taxes through additional borrowing because as you re if you remember, every time we borrow each year, we're also paying off debt. So, we're adding and we're subtracting. We're adding and we're subtracting. And so the course of of of the life of any bond is based on that adding and subtracting of other bonds in terms of our overall um impact uh in our debt uh our debt service. And so we strategized with them. Frankly, I'll be upfront and honest. We had a proposal that would have raised taxes slightly, but we said no, it was not appropriate to do that. We believe which which required us to make some of those adjustments in the out years to make sure that $1.2 $2 million that we need was not going to be added to the tax roles. So that means we had to adjust those further out years to ensure that we did not raise taxes. Um but uh as a team and at Dr. Pel's um urging, we wanted to make sure we came back with a plan that was tax neutral. And this plan um this plan carries out that um that wish. And [clears throat] again, the $900,000 $880,000 uh would be the savings in the interest costs by not issuing capital facilities bonds. And those bonds again um we've taken off the table and again we would fund that $3 million portion or so with existing uh cash on hand. The final thing I want to touch on are what are some of the risks that we looked at in this financing plan and in the project overall. um construction cost escalation. Mr. Stock worked with our partners and within each and every one of the items, the five recommendations that have been outlined, our partners, our construction partners included additional dollars for contingency and inflation escalation. And so they are comfortable and he can um Mike can certainly speak more to that in terms of what they believe. But we understand that each one of these projects, individual projects, carries inflation escalation within it and also contingency for those things that are unknown and unforeseen. We also then at the district level determined we believe it's appropriate to put another $500,000 into the overall plan just in case we've missed the target somewhere. that $500,000 essentially would be funded through the um the $3 million of uh of reserves. And so therefore, it would only be used if needed. So best case scenario, we don't need those dollars. Our unassigned fund balance would only be used for $2.5 million instead of $3 million. So that is that $500,000 would be out of our unassigned fund balance and only if needed. Again, it's a contingency. interest rate. We've talked about that as well. It's really important that we um that I point out uh Ellers carries a very conservative interest rate. When I say conservative, a number that they think is higher than what we could actually get when we issue bonds. And when um when we issued our last bonds, um which you approved just a few weeks ago, uh that that rate was 3.86 and they were carrying an interest rate of 4.5%. So if you think about that difference in interest rate over 304 $50 million over 20 years that's a lot of savings. And so by them using that 4.5% in their calculations of our debt service from today moving forward including all of this this additional debt um there's a there's a level of comfort that we believe uh there that the actual most [clears throat] likely the trend has been our actual interest rates are lower than what's in that plan. Therefore we're realizing some savings based on what the projections are showing. uh the Fidel sale. Um obviously we would be extending um uh the use of that building one year beyond where we anticipated. Uh the market value is not going to decrease. Um it may actually increase depending on um you know what else happens with development in that area. And so the only thing that would happen potentially is a buyer could come forward and say, "I really want that building now." We wouldn't be able to honor that. We'd have to negotiate um their takeover of that building when we're done using it. um hopefully through um you know through the media and other per you know other um methods um potential buyers understand we're going to need that for another year beyond. Uh but we're still confident that that building will be sold and those funds would would go back into the general fund to help with our operating expenditures moving forward. And and again the the final point is the construction contingency to ensure that we have included in the project some additional dollars just in case. Um uh I've identified an additional $500,000 I think would be appropriate to hold just in case and we would look for the board to make that part of the financing plan so that we have authority to spend those dollars if necessary. I will turn it over to Mr. Stock. >> All right. Good evening [clears throat] board members. Um I just want to start out with uh what you're looking at a rendering of the building. We worked numerous days, months, hours behind the scenes with our partners as Andy had said uh previously and we've really laid out a path forward without doing a full design. This is really an untraditional way to run a project. Most 99.9% of the time we are moving with a set budget which has already been approved and we're in full design meeting with stakeholders. Um through the process of of this um project we have switched gears a few different times went to a different port. We have looked at at some different options and really at the end of the day this option really jumped out at us to be a win-win for almost everything that we were looking for not only for the students but also for uh forward thinking some of the future. So I just want to start out with this picture. It's an artist rendering from our architect of design and basically it was a last minute request to say hey based upon what we've put together a footprint the number of rooms we're really focusing on what the needs were for the for the rail program [clears throat] what would it look like and I know um in the past I think there's been a rendering that has been shown of Phoenix Academy I think in one of the options and that was the same type of uh idea so it really came back as a wonderful looking building but it isn't exactly what it's going be at the end of the day. We're we have to if it's approved, we're in full full motion and we'll get a better idea of the final design. But it is a 20,000 square foot addition to the uh current building, which would end up not quite doubling the size of the the already um goodsized Churchill location, but um it would not be as large as the Hoover edition. So, if you're trying to get, you know, get an idea with that. But, uh, with that being said, I'll move forward here from that. There's another angle of it. The driveway, if you'll notice, too, some of the changes have been made since the initial some of the study sessions, some of where we're at today. Um, we still have to work with the city. So, there's permitting. There's other things that will have to be approval. We have the feeling that we may need to make the drive come off the city street that's already there as opposed to moving it down next to the tennis court. So, some of those changes will really need to be better defined as if we move forward. But the the the uh final design does have the driveway meeting up with the uh city street and then it will curve into a parking lot area that does wrap around the tennis courts. It originally had the parking lot moving out farther north, but there is kind of a drop in elevation there. So, the uh architect uh after a few site divi a few site visits, we switched gears a little bit on what it looks like. I did ask them to to show the playground potentially kind of where the two playgrounds currently sit. It they didn't move them a whole lot comparing um the old with the new. But that will be another thing that won't be exactly the way it looks, but it will absolutely have uh no less than what is already currently offered with that site. So, I think I'm gonna move on to Jackie unless opening up for questions. >> Start with questions. Director Marvin, >> I have a number. Um, but two things. I know that there has been intensive [clears throat] work and involvement of of community members um for a long time to come up with and many different iterations of what the proposal is. Uh we and I I think that um we need to make some changes and it's always going to be tough on certain groups of people when there's any kind of a change. Uh we heard from some early elementary teachers who like the idea of all being in one place and this plan puts them in two different schools. The good news about that is that it's going to be more accessible I think for more families. Um, but they also said they've been moved around a lot and they have been. And I think we can't miss any opportunity to thank these people who work with our youngest learners who have been amazing and who offer incredible programming for our youngest kids. They get them off to such a great start. and we can see, we can really tell the kids who have been in preschool, Rochester's preschools, when they get into kindergarten because they're ready. So, um I just want to thank them for their resilience, I guess. Um second thing is um sort of ironically the middle early childhood teachers wanted to be all together and then the Churchill Hoover uh teachers and families want to continue the K2 35 split. The good news there again is that they love their schools and they've been getting their kids been getting great great educations and they're dedicated to them. The irony for me is I was here when those two schools split and parents were miffed because they did not want to have two elementary school kids in the same district in [clears throat] different buildings. Um and they didn't want their kids to have to change schools after second grade. So it's sort of what we're hearing now but in reverse. Um, and I understand the families now who love Churchill, the neighbors who love Churchill, which is still going to be there. Playgrounds, tennis courts, the wonderful location, it's still going to be there. Um, the education, according to research, is probably better when you have the kids in a K5 or K6 environment. There hasn't been a whole lot of research done about is K2, is that better for kids? Um, I can see parents who've left Churchill because their kids attended there wanting to keep that. But the research also shows that when kids change schools, the things they miss the most are their friends and their teachers. And with this plan, the friends and the teachers are going with them. So, they're all get to be in one school. for families, it's going to be one elementary school and not two. Um, and I know that there have been there's been so much thought that's gone into this. So, I want to thank you for that and then I'll keep the rest of my thoughts for later. >> Sure. Um, thank you uh Dr. Marvin and um that's incredibly helpful context. I do want to say that um I in fact um the positive response from Churchill Hoover staff has been actually very significant. Um, in fact, the idea was first proposed to me by a classroom teacher at that school of merging into a K5. Now, there are certainly some who may not feel that way. The the feedback forms you've gotten in the board, the emails you've gotten, we have to be clear, are from a really relatively small subset and we all know and there were there were a lot of divergent opinions. I know when I met with the entire staff and the leadership, um there were many very positive things that were identified there. And I I would never uh jump in to say this if I thought you were going to get 80% of the staff emailing you and saying he's wrong. Um I think they see that. Now, I'm uh I'm not addressing the concerns in the neighborhood in when I say that. Um I think we've also heard a lot of positive things from parents, but I think we have to be honest. we have not had a very representative response from those and and as I tried to say in my remarks too there's a point at which the feedback this board gets from stakeholders matters a lot but ultimately you have to make the decision on the merits and so I appreciate the point but I just wanted to highlight the fact that I would not include staff uh as a opposed group um to this proposal >> absolutely >> and can I build on director Marvin's uh comment about change because I [clears throat] uh in reading the comments, receiving the emails and trying to identify the patterns. I can empathize with the parents who um want their kids taken care of, the Churchill K2 parents. Um they want to make sure that they are cared for as much as they are in the current building and the current arrangement. And because maybe that's all they've known and maybe they haven't had an experience in a K5 building, um what can we say to those Church Hill K2 parents about what their experience would be in a K5 building to provide them some initial reassurance um of what I think we all know about the highquality education that's happening in all of our K5 buildings and in our K8 school for current kids that are in kindergarten through 2 grade. Sure. Um uh thank you chair Nathan. We actually did a bit of data analysis today because I know one concern and again I understand this. I once had a kindergarten kids you know myself. Um is a K5 school less safe for the youngest learners because the big kids are in there. And so we actually looked across all elementary schools in Rochester, both in the school year that just ended and in the previous school year, at the degree to which we saw any incidences of these offenses, bullying, physical violence, threats of violence, or abuse of language. Um, last year there was one that occurred between students one grade level apart and the previous year there was one between students in one grade level apart. Now, that could have been a fifth grader with a fourth grader or a second grader with a third grader, but there was one last year, one the previous year. First of all, I think what it means is our elementary schools are very, very safe. But what it really means is if there are issues happening, it's between kids in the same grade level because those students are in classes with the same grade level. They're in lunchrooms with the same grade level. They're on the playground the same grade level. And so in terms of the disciplinary concerns, um the data simply does not bear out that we have older kid, younger kid issues at all. To the extent that there are issues, it's at the same grade level. And as you know, we're working very hard to deal with that. Um I want to um turn it over to um Jackie to comment on the educational benefits because she has been a highly successful both teacher and principal uh in elementary schools. and those of us from the high school level kind of look down and say how do you do it? But if you could >> most immediately I want to say I've had very recent conversations with um principles and people who were colleagues of mine when I was a principal and we we would talk about how we structure uh the school to provide for a safe environment. So, um, in some cases you might, um, uh, plan recess so the older kids are not on the playground with younger kids, and you might think that that's the safest way, but actually in a lot of cases, we might pair older and younger kids because, uh, older kids are great partners with younger uh, kids. I remember as a principal at Bishop, we trained our fifth grade students in various games to play on the playground because we were recognizing our younger kids would go outside and not know what to do. they weren't in the neighborhoods playing kick the can or you know red light green light and those games we all grew up with. Um and so we would train our fifth grade students and they would be paired with younger students out on the playground to actually teach and play alongside and keep kids safe. I think uh also inside the building um during the classroom instruction you will often find and I think we have great examples of that now um at Amber where we have fifth grade buddies with kindergarteners. There's so many opportunities for older kids to partner with younger kids in a structured planned uh um environment. I think about um Dr. Marvin and I and uh Miss Workman and I were talking about when this split happened. We were having some debate. I think in some literature I gave to you, I suggested it's been over 30 years that these two schools have been separated. It's actually more than that. I started my career teaching here 37 years ago at Hoover and at that time the building was 36 and 46 and uh Churchill was K3 and it was that way a long time before I came so it's more than 40 years ago that the split has taken. I taught in both of those buildings my own children went to both of those buildings as parents we accepted the way the building was structured because we lived nearby. We loved that. We watched our younger daughter, our our oldest daughter walk to school for two, three years. And uh we lamented when our second daughter started and we had we had a split. We had one walking, we had one busing. It wasn't ideal, but at that point we loved the teachers. We loved what was happening. We accepted the the system. as a teacher there. Uh I didn't know my colleagues when I was teaching sixth grade in the in the primary setting. Uh probably more difficult was when I moved to a primary classroom for a few years when I was um uh thinking about where my second graders would do well as third graders. I wasn't even in the same building as my third grade colleagues to plan for that transition. There are a lot of issues with transitions when you're in separate buildings. um uh vertical PLC's for example um that critical point of second and third grade and making sure kids are reading. I do believe there are a lot of strengths to this plan um educationally and I I just have to say we do this very well in all of our other buildings. We we are K5 and in one example K8 and our buildings are safe as Dr. Pel noted um and it works very well. So I feel to say that uh we would be putting kids in an unsafe situation is just not true. >> Workman. >> So just kind of piggybacking on what you said about split schools. I remember this building became the administration building in 1981 and previous to that Fwell had been K6, Edison was K6 and they were split so that Fwell had grades four through six. So as an elementary orchestra teacher at that time that meant I had all of these kids in one place which made a wonderful musical experience for them. Uh the primary reason it happened was because of budget. Uh and it made more sense to have four sections of each grade rather than split two and two. But at the time I'm I don't remember the any opposition from the community. But, you know, I was a very young teacher back then and if there had been, it was certainly not on my radar. But just a kind of a trip down memory lane here. I I think in in one of the questions uh there was a question asked I think from a member of the public had we considered moving Hoover to Churchill and I think I provided that information that there just simply is not room for for the school to be a K5 school on the Churchill c uh campus which I I have to imagine since I was just a kid when this happened perhaps uh that it happened the split [clears throat] happened because of space and not because of educational reasons. church. >> Um, so I've given it some thought. I guess that that was one of my thoughts as well was why, you know, Church Hill Hoover. And the reason why um I bring that up, even though you did just answer um is because it looks like we'll have to make changes to the buildings either way. Uh but I guess then we would be plagued with where would those children be placed in the interim, right? Um because in all honesty, Hoover in my opinion is a better fit, you know, for the older kids being right off Elton Hill, that type of thing. Um but then where would we place those kids and making uh the adjustments? And I don't know if that's something that we really thoroughly really looked at. um uh because I my initial assumption would be upgrading that building might not be as cumbersome, you know, making it um handicap accessible and those things because it's a newer building. But that that's just a thought I'm throwing into the uh atmosphere and and again, like I said, that's just in in being out in the community and driving and seeing traffic patterns and and those um type of things. I do believe that the schools need to be combined. Um, but that is something that I I did read and I read your response a couple times. Uh, but I think it just would be nice to see it what that could potentially look like if if it were the other building with I know I know there'd be complexities, but um what would that, you know, what would that entail? Uh because like I said, we have to make we're going to have to remodel a building. Um, so even if we had to make Church Hill larger to accommodate the additional K through5 students, but like I said, my next thought is then where would kids go while um you got this in between? But I don't and I don't have that answer. Um, but I guess as a from as a community member, as a parent, from that perspective, you know, would make sense to have older kids on a on a busier street there. There's that. Um, and then I guess my other question in cost is uh in uh if we rename the schools or that type of thing. Um, is that also all in the budgeting and and that right? Because then we're talking about a name change, signage, those things. I know we're talking and I don't know if that is um all in consideration with the with the change or we're just talking structural changes um because I do know when we get into renaming things that also starts to eat up a little bit of of of finances as well. Um I have one more thought about this Church Hill thing. didn't write everything down because I was thinking. Um, but I I just I think there's just a few things. Oh, and as we're talking about the uh the tax implication before the public um and as I've said before, I don't I don't speak uh CPA. Um some people do. I don't. Um and it takes me some time and a lot of Google to understand what's happening. Uh, but I think if it was explained in a way that it's I mean I know that it's the cost of the overall project, but the way I'm interpreting it layman's I know it's more complicated than what I'm about to say so y'all don't have to eat me up, but that it's not just one big chunk coming away. It's it's kind of a little bit out of time so that we don't have like you said increased tax. Um, and I think, you know, for the public for it to be explained that we're just not, you know, snatching this much money out of our budget, that there is a a process of it coming out in these segments. Um, because I think that is a big scary number when we're talking about budget cuts. And unfortunately, how news and things are read, it just looks like there's this big chunk of money coming out. But the way you just explained it, how I'm interpreting it is that it's not quite that way. It'll be coming from one different spaces, but also over a span of I don't know what that length of time is, but I don't know if there's a simple [clears throat] simplified way to explain it for us of those that are not in the finance world so that we understand exactly where the money is coming from. And again, this is not an insult to your profession, but for those of us that are not familiar, including myself, it it can seem as though you are talking above or over people. And it and it may come across as not being as transparent um as we feel that it is because when you don't understand, there's a lack of transparency. So maybe um in explaining it in a way that you know the everyday person can understand exactly what's happening for their taxes and and how that affects our our budget. Happy to do that. Let me let me first um address the the question around signage things like that. We would certainly if signage needs to be changed and that sort of that would be part of the project that would be taken care of. You know any materials marketing materials things like that that would all be part of it. So all of that would be done whether it's part of the project cost or part of our normal operating cost that would be yet to be determined. I would suspect anything structural in terms of signage would be part of the project cost and so that would be worked in in terms of [clears throat] tax implication. Let me as you were talking I was trying to think first of all I'm not insulted by the question because I I know sometimes I can maybe speak too quickly frankly and I find myself sometimes not not getting to the point. Let me think of it as a mortgage. If if an individual is buying a new home and they take out a mortgage, they get all of those dollars essentially today to buy that property knowing they get to they get to pay it off over 30 years. That's what our bonding cycle does as well. Uh you also know that in that 30 years that you're paying off your mortgage, you may decide to do a some improvements and you take out a home equity loan. So now you've got a little bit extra debt, but perhaps you've paid off some of your mortgage already. Maybe you've paid down your mortgage some. So that additional debt doesn't necessarily impact your overall uh expenditures or perhaps you've you know you're you're making more money five years down the road. So it doesn't have that that level of of impact. The way that we're able to structure this debt is not just through the single issuance but through looking at our entire debt structure from today forward. And so if you recall, our LTFM plan in general is expecting us to borrow money each and every year by issuing bonds. How frequently we issue bonds, how much those bonds are, for how long the life is, generally they're 20 years, sometimes a little less. All of that plays into the equation of how much do we owe in principle and interest in any given year. And we can adjust that based on all of those factors that I just mentioned. All of our payments by principal and interest for LTFM bonds and the coops or the certificates of part participation. The money that we we get to pay back those bonds come through the tax levy. And by restructuring our debt, not by extending it necessarily, but just in our schedule and how much we're able to mitigate that tax impact because it has how much we pay out in any given year in terms of principal and interest directly affects the taxpayer and how much revenue they're going to give us, how much money they're going to give us to pay for those things. So when we went to our municipal advisors and said we need this to be tax neutral, they did all of those calculations taking into all into consideration all of our anticipated uh bonds uh bond issuances into the future and were able to say we can do it making it tax neutral by this. And so they've presented a plan to us that allows us to do that. Um >> and that includes the additional um half a million that we're putting aside. Right. >> Right. So, so recall there's three different really three primary funding sources. The long-term facilities maintenance, which is an ongoing maintenance plan that the district has uh at its disposal has available to it. And to pay for those projects today, we issue bonds. So, we get the cash today, much like a mortgage, and then we pay that mortgage back or those bonds back over 20 years. That's how we fund the long-term facilities maintenance projects. we pay for them today. How do we pay those bonds back? Through the tax levy. Through the resources we get from the taxpayer every year. We don't get 20 years worth of tax revenue in the first year. We get 120th every year to pay them back. And so it's it's very structured that way. And so, uh, I I hope that maybe provided a little bit of of it's it's it's it's really it's no different than issuing a mortgage on your own property. It's really very similar. You don't have to pay it all back in one year. You get the you get the opportunity to pay it back over multiple years. And similarly, five years down the road, if if in if interest rates are better, we can refinance and reduce our interest. And so, similarly, like you can to a mortgage. So, all of those same factors are come into play when we issue bonds. Um the $500,000 is going to come from existing cash reserves. So, the district has a fund balance. That's where we hold our money that we aren't using, similar to you having your own savings account. We save those dollars to use for whatever purpose we decide we need to. And we believe we had a we have adequate savings today to fund a small portion of this work instead of issuing additional debt. So, we're we're bypassing debt by using dollars that we already have in our piggy bank, in our bank, and we will pay that money back once we sell the Fidel building. And just for clarity, you know, I really asking really for the public as well because that's a continuous uh question that is that comes over, you know, is, you know, if people don't understand, it doesn't quite make sense how their taxes are not going to go up. So, >> and because this is a complicated issue about the financing, um I'll ask board members that if you have a question on like this specific uh item, let's ask it now because I have one. Um, [clears throat] in the long-term facilities maintenance plan, we get this lovely little chart every single time >> that I think demonstrates what you're explaining because we do it for our LTFM plan every year is that we have um, AERS measure out our bond issuances so that that percentage tax rate that's in the chart that accompanies this stays within half a % or one or two% every year. So should we approve this plan and approve the use of the lease purchase, would this chart then get revised to reflect not just the long-term facilities maintenance bonds but also the COP? >> Yes, this this would be revised. >> Okay. But at [clears throat] the end, to your point, Chair Nathan, at the end, if you look at that very last line, the plan is going to be restructured such that our tax rate is still in about that 14%. Right around 14%. This year, we're estimating about 13.99 or 14%. We can restructure each and every one of these columns and rows such that the mathematics play out that that tax rate at the very end remains about 14%. And that is the plan. So, we're done. >> I I just to director Whitehorn's point, I think there was a a very important question you raised and I am going to give my simplest answer to it about the why would the students uh that are currently in the Churchill building move to Hoover as opposed to the students that are currently in the Hoover building move to Churchill. And I'm going to give the simplest answer and then I'm going to invite Jackie and Mike to correct me if I get this wrong, but it all has to do with the number of kids. The size of the Churchill building with a modest addition is perfect for the projected growth of rail and middle school ALC. However, were we to move the the students in grades three and five at Hoover to the Churchill building, the addition would have had to be much larger because rail is a smaller. So, the concerns that the community would have had about green space would have been much more dire than is the case. Similarly, had we moved middle school ALC and rail to the Hoover building, we would have had tons of empty space because it's too big. And so, this is all about trying to maximize that. And I thank you, Chair Nathan, because I just wanted to answer that. How >> absolutely correct. And I think we also [clears throat] like lose out on that prek5 progression which is really a benefit to >> but if we had if we had built I've heard this if we what if we built an addition on the chucher facility for all for the grades three to five at Hoover like why wouldn't you do that it would be a much bigger addition than what we're talking about for rail thereby raising some of the concerns we've heard about in the community and if we put our two small alternative programs in the Hoover building it would have been actually like a ghost town because we don't need that much space for those uh buildings and I just didn't want to let that point >> go on. >> Anything to add on that point, but then let's let them move. >> Yeah, I want to mention one more thing, too. Through one of our exercises, through this lengthy process, we looked at building a different facility on a district-owned property. We've had the property for a number of years, and we thought, well, maybe it's time to dig into it and see what our options are. Through that process, we did find out through the city of Rochester and some of their ordinances, we wouldn't be allowed to build a certain size building on that property based on the size of the streets, kind of what the traffic patterns were. >> Which property referring to? >> Um the property right out by RCTC. Um right across on the corner from the dome >> protected wildlife or something on it. >> Well, it wasn't so much that. what it was is um it's fed by a city street, a small neighborhood that's in that area. And the city has certain ordinances and plans where they I think they're planning for a a very large thousand child school in an area that's as small as let's say Churchill or something up in that in that particular area. So that was another um one of our thinking is like when we approached the city as kind of a handshake for what we had for an idea and the small amount of addition that we were looking at there wasn't the concern if we were going to double or even proportionately larger than double. I don't know if that would have been um >> the Churchill property >> the Churchill property to add Hoover to that existing property and possibly keep the early childhood that has to go along with it on the one [clears throat] facility. So that that would have been another hurdle that would have came into. >> I'm sorry. Point of clarity. So you were saying possibly putting the ALC building on that property. Is that what you were looking? >> No. No. If we were to build that as the K um K5 to house uh Hoover and Churchill, we already found out that we don't have enough room to move all of them over to Gage, all the early childhood. So it'll be like a a split. So those children would still need to have a place to go if we were to bring rail and middle school ALC to that properties. >> You want to put the funding piece to bed or do we want to move on to a different >> Yes, we have funding questions. >> I don't have a funding question. >> Funding question. >> Yes. >> Okay. Director C >> or Director, whichever. >> Uh yeah, here's the here's the question I have about the funding part of this and it's the use of the unassigned fund balance. Um, I'm particularly uh um as I probably will continue to be for the foreseeable future uh cognizant of this board's plan to spend down the fund balance um to the policy target of 8% um by 2030. And so with the the anticipated use of Fidel to house the Phoenix Academy for an additional year and I see on the LTFM that those improvements to uh the education service center building wouldn't happen until the 2029 year. I'm just wondering what years are we talking about here and when would we expect the revenue I guess or the proceeds from the sale of that Fredell building. it seems like it could potentially be getting pretty close to when we're going to already be close to that 8% policy minimum and just wondering if you could expound on that. >> Absolutely. Um Director Cook, as as we looked at that um I think the project was expected to start um would start not there'd be one more school year, right? So there'd be one more school year in the ESC and then they would transfer to Fredell after next summer. And so it then it would be under construction. The plan that you you you talked about in terms of the financing or using of the unassigned fund balance that takes us out into 2031 I believe. Um there is that's not a concern frankly be I would say it's not a concern as we work through these plans and we talked about cash flowing this because in addition to an unassigned fund balance we have several other reserve fund balances as well and we use those for very defined purposes of course uh as you as you recall what we would end up doing is really just we we're just using those dollars temporarily the intent with Fidel building would be to still sell it. And so would that timing impact our unassigned fund balance? I don't I don't believe it would. I think that we would still have two to three years before we would look at needing to draw down that unassigned fund balance any further um to that 8 8%. So we're talking about one, two, three, probably four more school years before we would get potentially to that 8% fund balance. I will tell you that as we look at how we've closed up this school year so far, um we anticipate there being an uh an add back into the unassigned fund balance as opposed to a use. And so what we're what we're finding through our budget and then through our processes is that our forecasting, although it's giving us a direction, we're finding that our actual results typically are better than our forecasts for a lot of different reasons. So, without getting into the nuance of the of this particular budget year, uh we believe that using $3 million still leaves plenty on the table for next year, the year after, probably for at least four more school years before we would ever get to that close to that 8% fund balance. Um, with the use of these dollars, we would get down to I believe it was a I'm going to correct what was the we would get down to a put it in here. What is it about a 14 and a half% fund balance as it stands today, but as >> I got it. >> Yeah, >> thank you. >> I got [laughter] I do pay attention to these things as you were teaching me. Um, and so we have, again, that would we would use about 2% of that per year perhaps looking [clears throat] forward. So if you think about 2% a year, 2% a year, 2% a year, we have another five to six years before we would ever get to that 8%. Um, we know we also need to redo our forecasting this next year that will better project out now years three, four, and five. that forecast was a snapshot in time based on the information we had at that time. We also know that after we did that, our revenue ran up because our enrollment went up this year. And so, um, all of those things are coming into play as we thought about how how could we reasonably use unassigned fund balancing. Could we reasonably use it? And we believe that that's a viable source to forego the additional interest. Okay, that that's all really helpful. Just to make sure we're because I know sometimes we talk about fiscal years and then school years and everything. So, are we talking about putting the Friedell building in with this plan? Would the Fidel building go on the market in summer of 28 or summer of 29? >> Well, the Fidel building's for sale today. >> Well, okay, I know, but would it be empty? >> Would it be empty? It would be empty for the start of the 2930 school year, right? >> I'm sorry. You you you give the you better. >> Well, actually, I was going to um jump in quick. So, if this is approved at the next meeting, the plan would be is to start feeishly on design and and completing um what's needed to complete next summer's work. And what next summer would complete is the CEK move as well as the gauge um Hoover Churchill switch. And it'll also allow for um the middle school rail program to move out of Phoenix next summer >> out of Fredell >> or excuse me out of Fredell into the current Churchill building. At that point then simultaneously there'll be the new build construction will take place at Churchill a and continue through the school year as well as the renovation and the update to the ESC building will happen that year. Then the fall of 28 is when everything will be completed on this project and and we should realize >> freel could be occupied by a new tenant >> by by fall of 28. >> Okay. All right. Thanks. That's all >> one. Um >> it would be middle school ALC and rail would move to Churchill for one year while those renovation while while >> Phoenix moves to Fredell. So they have agreed [clears throat] they could squeeze into a smaller space for a year while the addition is being built, but we're we're emptying Fidel of the current program. So that be >> I just want to mention too, it seems like there's a long lengthy process with the Fidel building dragging it out and in in working um with our realtor and and having communication. In the best case scenario, we'd have a buyer tomorrow, but we really have a number of options that would allow us to still use with our plan here, and that would go into contingencies with the sale. So, that's really what we >> The intent would not be to take it off the market. It would still be um entertain any offers that may come up and negotiate the actual uh occupancy date on their part on their part. >> Okay, understood. >> Dr. Um I have to correct what I my answer earlier that my questions weren't financial because they are. Um I just had a different way in my head to structure them and I'll readjust that. Um but I want to start here with the comment. This is kind of financial about starting with the construction of Churchill and having it go through the year. I was a little bit confused about that discussion in the documents that we have that talks about like the earth part being done and then is it like contained in a building or is it going to look like a construction site over that winter period? >> Well, it's a great question. If you remember um when we added the addition on to the current Hoover building, >> I don't. >> Okay. >> Well, that happened simultaneously with the school year. So, exactly like you laid it out, a lot of the civil work in the underground and some of the heavy um earth work will all be completed over next summer. That would be the goal. So, possibly it would be a two package setup where we would offer that early enough to have all that put in place. And then the building itself would blow up over that following winter. So, not this coming winter, but the following winter. And then um based upon the schedule and how aggressive it ends up being, it could be completed even before the school year ended this that next school year. But >> I think what I was stuck on is knowing we live in Minnesota >> that you're going to be digging in the summer. Are you going to put like a foundation in? Will you put the outside walls up so that people aren't seeing >> a mess is what I'm concerned about. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. So the outside structure would be up and then you do the internal work in the winter time when it's cold. In a best case scenario, they would have the shell put up. That's kind of how we refer to it as the shell. And then they're able to heat that and do the work over [clears throat] the winter. But a lot of times they will work with um ground heating and doing some other things to complete the work in the time frame that's allotted. >> Okay. >> We've had some pretty comfortable winners lately, so that also helps. We can't guarantee anything, but >> when the Hoover edition went up, the kids at Coover uh the 3 through5 students were very engaged in the building process. Some of you who were on the board remember they they construction folks interacted with our students. The students I think signed a beam and really got to know a little bit about the building process and I could see that being very very interesting to the the new um occupants of Churchill Hoover and visos. >> I do remember the signing the beam part. I didn't know that was at Hoover. I do remember that part. I guess the the reason I asked the question is that really neat for the students. Yes. But what I reflect on is that then thinking about the Churchill building, current Churchill building, and the impact and the feedback we have from the neighbors and the families there that they're not looking at either a messy or a potentially dangerous thing that they're going to have to climb over all winter or something like that when they're getting to the ice rink. Because this was really interesting. I didn't know that that was city property and that I give whoever credit that sounds like it was probably a really good um RPS local government collaboration at some point in time to be able to do this this way. Um I do have two other things that I think are finance related. Um >> okay. Um get I had to think about it in that category. Um Mr. Crox when you were talking I just want to make sure I understand some of the things you said that one of the things on the and this I think was in your conversation that and it's I think it's on the slide too that one of the things we're going to be doing here is rep prioritizing the planned LTFM projects >> does Ellers get involved with that piece of things or is that someone else that helps us with that or are we just doing that ourselves >> so the finance and the facilities team work together very closely on that so the facilities team, Mike and his team, they they identify the projects that need to that need to be done and they prioritize those projects. Obviously, life safety taking priority over that. Ellers really just works with us on the financing portion of that based on our our planned project needs over the next several years. They do not um they do not um review or give an opinion on any particular project. >> Okay? So, we're doing that in-house because we know the information best and what needs to be done when and what the um what the buildings are like and what needs what works needs to be done. That's that's you then. >> Got it. Okay. >> Um one other finance question, Mr. Cox, and this one I got tripped up on a little bit when something you said um when you talked about the Fredell money going back into the general fund. >> I thought when we were talking about selling some of these buildings before, there was a rule that said that the sale money couldn't go in the general fund. and it has to be used for other future business building needs. >> Can you help me understand? >> So, if a [clears throat] building still has any debt against it, any proceeds from the sale, those proceeds first have to go to pay off the debt associated with the building. >> Okay. >> Fredell has no debt and we've uh we've certified that it has no debt. So, what we're able to do with those proceeds is put them back into our general operating fund. However, they're they don't have the same freedom that unassigned fund dollars have, but we have those same needs on an annual basis that those dollars would be useful for, such as technology, such as other facility maintenance items, things like that. So, it has to be when it comes back into the general fund, it has to be used for things um permitted by um operating capital, operating capital statute, and there's plenty of that every year. So we would have no problems using those dollars in lie of unassigned dollars in those particular budget years. >> Okay. I appreciate that and and you had talked about that too. So I get that. Um I guess the only thing I want to say at this point I might have another question or two. So, I need to look at my notes. But, um, the question about moving Hoover to Churchill, I think, was one of my original questions in the Q&A that we were given, mainly because we have all the other options that were considered and weren't as as viable, but that wasn't in there, and I just want to make sure that everyone knew that there was a reason that that wasn't viable either. >> I appreciate your question on Yeah, let's do that now since we just touched on it and clarify the answer to the question that you gave um to Karen's question about moving to Hoover >> that there just simply are not enough classrooms at Churchill to accommodate the grades three through five and the infrastructure needed as well if you counted the classrooms maybe if we had no art room, no music room, um you know, no other >> and actually I've lived through that too before where orchestra was in back when we had orchestra in the elementary in this in the staff lounge or in the foyer. Yeah. Art rooms and art on a cart and all those things. So, you'd be setting a school up for um very un ideal, you know, uh setting. >> But I also appreciate the other level of that that even I had even contemplated an addition. The addition would have to be larger than what we're proposing here. And that that again is a concern. >> Did I skip you, Director Barlo, on a finance question? >> Well, [clears throat] it's been addressed quite thoroughly. I did want to um acknowledge that I've attended a number of candidate forums recently, mayorio and county commissioner and chief among the questions asked are questions that deal with uh taxes and I would simply uh encourage us to be clear in our communication uh that what's being proposed will not have a um that our uh uh local tax figures will not necessarily see a uh tax increase based on uh this recommendation that we'll be we'll be voting on in August. >> I think that well that is exactly what the plan is proposing. Um that is not to say someone's taxes won't go up though because we don't control market valuation for example and there are other other reasons why our taxes that we levy would go up but this would not be one of those reasons. Um we are not proposing raising taxes to pay for this. We're restructuring some additional debt. >> Director Workman. Um, I think I mentioned this at the last meeting too, but I would just like to remind folks that parents with kids in prek will now have another location option >> in the north part of the city >> with Hoover being more central and then the south piece. So, I think that's that's really a win-win for preschool parents, parents of preschoolers. Director Ryder. >> Um I have a funding question, but it has to do with that, but I'm going I'm going to go over there anyway. >> Um so I have a question about CEK, uh because it looks like we'll have a transportation savings there, which should make us quite happy, >> but um and I excuse me for not knowing exactly. I know there are a couple programs that will not be offered at all of the high schools. Does the transportation savings include that? Uh because I'm assuming that because we're public, we have to have some way to offer uh programs that are not offered. You know, sorry, I have a loss of what program it was, but there was one that can't be moved. >> Welding is one. >> Yes. So, how will kids get from, you know, the other high schools there? And is that included in that? Or are we just saying it's a cost because uh are we just looking at the savings just not having to send anyone over to CEK or are we going to end up kind of leveling out here a little bit because we'll still have to potentially transport kids from one high school to another. Um so I just don't know if that was included in that um in that analysis. I'm assuming it is, but I just wanted a point of clarity on that how that will work. It will require careful scheduling of classes that are hub classes like welding. And so we will need to make sure that we have those. So if a bus is if a bus is leaving one school to go to another that there's an exchange that they happen at the same on the same schedule. And as Dustin Marorrow has trained me, once we put a bus on the road, it's not uh we're paying for that bus. So we would couple the the schedule with morning or afternoon transportation so that buses on the road it should not cost additional [clears throat] funds. >> And I guess uh I'm sorry just a tab away from funding but it's in the same thing. Uh but will there be a uh consideration? So let's say you have a student that is adamant about a particular program but it's not in their district school. Do we have a plan on how we will handle that? We currently, >> you know, like a parent making a request because, you know, I want my child to go here because >> I want my child to go to Mayo because I want them to be in the school where there's welding >> be in this program. Yeah. >> They would be they would they would be able to uh do that. Go to Mayo for welding and then go back to Sentry for example for the rest of their classes if that's what they chose. But certainly today we have a lot of exceptions to the rule where parents have reason to request a particular school and we do work with those families um on those individual requests. >> And I asked that along the lines of accessibility uh because even though they're older learners uh that could be cumbersome for some of even our high school learners moving from one campus uh to another. You know we have kids with different things being from autism different things. I just wanted to know how we will be uh accommodating parents and students who may not want to be going between the high schools but want to be in a particular program. >> I uh I think it's a key point Dr. Whitehorn and I tried to start out my remarks earlier that this plan does reflect constraints. >> So the good news and I was not sure that our CEK component of this proposal would be able to achieve this which is that the vast majority of our courses can fit in the high schools. I wasn't sure that was going to be possible. And the second is that we will be able to create hubs for the handful of courses that can't fit in all the high schools. And so the long and the short of it is that we will still have access to the CEK courses for all of the courses that are currently offered either because they're in all three high schools or because we have the hub structure. I agree with you. The hub structure is not perfect, but that's where we simply don't have the physical infrastructure for instance to put um you know automotive at Century or welding at um uh John Marshall in the way we'd like to um unless we built major new facilities, but we still can make that possible. Um similarly, I know we just had a long discussion of Churchill Hoover and the chair is is doing an able job of moving us on. I don't know that we have emphasized enough that this proposal requires no boundary changes. Like that's gigantic. I was sure we would have to do boundary changes to make this work. Um, and when we sat in the room and realized it was possible to keep the entire school community, not just a Churchill Hoover together, but in all of these pieces, I sort of I mean, it took us nine months to get there, but that was a moment when I said this is fantastic because when we move kids and families where they've purchased homes, where they've done, you know, sometimes you have to do it in a changing city and we can't say we'll never have to do it, but we don't have plans to do it and we want to do it as rarely as possible. So the CEK side, yes to access, though some kids to four hub programs will have to travel between high schools. And for Churchill Hoover, yes, there are trade-offs, but none of those families will be forced to go to another school unless they choose to do that >> and it'll be accessible. I think that'll that's the biggest concern I've heard is will there be true accessibility for students that want to go to these programs that are not part of those districts? >> And I think it's important to point out we already have experience with this. We've had uh last semester of last school year, we had students from Century, a great number of them going to Mayo for auto mechanics. We don't have an auto mechanic shop at Sentry and u but we don't want kids to lose out on that if they want to. So the the the leadership at both buildings work out a plan for for the kids to go for the for that class. So we we have a lot of experience with this over the years. Similarly sent kids to um John Marshall's auto mechanics lab from centuries. not something we're unfamiliar with which which is good. >> I just want to increase the awareness so that parents know that they are their child could be involved in >> Director Cook. >> Um thank you. So I I have uh now some some non-financial um thoughts or or questions here. And um to [clears throat] um begin my observations, I the key thing that I noted in this entire proposal, superintendent, was that it didn't require boundary changes. Um I I think that um is a certainly a recognition of how disruptive that can be. Of course, I recognize that uh we can't guarantee that, especially as the community continues to grow in some areas more than others and so on and so forth. But um [clears throat] kind of the the starting point for how I was evaluating this and considering it was uh the board's resolution last September where we asked um you superintendent to in make recommendations to enhance or discontinue use of the following facilities. Fidel Education Service Center, Mighty Oaks, Skyline, Edison, the PEK and CEKC facilities, and um MS-ync online was also in the um in that resolution. So, I think we've we've already made kind of definitive uh taken definitive steps on Fredell, Mighty Oaks, and Skyline. Um, I think with this proposal, uh, you have certainly provided your recommendations on the education service center and the PEK and CEKC programs. Um, and and we've we've we've had other discussions on, um, on this building. Um, so the the Friedell piece of this is what I'm really most interested in. Um, and also and and and the reason is because we know our enrollment is uh, declining over time. We have every reason to believe that will continue to be the case uh for the foreseeable future based on the information that we have right now. Um and we it's simply an imperative that we have to be we have to reduce the footprint of our uh physical real estate to be more efficient with um our operations. Um I uh and I also appreciate your point very much superintendent about um we can't uh we don't have the luxury of choosing a hypothetical perfect option or um you know you know reimagining the entire thing from the start. Um uh so there's there's a lot to like here in the the set of proposals that have been provided to us. I um they're kind of all grouped together and there's some of them that seem to naturally fit because the the changes at Churchill and Hoover at Gage and then the the relocation of middle school ALC and rail um all definitely tie to the Friedel building. Um, the CEKC decentralization, I don't really see the connection to the other pieces of the proposal. The gymnastics, I'm not even sure the board needs to weigh in on at this point. It seems like it's a done deal and it's pretty obvious that we've got a good solution that we should go forward with there. Um, and so I I mean it would make sense to me to just split them apart because I I don't really see how they're connected. Then the last piece is Phoenix, which is really the in terms of capital investment, the largest uh investment that's reflected here. I I uh I I think it's an appropriate allocation of resources to meet the needs of that school community. I am really wondering how necessary it is to tie that investment to the Fidel building and and whether it is and I certainly would defer to the expertise here, but I just based on the way we do other indoor air quality projects and so forth. I don't really understand why it's necessary to relocate that school community for an entire year in order to complete that project. And if it turns out we don't really need to or if that is reflective of some other tradeoffs that aren't apparent to me yet, um I would just that would really enhance my understanding of how that piece in particular ties to the other Fredell parts of this. And then I have one more question after this. But >> um uh thank you Director Cook. Super uh important. Um, number one, the reason that we've brought these things together, though, you're right, there are there's one cluster of changes that are all intimately linked. And then there's CEK and Phoenix. Um, and we do have plans, by the way, about the the Minsk office space, too, if you're interested in that because that was in the resolution that you brought back. The logic of bringing them together was so you could look at the financial impact in its cumulative, but you're right, they are distinct. The um need to utilize Fidel for a year uh is part based on the challenges of the construction the building will require and I will let Mike address this from his expertise, but it also is based on extended discussions about the educational impact of students especially with a autism spectrum disorder on being in proximity to construction. And we got very clear uh advice that even the kind of proximity to construction that uh Jackie was just talking about at in the old days at Hoover for those students is a complete non-starter that the disruption that would be present. Um the construction challenge then was could we do it in the summer and the complexity of the change was moving us potentially into four summers to get it done so that we had no construction happening while the kids were there. And this was something I know the board has the highest regard for our entire staff um at Phoenix. I get choked up when I mention them. Um they were just very clear that we can't we can't be near a construction site because of those things. But you maybe you can amplify that a little. >> Yes, that's absolutely correct. Um really looking at the property and it um if you look at the GIS website of Homestead County, it shows uh the property lines and we're really a tight postage stamp type of a fit in that property. So putting all of our experts to task, we wanted to rule out doing it in one summer. and and really with the building not having a current kitchen. It doesn't even have the facilities in place. So, we'll have to take up a lot of concrete, a lot of piping, have to change a lot of the infrastructure within the building. It was just set up to fail if we couldn't complete it in one year. So, we proposed a two summer. If you can imagine, we just finished Kellogg um last summer, which was a two-year project, but it was quite an undertaking to do that size of a building in two years. Not to mention the lay down yard. We had to put areas out front. There's a fenced in area with gravel. We're really stuck to the postage stamp size of what ESC would look like. So proposing to start June 6, let's say, they would have to have everything removed from the parking lot, every stitch of the property by around August 15th, which really gives that short window to bring everything in, move it out, then bring everything in, move it out. And there really was not a taste at all to do a single project during the school day which I respected to hear that feedback. So that really we have a wonderful opportunity in most cases. It was interesting because uh uh doc or chair whitehorn brought up the fact that how would what would we do with the students from Hoover and Churchill? We wouldn't have this opportunity if we didn't have Friedell. We really would be having to think outside the box or something different. So really having the Fryale building to put them for one school year afforded us that opportunity. We haven't ever been able to do a construction project where we completely moved every I should back up because we did the first year Overland. We were able to move the whole Bishop students over to Overland while we built rebuilt Harriet Bishop. That was the only other case where we actually had an open building to fully move them all for one year and and this was a great opportunity. So >> that really that is super helpful. uh really appreciate all those points. Um that definitely ties it together for me. The other the other question I keep um pondering here is and I I maybe mentioned things like this but in u in other contexts but um when we have a a recommendation here with lots of interconnected parts and of course you know we we uh um there's no such thing as a perfect choice here. We're operating in the real world with real constraints. But what um in in in your mind um anybody maybe I'm not sure who the best to answer but in my mind I have to compare this to what I think the next best alternative would be and and what I have had in mind is maintaining fridell is maybe the next best option. We've already back in September we talked about an investment of around $15 million just for the indoor air quality. And of course it wouldn't afford all of these improvements in the learning environments for the students that are currently at Phoenix and in middle school ALC um and uh and so forth. But is that the next best alternative or in the minds of the administration is the next best alternative if not this is it some combination of those other alternatives that were considered? it would just be really helpful to me to like reduce this down to a binary at least in the minds of the experts here. So I don't know if that's a something that's answerable right now but >> no I I think it is um the the the 15 to 17 million price tag for the indoor air quality uh upgrade at Fredell is very dated. I mean we we I I cannot imagine it will come in close to that. And then there are other infrastructural issues there that just in terms of if you're going in to do the IAQ project, we have a lot of subpar learning spaces in there. So it would definitely be above there. I I was reluctant to give up Fredell because I love where it is physically in the community. And so I was very interested. I will tell you in addition to the cost, the death nail for Fredell in my mind was parking because we are so constrained there. If you've ever been there when um the relatively small schools that are in there now are fully staffed just getting any parking. We did look at buying what I still think of as the Denny's and it is now the morning something cafe. I haven't been there yet. I'm hope it's >> bubbles and berries. >> Oh, that's it. Thank you. Um and we looked at the purchasing the hotel that is right next to it. And when both of those uh the hotel was not interested in selling and we didn't get the dennies the we would have had a a very large old imperfect facility with very problematic ability to grow programming there because of parking. And so that was really ultimately the rationale. Yes. If the board made a decision that this alternative proposal that uh I've made was not advisable, probably living with Fredell would be uh one of the fallbacks. Um, we haven't talked a lot tonight about the fact that at one point, Mike referred to it briefly, and I don't want to reopen that because we've concluded it's just not realistic. But building a new facility for Phoenix, uh, out in land that we actually own by RCTC um, or by our facility service center was an educationally great option and prohibitively expensive. And so that would have been another fallback that we just have to, you know, take off the table. So yes, probably sticking with Fredell would be a fallback should the board decide we couldn't move in this direction. Um it also though and I've had many leaders in both the city and the county say this to me at some point that will sell because of where it is and because of the development in that part of the community. we may need to be a bit patient but you know with what's happening not like a stones throw away that is a good bet for us to be looking at the financial analysis that uh Mr. Crostead walked us through. But yes, that would probably be fallback number one. >> I I could highlight a few other concerns I would have about retaining that building for a school. It having been the principal there for a millisecond. Um the the it's not designed to be a school. It it will never even with renovation be a good layout, a a perfect layout for a school. The green space is hugely lacking. We would send kids out to play in the what what borders highway or 14, highway 14, which is not our property, but we were allowed to use it. It's pretty small um small uh piece of land. or they would the kids for fied would go uh past the hotel over to where um if the fair is going on or gold rush or some other thing there are campers parked but that's where our kids would go to play soccer and do uh fiad in in kind of a quasi parking lot. >> Um it is a oneway to get in to that property and when the fair is going on you have to show your badge and say I'm not going to the fair I'm going to work. That's a short period of time, but there are so many things about that property that we lived with because it was um you know a location that we by the way bought for spring swing uh swing space because we didn't have room for our ninth graders at our two high schools then. Uh people loved Fidel not for the building. I mean the building um is kind of the armpit of the district really to be honest. >> There's a quote. [laughter] It's not. You can tell I loved I loved being there because of the people and the and the children. But but um I would say it's similar to when Rob Scripture, our principal at Phoenix, brings people [clears throat] in to take a look at, you know, would you like your child to go here? U we were fortunate at Fidel to have such an amazing program as is Rob. People have to look beyond the the building itself and Fidel is that type of building. Not that anyone would want to buy it for something else. So I don't want to, you know, dissuade future buyers, but it is not an ideal school location. >> Thank you. That's all really. >> Can I add one more question on that? So if um we were to choose to do something to Fidel, um would the financing also be guaranteed to not have a tax increase? Could we access the same financing or would we have to go to another bucket where we would have no choice but to increase taxes? um the LTFM portion, whatever we could fund through that program of course would be worked into the LTFM plan. Presuming uh we had access to the $9 million of cash, the 6 million plus the 3 million. That would avoid any um that would avoid any um potential tax impact. ultimately depends on what we would do with the certificates of participation that we'd be issuing for the rail expansion. That really is the fundamental piece that is ultimately uh rate could raise taxes. In this case, we've mitigated that. But presuming we kept that and then had to spend some additional dollars at FEL that would not qualify for LTFM, then yes, at some point we would have to raise taxes to be able to fund the the uh payback of that debt. But if we were to use Fidel, would you be recommending additional renovations? >> Yeah, it would. >> So that we are getting the same program upgrades for ALC and rail that we would be getting in a new building. So the the cost isn't even really on the paper, but it's more than an outdated cost of 14 million related to an IQ project. >> Well, yes. And again, I'm way outside my area of expertise, but I would I if it was it was that much five years ago, we're got to be talking about 20 million around there. It would be nonsensical to just do an indoor air quality upgrade at such an imperfect problematic building because you're ripping the place apart for the IQ project. And so you would the most efficient thing, though not a free thing, would be to upgrade the facility educationally. >> [clears throat] >> We still come back to the parking um dilemma. That seems small, but that's not small when you got to move, you know, an entire school community in and out and h have them park somewhere during the day. >> Um this may be a funding question. It may not be, but >> Oh, we can go anywhere now. >> Oh. Oh, look at that. Look [laughter] at God. Um, so with with uh what uh Superintendent Hel just touched on, um, knowing that this this particular patch of land could be very very hot property here, um, I don't know, and I not I'm not in real estate, so I don't know. But is it advantageous as what Director Cook was saying as taking it off the market and reputting it on the market in a year or so? Could Could it be worth more potentially just based on the placement of it? Right. because now they've got those good um stuffed French toast next door. I don't know, somebody might need that for their business. Um the stuffed French toast. I don't know. Um but also uh one other thought that I had while we were all speaking uh [clears throat] kind of and I'm not trying to beat a dead horse with the uh Church Hill Hoover, but did we get feedback from the rail parents or the middle school ALC parents and how much outreach did we do from that? I know we got um a lot back from the Church Hill community and I just think back to uh the rail graduation where we had you know parents that have traveled here just to be a part of the program. Um it would have been um you know I'd like to have heard more from them. I don't know how much outreach we did uh to them and their thoughts and feelings on the proposed um change. And maybe we did maybe it just was all in the in the um you know in the weeds with everything that we have. Superintendent. >> Um we did hold parent meetings in both um locations. Uh we director got White Horn in both instances got much more feedback from staff um who are very connected to parents in those communities. They weren't always there. I would say for both middle school ALC and uh rail and Jackie uh took all the notes at these meetings um so she can correct me. I do not believe there was a single parent who was opposed. they were they knew that Fredell was not at uh optimal for their kids because it was not designed at all for either kids with disabilities or middle school kids who suffer from anxiety or depression. And so it was not a large number of parents, but we did have parents um who spoke very movingly, especially uh frankly at Rail where you know they have they're wonderful kids who you know face pretty significant challenges and they're just passionate about this this program and they would like to see them in a place that was built for them. Um so >> that is accurate. are the notes there are more of a wish list as they started to think about a place that would be specifically designed for rail parents were chiming in about what they would love to see in a new a new space >> as for excuse me as [clears throat] for the the value of the property of course we don't ever know what the market's going to do in the next year or six months for that that matter um I would be recommending likely though that we just keep it on the market and see what comes comes along and then if we have a buyer, we would begin negotiations to see when they would want that property and and we would obviously have to turn away from any potential buyer that couldn't meet our terms and we would have that choice. But I don't know that there's any value in taking it off uh for a year. I I think it's been on the market already now for several months. Um I I don't know that there's any additional value going off and coming back on. I only ask because when you see things listed for a long time, you often see a reduction in price, not an increase in price. So that's why I didn't know if it was advantageous being that we know at with the current proposal that it cannot be occupied for such a long space of time that even if they purchased it and with contingencies, uh, we, you know, we we need the space, you know what I mean? Um, so that's why I didn't know if it if it made sense to pull it off and put it back on. I I just think of that like again just from a consumer perspective. Some people wait for things to be listed for a long amount of time to you know to throw an offer you know especially with this with them publicly knowing that they can't use it. I mean, that would be that would be on the buyer's advantage, you know, us listing something for a long time knowing that you couldn't use that. That's all I was. >> Well, we we'll obviously consult with our realer of record on that, you know, to see what his thought is. But, um, you know, if if he thinks it makes sense to do just that, we would certainly follow that lead. But, I'm not I don't know that that would be the case. >> I don't know. >> Yeah. >> None of us know how fast something can sell. >> Director McLaren. [clears throat] Um, Miss Peterson, I want to follow up on something you said because it related to one of the questions that I asked prior to the meeting in our documents. Um, I think some of us know, but can you talk a little bit more about the unique vocational programming of the rail students and what it is that's different? Why we can't just drop them into what what's a current Churchill classroom and let it be? What's different about their program? >> Uh, well, there's some significant physical needs for some of our kids. So having adequate changing space and feeding space there's some specific requirements uh in terms of facilities that would need to be uh uh addressed in in the addition. Um there's a there's a there's a if you go uh during the day, there's a significant um physical like getting physical movement in that requires some storage space for um tricycle like adult-sized tricycles and um riding those. Of course, we don't send them out into the Fredell neighborhood to do that. So, they're actually you exercising within the building. So, there's that. the there's a big component of rail which prepares uh the students for living on their own and so we need kitchen a kitchen environment so kids learn to cook and prepare um meals for themselves. Um similarly like a laundry facility so they learn how to um wash clothes, wash sheets, make a bed. So, there's environments set up for uh the students to actually experience what you would experience in your home that are very specific to programming. Um, in addition, making sure when we when we were looking for a space, we wanted to make sure that we were near a bus line because the students do learn how to access the city city transportation to get to work experiences or even we heard lots of great stories about kids planning to go to a shop that they maybe like and learn how to spend their uh dollars and then um all those life skills that we sometimes take for granted. uh it takes space to have those unique learning experiences for these students >> and and I take away um knowing some people who teach at Rail. It's even things like you know how to maintain a home from the inside and outside and those those are things you can't do in an elementary school classroom that they need space and tools and you know basic life skills types of things for that population that doesn't fit in a what we would traditionally think of an elementary school classroom. >> Very much so. >> Okay. Um, and I do have >> I can't manage myself. Um, and I just have one related question just so that I make sure that I ask it. Um, thinking about rail and middle school ALC, the background information that we have talks about the um, hope and plans those programs are going to increase in size. Can you talk a little bit about why we believe that and um how that ties into the plan in terms of the size of facility that they're going to need both initially and in the future? >> Uh we we do have waiting lists at uh the middle school ALC. Um, and when we originally imagined that program, we uh we had a number in mind of that that we should be able to and could accommodate 100 120 students. Right now, we are landlocked in that building and can't grow beyond uh what we're currently um hosting until we have a bigger space. >> What is it at now then? >> Uh we ended the year at close to 60. >> The number varies because kids sometimes leave for like a day treatment kind of program. Um the the uh rail program actually we have interest from outside of Rochester as well for uh to to attend the program. You me someone mentioned a family moving here but we also do we also entertain open enrollment into the rail program and so we do know from uh conversation that we have out outlining areas we could bring students in. And of course, we know from um our current population what kids might access uh rail, which um you know goes beyond high school for kids. So our current population can uh forecast for us the kind of um space we might need. >> And just so we're all on the same page about that, if we do have kids coming in from outside the district, that increases our funding as well to be used for all of our students. >> Correct. Got it. >> Thank you. Can I ask a question? >> Okay. Go ahead. So, I just want to make a comment uh to some of the concerns because I did get a lot of concerns about the age of the rail students. >> Um but I would want those community members to know and understand that these are people with high level um disabilities for lack of better words. Um, and being the grandmother and the mother and aunt of a of of those of of individuals with those level of disability, I will say that it warms my heart that RPS would consider putting them into a safe neighborhood um where they will be safe. Um, uh, if you don't have children or loved ones who are non-verbal or if you have these things, that is a concern. Um, as a parent and grandparent, you will have all of your life. Um, so I'm very um pleased to be a part of the concern for that population. >> I know you're going to make me want to talk about how wonderful the rail uh program is, but I'm I'm going to save that so that we can keep with our questions. Um uh with the comments that you made about the programming at rail and the accessibility to buses, we did hear a lot of concerns about what traffic flow and transportation would look like. Um, with middle school, uh, middle school ALC and rail being at the site, there was a mention by some people that we were going to add additional Rochester public Rochester City public transit buses that currently don't go to the school, but actually go just a block away. Can you talk a little bit about what um, a middle school ALC and rail would bring in terms of [clears throat] our yellow bus traffic, our van traffic, and car traffic? >> Yes, absolutely. We we have done a an initial study uh based on the number of buses that are currently transporting students into Churchill and uh really right now we have van we have been operating on a van much of our uh student student population arrives by van at Fidel. Um we have identified uh the ability to use a bus or a few buses to bring our middle school uh ALC kids into Fidel and we would continue that at Churchill. But the short answer is we've uh we've compared the traffic uh the the bus needs and it would be very comparable to what we currently have um bringing kids into Churchill by bus and van. Um where there would be a departure is we largely these kids are not transported by their parents. So when you think about the start of a school day, elementary school day and end, uh it's very intense with drop off, um parents dropping off, picking up in their cars, uh walking their kids. We would not have that type of traffic um with these two programs being at at uh Churchill. So there is a potential to have far less traffic uh with the with the switch. And even though they um the the rail students are of driving age, there was a concern that we would have teenagers and young adults driving themselves, but that's really not the case for the rail students. >> No, we I to my knowledge, we have no real students that are driving uh driving to school. >> Dr. McLean, >> I just have um first of all, one request for Mr. Krastead that chart that Kathy showed. Can you the one with the lines? Yep. >> Can you make that for us for the next meeting? Can you up You talked about updating it with different numbers either for, you know, in-depth public knowledge or our own knowledge or just something to keep with these materials to show what that will look like >> with this plan. >> I think I think so. >> Correct. >> It was with the tax impact, correct? >> Assuming that we approve this, right? >> What it would look >> what it would look like, right? >> Yes. I would ask I would based on the proposed Okay. Um, >> that would approve. >> That would be helpful. Yeah, just as a as a projection of what it would look like if this is approved. That would be helpful. I have a burning question for facilities. On the map that you showed us, there's a little thing on the north side of the school. What is that? >> Like a box. >> Yeah. >> Uh, I think it's probably the storage container. >> You got to zoom in. >> Sorry. I thought you I thought it'd be one back. I think it's north. I'm assuming that the arrow >> is that the container that's between like the two hard surfaces there. >> The striped parking lot. >> That's the current chiller for the building. So that creates a dehumidification that's already there. That's on the map. >> It's separate from the building. >> Yes. >> Yes. When we performed the indoor air quality there, we were not able to put it on the rope or in the building, but >> Got it. Okay. >> It's currently on the site on the property. And then I know I've lost asked a lot of question but I want to go back to the first because I usually start when I'm talking about something about something positive about the plan and I didn't get that chance because we started talking about the other stuff. So what I really like about this what I wanted to say from the beginning in response to Dr. Bquel's comments is that the continuity of early childhood to elementary I think is such a great idea. Um, I think it fits with our past strategic plan about the fiscal priorities and using our facilities wisely, but I think it also ties into our future strategic plan talking about a unique student uh, school identity and even a possibility of marketing that as a future district-wide option that I think about it from a parent who was looking at daycare options tied to what my child was going to do for school and thinking that if they could go preschool, early education into elementary, without changing schools. That would have been a huge benefit. Um that I think that that's really I think that's something we haven't offered before. I could see that young families with really young children looking at affordable daycare options that RPS provides would be a huge value that we can add to the community. >> We haven't said much about Gage tonight and Gage would really gain that same thing. Uh that >> that's what I mean. Gage Gage could be a districtwide option in that in that concept. Correct. >> Utilizing the the full building So, thank you. >> Um, and I didn't I I didn't get my chance to also do the the positives, too. Um, I I did some graphing of what the um recommendation was versus the alternatives. And I I don't for those of us who have had to make decisions about boundary changes, I can't tell you how that is a positive in this. Um because when we did talk about Sunset Terrace being a space, um I I went back and I just looked at a lot of numbers, 467 students, dispersing them to four or five schools and closing a school community. Um whereas in my perspective with Churchill, we're uniting 191 students with the community they are already scheduled to go to with staff who is going to be thrilled to see them three years earlier than they ordinarily would. Um and and facilitating and and strengthening the connections among that school community. So to me that just looking at numbers of 467 versus 191 all those students benefit from this recommendation. Um and I also we it wasn't reflected in any of the documents and I think it's sort of impossible to um summarize it although I'll ask you just to reinforce it. We've done a lot of construction projects here in RPS, whether they've been long-term facilities maintenance, IQ updates, whether they've been building our new schools, and to the best of my knowledge, in all of the years where we've had to approve a budget for these doc for these proposals, and then we've actually had to construct them and we've had to keep to a time frame, I think our track record is pretty darn good. >> I don't want to answer because then it sounds like we're jasing ourselves. [laughter] We're in the middle of a four-year Mayo project and things are right on schedule. It's been incredible and and it we really do have a great track record >> because I think when we say we don't need to increase taxes to do a to do multiple projects of this size, it may be unbelievable to some people who haven't followed the work that we've done in in construction and in maintenance. But I think that track record supports that when we estimate and we budget and we ask for how much it's going to cost, we've been pretty much on target and we've been able to work with the partners that we've had in construction to to uh meet those commitments both to our time frames and to our taxpayers in terms of of being efficient stewards of their money. So, I think that's another piece of this I wanted I I didn't really see um highlighted. Um, and I have to um also say something about the middle school and the and the ALC uh middle school ALC and the rail students and the Phoenix students. Um, to say that there are students with some of our greatest needs. Um, I don't think it encompasses it. It's also some of the students um when we've had a chance to go meet and visit with them with some of the greatest joys. um uh because over overcoming the challenges they have um is a service that we are required obviously to provide as a public school system but we are honored to provide um and giving them space that is right for um the kind of learning they need to do um to support that excellent staff who chooses to teach in that challenging environment. Um, I went back on our social media, our district social media page to look up something um because one of the comments that that a community member made was um they know a little bit about the rail program and they said it would be great to develop a community service program that would benefit the Churchill community involving the rail students and maybe raking leaves in the fall for the elderly or neighborhood cleanup days. And I remembered that we had talked about on our social media that that is exactly what the rail students do right now. They have a track record of community service that I think is exemplary for any of our schools. Um this year they went to Family Service Rochester and they did yard cleanup and they helped set up their um family service classrooms for their um family resource rooms. Um they went to live a 125 live and they celebrated a year of learning and practicing line dancing at Rail and they joined with the live 125 community for a public event where everybody learned a little line dancing from the rail students and they showed off what they had learned over the year. Um they toured the landing and they dropped off hygiene kits that they had assembled themselves with handwritten messages of you matter. They have met with residents of Adana Towers and the Waters and Meadow Lake Senior Living and brought fleece tie blankets that they had made themselves. They collect and donate items to the Ronald McDonald House and they regularly volunteer at the Channel One Food Bank. So, this is a group of students that is the kind of students that we want to educate in Rochester public schools and we should be proud of supporting in Rochester public schools and is going to be an asset to that Churchill neighborhood. um because they already are an asset across Rochester. So, that is a plus I see in this plan. Um as I said when I began, I think everybody wants to know that we're taking care of the kids that we have in RPS. And I think as you look through the plan, I feel we are taking care of every single group of kids that are affected by the plan. and we have um adequately addressed those kids who might have been affected negatively by the alternatives that we're not selecting. >> Can I add to Nathan, the middle school ALC has also been involved in some of those same types of uh supports for the community, tie blankets for the NICU. Um, when Dustin Marorrow was our safe routes to school coordinator, he started a bike program and the students in the middle school ALC have uh really taken that program under their wing to assemble bikes, to fix bikes, to help kids out in our our schools across the district have access. So they are also uh you know delving into the area of of service to others and um what a great partnership the two programs could uh have as continued partners in one building. >> Any other questions board members as we have one more bite at this apple at the next meeting. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I have one last thing. Um from the last meeting I just want to let you know that I completed my homework. Ah, >> and that along with Andy's help, we our age of our buildings in the district average 43 years. So >> 43 years >> 43 years average >> that will change if we sell certain properties or if we build addition but current homework. >> All right. So our next two agenda items are our policy committee recommendations from our June 18th and June 25th meetings. Um, as usual, this is the second briefing um before the policies will be on the consent agenda for approval on August 4th. Um, and the briefing document summarizes the changes. Are there any questions? All right. Then they'll be on the consent agenda on August 4th. We'll move on to our action item. Approval of a long-term facilities maintenance plan. We discussed this as a prep for action item at the July 7th meeting. So, I'll read the resolution and open it up if there's any further discussion. Be it resolved that the school board of Independent School District 535 does hereby approve the 10-year long-term facilities maintenance plan for the 2027 2028 fiscal year. >> Approval second. >> It has been moved and seconded. Board members, any discussion or additional questions? Director Workman. >> I would like to remind uh the public that we had this is not the first time we've seen this item. We have had a lot of discussion about a lot of information. So it's not like we're just coming and voting on something that we're seeing for the first time. >> Right. And there's um extensive material in the um agenda item on assembly. Yes. >> All right. Hearing no there no further discussion. All those in favor of the resolution say I. >> I. Opposed. The resolution has been approved. >> Moving on to other business. The ABCD is available in this agenda item for reference for um our schoolboard meetings uh through the end of the year. Upcoming agenda items include our August 4th meeting, the 202627 ABCD approval, the facility strategy recommendation and financing plan action and action on the approval of the 2026 2027 student handbook. And then on August 11th, we will have a study session from 4 to 6 focusing on our schoolboard self-evaluation and our school board goal development. Are there any uh agenda items board members would like to raise for consideration at a future meeting? Hearing none, our upcoming board meeting dates. August 4th is a regular meeting at uh 5:30. August 11th, again, a different time, 4 to 6:00 p.m., but that's a study session for our uh board self-evaluation and goals. and a regular meeting on August 18th and September 1st, both at 5:30 p.m. And hearing no other business, this meeting is adjourned at 7:34 p.m. >> Have we seen this in action already? >> No. Okay. >> But you haven't. hurt that.