Today is Tuesday, May 26th of 2026 and this is a special meeting of the ISD 728 school board and I hereby call the meeting to order. Uh briefly want to go over the meeting protocols um that are in the agenda and everything's on the back table. Just a reminder that this is a special meeting so as a special meeting there is no public comment at today's meeting. There is opportunity in our regular meetings which we have a couple coming up. Um so just remind members of the public not to engage in any comment that's disrupting into the board but also to each other. So we've had some instances where there's been private conversations going in the audience and just be aware that that disrupts people around you as well as the board. So if you feel the need to have any um private conversations you can step outside so that everyone can fully participate and hear what the board has to say. Um let's start by saying the Pledge of Allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> First item on the agenda is approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? >> So moved. >> Okay. There's a motion by Director Anderson, second by Director Steinbrecher. Any discussion? Any discussion? Hearing no discussion, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Agenda is approved. Item 2A is special under special business is approval of the budgets. We saw the 2026-2027 budgets and the um presentations on them at the last meeting. So, this is our approval. Is there a motion to for the school board to approve the 2026-2027 budgets as presented and listed in the agenda? >> I'll move. >> Second. >> Motion and second. Is there any discussion? Any discussion on the motion? >> Budget looks better than last year's budget. >> Sure. Good job. >> Yeah. >> Thanks, Kelly, for your work, John. >> And your team did work. >> There's a lot of people that >> A lot of people are making this happen. A lot of a lot of parts to the budget. >> Right. >> The amazing part is you're going to stabilize it. Looking good for the future. >> What we want. >> Any other discussion? Hearing no discussion, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor, say I. >> I. >> I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Next on the agenda under special business is 2B, which is a facility solution discussion. So, is there a motion for the administration to proceed with the preparations related to the November 3, 2026 referendum election, including but not limited to the proposal ballot language, real resolutions, financial information, and additional materials. >> Second. >> Motion by Director Steinbrinker and a second by Director Fiber. Is there any discussion? Before I open up discussion to the board, um I want to take a second and I'll make a comment and then I'll open up the floor to calling others. I received a few questions over the week because we had a presentation on this and discussed it at the last meeting um from the public and it became aware to me that though we've been discussing this since the January before last, a lot of the public comes in and and hasn't seen the discussion that has led us to this point. So, it's kind of not just a reminder for board members, but so the public knows what has led us to this point. So, we did Some of the questions that I've been receiving, I think others have received are in lines of well, what about this solution? What about this solution? And and there are uh lots of things that we could do to uh come up with a solution. And you know, people are going to be for and against anything we do, which is the reason we did we had a task force, right? The task force met for a long time um and the board had approved that we'd work through a task force and they did go over all of these solutions. I mean, I don't think there's anything that they didn't touch and consider and talk about, including building a bridge, right? Um they did an excellent job. They did good work. So, Thomas Bridges. So, through that process, we did go over, you know, a lot more solutions than what we're discussing now. Um but they made a recommendation to the board, which was to pursue the top recommendation was what basically what you see before us today. It's the building of new uh single high school in the Cape Win. Um even after that, it was actually me who came to the facilities task force and said, you know, sitting through some of those task force meetings, I'm not so sure we fully flushed out redistricting. So, at another meeting, I brought forward a proposal for redistricting and through discussion, if you looked at that, would it work? Yes, but we figured it would be painful, right? It's it's going to Every single building would be over over capacity, some would be for 5 to 12 years, and we'd be right back where we started looking at building, right? So, it wasn't a long-term solution, which is why at that meeting the board had said, "We're going to move forward with another solution." We put out the survey. The survey was to gauge feedback. At the At the last meeting, we saw that community support of our idea was somewhere between, and I'm taking some slides together when I crunch the numbers, somewhere between 46% and 40% and 53%. So, the community is split, right? But, what the What it did tell us in that survey is that they see the need, and that they want to build, but the price tag was kind of sticker shock, right? We started out with about 51.8% approval. As we move forward through the tax implication, we dropped down to 47%. Um with some plus or minus 1.4 and some variances in it. So, what that brought the administration to is an alternate. How can we build and and a long-term solution for our needs at a lower cost, which is the what you see before you on the table. So, the only reason I say this is one to catch everybody up, but the two, the idea is to keep moving forward. So, in my mind, the discussion is are we okay with the solution, putting it to the voters, because we know there's a heavy split here, and this is what we feel is best, and we'll let the voters decide, or do we think that we should pull it back and reconsider for a year, because really, we're not going to come up with another solution at the table. Right? Cuz we've been rehashing this for 2 years. So, I'm not going to limit discussion. We can have any discussion that we want on on related to this agenda item. But, in my mind, to be most productive, I think what we're saying is this is the plan we've come up with. Do we have community support to move forward, or should we pull back and wait and retool for a year or so? That's Thanks for letting me catch everyone up, and I'll be quiet for now. Mr. Prior, thank you. >> Thank >> Um when I looked at the municipalities for Zimmerman, Otsego, Livonia, the support was less than 50% by far, actually. Um so, in my area that I represent, the fiscal burden with it, with the tax implication, is too much, I think, for the people. It's not that they don't want it, and I do think that you know, if we redistrict and Zimmerman becomes overcrowded in time, you know, that's not ideal, either. But, it's what they can do now. And I I wish that we could pull back and maybe reconsider in a year and see what we exactly need, because in uh Princeton, I had it written down, but it was like Okay, Princeton voters rejected. We've already seen this happen. Um in November of 2025, the school referendum was 58.5% voting no, and then the district later came back in May, and it's um they even had bigger turnout on an off-year election, and it went down to 65% voting no. So, I do think that when the result was even greater distress for them and an even stronger rejection, it's like we should maybe consider getting this, on my viewpoint, right the first time and something that the taxpayers are comfortable with. a lot, you know, if we can save $100 million, maybe a lot of families. And I'll just I'll just add again like to when you look at and I I and I see that and I hear that you know there's there's tax conversations all over all over all over the country and certainly all over our state and in our in our counties. Um, but we also hear from the families that are experiencing the overcrowding who see that um there are risks to that as well and redistricting is probably not something that is even even a five-year solution. It's probably more a two three-year solution and we'd see schools more than just the just just the Rider schools feeling the pain pain of that. Um, because as we looked at the city of Riders and the city of Otsego's expected population trends by 2040, we see yeah them nearly doubling just in those next 15 years. 12 to 15 years. So um I do want to get it right the first time. I'm very sensitive to you know the fiscal um the fiscal approach to it. Um, that's why we you know we certainly looked down you know where can we add on? Can we can we do those things and and you know at at at some point in time we just got to say they're coming and we we have to get this right and we have to get it right now. I don't think waiting is going to provide us different or better solutions um and it's certainly not going to save us dollars. It's certainly not going to we're not going to find that hundred million dollars in the next year. Um or or you know whatever whatever that reasonable amount would be. So it just I I have the concerns of what are the impacts if we don't. Um, losing families to redistricting is is a real you know potential as well. Um So I I I have I have great concerns about that for the Rider Otsego communities and the growth that they have and the overcrowding that we've all seen in those buildings. So, I am I'm as I mentioned last week when we talked about it, feel like the 1,500 student solution was a was a good kind of redirect based on those results that we do want to get it right and we do want to go bigger, but yet maybe not overbuild and go too big. So, I feel like the proposed recommendation that we received last week felt like it was the right next steps. >> Yeah, I agree. I also worry about all the other projects that are on the list. We have to change the Rogers Middle School and Summerfield Middle School entrances or Middle School High School entrances for safety purposes. We have to do something for Level 4 kids. Um so, the project the other projects on there are just as important in my opinion. >> 100%. >> I looked into something just a second, John. I looked into some of those projects and um what was the savings? They were for for the setting for uh $400,000 that added $2.10. So, cutting those projects I the big tax burden is the schools. >> Yeah. >> You know, um and that's where my line of starting thinking is is if if we don't do it now, if you look at the open land in both IC land and Upper River and Rogers, I mean, we haven't even started to check what's what's coming. Um so, I'm trying to look at a long-term annual fiscal solution. I don't obviously, I was trying to find every way of not doing a referendum. That's why I was trying to find a redistricting solution. >> Okay. >> Wouldn't be popular, either, but what changed my mind is one, it wasn't long-term solution, and two, I don't think it would save us money because of the increased cost. I'm sorry, John. >> That's >> okay. >> I was thinking here a lot of times in our culture right now, especially in Minnesota here, all the fraud that's gone on. Back in 2023, we had a $18 billion surplus in Minnesota. It's all gone. And you can't really point to anything that it What happened to the money? Except in St. Paul, they got the Taj Mahal going up for the legislators. But otherwise, you can't really point to any place where that money is. The difference is this is a local project. We see brick and mortar going up. We see actually things happening. And so when we're taxed here, on this level, we actually see buildings, we see students being served. It's uh it's totally different. And we If we look at our schools right now, I mean, we're Our schools are very nice, very well equipped. Um I mean, You Sir, you've been inside the schools working, and so is Monica, and you've seen the insides. You see what's going on. We've also seen the crowded conditions up in Rogers Middle and High School, where they're eating lunches in the gyms right now. And you know, I was thinking about the comments about election timing. One of the things that right now we have a whole general election coming up. So, we leverage the cost of that election. If we do it out of cycle, like Princeton did or other districts, there's a fixed cost to that. And I don't know what the number is, but I I think, if I recall, it's like 40, 50,000. Shane, you may know. Something like that, cuz the district has to pay for all the election judges and all the equipment. >> Yes, for the council, yeah. >> Everything. So, you got a sunk cost there. The other thing I'm concerned about is if the longer we wait, if we look at inflation on buildings running at 5%. I mean, we could be looking at another 10 million 15 million next year. So, the costs are continually going up and I think we all feel that in our pockets right now. Um Also, uh I think it's going to be really important. We don't have the ability to tax like the city council or county commissioners. We can't sit here and just say raise the taxes and boom, it's done. This has to go to the voters. And I think we put the case out to the voters, you make the choice. What would you like to do? You want to build or redistrict? If we redistrict, there's going to be chaos. But, that's the voters will decide that. And so, I think it's important that we have to trust the voters in this in the school district to make the right decisions, whatever they would like. Cuz it's funny, you can have folks in Otsego say, "Yeah, heck yeah, we need it." And the same ideology over in where I live in Zimmerman, no way. So, it's it's mixed because in Zimmerman, we don't feel the pain of the south. So, it's it's really a tough decision, but that's that's where we are right now. So, my my thing is trust the voters to make the right right decision. Put it in their hands. >> Yeah, I mean, I can agree with that. I mean, as a I mean, this is my third go-around with referendums, right? It's never good conversation. I can't say it's never good, it's always difficult conversation. It's always expensive. As a small business owner, I see the costs right now with everything. This will directly impact me. I see wages to my employees. I see the struggles. I see fuel prices. I see all of that. On the farm side, I look at what our beef is going up to. We're buying cattle for what we're selling beef for. All prices are up. But the reality is is they're not coming down. They may stabilize, but they're not coming down. We look at this bond referendum and if we cut this down to just the two schools at 295 million, it saves about $4 a month on a $400,000 house. We can't go back in and do the other projects for $4 a month. The reason is bonds are sold over 30 years, the interest rate, the way we can put projects together. So, it will never be cheaper than right now to do it. Um continuing to wait will cost all of us. I think sometimes it's hard to understand what does it cost internally when we direct staff to move students or do this. We just see it happen, but the fact of the matter is when staff spends hundreds of hours going through this stuff, there's a real cost for that. There's a cost to the taxpayer because they're not doing other things. So, we all also have to understand that impact. So, I feel that this conversation has been happening for well over a year. Last year the task force started with it or the facility committee, I'm sorry, started with it. Put together the task force. Uh they worked through this process. We've seen it. The way we're growing, there's no argument on the growth that's there. And I feel that the survey kind of reiterated it to me that it is close enough that we put it out to the taxpayers, the voters, and let them choose and I'm ready to send it to them and whatever direction they choose, should they choose a yes vote, we will follow through with it. If they choose a no vote, we will follow through with that. >> So, the growth rate now will take 5 years to build a school, right? So, we'll be maintaining 3 years >> 3 to >> Okay. It'll be like 4 years from now. >> 4 years from now. >> So, what are we going to do for the next few years? Just >> Yeah. I think um the short-term solutions will have to be explored as well. We've already started talking internally about that. Are there some temporary boundary changes to make to move kids to where there is room in the southern part of the district? Um I think staff uh and students will feel better when they know what's coming. And I think that is a really big deal. Right now, I hear from staff often. It's like, "Can we just have the plan? Cuz then we can make the short-term solutions." Uh our our staff will will respond really well to that once they know what's in >> So, it is the good question though. >> Personal for me. >> Yeah, right. >> Um I mean, are there I asked you last year to do the same thing. We did close open enrollment and took some steps. The 3 years is a long time for the kids who are in school right now. I don't think sending them to another place temporarily would be a good solution. Just my opinion. >> I had too much to do there. >> But are there other things you can do to relieve some of the class size pressures? I mean, temporary cart I know teachers don't like being in carts, but if they knew it was 3 years >> Yeah. Yeah, you're you're going to start seeing teachers on carts. You're going to start seeing the back of the media center used as a classroom for different things, right? You're going to see uh your tech ed spaces used for, you know, different things in the classroom portion, right? That's the pain you're going to start to feel a little bit. And we think that there's solutions to get to to that point with the new school opening. We really do. Um and then if we needed to re-re-re-boundary set and send kids to more up-to-date facilities, let's say, because there's no space over there. That's an option. That's on the table. Um and so, there are some temporary solutions. And again, our team will be has done this before and and will be well versed in bringing those options forward to you to to get through this process. And tonight, the big decision is is that whatever you decide to to do tonight will be the catalyst for all of those things to start. I've been reluctant to have our team go down too far down that path not knowing what the intention of the board was with with this decision. Once we know, we'll be ready to go. >> And I would say we've done that well in 2014 when we go Prairie View elementary and Meadow Elementary and the middle school, right? We had the same pressure, the same conversations, and once we gave direction, I'll be honest, we didn't hear a whole lot of them. Because everybody could see it, they made adjustments, I'm sure things were complicated, but everybody worked towards it and it was pretty much seamless um through the process. So, it's been done before multiple times um and it's been done well. I think it's the whole uncertainty if we don't give direction of then what's coming. >> Also, I was going to say we already have some land that was acquired in previous years, so we have done some forward looking and said, "Hey, we're going to need this land someday, so let's get it now." The other thing is we already own land you know, where I've been saying this right now. So, that setting for ALC building can go there. And right now our setting four is scattered throughout the district. We've got transition at different high schools, we have Compass here in this building. Um so, we have staff moving all over you know, accommodating that. And it's going to be uh in my opinion, it's going to be great having staff all in one building that are trained in all the needs, you know, and have an ASD um EBD program, ECE. Uh I don't have a ton of experience in that, but we got experience at home. But I I understand the importance of the staff and the students there in making sure that we have congruency. So, that's another what do you say? $2, $3 a month? >> Yeah. Don't quote me on that. It was just over two, I think. I think. >> Yeah, I mean, when you think about that what we're doing for our kids is huge. Um and we're a district large enough, we should have something, but we don't. And so, this is going to fix a big problem. And I think currently, what we need to do is once we get this building going to keep on pounding on our legislators to fund special ed. Get that cross subsidy um back in I mean, they've been just cut, cut, cut. And so, I think overall, the programs will improve. And Jamie, you can correct me. Um it it'll be centralized. We can share resources. And like Ivan Sand's right now, Elk River High School supplies all their lunches. That has to be trucked over to Ivan Sand's every day. And plus, that building is very expensive to operate. So, there there's some other things that are going to happen along with the other, you know, the middle, K through 8, and then the high school. So, we're making potentially radical improvements in programming for our students. >> Um I just wanted to say that I I know there's people in the community that have full not support the referendum, no matter what you say. And then also, um I believe that it's just it'd be important to give the community the voice and the choice to once it is on the ballot to choose and decide what our future year will look like. I'll just end by saying, I mean, I'm not against I know we need a high school for our Seagull. You know, I thought to myself, could we wait for the K through 8 or just so people can kind of catch up with the inflation and all the different taxes and groceries and child care costs and and then we did that survey to see, you know, what the community thought and they they do want the school. They don't want to pay for it. I know that doesn't go that doesn't work together, but I will represent um my constituents in the northern half and they don't want this for right now. So, I am going to vote no tonight for that. Um but I will say that I respect my fellow board members and administration and I know everyone here cares deeply about students and the future of the district. And we just have simply different perspectives on what is financially sustainable right now. >> Any other final comments, questions for discussion? All right. I'll call for a vote on the motion. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. All those opposed same sign. >> I. >> Motion carries. That's the end of special business. Next we go on to um item three, which is faculty and staff and we have um three three separate issues that we'll take up under this. All of them are listed um they're a little bit long so they're time consuming, but the motions will just be as listed in the agenda. So, we have 3A, which is the um recommend the school board adopt the following resolution relating to the non-renewal of probationary teacher contracts. So, is there a motion to um bring it to the floor as it is written in the agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Is there any discussion on the motion? Director Hamrick, you have your hand Hearing no discussion, all those in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. All those opposed say sign. Motion carries. Item 3B on the agenda is a recommendation for the school board to adopt the resolution relating to the termination of probationary teacher contracts as it is listed in the agenda. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> There's a motion by Director >> Second. >> There's a motion and a second. Any discussion? Any discussion? Hearing no discussion, all those in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. All those opposed say sign. Motion carries. Last item under this is 3C, teacher appointments, which is recommendation for the school board to approve the following appointments effective August 24th, 2026 as it is listed in the agenda. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> There's a motion and a second. Was it Director Hamrick? Any discussion? Any discussion? Hearing no discussion, all those in favor say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. All those opposed say sign. Motion carries. Brings us to the consent agenda. There's only two items on the consent agenda. The minutes and some personnel. Does a board member wish to extract either of these items from the consent agenda? Anyone want to remove any of these items? Hearing nothing, then the consent agenda is passed via unanimous consent. Brings us to the information. Um there is a facilities committee uh committee meeting coming up June June 1st, and after that it's graduation week. So um um see you all at graduation. Uh I do want to make a note that this was a special meeting. I know we didn't have um comments today. Um I know we had had survey and we always had emails, but it's important to me to always open up for public comment, especially when we have things like that. Now, so I wanted to point out that the next step in the process, we will have a June 22nd meeting, and then on July 13th after now we'll be directing Andy and the staff to come forward with the revenue revenue package and we'll be on it to send it in at that time. So we will be chance two other meetings where we can hear from them. That's it on that. So do I have a motion to adjourn? >> So moved. >> A motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. Meeting is adjourned.