All righty, we will continue on moving on to the proposed neighborhood school closure and facility consolidation recommendations. Uh Dr. Thomas and Director Powers, you may take it away. And before we actually before we start, um just want to kind of get the lay of the land here. This is our first crack at this tonight, everybody. And um I would expect tonight to generate as many questions as does answers. Um I can certainly be sensitive to that fact that the the district is entering kind of uncharted waters. We've been a growing school district for pretty much non-stop since 1952 when Greenwood School opened and um we've sometimes grown really fast, sometimes not so fast. And so I I can appreciate how this is this is a kind of a shock to the system in Prior Lake Savage. Um the proposed uh um action date for this uh from administration is June 9th. And I'm going to recommend that we we back that off into the July meeting to make sure that every question that could possibly be thought of between now and then has a chance to be answered and vetted. I don't want somebody, especially at the board table, to come up with a question on June 12th and have the action already have been been taken. So, um, I want to be deliberate about this, make sure that everybody gets to weigh in and that administration has a chance to to, you know, properly vet the plan they're presenting before us as questions come in and um, things that maybe weren't thought of are brought to the table. So, I just want to kind of lay that foundation moving forward and and um hopefully we can we can come to a reasonable conclusion here. Jess, uh Chair White, um thank you for saying that. Um the delay, it's the first time I'm hearing that. So, is that something that is does that timeline is that okay? I I I don't want to rush this either. That's not my point in asking this, but I just I want to make sure timeline is such that and I would what I forgot to add was if a version of this ends up getting approved, if a a school ends up being closed and and we're required to then redraw boundaries, um I wouldn't want to go past the July date because then at that point the process would begin for the redrawing of boundaries and um that's plenty of time for that work to begin and be concluded um in advance for so parents parents will know well in advance of of of the following school year um where their their children will end up. So, I don't want to go past July 14th, but I think July 14th gives everyone plenty of time to do what needs to be done, assuming a version of this proposal ends up being the one that we pass. Dr. Thomas, did you um Yeah, actually I was just going to um share a little context as well and uh I'll just kind of start with uh where Chair White mentioned uh the July conversation. So I wanted to share with the board and our community. Um this is a very challenging conversation that uh we have to engage in. Um it's not one that I wish we even had to engage in, but nonetheless we're we're here. Um, and there's multiple factors that have brought us to this conversation from kind of a flat enrollment, some of the state challenges and some of the local revenues. You know, it's it's a perfect combination of things that are leading us to this point. And I think one of our public commenters um this evening also kind of alluded to it, kind of did a a good brush stroke of what this picture looks like, too. there's there's almost an inevitable situation ahead of us and it's not one that you can continually cut your way out of to to find a resolution and that's the challenge right now. Um, director France, you had just mentioned um the special session that's going to be occurring on the 19 or that is likely going to occur because I think today was the the day. Um, we don't know what that will actually entail. Um but what we do know is that there's not going to be any significant funding from any of the proposals that have been discussed um at the at the state capital. So so again I think the revenue stream um that we are trying to address here is a critical one. And uh and then there's only so many reductions that we can make before we find ourselves kind of cutting so far into our infrastructure um that our ability to deliver quality, you know, really begins to, you know, get compromised and um we had multiple uh conversations as to how we would want to best approach this. So we we shared a lot of this forecasting and what we may have to engage in as we went to our community with a levy proposal. Um tried to be very upfront with the types of conversations that we may have to have um should uh we not get additional revenue um with that last referendum. And I also want to be very clear uh cuz you know we've we've gotten our share of emails about this and I just want to put some conversations that might be swirling out in our community put it into perspective. So I want to first and foremost this conversation is by no means any type of way to retaliate against our community for expressing their perspectives at the ballot box. Um you've heard me say countless times here at the dis um this is a democratic process by way of a vote and the votes were cast and the outcome is our outcome. Now we will live you know with that reality. So I want to be very clear about that. By no means um do do I uh want to have this conversation um to punish or to have retribution because I think that's some of the swirl that's been out there. I think it's just the reality of where we're at and and I am going to share facts uh with with the community and with the board and uh and try to be as direct as possible and I'm very mindful that these facts will elicit a variety of emotions. We have them as staff. I know our students and our families and our staff have those as well. So, um we can empathize with that and so these are very sensitive topics that we are engaging in. So I'm mindful of how we bring the community along um our staff along etc so that they fully understand you know where we may you know take this conversation in the future. Um this is all a proposed conversation. Um as an administrative team we do not expect us uh the board to um uh be a rubber stamp in in your levels of authority. We won't come to this conversation with a blank slate and just start thinkalouds here at a work session. We're going to come to you with some vetted proposals and some recommendations and they're just that. They are recommendations at this time and these are proposals at this time. We are not um seeking action at this time. And um to Chair White's point about the date, the initial date that we had set was just in context of of some natural sequencing that that currently exists um for how we do budgeting and how we do staffing and scheduling and all of that. Um that would give ample time to uh you know whatever um conversations may um warrant action from the board should some semblance of this come forward. Um to Sher White's point, we wanted to have ample time to engage around boundary studies and understand what does that um movement look like so that we can articulate what that would be for incoming families. And that has to be done. I would just say no later than absolutely around the October time frame, which happens to also coincide with our um timeline to notify MDE of a an intent to close a building because families need to start registering. We start doing kindergarten roundup and all that kind of stuff as well. So, so I anticipate that um for us to be able to go into July, that June initial conversation point that we had there had some timeline buffer built into that depending on where this would go. So, that is something that we believe as an administrative team July would be manageable. Um, I think it would allow us to do um our due diligence around boundaries and still be releasing information in a timely manner to our community. Um, and and and I would say that's probably the outset in terms of a timeline. um once we start getting later, you know, as we start up a school year in in August and all that goes into um opening up a new school year, um it it becomes very heavy in terms of a load to to manage a lot of that. So, um that I think that's a reasonable request um that we could definitely honor as well. Um, and we had a variety of conversations internally that led us to where we're at today. So, as the board and our community knows, for the past couple of years, we have been making sizable reductions in our budget. Um, between three and $4 million. And with our forecast as we've shared and with the bianium at the state level forecasts um to be a5 to $6 million deficit um we know that um our pattern of reducing is something that's not going to change anytime soon. Um, and I would be the first to say we will always be stewards of our resources, finding ways to be more efficient, finding ways to save additional resources when possible, where possible. Um, and as you've heard on multiple occasions from our auditors each year, um, we run a very lean system and and so there's not a lot of wiggle room in terms of how much kind of extra or fat is in the system that we can continually trim. Um, and I've metaphorically talked about we are we are hitting bone and muscle and and that is something that's very real. And um, and I'm not saying that to to scare the community or anything. I'm really just trying to bring the perspective that exists. This is the reality before us and it has been building this way for um uh several years. And those of you who have been here prior to to me coming, we forecasted this as well. And this is not to blame anyone from the past or you know things of that nature. Just where we're at. This is where we are. how we move forward um is to find ways that we can tighten things up and we know that's going to be impactful. Um part of our conversation during our our levy campaign was um the the need that we would have to talk about the possible closure of one of our campuses. And as we looked at that conversation, um you know, there's not a campus anybody wants to close. Uh our schools are great. People love our schools. Our families love our schools. for our kids. Um we as staff and and so we understand that and we have to find some way for the 26 27th school year to make an additional roughly $4 million in reductions. And I'll tell you we we are taking significant reductions next year in terms of programming and what that experience will be in Prior Lake Savage area schools. um in terms of what support looks like for our students, what support looks like for our staff, etc. Um we've talked about class sizes. Um all of those are very re real factors as a result of the cuts that we had to make for the 20 that we are proposing to make for the 2526 school year. Um the subsequent year, I don't know where we're going to find an additional $4 million of again program and service reductions. there's just not that um amount in our system before we really lose the integrity of what we're trying to do um in support of our students every single day. And um so part of what we've been looking at are are there ways that we can um look at our building spaces in our buildings themselves to find ways to offset the type of financial reductions we have to make to pull as much away from the program and services reductions and put that more onto our structural structural reductions which is something that I said all along the campaign trail as well. I'm trying to uh kind of forecast what we would do. you know, we kind of chunked it out into, you know, a a an immediate last December, a midterm last February, and our long-term is the 26 27. So those are kind of like the three phases of our of our reductions that we could forecast as we're going through this bianium. Um and so for us, we looked at a variety of schools starting with our older campuses in in the district and through our own uh internal analysis as well as getting some external perspective and and uh um estimates on things uh we've landed on the conversation that we're bringing forward to you today. So there were a variety of scenarios that we looked at um probably about four in total and you are seeing kind of a three-legged stoolled approach to what we believe would be a good structural balance to where we can find ways to save the resources for the 26 27 year and having uh minimal impact um or less impact on our program and services as we are doing for the 2526 school year. So, a lot of thought, a lot of painstaking thought um with many folks and uh and there's not going to be a proposal that folks are going to be overjoyed with because all of them are impactful. Um but we are going to make the best decision um given the resources that we have to address moving forward um with what we understand today. Um, Director Johnson, I and I'll kind of close with this and I'll turn it over to you, Director Powers. Um, you know, you were talking you were as you had asked a question about um, uh, the the difference in the forecast to the actuals and, you know, why was it far off or whatever. Um, and and again, what we are looking at today, and I think this kind of gets to answering your question, we have no idea what's going to happen in the legislature, but what we're living today um is a direct result of some of the significant under or unfunded mandates that came in the last session that we did not know would be a part of our forecast. Um, and so we're living that. Um, so that's that's a big piece of that puzzle that when we made the forecast then we were in session, but we did not know where some of these bills may come across and and many of them hit um with a pretty heavy price tag on on school systems. um as we for forecast, you know, moving forward, we don't anticipate because there's been a lot of lobbying um to halt the types of uh under or unfunded mandates that came out of the last session. So, we're feeling better there. But again, what we're suggesting is that we're forecasting it. Okay? Just like we we might forecast rain and so we turn our sprinkler system off and then the rain doesn't come or we don't expect rain and so we turn our sprinkler system on and the very next morning we get or tonight we get 3 in that dumps down on us. You know forecasts are pretty volatile um and uh you know we we live in a climate that we can kind of trust the forecast and know the climate but not everything will be 100%. And so today what we're sharing with you, this is what we believe given the data and the information that we are using in terms of enrollment financials, our kind of real estate footprint and the types of reductions we anticipate we'll have to make um that we believe that we'll arrive at that number um in the best possible way. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Director Powers um to walk us through um some of the conversations that we've been having. Thank you, Superintendent Thomas, um Chair White, members of the board. This is going to be a lot of stuff I'm going to be throwing at you. My hope is that we can wait the questions at the very end. Um because some of the questions you're going to have are going to be answered on the succeeding slides. We talked a little bit about, we've been talking a lot about this. This isn't um new. State funding hasn't kept pace with inflation. Um Dr. Thomas mentioned many unfunded or underfunded mandates, slower enrollment growth, um declining statewide birth rates. Um this we're not the only district that's struggling with this exact situation. and the referendums. If the referendums would have passed, we probably could have skated along. They didn't. And this is one way that we can correct that um to properly utilize the spaces we've got and be fiscally responsible with the amount of money that we do get. Talked a little bit about this some of the cuts we've done in previous years. Current cycle 2425 4 million. next year 4 million 4.1 um these are the cuts that we're talking about for 2627 is this consolidation now before I jump to the next slide um I'm going to reference a few of the criteria that we were looking at um when we were looking at locations on which one to recommend um in all honesty I didn't look at anything that was built prior than 1990 we've got three buildings that are older Um, there's a lot of things about those buildings that are still great, but they just they aren't newer. The newer buildings are bigger. The newer buildings are slightly better. The things that we put into those buildings are updated. Um, it's they're just better buildings. So, I only looked at three buildings in particular. Five Hawks, Grainwood, and Westwood. Two of those locations are in the center of the district. One of them is not. the reboundary around five hawks would create slightly more headaches. It could be done. Um but one of the reasons that I I did not look at and my recommendation to stay away from five hawks for using it for other things u was honestly the remodeling cost to use any of that space for something else. um for me to remodel that space, to add in walls, to make it secure, to add in things like a boardroom or add in offices. Um that's an open building. There aren't really walls. That was the way it was designed. Those are temporary walls in there right now. And they serve a great function as a school, but as an office, it's it's a nightmare to remodel. So those are the reasons that I took five hawks off of the conversation at that point. So then we're looking at the two schools in the center of the district. We're looking at Greenwood and we're looking at Westwood. Now I initially did not consider Greenwood because we have the Spanish immersion program there. And my initial thought was, well, we're not canceling the program. So I didn't think of closing that particular location. We did come up with an alternative, which is what we're going to propose tonight. So, as we're looking at all of these locations and as all these different factors were coming in, we realized that there was an obvious choice of Westwood as the one that we would close to being a neighborhood school. It didn't have the Spanish immersion. It's centrally located. It's somewhere easier to reboundry around. We talked a lot about moving old Delago to Westwood. The Spanish immersion program is one of the things that's a one of our bigger draws in the district. We have a over a hundred students that open enroll specifically for that program. Honestly, I'd like to increase those numbers and I think we can if we include more prek services and a couple other things. I think that program can grow and Westwood is a location that we can accommodate that growth. One of the things that I recommended early in this process that because of this I went through the problems in Burnsville. Um in Burnsville we had to close three schools. Those three schools have sat empty for more than five years. Empty. They've been trying to sell two of them for that entire time. They just now got one of them sold. So for five years those schools have been sitting empty. they've been decaying. Mothballing a school is one of the worst things that you can do. And if you're trying to sell it, it's not an easy process. So, as I was looking at all of these things, I'm like, okay, how can I best utilize this space if we're not looking at selling a location? Believe me, that is one of the options that we I can discuss, but it's not a recommendation that I would bring forward. How can I best utilize this space to expand a program if we have a chance to so we can bring in more students or to best serve our community? And one of those things is honestly selling this building. This building, it's a commercial building. Um it's it's more the the ability to sell this is much higher than it is the ability to sell a school. And honestly I can show you the numbers selling a school. We could um we get about 40% of the value if we restricted who could buy it. If we said okay I don't want to sell it to another school. We don't want competition to come into the district and buy it and start up a charter school that are going to take more of our students away. So if we did that, we'd lose 40% of the value of that building right away. So as we're looking at it, this is the most viable option to let go of and realize the the value of this building in our current budget. Now, the challenge with the the sale of this property is we're there are things that we can spend that money on and there are things we can't. we can spend it on capital expenditures which would help us in other ways in the budget. We wouldn't have to allocate those other capital monies because this would be helping us to do that. And that's one of the things that I think is a it's a really good potential thing that could help us for many cycles down the road as we're looking at ex moving the district office over to Greenwood. Currently, community ed is located at Grawood. There are services that they could expand over there. We can colllocate some of the things um front office wise so that we can have we can share resources better with community and the district office in one location. Um there are things that we have for our special education department um that we could also expand in that location because we would have some space to do it. So all of those types of things were what I was looking at when I came up to my recommendation at Grawood. One of the other things that I was looking at on the difference between Grawood and Westwood was there again the cost to remodel it. Westwood, the style of building it is with the HVAC system we've put into it and a lot of other things. It's designed for larger spaces, classrooms. In order to cut up those classrooms and make offices in that space without significant changes, three out of the four people in that space are going to be freezing or boiling all the time. They will never be comfortable because the heating and air conditioning system is built on the outside wall and it to adapt it to anything else would cost us a lot of money. So that was one of the reasons that I did not really want to use Westwood as a location for us to locate services. We could and we could live with it. But the preference grainwood is a situation or a location that I can adapt more easily to those other services. I mentioned a little bit of this. We've got the declining state birth rates. Um on average, we're losing about 50 students a year. If we use this alignment, we'll be able the the schools themselves um we'll be using them a little bit more efficiently. We can talk a lot about the programming side of this, but um after conversing with Dr. Edwards and many of the people on the academic side, that's not my world. Um I have to listen to what they're telling me. Our the best situation is four section grades. There are a lot of our locations where we have three section grades. Um, having a four section grade makes it better for them. The resources that they're spending are spent and used more efficiently. And that's part of the things that we can look at when we're getting that efficiency when we close a school. Capacity in the schools right now we're sitting at about 70% capacity for our our number. I can show there's another slide in here that's going to show you where those capacities are per building and what our projected enrollments are. Um, but right now we're sitting at about 70%. We're not utilizing our spaces expansion opportunities at for Lola Delago at Westwood. I mentioned those a little bit earlier. Part of the cost savings that we're looking at um with this in all honesty comes from me being a contractor for 20 years. I'm probably going to be the one that's going to be guiding the crews to help us so we can remodel that space to try and keep our expenses down and not having contractors come in there. Um I'm probably going to be the one swinging a hammer. So, I'll be helping um when we get to that point to make sure that we're getting it done correctly and to help us make sure we're saving money. And my staff will be the people that are going to be relocating these res the teachers and whatever they're they need per building. Um my staff will be the ones that are relocating all of that stuff. Talked a little bit about some of these things. Um, Westwood is projected to have the lowest enrollment for one of our neighborhood schools. And honestly, if we're looking to maximize the money that we have coming in, um, this is a something that I think uh, we need to do. And I mentioned a little bit about, uh, closing and selling the district office. The intent is not to give the district admin a a palatial place to go and have offices at. It's to reduce our buildings. Um, if we can sell this one without affecting the kids, I mean, if we're closing a school there, again, it's not sitting open. So, I can relocate the staff that are here and effectively use another location in some way. Some of these efficiencies will be cutting staff. Um, Director Herman can talk a little bit more about these things, but when we close the school, we're eliminating a principal position. We're eliminating the custodians that are at that location. We're eliminating the nutrition staff. Um that was one of the reasons that was another small reason um of looking at closing Westwood versus closing Greenwood. Westwood we've got the early childhood we've got the prek we're already using the nutrition services there. If we just closed part of that we'd still need to staff the nutrition in that location. moving everyone from Lola Lelago over to Westwood means that this the nutrition staff that may have been at that location. Um those are part of the ones that we would end up letting go or not filling those positions. I in all honesty we have attrition that's reshuffling people around all the time. So these aren't necessarily people that will be let go at that moment but um those are prepositions that will go away. The only unknown in that is going to be how um like I mentioned, director Herman can talk about how the the teaching staff we would um there's a lot of staff that would be touched in different ways. As we're looking at some of the costs and what we would get out of that, um I mentioned that my staff will be the ones that'll be moving everyone. We're planning on moving the Minaps group into the high school this summer. Um, if we go forward with this recommendation, then my staff will be the ones that would move whatever staff need to relocate from Westwood and the staff that would be coming from Grawood and moving over to Westwood Lola Delo Group. Um, the remodeling costs, a good chunk of those costs um are actually uh having to relocate the IT infrastructure. Now, some of those costs are for things like um the servers for our camera system, which are currently failing. So, this is a cost that I'm going to have to come up with no matter what. It's just a case of where we install it. Um if they all of a sudden looked at failing this summer, I would have to try and find a way to replace those here and then relocate those to whatever location we would end up with our IT department going to for that. Estimated sale of the district office between two and a half to $3.5 million. One of the bonuses that we look at here, the lot immediately Rex next door is for sale. Once that work gets out to the realators, the package deal would be pretty sweet for whoever wanted to come in. They could be able to pick up both sections. This is just breaking it down for the total year. Moving and remodeling expenses, staffing reductions, sale of the DSC brings us to 3.875 million to 5.725. Transportation costs are unknown at this moment. We could save, we might not. Um, that'll we'll find out after we get done with the rebounding. Uh I suspect that it will be lower uh because we won't be moving the students from the west side of Prior Lake over to Westwood. We'd be locating them most likely to Jeffers or to Glendale, the two closer locations in discussion. I mean, one of the things that we would be looking at was how we're going to what space we would use for the school board to meet in. Um, we've got some things that we're talking about um, in that regards that I I'll be able to share more about that later on. We haven't talked to a few of the partners that we really would like to yet. Um, but there is plenty of space at Grawood to build in a new area to do this. This is a little metrics that we used um, as we're looking at the options that we were talking about. closing low Westwood, not selling the DSC. Um, it really it missed a lot of things. Um, it's not creating any more building efficiencies really closing Westwood, moving DSC to Westwood. Um, that was definitely something I initially thought of. But there again, the remodeling cost to make a comfortable space for offices much much higher. Moving the district office to Greenwood pretty much checked all the boxes we were looking at. As we were looking at uh Dr. Edwards did uh a capacity study this spring. One of the things we were looking at was how many sections could we do of each grade level for kindergarten? It's pretty straightforward. We've pretty much have a bathroom in every one of those classrooms or a bathroom immediately adjacent to it in the case of Greenwood. And then Dr. Dr. Edwards talked and with every one of the principles to work through what they felt would be a real a realistic number of sections per school. Those uh numbers in there per classroom, those are the approved um numbers already that are going to be implemented for this coming up school year. And then we're also looking at things like spaces not included in for this um capacity issue of art, music, PE um media. There's small group spaces. Uh we did look at the large bedrooms and JP's also got u some prek. These are the capacities versus the projected enrollment in the 2627 school year. We're sitting comfortably with all of those. And if we could continue to grow for a little bit and still be well within those numbers for um those capacities. and we've talked to the we've been in conversations with both cities and we know there will be families moving into the district and continue to move in. There's new areas being built. Um I'm looking forward to being able to accommodate all of them that come in. Talked a little bit about open enrollment. Um, we have 1420 students that come into the district, 867 that go out of the district for some reason. Not in there because we don't track them. I've heard Dr. Thomas talk a little bit about this before is the kids that are homeschooled or the ones that might be in a private religious school. I mean, we have an idea of what those numbers are, but those aren't necessarily included in these numbers. As we're looking at next steps, um the biggest thing we're going to be looking at is redoing those boundaries for the attendance. And that will honestly take us all of two, possibly three months to complete to make sure that we're doing it in a fair way. I could throw something together in two hours, but it's not fair and it's not getting community input on any of that stuff or board board input. We need to make sure we make a decision so that we can inform the department of ed by October 15th, I believe, is the date that we found. And then we want to make sure that we can get all the staffing assignments ready for that next school year because there will be changes. It changes to every school. If we moved ahead with this recommendation, um, first step would be how we utilize the staff that are at Westwood currently and what locations they might end up going to because many of them would move the locations after they were relocated. Then we'd be looking at the Spanish immersion program and moving that to Westwood. Once that was complete, um it would just depend on the sale approach for the district office. My staff will be working on making sure that the space over at Grawood was ready to go for the staff coming in from here. And including in that is going to be the IT infrastructure that we're going to my staff obviously won't be doing that, but um we'll be bringing in some people to help us with that, too. All right. Now, questions. Before we start, it was suggested to me and I think wisely that maybe we should break this up into little categories so we can kind of stay on each topic. So, if we could start out maybe with questions around the the DSC sale itself, the timing, the process, and keep our questions just to that, and then we'll move on to maybe the the actual move out of this building and how what that would entail and then get into the to the relocation of students before we talk about um the boundaries. So, are there any questions around the actual, you know, moving pieces around the sale of this building that anybody would have? Jess, thank you, Director Powers, for that. Um, it's always helpful, you can see the the deck, you know, in our in our board packet, but it's always helpful to hear your presentation and hear all of the um context behind it. So, appreciate that a lot. Um, in terms of the DSC, so you answered one of my questions. I figured it was licensed um or zoned commercial, so thank you for that. But do you know if there's So two questions even anecdotally, do you know if there's any interest in this building? You mentioned that the lot next to us I'm trying to get my bearings this way. Yeah. The woods. Okay. Is also for sale now or will be for sale. It is currently for sale. Okay. Um, is there any interest even anecdotally just like, hey, I'd be interested in, you know, doing something with that building. And then is there any kind of money that would need to, for lack of a better way to put it, stage it for sale, or would it literally be take it as is, sell it as is, we're not going to do anything to this building to make it quote unquote more attractive? That's a very good question. Um I'll answer the reverse order. Um so my recommendation would be to whatever um commercial um realer that we discuss with um that we go off of their recommendation on staging. I have found that their recommendations, they're the ones that sell these things. Their recommendation um is probably going to be correct. Whether that means leaving it with staff in it um so that they can see it as a functioning building or whether it would be staging of some type. Um that's who I would definitely lean on for that type of a recommendation. Um as far as uh potential um people, no, it's the wider community um really hasn't even it hasn't gotten into their awareness yet that this is something that could come up. And I specifically did not reach out to anyone to find out if there was going to be any interest um until we went through the recommendations on this site. Um it just wouldn't have been it would have been a fruitless effort. Director Olstead, I'll just share some conversations I've had over the years with city leaders and I will tell you that they are wanting to attract more commercial development in the city of Prior Lake. Um so I know there's an interest for this um uh as as a concept. I think our location um being approximate to the strip mall across the street um and the access points for this building is a very attractive commercial property. It's not tucked away somewhere out remote. Um, and to Director P's uh point, um, the the land, the woods land, wetland, um, whatever that direction is that way, um, that makes this kind of a property a little bit more attractive because when you look at that building site, um, I think it truly is wetland. Um, for all we know, some of this portion looked a lot like that when this bowling alley was constructed or sorry, well, this was the bowling alley when that was um created. Um, but I think using this and then maybe that as parking if it's a larger commercial entity um makes kind of that a good reciprocal sale. Um, that could uh work to the favor of how this gets competitively priced as well. So, those are some of my initial conversations with some of our key leaders um over the years as and and some recent. Thank you. And the the dollar amount that you had in here uh toward the end, is that a dollar amount where you or we are saying we're going to we want to sell it for this and we won't go below that or is that a number that Sarin Seron Properties gave you as I think you could get that for this building? Good question. So, oops, we've got an Just a second. Uh I think it's director. Um, we have our board member. Oh, sure. Zooming in. Can you hear us, Lisa? We cannot hear her. Marcus is there. Oh, now she's gone. Uhoh. Now she's back. There we go. I think we can hear her. Can you speak, Lisa? So, see if we can hear you. She can't hear us. Don't think I have her muted. She's working at it here. Lisa, can you hear me? Cannot press one to connect your phone audio to your video. Okay. Can you hear me now? All right. We can hear her. Can you hear us? Yeah, now I can. I I I'm using my phone though to talk to you. Is that okay? Yes. Okay. Okay. Good. I think we're good. Just to let you know, uh Dr. Powers has finished his presentation and we are currently um asking questions revolving around the sale of the DSC uh as the kind of point one and then we'll work our way down some of the other points that he brought up. Okay, I will listen. Thank you. Marcus is working on something that might work a little better just in case end up with some feedback. Okay. All right. We'll continue as is with Lisa on her phone and um you had a question you were going to answer I think regarding the potential price. Is that Oh, sorry. Yes. So Saron um I contacted um I have worked with them a lot and in uh Lakeville. So I just I reached out to them because I knew I could trust their evaluation. They were the ones that did an evaluation of both this location and uh Grawood and Five Hawks for me. So it's their their numbers that they were estimating for the potential value of the building. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Jessica? Um yeah, just around um the financials too. I I think you know it's helpful to have that valuation of the building, but um maybe separating out the one-time sale, which I understand can only be spent on capital expenditures versus the annual operating fees. So, can you shed any light on like anything that comes out of general fund for operational expenses for this building, utilities? Like, do you know the total of that annually approximately or? Um, I don't have the numbers in front of me. If I'm remembering correctly, it's annual expenditures between 30 and $50,000. And then the um LTFM obviously those items that we had planned would come off the plan, too. So that was like what 800 or something I think. Okay. And director Mason, I would just say to some of the conversations that we've been having um around the capital expenditures again as as if this building were to be sold, it could be used for capital purposes only. And we could also go through and see any fund one that's being used to supplement our capital cuz we sometimes have had curriculum as capital um coded in the past too. So what we would look at is ways to offset our fund one um so that we could actually realize that in terms of what we would project to have to reduce. So that's that's the exercise that we would engage in. Anyone else? Charles, um, it's kind of a applies to both. So, you you mentioned with this building closing and moving, there would be almost a a share of personnel between say maybe front office staff is what you suggested. Um, would there be potential loss of personnel there as well? That's a good question and that's yet to be determined. Um, and and how we would we've just barely scratched the services surface of what we could do with a combination of community ed with district office. Um, that was just one of the things that we realized that we could potentially do and then we could share expenses in that way. But we really hadn't dug into it more than that. Thank you, Mary. Um, you know, years ago, we actually talked about selling this building during the 2016 2017 uh referendum time also. um and went through a little bit of this process and uh you know and the same thing came up with the value of the land particularly at that time with the growth of the business businesses that were planning uh to happen around that time and potential the extension of downtown Prior Lake and all that. Um given the economic times that we are in um and the uncertainty um my question is actually um if the board is in favor of making sure this building gets announced and put on the market as soon as possible. Is that something we could peel off in June and actually vote just on that as we're getting the rest of where everything else moves fully discussed in July? Uh because by the time we go to bat in July and considering that staff is out a lot during the summer, um I'm wondering if it wouldn't help us to get it on the market sooner than later. I know we're only buying a month, but a month during the summer in Minnesota is is quite valuable. I can't think that it wouldn't hurt. Um it's just we're looking at a sale that wouldn't happen for another year or at least an occupancy that probably couldn't happen for another year. Um, so it really would depend on the commercial market, but getting the word out there I think would be a good first start and the sooner we can do that the better. Yeah. Yeah. That's my only concern is that we're we're quite a bit ahead of the game here. We're talking about, you know, the the school year after next for for builders um builders on the scale that would do something with this. That's a good time frame. Yeah, that's not a bad thing. But it's definitely um just getting the word out there so that they can start the preparation for their planning and talking with the city. That would be almost ideal because then they could start looking at purchasing and or at least getting the plans and getting a a letter of intent of some type um in the fall. Um if we had a solution at that point, that would be a wonderful gift for the district. That's also they'd have to get their plans uh approved, certified. they may want mixed use instead of commercial if that were the case. Yeah. Because I the city is you know obviously looking for expanded affordable housing and given the location also in the location near there there could be that potential possibility particularly with what the state does with the housing uh concerns that are going through right now. I just I just brought that up because it seems like a natural thing to do and summer's the time they're going to want to see the property and the land if they're going to come by and do surveys and all that. Um my only concern with that is um if we were to vote on that and approve the sale of the district office before we settled on the second half of the question. Um then we could end up potentially with a situation where we would have to scramble to find a place for the district services. And the biggest question mark is going to be IT services. that IT infrastructure, depending on where it is, we're gonna have to pull new fiber optic cable to. Um, and that's that's quite a commitment um without um that extra decision of if we're closing a school and which one we're closing. I understand that we could put a condition though that we wouldn't be vacating the building for some time on the contract, right? Um, and then the other question that I had is exactly about that is pulling the fiber, pulling everything over and the ability if we transferred a lot of that over to Greenwood given the fact that Greenwood's in the middle of a um residential area. Is that um has that been thought about when we move those? Yeah, that's actually one of the things that director Mark or Marcus and I have been talking about quite a lot is how we would move their services. Yeah. And that's a like I mentioned, that's a good chunk of our costs for the relocation. And but there's not a we don't know if there's any actual roadblocks to doing that because of the residential areas, I guess, is my question. I'll call an expert. I know they already have some lines over there, but we're asking for a lot more. Chair White, Dr. Thomas, board directors, good evening. Marcus Mazo, director of technology. We we're in we have been in contact with New Vera who provides our fiber and they've ensured that we have a 10 gig connection to that site. So, um yeah, we're we're already having those conversations on where the fiber runs would be and what because all the fiber from all the sites terminates it goes to their central office and terminates here. Okay. So, we would have to terminate to somewhere else. Okay. So, we are in conversations with those companies and making sure that we would have that connectivity. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions surrounding the sale of this building and what it might entail? I'm I'm happy to see that. Oh, sorry, Lisa. I looked down at the wrong time. Go ahead. Here's the test if you can hear me. Can you hear me? Yes, if we don't if we're all quiet, we can My gosh, as the thunder crashes above me. Okay. Um, so I just have a question. I really apologize for the delay. Um, and I hope I'm not asking a question that's already been asked. So, um, my, um, my question is when you're thinking about moving DSC, um, I know one of the factors that you guys were considering is where do the board where where do we have a board meeting, right? And um one of the things that I learned recently in just talking to some other districts is that some districts um partner with their cities like their city council. So whether it's Savage or Prior Lake or Credit River and they they they partner with them to have their board meetings at city hall which I thought was really a great an amazing solution because it kind of takes it checks that box of we don't have to you know and I don't believe our meetings are timed with um Prior Lake. I know but I don't know about the other ones. So, I I just thought that was a really great solution and I wanted to share that with you as well. And if if we could Can you hold that thought for just a second? We're because that's point two. So, we're almost there and we'll make that the first question. Not a problem. No, no, that's fine. That's fine. We're almost there. Um any other questions around the sale of the building? Um and timing, anything like that? Um, I'm maybe not as optimistic about the price point. I I think it would be wise for us to think a clearance of maybe a couple million dollars would be something to to take forward. I'd like to be surprised to the good as opposed to the bad. Um, so maybe that I don't know that just kind of popped into my head that maybe uh as I'm looking through this, I'm going to be a little negative on the sale price just in case we end up there. Um, but if there's nothing else, um, we can move on to to Lisa's question regarding the, uh, moving into the to the actual move and what that would mean for everything that we do here, including um, a potential board space. I I did have one other question and I'm sorry, I just thought of it. Is that okay? Yes. All right. Um, you had mentioned putting conditions on other schools, that sort of thing. uh like if we were to sell another school in part of the analysis. Um given the age of this building and the fact that it used to be a bowling alley and stuff like that, I wouldn't I not sure I'd be optimistic about somebody taking it as is and actually using it. But if they did, would we put a condition on that to have it be for a specific use? Or could we do that or non-use or non-use, I should say? Mhm. We we can um I don't the only use I could see this being put to would be a a early childhood or a prek type situation there. I mean it's a commercial building and we've struggled with a lot of things in this location and it was used as that in the past. Um but we could put that type of restriction on it. I don't even know if that would make much of a difference for this particular building. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, forgot about that. And Dr. Thomas, you were going to refer to question. Director Atinson, um just to your question, that is something that we have been discussing as a team. So, we're looking at both. What internally would we have to do? There's ample space to be able to easily um like a large multi-purpose room like this. We have that. it would just be some of the internal IT work, but we are having conversations about um potential partners in our community, namely our cities as you've mentioned. Um and and yes, the caveat of how the timings of the meetings um that's one that's one thing that we'd have to work through. Um and you know, would it be consistent or would we like rotate cities and that's that's another conversation that we're having as well. um just from an accessibility um that we kind of go the meeting comes to the community so to speak um and sometimes like when we did our um engagement we took it around you know all the mun municipalities that we served I think that I think that'd be great um if yeah so thank you I'm glad to hear that other questions around the actual move or how things would look I I do actually one question oh Sorry, I need to raise my hand. Um um there because we're selling a commercial building, we don't have to file anything with the state, right? Because it there it's only if we were to sell it as far as timing wise, we wouldn't have to file anything with the state or would we? Director Atinson, no, we would not. And it has Well, how what spaces have you looked at um as far as a potential new boardroom? I know that at the end of my first term, we had met at the lecture room at the high school for a number of years. Um, it was it was a newer, you know, the building was newer at that point. Um, geez, we've met in the libraries. We've met everywhere at different times, but on a permanent basis, I know that that that we have, you know, we use the lecture hall at the high school um extensively over a long period of time. And I'm just wondering, are you looking at all spaces around the district or or or um you know, just trying to figure out how to do grainwood to make it work? Uh what is the process you're going through? Because I don't necessarily think we need to um commit a bunch of dollars to a boardroom when we might have a space available already. Chair White, that is a conversation we've had. Um, and I don't necessarily want to pinhole I'm jumping on top of Dr. Thomas, but I don't want to pinhole a location and um, there are enough feelings about us doing this. Um, but yes, it is a conversation we've had. Um, the infrastructure to do board meetings to move it around would maybe make the quality of our production a little bit lower. Um but yeah, the one thing I would add uh Chair White is um the the times in which we are living um demand a level of broadcasting and you know publications of of our of our meetings. And so that's something that we're taking into consideration. um without the kind of restrictions or like the movement would have having a permanent space would be ideal from from that standpoint. I would also say this room in terms of how it's set up minus the uh your dis here. Um this is a room that we heavily use as our main learning leaders for all of our principles, executive directors, etc. So, the type of technology that we would put into a a multi-purpose room, every district needs that kind of a space where you can host larger scale events, utilize multiple screens, etc. for trainings. Um, obviously, this would, you know, this space could be leased out just like any of our school spaces. So, if a community organization or whatever wants to host something because they don't have a facility big enough, they could certainly use that. So, it's not just for the board, but that's a that's a you are a partner that we're looking at to make sure that we have a space in a facility somewhere. And so, whether that's through any of our city partners or if it's something that we have, as I mentioned, we have two large spaces um in um Westwood currently that could be retrofitted into a large similar kind of platform like we have today. All right. Thank you. Into Greenwood. Uh, yes. Sorry, Greenwood. Uh, Director Atinson. Yes. Um, I'm just curious, um, have we done, have you guys done a costbenefit analysis of if you take the DSC and look at moving it into the high school, the middle school, or whatever other buildings that we have, wherever, you know, that kind of thing. Have you done I would like to hear more about that analysis. Um, just because we've heard some push back about why are we Did we pick Greenwood? And I apologize if I missed that part of the presentation, but I'm really specifically referring to BC staff moving into a building where we have students and staff currently versus into um uh their own separate administrative building. Sure. Thank you, Director Atinson. Um yeah, one of the areas that we initially explored um was actually the high school and the space that we were looking at utilizing in the high school is now going to be occupied by Minaps because we can realize a greater savings um there in bringing our students back um into the high school, the Minaps program back into the high school. Um what was shared earlier too is that um our move from the the current DSC to a different location namely colllocating in a school space was to offset the projected reductions of about $4 million that we would have to make for that 2627 school year. So selling a school to potentially allow, you know, a a charter or something to buy that and then come in and pull even more kids from us wasn't something that we wanted to do. We wanted if we're going to sell something, we wanted to sell this commercial space. Um because should we ever need um additional school space um it's it's much easier for us to find commercial space for central services staff than it would be to build a new school for example to the tune of 35 $40 million minimum. So we don't have the capacity um within any of our current locations um kind of in small chunks. um uh I mean we we have capacity I'm sorry across a variety of buildings in small chunks um not in one central location for centralized support and so to kind of split up the central services um you know a divi a department here a department here and a department there would be highly inefficient and when families are coming into our central office it's usually for multiple services and then we would have families now running to three or four different campuses to get services service needs met. So centralizing the support services for our our our community and ultimately our schools is something that um was the bigger priority because we would lose uh money in efficiency and lose customer service value. and um our ability to look at um uh Greenwood as a potential campus is that um the Westwood building as it's currently constructed has a lot of structural limitations to how we could um manipulate that space into colllocating commercial kind of central office services along with a school program compared to Greenwood. Um and so Greenwood's um footprint as well as structure is more conducive to putting up um uh temporary supports for um central office services um and then relocating that program into the current Westwood which what was shared earlier is that it has a high demand of out of district enrollment serving almost like a magnet school deacto magnet school. We would also now have room in that building to grow and attract even more um enrollment into that program, which obviously enrollment is our bigger our our biggest uh challenge right now. um while also maintaining our ability to colllocate in uh the current Greenwood to enhance and expand community education as well as we are looking at the expansion or kind of the bringing back of some of our sped programming that we might currently um commission out with our partnership with 280 not 287 Southwest Metro. Um, so I think we could gain better student support and efficiencies and possibly some cost savings um by doing that as well. So that's why we landed at Greenwood versus um any other campuses. And the only other single spot like I said was the high school which is now going to be um our mins. I would thank you for that. I just add what about Edgewood? Because when I look at capacity maybe I'm not fully understanding. Sorry understand Edgewood capacity but um Edgewood looks like it has a lot of room in it for capacity. Um so I was just curious if you can help me understand the Edgewood like as far as capacity. I can answer some of that. Um right now currently at Edgeweb we've got 200 prek and about 70 um ECF. That numbers vary. They can be as high as 600 total students or kiddos or at the current level it is about 270ish. Um, so if we're looking at total capacity of that space, I'd say we're probably sitting at about 70% capacity um as we stand right now. Uh, so really it there again we could they've been not at that location um before. We could split it all around the district. I just wouldn't recommend it because I think we're serving our families better by having that at one location and at Edgewood. Can can I just kind of piggyback off that question? So, the staff in this building that we're recloating, the number is like 55ish, correct? Is that about right? I just want to make sure I'm clear. That ballpark. Yeah. 55. Yeah. Somewhere around there. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I had the same question. We have like a number of buildings that have a lot of capacity based on last year's financial statement. Edgewood, the high school, the middle schools. Um, you know, I guess my question is, is there any reason why we like absolutely cannot move DSSE staff to another building as far as like infrastructure or um any just like general reasons like limitations of why they couldn't go into a particular building other than space of course. Um, Director Mason, I guess my question would be in that scenario, are we looking at closing a school? So, I don't know if we're getting here, but yes, I would be in favor of selling a school personally. Like, I I think that, you know, looking at capacity numbers, we have space for 2,300 students right now and um I think 1,300ish in our elementary schools alone. So, and personally when I look at numbers like by not selling um one of our elementary schools, we're going to be sitting right back at this table in a year making this decision again. We're not saving enough money. Um we're not, you know, we're keeping a a elementary school open, still paying operating fees and everything else that comes along with keeping a building open um you know, for 56 staff members. like that that doesn't make sense to me and I don't I don't think we've seen any projections anywhere that shows that we would be growing enough in the next in the foreseeable future to ever fill our elementary schools again. Yeah. And I want to be clear um we're not looking at a space just for 56 or so um central office staff. We're looking at colllocating services of multiple programs within that campus that we're talking about as well as bringing some programming back. So, it's it's not just for our staff, right? Um so, we're creating a greater efficiency um as well as potentially bringing some of our um programming that's going out of district um to come back in district and saving on some potential contract costs. So, it it's Yeah. I just want to make that point. It's not just for the people here. It is about expansion and enhancements of current programming in that current location as well. And we couldn't you couldn't do that in other looking at numbers specifically. There are space for all of these programs within our buildings. Plenty of space. Um I don't again I just we're going to be right back sitting here making this decision in one year if we don't do anything more right now. Uh, and Director Mason, I will I will share that you're absolutely right and I think what you're alluding to speaks to a a broader state structural challenge. Um, there's a lot of things that we could be doing um for the 26 27th school year. But if nothing changes in terms of a bigger conversation that we don't necessarily control at the local, yes, we will be here year after year after year. I would even say and we shared this during the levy campaign that where our operating levy would go juxtaposed to some of the bigger conversations that are above the local level that the notion that levies carry you for 10 years um given the inflation and the costs and you know everything else they don't have that longevity as they used to in the past and so I think there's there's two conversations here one is more legislative one is more local, but they they both need to be addressed. But I I guess still like I'm I guess you know even a local levy if we at some point have a conversation about putting a local why would we go out to our community to levy the community to keep an elementary school building open that we don't have students to fill. Like that doesn't make sense to me. In fact, by the numbers we could close two elementary schools. I know that that's not what we're asking to do, but um I just like for me that doesn't that's not fiscally responsible, right? We're keeping an elementary school building that we we have no plans to fill in any foreseeable future. Director Mason, if I can address part of that, um selling the building would solve our budget issue for one season if we could sell it. If um like I mentioned in Burnsville, they've had two buildings for sale for five years or more. Um, I can part of the analysis that Saron Properties did for me was sales, equivalent sales in the area and what they went for. Um, one of the schools in Burnsville had a potential sale for $3.5 million. That was all. It's an elementary the same size as one of the ones we're looking at. That would get us one year. Understand? Again, there's operational costs, there's LTFM funding, there's other annual, that's what I'm talking about, the annual fees of keeping an elementary and additional building open for um administrative staff. Right. That that to me is we're missing the mark. You Yes. Go ahead. I thought you're pointing at Cheryl. Sorry. Thank you. Um Director Mason, you had um mentioned the 20 We have capacity for 2300. you had shared that with me in a in a conversation last week as well. Um, and so I I was, you know, looking through board book trying to figure out where you were getting the $2,300 or the $2300 number. And were you getting that out of this board book? The financial statement from last year. So, it's actually stale data. I think it's probably even more than that. And so I I met with Director Frederickson to just to try to understand um and the I believe the um the sheet you were looking at and please Director Frederickson if I am misstating this um please help me out. Um but the the form um that you were looking at was um out of the audit. It's out of last year's financials. Okay. Um and and it it's not a apples to apples this form with sharing all of where our capacity is at. Okay. So the the 2300 isn't actual. It's it's more um I think there's a difference between like classrooms right available versus numbers and just capacity numbers. I'm just using capacity numbers. understand that we wouldn't really like on paper, you know, like this is on paper, right? I get that. Um but yes, what our current difference it's I mean the 20 the that number um you know just when you make a statement that we have the capacity to close two elementary schools. Um I mean there's just a lot more to it than that. And so to be fair, um I I just wanted to address um the 2,300 capacity and where that that Yeah. I mean, if just for our community, it's in last year's financial statement. I assume the numbers are, you know, I asked if we could get an updated from for this year because even like if you look at 201718, we were over capacity numbers in students, right? I mean, not where we want to be, obviously, but um yeah, I mean, just looking at, you know, we have capacity for 10,800 some odd students and we have 85 8,600. So, that's where the numbers came from. Okay. Do we have any more questions around the move? I don't know if it's around the move. Well, we can move on. And if somebody wants to come back, that's fine. Move on to the process of of of re relocating the students. Um what what staff reductions that may may entail? Any any questions around that? Um yes. So on the um obviously if we close Westwood and we reallocate the students to the various classrooms uh around uh the district um and apparently we're having a thunderstorm here too. Um the um now we have we've we've already talked about um basically increasing the cap on class sizes and that impact and one of my biggest concerns on that as we reallocate the students from Westwood is our increasing number of sped students and do we have the capacity uh to have that extra learning space at each one of the other areas and how is that going to be impacted es and I want to include the fact that I think every district in the state of Minnesota has seen that percentage grow and I'm concerned about making sure that we're servicing all students. Thank you Director Frans. I'll have Director Chuka um respond to that and also Director Chuka from another question that was a asked earlier um around current um centerbased programming and where students may or may not go. Could you speak to that as well? I certainly can. Um, just to give you kind of a lay of where things are, our re there's there's two types of programming that we do in our district. Resource programming and that's kids that maybe gets a little bit of pull out here and there for for different things. Maybe some reading, some math, some social skills, but the majority of their day really is spent in the general ed. That enrollment has pretty much stayed flat. Our I mean, we had an increase a couple years ago, but we've kind of stayed pretty steady. where our biggest growth is is in center-based programming. We have increased um just between this year and or let's say 22 23 to now we had 39 kids compared to 65 at the elementary that require centerbased programming. So that's really where our biggest um growth has been and that's students with significant or more significant cognitive disabilities, autism, those are our two biggest growing areas right now. Uh we currently have life skills programs, what we call that, that's for more of our cognitively disabled students at Westwood, Red Tail Ridge, Glendale, and Jeff Pond. Um and then our um communication and interaction kind of disorder um centerbased programming is at Hamilton Ridge and then we have a behavior program at Five Hawks. So this would displace a center-based life skills program. Um and right now all of our life skills well if I right now it doesn't matter what it is this year. Next year all of them will be at like 16 or 17 students. So we will find what that will look like. I don't think I'm going to be able to answer that until we decide, is that school closing? What is the reboundering look like? It could look like I just make the programs and those other three bigger or it could be I I take a program and and just move it to another building. I think all of those things would fall into place once we we get there. But um we have the capacity to do that and um obviously we'll do that with a lot of care, a lot of of thinking of of you know what groups need to stay together, what what can you know we do to continue to meet the needs of the kids. But um to answer the question of can we do it? Yes. Um and we'll how that will look will depend. Does that answer the question? Um yes. I'm I'm also, you know, wondering if we're projecting out the growth of those programs as the move takes place uh to make sure that we are not causing more disruption, particularly with students who do not handle disruption. Yep. Well, and I think that's one of the things and maybe um Director Mason, this goes to, you know, when you're saying, well, we have this capacity in these classrooms. It might be that special ed needs some of those classrooms, right? And that can't be for 27, 30 kids. It might be for 10. So, I think we have to be careful too when you look at what's the overall capacity and how many classes can we cram in there because special ed is going to take up some space and that's not in those those numbers. But I we'll make it work. I I'm confident we can do that. We we've we've looked at the different spaces and the number of classrooms and and we will we can going down one elementary school. We can do that. Okay. Um I had another question. And I'm not quite sure now is the time to bring it up because I know it's a little controversial, but Sage Sage is also at Westwood and um I'm sure that's been discussed. I'm just not sure where it is with what we I'll let you answer that, but I know that Director Atinson had a question on special ed. And before I go sit back down, did that answer all the special education questions? Lisa, sorry. Yeah, go ahead, Lisa. Yeah. No, thank you. That was helpful. I think, you know, some of the feedback we've already received is um these, you know, the life skills program. Um, you know, is it possible to move it to Edgewood? So, you're literally just moving it from, you know, they're not really moving buildings. They're basically just walking down the hall. And, and I would also say my feedback goes to the Sage program as well. Um, you know, I think there's a lot of advantages of having Sage in the same building as a Lola Galago school because you get a lot of that crossover of um, special talented and gifted students within the Spanish immersion program. So, I mean, I know Edgewood, I think from what I'm reading from the financial reports, um, Edgewood has a lot of capacity in it. And so whether it's 70 or whatever the number is, um I I just think looking at keeping those kids as close to their um you know, not making dramatic moves for them would be beneficial for them as well as like I said, you would fill some of that capacity within Edgewood. So just to repeat the question so I believe your question, director Axin, is it possible just to slide Sage over to Edgewood? I think she was talking about life skills and life skills. So I'll I'll let others answer the sage question, but what I would say about life skills is then we are removing um all general education peers um from the students um that that are in life skills and and a lot of them spend some time in the general education classroom. So I wouldn't want to take that. And a school is much more than a building, right? A school is a community and we want to make sure that the students continue to have community. So I I would I would not be in support of that. I I also we do have the legal requirement to make sure that they're in the least restrictive environment and that is is how can we um maximize time with general education same age peers in special ed. So that's the special ed answer and and I would um and to to the two question to two directors that answer a similar question around Sage and there's some similarities into that we want our students um who are u not only receiving sped support but also maybe gifted exceptional support to be with peers as well. And so that is something that we're currently looking at. Um, as you all know, with our proposed budget for next year, we um ha we are looking at a a synergy type model for right now um to see how we can best support our students in their homebased schools and learning from what we what worked well in the past and what where there were some challenges so that we don't repeat that. And that's some conversations that we're having with the team. But moving forward, um, you know, if this is a conversation moving forward, um, we would have to have a deeper, uh, uh, understanding of that, uh, remaining fifth grade cohort. And that's something that we would have to engage our families around and our staff around, um, whether or not, um, what we've learned to date around um, kind of the resurgence of that um, across district support for for gifted and talented. um if that would be located into one singular campus or if that would be a model that we would continue to um expand throughout the district. But that's that's what we're looking at currently. Um Director France, other questions around Oh, director Director Aerson, I have one other question. Sorry. Um I'm trying to lower my hand as I talk. Okay. The other, you know, it's interesting that you say that, Dr. Thomas, because I look at like Minnetonka where they have their Spanish immersion program within each each grade school, right? And so when you talk about integrating students and not like separating into their own school, u whether it be the life skills or the stage, I mean, have you thought about the possibility of doing more of a model where you have Spanish immersion in each of the elementary schools? And maybe that's just not simply possible, but but I I thought it was an interesting idea as we continue to talk about integrating these students with other students. um in a in a school. So, I just wanted to just throw that out there. I've been thinking about Yep. Just going to repeat that back so that uh that it can be picked up. Um yes. Uh the question is, have we considered or uh discussed whether or not we would keep Spanish immersion kind of in every school um in a similar fashion? We have not um looked at that as a potential model um to have Spanish immersion um within across multiple campuses. um that model um the the difference in that model compared to your general community school program. It's a it's highly specialized and getting staffing um for that model is very challenging and and unique. Um and it's also shown in terms of building that language uh rich community to having it in one location versus spreading out. we you you lose some of the richness of of the language acquisition when it's only in a small pocket. And so, but to answer your question, we've not looked at that or explored that at this time. Okay. Are we ready to move on to any questions surrounding uh the timing and the uh how the changing the boundaries would work? Jess, can I get a clarifying uh point? Yes, you may. Sorry. When it comes to I was busy writing, so I apologize if I missed something. Good intentions. Can you please repeat Dr. Thomas the sage? So, you're saying that potentially and and it's not like you said, you want to, you know, talk to the families, talk to talk to the program, but what you could potentially be looking at is across different schools instead of having everybody in one place. Right. So, so what I what we are currently looking at right now is kind of resurrecting a synergy type model. Yeah, but not in its old form, but we know that there were some things that didn't work well with that. Um, but there were some things that did work well with that. And so, given what our our FTE, as you all know, next year for that third grade, that individual will be recreating that model um of support throughout all of our elementary campuses um at the third grade. And what we're going to explore further is um how does that model grow and expand over the course of the year in our learnings to suggest what would the long-term solution be? Um, so that's what we that's what I was alluding to. And as that progresses, what I was suggesting is that by the time we get to 2627, if this model is in effect, we would have that fifth grade um cohort remaining. Um, that's going through our our program currently. And that's what I was just saying. Uh, tied back to a question a couple of directors were asking, I guess. um would we keep that last fifth grade, you know, within um the Spanish immersion campus, if you will, or would that also get um uh redistributed in our synergy type programming? And that's to be determined. Okay. Thank you. And before we move on to Rogers, I did have one one other question. Do we know um we're talking about the potential expansion of the Spanish version program uh with the additional space that would be that we'd gain by moving? Um do we know for a fact that that the brunt of any potential growth would be coming from out of district? or would opening up this additional space in district encourage more of our own thereby offsetting any potential revenue increases that that we we may or may not see. I'm just wondering is is the program the size it is because we're out of room in district or or is it you can kind of get where I'm I uh chair white I hear your question and it it's a little bit of a both end. So, uh, we do we know that, uh, Lola is a de, uh, high demand program both within our our school district as well as outside of our school district. Um, and certainly we don't want to just reshuffle internally. Um so I think a conversation we would want to have is you know do do we essentially look at that program as a magnet program um and adjust the parameters for that program so that we look at ways to protect pulling from our own and really recruiting from without uh from outside and as I understand it and Dr. Edwards could maybe speak to this, but there was a point in time as it was shared with me that we did a lot more active outofd district um targeted recruiting for that program um initially, but that would be something that we could discuss in terms of Yeah. And I would just pick up there and say that we also uh have added uh kindergarten sections when the demand was there uh with a vision to expand the program uh as recently as a couple of years ago. So this would uh allow us that opportunity uh to continue that uh and expand as Dr. Thomas pointed out, not only within our existing uh families in within our community, but also uh to uh put forth an effort because when it first launched years ago, there was a lot of effort to uh go and attract uh people to the to the community, but we have uh not put forth significant effort in that endeavor. And I would just add that um another conversation that we are having is is terms of uh grade ban and would we look at prek um as well. We know that there is currently out there um in our community markets for um immersion at prek and so we have the ability to have that as another grade band that we currently don't have. Um but to Dr. Frederick's point, two years ago, I think it was, is when we had to add that additional section because the demand was there. Um, and that was a mixture of both in and out of of district. I just want to make sure we as we move if we move forward with this and if this is where we end up, I don't want to have us expect all this open enrollment influx and then half the kids come from inside the district, you know, and kind of defeat almost defeating the purpose. So the parameters would definitely I think actually on related to that because there used to be if there if you were over four sections right 80 kids we would open up a weight list. Have we ever been on a wait list for a little or do we have four sections full this incoming year? Yeah we have had weight lists in the past and again that was uh just a few years ago a couple years ago when we were turning families away. Okay. uh we said in in an effort to draw additional uh revenue through student enrollment, we did open that fifth uh section of kindergarten. So there's a five section. Director Atinson, thank you. Um when you say there's room to expand Spanish immersion and make it more of a magnet um make, you know, become like more of a magnet idea. Does that also include like what are your thoughts on having the middle school kiddos being within the elementary building and having it be more like a K through eight model versus just keeping it the current K through five because I know we've had some challenges um with supporting it in the middle school. So would that make sense then to have it if we have the space in that building? Thank you Director Atinson. So the question um that she's asking is uh have we ever considered a K8 um model? Um so so a couple of things and there's been some historical research on this with you know a couple of our um Ivy institutions um K8 models um work in very specific um economic contexts and and demographic contexts um and and specialty context. So that's what they have found. And to your question, uh, when you look at K8s, language immersion programs tend to do fairly well in a K8 model. Um, and the challenge I think for us right now, um, one, I think we want to just make sure that we have a strong pipeline to populate because there's natural attrition that happens at middle school. When kids say, "Oh, all these elective choices and I think I want to do this instead of that." because of our current scheduling, they're kind of forced to make some decisions. So, I think twofold, we need to get a greater bench of elementaryaries coming to feed, whether it's a K8 or a separate elementary and middle school, period. And that's what we're attempting to do with this conversation. Um, to your point, um, there would also have to be some significant infrastructure changes to that building for a K8 cuz it's currently not conducive for middle schoolers. um in terms of its current setup and I think that would be cost prohibitive right now given our financial situation. I mean just the toilets themselves, you know, um are just a little bit different at elementary. Okay, moving on to boundaries. Any questions surrounding boundaries? When? How? Yes. Do you have the first question that um I I was fortunate enough to be on the boundary. I I wouldn't call it a committee, I guess, but just when the last time we did it, it was kind of a a parent rep at Westwood, actually. Um and um it was it was quite the process, quite the education, quite the communication, all of the above, right? So um what would we be thinking in terms of when that process would begin? Say, say, okay, we go to our July meeting and we make a decision. Um I'm throwing it out there just if it's July. Um, does it start the day after? I mean, what what would be kind of the process of what's the plan? Sure. I'll start the I'll start the response and then Director Powers and team can jump in. And Director Atinson, just to also keep you uh up to speed. One of our initial conversations tonight was um uh modifying the conversation to continue through July 14th um not June 9th. And so, um, we're looking at that as kind of our outset date. Um, and that is a good segue to the response to Director Olstead's, um, question. Um, it, as you know, having been a a parent on that type of a work group or whatever it was called at that time, um, there's a lot of conversation that goes into making boundaries. And um for us, we want to make sure so we've already been looking at our software pro with our software program ways to begin manipulating boundaries with geocoding and maps and things of that nature. So as director power said we could redistrict or we reboundary the district within a few hours. Um so so the technology is there to do that. I think the bigger conversation is helping uh bring the community along in that conversation. I would also share feedback both that I've received here from parents that were on said committee as well as my experience in other districts going through the same process. Unfortunately, um the challenge with those kind of work groups, for lack of a better term I'll call them, um nobody wants their boundary changed. And so those become very inefficient ways to engage community on a decision that is too emotionally close to them being impartial to seeing the forest. Um so I think um presenting some boundaries um for discussion is a better model of of I guess engaging if you will with some of the rationale similar to what we've done tonight. We've presented some data for conversation for discussion. Um but to think of all of this live in the moment at the dis you don't do that. So, I just think that's a little a little misleading for parents that they would actually be able to say, "Yep, do mine." Not to say that there aren't um families out there who understand that. Um but I think that's a challenge when we're in that space. So I would say if July 14th the board takes action on a uh this type of a proposal um then we would be spending essentially July through September um at the latest maybe August so that um we could have some time to have some work sessions with the board around some boundary scenarios um and kind of how we've appach approached it. Um the the different types of ways that we could draw boundaries. Um, and that still gives us ample time to meet that October deadline both for MDE, but as well as our ability because I know um, Director Herman's team um, from HR is going to have to go through a very heavy lift um, as we also are doing some of the staffing adjustments based upon said conversations that we're having. So um so yes to your question it would it's already started. We we've already we've already mocked up various different boundaries with our software of the types of conversations that we're having tonight should any of these come true. So we have a starting point to open up a discussion, but we don't have to have a solidified redrawn boundaries plan for MD. No, no. The only thing that we have to have ready for October is our intent to close the school program with MDE. Um, and and that's it. All the other decisions that go into that, that's that's a local conversation. And that's not an MDE conversation. Mary, oh, sorry, Charleston. When should those be done? Yeah, I'm going to defer to Director Powers and Director Herman to just kind of speak to the the loads that you both will be carrying um with this in terms of your ideal state as we kind of backmap. Yes. Yep. And that's what we ideal is the preferred answer. Not not the latest, not the earliest. The ideal director Frederickson's group last time spent all of three months doing it. And I really I know it's so it it wasn't necessarily just my group. We had consultants that came in. So I don't want to yeah say that we're capable of doing it. we had we worked with consultants on the software programs. So, um we can certainly assist with those again, but again, it wouldn't be my team that's making the decisions on what boundaries would look like. I ideally I'd like to have it done before the end of summer because I want before the end of this summer with the boundary. Yeah. and my presentation, not necessarily the the the community involvement side of it. Like Dr. Thomas was mentioning, I want to make sure I've got a couple of viable options to provide to the group so that we can say, "Here's what it could look like." A scenario, B scenario, C scenario. Um, I would like to get that done this summer. Boundaries, scenarios. Okay. ABC. Got it. Okay, cool. Thank you, John. Dr. Johnson, sorry. Members of the board, um for for the HR side of things with staffing, it really is about back mapping between the May 1st, 2026 um target deadline for letting individuals know their tenative assignments. Typically, we start that process in January. Um and that's with no major changes that are coming forward. Ideally, we would be able to start that in December, November time frame. So, we can really start looking at the known staffing that we have to make movements around those contracts that are creating any sort of um bumping or reduction in force language. And then there's going to be the unknowns, and that's typically around your classrooms, your um special education staff. Where are they moving to, where those students go? Um how many sections are we reducing as a total district because of the move? will know more of those really based off of the enrollment. So that is also why it's it's would be beneficial for us to know boundaries by the beginning of the school year or early fall of 2025 so that while we're going into enrollment for kindergarten, individual families aren't delaying that enrollment because they want to know what what school am I enrolling to? What am what am I going to or open enrollments aren't delayed because of that same rationale. Um so for for me my deadline is still May 1st. It's just the process that it all the factors that um impact that process creates a little bit more um parameters that we have to look through. It's that would be helpful if um families and staff knew boundaries prior to that so that we could move forward in that in that whole process starting in November, December. that could seek clarification like early fall, October 1st to October 15th, early fall or September time frame. Director Johnson, members of the board, um, from my individual perspective, sometime in in October would be beneficial. Okay. Um, but I would I would listen to all the different factors that are impacting that because it's this big huge puzzle that's happening. But um for me I I would assume that enrollment for kindergarten and open enroll families and IDTs and all the others if they know by October, we should be able to then have that data in November, December to start our our planning for staffing moves from there. One more question. Yes, Director Frederick, sorry, Director Fred Frederickson, excuse me, I'm sorry. Um enrollment starts October 1st, correct? The official October 1st enrollment is due at the state. That's the official date. You actually have until um I think January 10th to actually finalize it, but it's they're counting the kids that are actually enrolled on October 1st, but knowing that some of those reports come in, they give you until the beginning of January to actually report them. But the October 1st is the official Enrollment count. Open enrollment starts when open enrollment can be at any time. Okay. But I mean we uh we start doing the applications for open enrollment for the following year in order to plan for what director Herman just stated as well as the layout of the school. So, we have to tell we not only have to tell kids about open enrollment, what school they may be in, but also we need to start letting families know as soon as possible what school they're going to be in. And we need to plan for transportation uh and those costs and get those logistical routes done. So I I I I get the Septe August September scenarios, work through scenarios, have everything trickle into the decisions that have to occur later on. That makes a lot of sense. And we also have the kindergarten enrollment that I believe is in Janu or December. Yeah. Yeah. So October. So going back to Director Johnson's um question just kind of collectively midocctober um I would just say maybe end of September no later than probably second week in um October. So the latter two weeks of September to the first two weeks of October I believe is that sweet spot window for a variety of factors. Director Powers would probably want something a little earlier for the his functions, but I think we could manage through that. Um, so if you just think about that as a target window, which is why we are trying to get this through as some of the outset because we want to be able to start having some conversations about um what this will entail, but we can't do that and won't spend the time and resources in that until we know this is a direction that the board is authorizing us to go. So knowing that in July gives us ample time to start building out these scenarios and bringing them forward and then having some discussions on that. So that because there's going to be an eb and flow to that as well in terms of perspectives. You know, we're going to hear from you all. We're going to hear from the community. There's going to be some aha moments like, "Oh yeah, good point. We'd never thought about that." Or, "Yep, we we've assessed that and we can't do that for these reasons." So that gives us ample time to bring the community along to that final kind of decision window which I think meets a variety of thresholds for our families as well as all of our internal uh needs. Other questions? Mary? Um I'm going to piggyback on what Director Olstead started to say about the boundary discussions where they were educational. Um it was also meant about that time. It was also meant to kind of smooth over with the community. And um although they the district ended up in the exact same spot they had actually originally said they were going to be in, um this time our our our goals are financial uh logistical and based upon um uh real estate property and geocoding and things like that. We we're not really I I wouldn't think that we would want to spend the time and money to gra to gather community engagement for this. I I not sure it should change the outcome since we our primary goal here is like I said financial and and land. If land is up for sale in certain areas, we need to consider that for the future and there's a lot of logistical decisions. Um, so I would not be in favor of having large and spending the money to have large community meetings for this. As much as I'm sure the community would want to have their input, I'm not quite sure it's in our best interest to and cost and time to open that up. Dr. Mason. Yeah. One one more question. Um, when deciding boundaries, are we, and I'm not sure who this question is to, but um, are we working with the transportation company at all to see if there's any impact uh, with trans transportation costs um, just general transportation and maybe even special ed transportation by like reboundering one way or another? That'll definitely be a part of the conversation once we get to that point. Okay. um when when I have some scenarios to give to them, I'm already I've already started the conversation that they just need to know what our ideas are going to be for those boundaries and they can come up with the costs. Okay. And and as a Yeah, we'll just leave it there. Sure. Have one last comment. Um kind of wrapping up, we've we've listened to a lot of information tonight and I appreciate hearing hearing it all. um kind of how you started out the conversation, Chair White. I really appreciate the sensitivity to um uh not rushing, being able making sure that there's ample time for questions both with the board and the community. And I think um director Ols, you asked, is that okay to move that up to July? And I think that's really my question for the district team um specifically is given all of the factors that we've heard tonight between um HR and facilities um does delaying our vote to July um add to challenges in this process. us. I don't think it would add any challenges that would prevent us from accomplishing what we're trying to accomplish. Again, our our June 9th um was our starting point given how we kind of backmap things. Um and maybe the distinction between what's the ideal and what's the real. Um, I think the the the June date knowing that there's going to be hiccups, we we always build in that extra buffer. That's just how we operate as a team. And and so if we get it done, and again, we weren't trying to rush any process. Um, Director France, I think, brings a good point. We're we've we've been talking about not the specifics, but we've been talking about the need to have this conversation for the past seven months or so. And um now that we're getting to the kind of specifics of what will that actually entail, um I think that that's where we need to kind of now kind of hit the pause button a little bit, get some let some of these um responses um sink in and get additional perspectives and thoughts um from folks at our input um at uh uh plsas.org. Um, and that's great and we're going to try to flip that forward as well like we did through throughout the levy campaign. But I think if if the board took action on a type of plan in July, uh, Vice Chair Bolan, I think we'd be fine as a administrative team to still accomplish what we need to um, in a way that would not feel rushed to us nor the community. Okay. If there's nothing further tonight, um I think we have some time for everybody to dig into this. Uh Director Atinson, you get the last board. Oh gosh, I don't want that. But um I just have a question. Um I'm just wondering what the board can expect coming out of this. Are we going to see um some different scenarios? Um I know this was your proposal. So my question is is is it are you asking us for for you for us to give you our proposals so you can go back and look at different scenarios. I know when we did the budget process, you were looking for guidance from the board for the budget and so I was assuming that that same thing would happen in this process is that you'd be looking for some guidance from the board and I'm wondering if we'll see some different scenarios going into that um possibly that June meeting so that we can make some decisions based on um different scenarios. Director Atinson. Uh so the question is um would are we seeking um guidance from the board? Um yes that's what our work sessions are for. So if there is something specific um about how we opened up the conversation today that you say Michael we would like to see you know this um costed out or whatever it might be and that's the will of the entire board then that's what that's what we would do. Mason. Yeah I I was going to ask the same. Thank you, Lisa. Um, I mean, I think that um, we should get the will of the board and our thoughts on how to proceed and if I mean I'm just reflecting obviously, you know, I've had students at Lola Lago and Westwood and I have family and friends there and so, you know, trying to not make this a personal decision. It has to be a data driven decision. Um, you know, but just looking at everything that was presented, I would really love to see valuations on Greenwood, Westwood, and Fivehawks actually. Um, I know you mentioned we didn't really look at Five Hawks, but um, that was because of remodeling costs, right? So, if we were looking at closing potentially a school building and selling it, I would love to um, factor in the valuations of those buildings and the operating costs that we would save by actually moving DSSE staff into an existing space. Um, I think that would really help inform my decision. I think you know just again datadriven decisions and looking at capacity um we have a lot of capacity across our buildings and I think we can fit our staff into there's probably many options um and and actually you know looking at enrollment for kindergarten I mean we were just presented with the number tonight and 20% of our kindergarten class is open enrolled right so not only do we have space but a lot of our space is being filled with students outside of of our district, right? There's just nothing, unfortunately, in our um data that says that we would need an extra elementary building in any sort of foreseeable future. Um I think it's the responsible thing to do, especially if we are going to ask our community for levy dollars coming up. Um we shouldn't have empty school buildings that we're keeping open. So, are you asking for evaluation of Yeah. on just options on moving DSSE into an existing space if we were to sell an elementary building. I would like to see those numbers. Um I think that's an important um that's an important piece of this puzzle for me um to you know I think it's another piece that we have to explore and not just settle on moving um the staff into an empty school building. So, I'm looking for consensus on taking uh having administration um get a evaluation not only on the buildings but on the costs to move to each you're talking about to each one they yeah I mean again just some options where where else could we put DSC staff what other buildings um and if we were to sell an elementary what what what savings does that get us I think that's a piece of data we're missing kind of right it's helpful to have director France So, you're asking to look at not only selling the DSSE, but also an elementary school. Correct. Yeah. To save on the operational expense. And and what we heard and what I've seen also in other districts that have done this, not just Burnsville, is that those elementary schools don't sell very easily. Um, so I I I guess I'm just trying to confirm that we you're asking the board to to put up at least one elementary school do the analysis of what they would potentially be worth. And I'm I'm not sure. I would ask, is that possible? I've got them. Okay. It's It's possible, but you don't know if it'll sell. It'll just I don't know if it'll sell. Yeah. But I do have the evaluation. Sarah Properties did the evaluation on two locations. Not Westwood. Um I I did not look at Westwood because it's attached to Edgewood. That is not a building that I would fair enough. Sell in any way, shape, so that's not an option. Great. But I guess just trying to find options. If there's options to also get rid of an elementary to save us additional costs and move DSC into another existing building, that's what I would like to see. And I realize that we have had buildings in Burnsville not selling, but you know, we're not Burnsville, right? We're a very different city. So, I don't know. I'm just asking. Is it possible? Um, yeah. If I could ask a clarifying Go ahead. If I could ask a clarifying question. So, you're uh the the information that you're seeking is for the 2627 school year instead of just selling the having the DS, you know, putting the DSSE up for sale. um doing both the DSSE and uh elementary correct and moving DSSE into some existing space whether high school, middle school, bridges, Edgewood, I don't know any and I appreciate the I guess after listening to the presentation tonight and and the recommendations um based on all of that we learned from the team from the team tonight. It's um I don't know how to I don't know how to it's like uh it's two years of work that or it's it's um I don't even know what the word it's it that's a fast progression I guess. So, we're looking at what what's being um uh brought forward from the team is the selling the DSSE and you you're looking at what would it be to sell an elementary school by for the 26 27 school year? We'll put it for sale just not move DSSE into an empty school building. Is there other options to move? This is empty. That's what I'm I It's not empty. So there's there's a little bit of I understand there's community ed in there. I just want to look at this as an option. There's community ed in that building and then we're proposing to move DCSE community because Lola and community ed. Right. So with the assumption Lola moves to Westwood or any whatever building I my ask is is there an option on the table to close N elementary and DSSE in this proposal so we don't move DSSE to Greenwood and then in a year or two we're still back at you know we have to move them again right like there's space amongst our buildings for this staff do we just move them somewhere else right out of the gate so then long term we decide what to do with this elementary does Does that make sense? I think that makes sense because of the fact that even with us selling the DSC, we will be looking at cuts going forward if nothing changes. Right. So, I understand. Yes, I am understanding what you're saying. But when you said moving staff into an empty building, we have no empty buildings right now. No, assuming that Aloa was in Westwood is what I meant. Yes. Okay. With um I understand what you're saying. Where I where I sit that scenario should be the last straw. Yeah. Because more than likely, in fact, almost certainly that building will be mothballled and not sold because of the just because of the market for it. But do we know that? That's my question. And so I I I I think your your future scenario is could be accurate. We may end up closing one anyway. If that's the case, I'd rather close it later rather than sooner. That's my personal opinion. And uh because we the numbers don't look good uh as far as enrollment in the future, but we we don't know where we can't really tell that at this point. So, I'd rather from where I sit, air on the caution, air on the side of if that's going to happen, let's make that a last resort and not a first one. And I don't disagree. My only concern is that we're spending 600 some thousand to make the building useful for an administrative staff. So, should we be looking somewhere else to invest that money if that's the end route anyway? Right? Like, it's just an option. I just Well, so then I have this question. Um, if we if if this scenario unfolds and this building is is sold and DSC is moved uh under this scenario to Greenwood, to me that's a permanent fix. That's not that's that's where you are for the foreseeable future. Whether we sell a building in the future or not, DSC is at Greenwood. No matter what happens, we're not going to pump 600,000 to a million dollars into a building and then move you guys out three years later. That would be make no sense. So that's kind of why I'm where I'm at because this is of all these scenarios that might be the most permanent one we're talking about. This is a permanent move in my mind just for to be fiscally responsible. Sure. Right. Director Atinson. Yeah. So I um I I understand Director Mason what you're saying. Um, my concern is that we have, if I'm looking at the I took the capacity numbers from the financial report as well, and we have like room for 450 students in the middle school and 550 at the high school. So, I just don't I'm really having a hard time investing money into a building to move DSC into a building that we don't know if we're going to rent or what the plan is. um when we could potentially move community ed to Ed Edgewood and then moving the DSC into the high school and to and or the middle school where they're ingrained with um some you know some we have the sixth largest high school I believe in the state. So having our staff in that building with those students every day I think would be a really positive thing for our district. And um so I I mean personally I'd like to see another scenario of what does it look like to move the DSC into one of our buildings. And I think only because it would just be a really positive to have them in our buildings working with our staff. Um that that's where my head is at um as far as that goes. So I would like to see another option for where do we start by moving DSD. Um, and just so everybody in the audience could hear, uh, Director Aerson is in favor of of exploring other options. Um, whether moving DSC to the high school or another building, uh, that was her preference. So, um, I'd like to kind of get consensus here. Uh, is there consensus to we have some information that director P already has as far as the valuations of the buildings. Does is it the will the board for uh other scenarios to come before us? I would assume at the June one of the June meetings um or not? Yes, I would love to see everything that you had to get you to this decision. That that's a different ask because that that I could be in favor of if you show us how you came to this decision. I'm not sure at this point he did any other any other because he mentioned many times, right? you you worked in Burnsville, right? All all of these other things, but I don't see it. You told us it, but I don't see it. And I'm very much like Director Mason. I I want to see the data behind it. So, is that I have I have no idea any of those other things. It's not I'm not saying I don't believe you because because I do, but I Where's it at? That's That's it. This is This is one concept. I'm sorry. Everything I think he's asking for the data like the evaluations that we all of the evaluations of the buildings the siron where's where's the second opinion because I don't think we're only going to take one company's opinion on what the buildings are worth like you said earlier right like that's a maybe it might be but we're we're somebody else so I guess I got to be in this because we have we have two different things going on here. I think you want information that's already been gathered yes provided to the board. I would love that as opposed to a whole new ask oh I want that too of well but those are two different things. So let's let's keep is is it the will of the board to director Mason's um question to uh have the administration bring forth um other scenarios that we have been discussing. So I'm just going to go around the table. Jessica, no. Charles, yes. No. No. No. Yes. Lisa, you're a yes. And I'm a no. So the second question um is it the will of the board to have whatever information you used to come to this recommendation provided to the board uh for us to peruse look over generate more questions. Can I make a suggestion? Um, I assume that that means that we're going to be sending questions. So, it's not this open-ended provide everything with everything, not really having any boundaries or understanding with it. So, should it just be that before the June meeting and then of course we're voting on July uh voting in July that before the June meeting that we all send in those detailed questions to make sure they're and that's where I was going before these questions popped up. I I would think it would be wise at for the questions to come in between now and then if they can be answered before the June meeting. Um that's great. If not, maybe another quick synopsis uh around whatever some you know maybe the whole board needs to know these questions came in. This is how we answered them. um just kind of an kind of an update as to um where you're at with not only the input but with with questions that have come from us. Can I just clarify like you just said that we're not looking at other options. This is the only one presented. So what why are we ask because you asked me to Well, it doesn't matter because this is what we're going to do because shot it down. I I see it as taking this what we've learned tonight, and correct me if I'm wrong, please. Taking what we've learned tonight because I know me, I want to digest this. I'm going to probably have more questions for Director Powers, for you, Dr. Thomas, for staff to digest. And I I absolutely should do that. Ask the questions. Um that's how I take it. Am I wrong or misunderstanding? I mean, I I don't personally see I plan on doing that anyway. Yeah, absolutely. But I see it as Director Mason just said, "Hey, why don't we look at another option?" And everyone just said no. Go ahead. I mean, is that incorrect? I I guess I I did. I said no to another scenario. Other scenarios. Correct. That's what I said. it. You want to stick to this one? I understood. That doesn't mean we can't ask questions about this. No one No one's saying that. Absolutely. And and and and the board has the board has the right to to take action on any part of this plan, all of it, you know, a quarter. We can do whatever we want. We can close every building in the district if we want to by a vote. So I think we need to give clear direction to administration. So I that's what I that's why I I I offered the extra time for input and for questions ahead of the June meeting and at that point I think then then we can really give clear direction moving ahead to the July meeting. I don't I could come up with questions tomorrow that I can't think of tonight. This is a lot of information to take in. Absolutely. And um I think that there's that there is uh plenty of time for us to absorb this and to um make sure that we are thorough in our examination of this before we move on to other scenarios. If I could just what I was going to say like I understand what you're saying, Director Johnson. I understand what you're saying, Director Mason, as far as um having another scenario. And I think where I why I said no um is for another scenario is because this is something that has been being talked about for months like I think uh Dr. Thomas, you said seven, eight months um that the um these these conversations have been out there um and the district staff and team with their the knowledge that they have, this is this is their profession. This is what they do all day every day. And um for me, I'm just thinking um if they've been working on this for over, you know, for the better part of a year, uh coming up with doing all the work to uh bring the board the most efficient, you know, all of, you know, their best case scenario in all of the things that they know. I think that's where my no comes from. Um I feel like they've um exhausted all of the scenarios and I understand like um like you saying chair white we could say no to it all. Um I mean respectfully like I this is the first evening we've gotten through this so yes administration has probably been looking at different things for months and I know they have. um that's great but we got a very high level deck we don't have some of the data that I think you have valuations things like that so um again I just asked for another option for the DSSE staff to move into empty buildings um not empty sorry unused space in buildings if there are other options I think that that move into Greenwood as you said is a long-term decision that we are making very quickly um that I'm very uncomfortable with and I think our community would be too. And I think we also need to think about a levy. And if that is where we're going, our community needs to know that we've explored all options. I think presenting one option to the board and us deciding not to explore anything else um is is a bit of a rash decision. Personally, that's where I'm at. I I would just like to hear other options. And I think my final comment would be I mean there was there was different scenarios in this presentation uh and and not DSC though just the buildings, right? Yeah. Okay. Well, there was a there was LOL and DSSE do not move. Move DSC to Westwood and close Westwood and move Lo and Westwood and DSC to Greenwood. Those those were in there. If if you want another scenario with the DSC move, correct? Then then then I think you need to probably ask that in your question and then with the analysis that's been done. Um then the administration can reply and say, "Okay, this is what we looked at. This is how those numbers ended up." You know, that sort of thing. And then help us digest that before the July meeting to ask additional questions. Um, I understood wanting to go through with closing DSSE and selling an elementary school as the thing that we said no to um in by July 9th. I think that is a large ask and I don't think that's necessary at this time. But as far as the rubric that is in here with the decisions that were made and what the qualities of those decisions were, in other words, remodeling supports program growth, uh, additional funding, um, building efficiencies, stuff like that. If you have questions on that, by all means, I think everyone should be sending in their questions to administration to ask all of those. Um, including those questions about Edgewood that you had that that you've all been asked. Yes. Okay. And if you have any more then we should ask that before July because there is a lot of information here and some things and now that the community's had a chance to listen to this conversation too, they may be sending in questions also that should be addressed and I think we need to allow that time. Lisa, did you have something? Yeah, I mean for me it it really my my head is around DSP. We're I'd like to see the costbenefit analysis of how they landed the DSP decision at Edgewood. So if if that information can be provided um to the board um at the next meeting um I mean you know this it cost this much to move it to high school. Okay, we didn't do it for this reason or whatever you know whatever the however you came to that decision. Um, that's that's definitely where my head is on that. So, understood. It's really hard to make it's really hard for a board director or board, I think, to make a decision. Um, like I said, when you're given this the one scenario and yeah, so I'm just I'm just a little frustrated with that. So, I apologize for that. Okay, moving forward. questions in. Um, do your due diligence. Uh, let's wait and see what the community has to say. As Mary said, this is the first time they that they've really heard this deep of a dive on it. And, um, we will have another discussion, say June 9th or is the 16th or better? Well, we can talk tomorrow about the June 9th maybe. Okay. It'll either be the 9th or the 16th depending on how that study session is shaping up. and we will continue to move forward. Next item is the uh annual superintendent evaluation. Um if Michael wants just to speak to that quick, we'll just go through a quick process and Sure. Uh Chair White, board directors, uh as we do each year, um about now is when the end of year link will come to you. So that same rubric that you saw during the midyear um you'll have that Qualrix link and uh you'll have access to the artifacts files for the cumulative accumulation of the year from the fall to the spring and uh the only difference this time is that there will be those rating rubrics and it's the it's taken directly from MSBA and I would just say that I know the language is more universal. Um, so, uh, that was a kind of a a question. I think the when some of you were new to this, of one word you were kind of hung up on. I think just if you have questions about the rubric itself, please uh connect with me or Dr. Zumbush. Um, again, I don't want one word to get somebody stuck. Um and and I and I and I have to do the same thing with all the folks I supervise and and when it says all of the time or all staff or you know that one word might say well is it all or is only 99 out of 100 or you know those are just some of the things that I want to make sure that if you have questions about that again it's it's it's a direct lift from MSBA rubric um to be applicable to uh each context. So um but yeah, you'll be getting that link um later on tonight from Martha and then and then that will be open in the calendar here. You'll see that'll be remain open through um the 26th of May and then at that time uh the chair and vice chair uh will coalate that data u Dr. pres will coalate that data for the board chair and vice chair and then um that information will be shared I think um with me in advance to give comments to and then I think on June 9th um in closed session you all will deliver that information and then June 16th the board will have their um annual statement. Okay. Okay. I think we should probably take five. Mhm. Um, let's meet back here at 9:30 and we'll figure out how we're going to move forward here with policy.