Okay, we're going to start with tonight's recognition. Um, and for this special recognition, we're going to have Cararissa Kester come up and make the introductions. >> Okay. Well, I am going to um call up my friends from the high school theater department and we're really excited to have them here with us this evening. They are superstars. Um you will you will see them on YouTube and people around the world will be watching them on a new video that was created by the I Love You guys Foundation. The I Love You Guys Foundation um has created safety protocols for school districts to use to just ensure that we have common language and common protocols for our kids to and staff to follow. If there's ever an emergency in our building, you've probably hold heard of it before. We do the hold, the secure, the lock down. You guys help me >> evacuate [laughter] and shelter. >> They know us well. >> And so we were approached by the I Love You guys Foundation, which is um again worldwide in school districts and schools. And they had invited us to have our students participate in the making of a video. We thought that sounded fun, but we didn't realize just what a great experience this would be for our kids. They actually got to work with a Hollywood producer um cinematographers, filmmakers from all around uh with a lot of real credentials. So, it was like a real movie set people. I mean, there were lights and there were sound bars. There was all sorts of things going on. And our students um when you see the video, which we will watch tonight, they look like professional actors. Like, they should be in Hollywood on the screen. It was really impressive to see. And so, a big thanks to Griff who is here today with his students. Griff did a lot of work behind the scenes um to help pull this together to find the students to work with the casting really they did casting directors had them audition for these parts um it was a great learning experience for our kids great exposure for our district and overall as you'll see a really really wonderful production that I think kids across the the world will enjoy watching and learning and um all in all it's about getting keeping our kids safe so I think that's really cool I'm going to turn it over to Griff and his students it'd be great if you can introduce elves, maybe what grade you're in, and if any of you just want to share a little bit about the experience, that'd be awesome. >> Great. >> Uh, my name is Lex. I'm a junior. Um, I I was um this was such a fun experience to audition for and then get to to work on this project. It it was such a tremendous experience and thank you guys for allowing us to be a part of this and and allowing them to to shoot it at our school. It was such a incredible experience. >> Some things [clears throat] >> um I'm Miles. I'm a junior and I just have to say actually ever since I was a child and I first saw the safety video, I'd actually always dreamed of being [laughter] AN SO when I heard that I might be able to be in the safety video, I kid you not. I threw my arms up in the air [laughter] and I just like ran against a wall. So just thank you everyone. [laughter] blessed this opportunity. It was a great experience. >> Um I'm Isaac. I'm a senior. Um thank you again. Thank you Dr. Funk for um letting us do this. Um it was really incredible to, you know, we have this amazing theater department at the high school and um doing all these skills that we work on through the years um through our plays, our one act, our musical um and getting to now with with these professionals coming in, apply those to real life and get a taste of that that real life is, I think, so important for for learning and for getting to, you know, prove that what you've been working on is is really going to help you in the real world. >> Yeah. >> Thanks. >> I'm Zoe. I'm a senior. Um, as someone who was in the initial safety video and now in the current [laughter] safety video, I remember it was seventh or eighth grade when I was initially casted by Griff and now seeing the new um, setup. It's just an incredible opportunity. The other one was shot on like a point andoot type thing. Um, and now we got this incredible director who was working with usa and the I love you guys team. Overall, it was just an amazing experience. Just thank you for having us do this. >> And I want to just add to that. So, the original safety video you're talking about was one we just created in house just for our students. [laughter] This one is going to be seen worldwide. The other one was probably just seen by our own kids. Wasn't quite the same. I'm sorry to crush your dreams as a seven-year-old. [laughter] You're a seventh grader. It wasn't quite the audience that this new video will have. >> Hello, I'm Aiden. I'm a freshman and it was such a great experience to work with all like the department's amazing to work with. It was great to work with like real life like what's going to happen in the real world and it's cool to see how this is going to be seen at schools everywhere >> and to be a part of like the help for schools. >> It's Yeah. Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Vinnie. I'm a sophomore and this was just really cool to get to know that I'm helping out someone and help them know what they need to do during an event like this. And also, this was one of my bucket list items to [laughter] >> Very cool. >> Um, my name is Eleanor and I've really enjoyed seeing the differences between stage theater and like [clears throat] being in a film. >> Um, I'm Danny. I'm a senior and I agree with everything everyone else has said. Thanks for the school for letting us do this and the I love you guys foundation. Uh when Griff first told me that he like I was supposed to send a video to someone, I was like, "Holy crap, [laughter] that's so cool." Um because I really want to go into film like as my job in the future. So to be this young and get to be on a set with real cameras, real people who work and do this for their living, I remember just sitting there at the end of the day. Everyone was exhausted, even the people working there. And I was just like, I I [laughter] yay. Um so I was just so thankful to um be a part of this and also get to do it with my friends in the department. >> These are extra special young people in the department. uh they're so talented, but they're also so dedicated and committed. The pressure they were under to do all this work in a day and a half under professional circumstances, they rose to the occasion, every moment. Um with some uh subject matter that at times is is really sensitive and emotional and um the I love you guys organization was so gracious and thoughtful and supportive during the process. And um the work that you'll see is uh we were chosen Still Water was chosen because of the aesthetics of our high school and uh that the fact that we're already using the standard response protocols in our buildings and also because we represent America what no matter what school is wherever it is in the in the country and around the world that that we um that we modeled that and they thought those three credentials were were really important and that's why we were chosen. So, >> all right. Well, does anyone want to see the video? >> Yes. Okay. [laughter] >> I'll have Joan pull that up. You guys can take a or you want to stand maybe off to the side um behind you can watch it and then we'll see if there's any questions for you afterwards. [clears throat] It's the suspense. We're building up the suspense. Just so excited. >> Hello there. I'm here today. talk to you about some important emergency protocols that your school uses to help keep you safe. Over the next 30 minutes, we'll be taking >> 30 whole minutes. Nah, we can show you how it's done in five. >> Hey, what's up everyone? I know we're all busy and have a lot on our minds, but there's something we need to take just five quick minutes to stop and chat about. That's right. Always listening, always ready. Let's do this. [laughter] >> So, how do we keep ourselves safe in an emergency? Yeah, I know. Not an easy topic, but necessary. The good news is there are really practical ways we can respond in any given situation. Who wants to tell us what this is called? Miles, >> that's a standard response protocol, >> aka the SRP. >> Exactly. It's a standardized set of actions that students, staff, and teachers can rely on during unusual incidents. >> I heard it's used by schools and districts all over the US and the world. >> Right. There are five different actions that can be implemented depending on the circumstances. We'll also show you the hand gestures for these so you can communicate non-verbbally. Leah, >> hold, >> secure, >> lock down, evacuate, shelter. >> Any one or combination of these actions can be used when something unusual happens near or inside the school. But there's just one mission to keep calm and alert no matter what is happening. Let's get into it. >> Let's start off with hold. So if you hear or see >> hold in your room or area, clear the halls. Hold in your room area. >> Is there something going on in the hallways or common areas? Everyday stuff like maybe a medical emergency, a cleanup, or some kind of altercation. >> What's your move? >> If you're in a classroom, stay there and keep focused on what you're doing in class. >> If you're in the hallway or a common area, get out of the way and stay calm. >> A hold means there's no need to stress. Whatever's happening is getting handled and they'll clear the hold when everything's resolved. >> All clear. The hold is released. All clear. The hold is released. >> Another action that might get called is secure, which could sound like >> secure. Get inside. Lock outside doors. Secure. Get inside. Lock outside door. >> There's something unusual happening outside the building. It could be criminal activity or some other hazard in [clears throat] the neighborhood. >> Or it COULD BE WILD ANIMALS TRYING TO GET IN. >> [screaming] >> WATCH OUT. [laughter] >> For real though, no matter what it is, when you hear the secure action get called, you'll know what to do. >> Get inside safely and lock the outside doors. >> Other than that, there's no drama. Just continue doing your thing while the professionals handle it. [laughter] >> Now, let's talk about lockdown. This one's more serious. You'll hear >> lockown. Locks, lights, out of sight. Lock down. Locks, lights, out of sight. >> This means there's a threat inside the building, so we have to go into lockdown. Most schools practice this, so it becomes like second nature. Lock the doors, turn off the lights, stay out of sight, remain silent, and follow your school's protocols on phone usage during these scenarios. [clears throat] >> Class, what's unique about a lockdown? A lockdown is different from the other actions because it cannot in most circumstances be released by an announcement over the intercom or by someone knocking on the locked door. Don't open it for anyone. >> Definitely not. When the threat is cleared, the police or administration will release the rooms from the lockown. >> I'm officer McBroom. The lockdown has been released. Follow me >> and direct you where to go and what to do next. Remember, be patient and help others around you if they need it. >> We help keep each other safe. What if I'm not in a classroom when a lockdown is called? >> If you can't get behind a locked door, safely evacuating from the area is always an option. >> Which is a great segue to another action we might have to take. Evacuate. If there's a chemical spill, a bomb threat, or other reason to leave the building, you'll receive instructions on where to go. That might sound like, >> "Evacuate to the parking lot. Evacuate to the parking lot." >> We know this one. >> Exactly. Fire drill since we were kids. Am I right? Right. So, you know what to do. Grab your essentials, leave the extra stuff, and follow the path to safety. Stay calm, follow directions, and keep it moving until you get to the designated meeting place. >> Dude, come on. Let's go. >> The last action to discuss is shelter. >> Announcement for it might sound like [music] >> earthquake, drop, cover, and hold. Earthquake, drop, cover, and hold. Doesn't happen. >> Different situations need different actions. Whether it's an earthquake, tornado, tsunami, hazmat, or something else. >> Has what? >> Like a chemical spill. But don't worry about the what. Our job is just to listen up, follow instructions, and help others around us if it's safe to do so. >> And that's the SRP rundown. One or more of these five actions might be called to help keep you safe. >> Hold secure. Lock down, evacuate, shelter. >> Using common language in a crisis that everyone can understand is crucial. >> The standard response protocol provides us with that universal understanding. Remember to stay alert, follow directions, and look out for each other. [laughter] >> I want you know Any [applause] questions for our students as they're here? Pete, >> now that you've done this, Miles, you're going to have to update your life goal. Uh, yes. >> And then also, hasn't been said yet, but many of you overlapping with this were in the one act play that went to state and starred. We haven't done that in a long time. So, congratulations for that. Matter of fact, it was the first time in the school's history we've gone to state head start. >> That's a long time. Okay. >> Great. So, yeah. No question. >> Other comments or questions? >> Yeah. >> I would just say thanks for taking the opportunity and giving back. I mean, this really is a this is impactful. This isn't just oh, you know, a fun day. I mean, you you actually got to got to do something that's going to help a lot of people. So, that's great. And if I had So there's a school in I believe it's Alabama that um was they had a a medical emergency and a lockdown was incorrectly called and there was a lot of fear and panic >> and the someone in on the staff there saw our video and is now beginning to implement the standard response program. >> So it's already helping [applause] people across >> your feedback. I'll make a quick comment. Um first of all, you guys seem like professional actors. Like that was seriously impressive. So great job um with all of your efforts that went into it and this um SRP protocol is really uh catching on. Like there's a lot of districts around us that already have it. And quite frankly, I've been bragging about you guys a little bit already um because we're I mean you guys are really setting a standard for the nation um and really um explaining something that is so critically important and something that is on the minds of a lot of kids in schools these days. So um having our district be part of this, having you guys represent us so incredibly well, um is really just so cool to see. So thank you for all that. >> Okay, I think that is important to note. We have had the SRP in place for a number of years. That's why they reached out to us originally. They had a couple of districts they were looking at that have been using this effectively for a long time. We've presented at a couple of conferences. We've been on some webinars talking about our process and how we're using it. And so I think we've kind of been leading the way in this. Um, and I'm very proud of our staff for the work that's been done in this area. You saw some of the names on there, but Annette and Mark have done a lot of work in this area. We also had Melanie and Tony. Um, Wiler from operations were part of getting this video put together. um Griff of course and some high school staff. It was a big project, but I think it is important to notice that we were recognized because of the work that we've been doing um in these safety protocols. And we've been working really closely with Washington County. We were one of the first districts in um in Washington County to bring this in and now all the other districts are coming on as as well. And from an emergency response standpoint, that's really important for it to be common language so that you know as an emergency responder, you know how to respond based on what's happening in the school building. So, just a shout out to that and thank you guys. You did an amazing job and thanks for being here tonight. >> Yeah, thank you for everything. >> Great job. >> Very nice job. Thank you so much for making this impact and just the dedication you have and I fully expect that we're all going to look somewhere on TV or behind the camera or somewhere and there you guys are going to be. So congratulations and remember us fondly when you have your successes [laughter] as you're accepting your awards. You can look back to this video process. So thank you guys for coming. I think [applause] the board wants to take a picture of them. I think that'd be fantastic. >> Sure. Okay. Sure. [laughter] >> We can stand. >> [laughter] >> Thanks you guys. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming. You guys are awesome. [applause] Okay. [clears throat] >> Did you get to see the >> And if not, I'll do it later. >> Like preview. >> Oh, I wanted to go. >> Okay. Um, tonight we do not have anyone signed up for public comment. So, we will call the meeting to order and ask Joan for roll call, please. Director Gusovich >> here. Director Hawker >> here. >> Dr. Kelzenberg >> here. >> Director Lawauer >> here. >> Dr. Parker >> here. >> Dr. Theander >> here. >> Chair Sherman >> here. You have a core. >> Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance 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. Okay, next is to approve tonight's agenda. I'll go ahead and make that motion. Is there a second? >> Second. Theelander. >> Great. Director Theelander with the second. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda, raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed. Agenda passes unanimously. [snorts] >> We are without our student rep today, so there will be no report. And we'll move to the superintendent update. Good evening. We are facing o over a $5 million shortfall and this will be the third year in a row we've had to reduce spending. I know it's difficult to hear and I know the impact of the last two years is still very real for many of our folks in the district. The challenge is not one single thing. It's a combination of rising costs that continue to outpace funding. The biggest areas are the one you would expect in any school district. Staffing, transportation, and employee benefits. Our focus is straightforward. Protect students as much as possible while making responsible decisions that keep the district stable long term. To that end, we've had numerous meetings with building leaders and have shared some of our ideas with the sea leadership for their feedback. Today we've begun the next step of the process with the school board in a special retreat and we will share the results of our plan publicly in March. I want to address communication directly. These reductions that will occur will affect individual people and positions and that reality carries both professional and personal weight. During times like this, uncertainty can spread quickly. Speculation and rumors create unnecessary stress and can undermine staff morale, family confidence, community trust, and enrollment stability. Accurate information matters. We are committed to communicating with clarity, accuracy, and care as decisions are made. I encourage everyone to rei to rely on verified district communications and to avoid drawing conclusions based on incomplete or unconfirmed information. How we talk about this process shapes how our community experiences it. Finally, we need support beyond our district. State funding and state requirements play a major role in what is occurring to our school district. Your voice matters and we encourage you to reach out to legislators. Thank you. And and thanks our staff for staying focused on what matters most, our students. >> Thank you. Um I think just suffice it to say for my chair report, um on behalf of the board, we just want to really um thank our staff for the work that they're doing. It's it's really hard. Um it's really important work. uh and our retreat that we had beforehand, it's it's evident that the thought that's being put into this and the collaboration ac across um working groups is um impressive. So, in light of really difficult decisions that like Superintendent Funk said will inevitably have feedback or have impact um great care is being taken within the process. So, just to support our staff in the work that they're doing, that important work, and um echo his comments. Um tonight we have a consent agenda, items A through E. >> Is there a motion to approve tonight's consent? >> Move to approve. >> Director Hawker makes the motion >> and Director Lowour with the second. All those in favor of approving items A through E, raise your hand and say I. >> I. opposed. Motion passes. We're going to move on to our um agenda. Under strategic direction C, utilize systems and align resources in an efficient manner to support learning. Um we are going to have an action item here, a resolution awarding the sale of general obligation school building and facility maintenance bonds. Good evening. Um before you this evening, uh we have a resolution um to award the sale um of our bonds. Um, but before we do that, um, Jody, uh, Zazba is here from Ellers to give you results on our bond sale today. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jod to give you an update. Great. Thank you, Marie. Good evening, everyone. So, a month ago, we talked about some pre-sale estimates, and we had a little bit of cushion built into the interest rates, not knowing kind of where things were would go in the market because it's been a little volatile, but rates have come down. So, we have excellent results to um present to you tonight on the bond sale. This uh bond sale is covering two different purposes. So, it's the remaining authority from the election that your voters approved on November 7th of 2023 and then the um every other year issuance of uh facilities maintenance bonds for deferred maintenance projects. So those deferred maintenance projects are covered through bond proceeds as well as pay as you go levies which you approve on an annual basis every year. We did go through the rating process and thanks to Marie, Cararissa, Mark all contributed greatly to that conversation and were very helpful and represented the district very well. Um we got 10 bids today. The low bid is bar out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And you'll see um in the notes under the the chart there, the true interest cost rate overall for the issue is a 3.80 and we had estimated 4.4% a month ago. So that's exciting to see. And in the election, we had a 4 and a.5% rate. So the interest cost associated with the school building bond portion of this issue is $4.5 million less in interest than we talked about last month. With both issues combined, you guys issued a h 100red million of your authority initially in January of 2024. We got great results for that sale. So with both issues combined, now the um interest cost is $6.8 million less over the two issues than communicated prior to the election. So we're feeling really great about those results. >> Great. Um we will have a call date on these bonds and you know we um uh move forward with a refunding bond sale at the time we issued your first portion of the school building bonds and saved money for your taxpayers as part of that. You can't keep that money for your budget. It must be passed on to your taxpayers in the form of reduced debt service levies. So it's different from um different from uh refinancing a home mortgage in that way. you don't get to keep it for your budget, but that is being passed on to the taxpayers and this savings will also be passed on to the taxpayers. So again, you didn't get to levy for it based on estimates. You um you will just be levying the taxpayers now for these reduced interest payment amounts. Uh the closing date is March 12th and I know Maria is looking forward to that because I know you guys have been getting a lot of work done and going and taking care of the projects up to this point in time, but I think it's time to get some more money for the projects coming up. You do have a resolution as Marie mentioned. So awarding the sale of 90,335,000 and general obligation school building and facilities maintenance bonds. And then I'll quickly go through the attachments. So the first attachment is the bid tab with 10 bids. It's long. So, the first uh the lowest bidder is Barrett out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as I mentioned, at a 3.80 overall. The next uh lowest bidder was close at a 3.8538, and that was Jeff out of New York. And then you got bids from throughout the country, Dallas, Chicago, Charlotte, North Carolina, a few from New York, and another one from Chicago. The high bidder was Huntington Securities out of their Chicago office at a 4.0364. So, still below what we were estimating a month ago. The next schedules are all the exact same schedules that we talked about last month um as part of the pre-sale report just updated now for sale results. So we did get a larger premium than we expected that shows up on we're offering premium line net of the underwriters discount and those uh uh dollars can be used for project costs. So helpful to have a little bit more money for your projects at a lower interest rate, lower tax impact. So everything is turning out better than expected and very well. The next schedules are the debt service schedules. The first one is the overall issue summary. That's the one that will show the true interest cost rate at 3.8%. And then the next page is the school building bond portion. That's a 20-year issue. So that rate is a little bit higher at 3.88%. The uh facilities maintenance bonds came in under 3%. So, that's a shorter issue at a 2.99% interest rate, which was great to see. And then we updated the detailed debt plan, which is where we um make all the magic happen to keep a nice level tax rate for your taxpayers. Once they approved the bond issue, there was an increase associated with that at the time, but now we're keeping the tax rate nice and level. And you'll see that on the chart on the following page. This shows you the tax rate for all of your debt service levies as well as some of the bigger capital levies like your technology levy and lease levies. And you can see that nice level tax rate with a couple of step downs in the future to allow some capacity for any needs that come up at that point in time. After that, we have two reports that were issued by Moody's rating agency. The one uh the first one is a press release and on the first page gives some information about their rating rationale. at the bottom some factors that could lead to an upgrade of the ratings and then factors that could lead to a downgrade. There's a number of regulatory disclosures. So, that kind of goes on for a few pages and then you'll get to the credit opinion which is um specific and a little bit more detailed information related to your district. So, starting on this page here, attachments page 14, uh highlights credit strengths, credit challenges, including your fund balance. they are um pointing that out again of course and then uh factors that could lead to an upgrade and downgrade and then more detailed credit considerations key indicators and a um scorecard. So those are the same reports that you've seen from Moody's in the past in the pretty much the same format I would say but happy to answer any questions that you might have since that's there's lots of details included in there. >> Great. Um I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve this. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Great. Director Theander with the second. And now questions. >> I don't know if I have any questions, but I would appreciate if you would just come every board meeting and give us good [laughter] news. >> Just a little a little little sunshine. Yeah, [laughter] we are thrilled. So, thank you. We appreciate the opportunity to be of service to you once again. And of course, are just thrilled that the results turned out as well as they did for you and your community. It's exciting to see everything that's happening and um nice to have the support from the community. I know >> um we talked about that last time too, but just to have everything come together and play out better than expected is great. >> Absolutely. >> And um our reason for our taxpayers to be satisfied. So, thank you guys for all your hard work. >> Uh thank you again for being here. Can you go back to page one? Can you just walk us through those six numbers? No, the page. There you go. The those six numbers in the middle. >> Sure. >> What those represent? So the principal is the par amount that was authorized by the board and that was authorized last summer based upon the remaining authority from your uh voters as well as the projects that will be um uh financed by bond from from the these bond proceeds. The underwriters discount is uh the compensation that the winning underwriter takes as part of the uh transaction. So each underwriter gives us a different bid, a different combination of premium and discount. That is their discount. The premium that they provided is 5.5 million. The net of those two is available to finance project costs. So you're able to keep that. The true interest cost rate is the rate that we award the sale based on. So takes into consideration lots of factors including both the premium and discount and that is roughly 3.80%. Cost of issuance includes the fees associated with the transaction. So our fee, bond attorney, rating agency, county certificates, and paying agent. And then the yield is the amount that the investors will earn should they hold their bonds to maturity. So you'll see different coupon rates associated with the the uh different uh principal amounts. Different than a home mortgage. Each principal maturity has its own interest rate associated with it. So if these bond holders hold your bonds to maturity, they're going to yield a net uh interest earning of 2.11% to 4.04%. And then the total net PNI is all the principal and interest together. That's the amount when you do have a home mortgage and you look at your $200,000 mortgage that you take out and what it is including principal. That is the same kind of a a number there. Thank you very much. >> Any other questions? >> I do have a second question, but I'll wait till anybody else. >> Go ahead. >> Um, can you pull up the list of uh winning bids or winners? I shouldn't say winning bid, but winners. Um, how do we vet the winners? So, we think about our school exposure for anybody that's bet bidding on our bonds or do we have any risk exposure with these players >> in terms of >> well either reputational risk if they're in the news for anything inappropriate or um uh financial risk I guess as well. >> Yeah. So, um Baird is a very frequent bidder on all of our transactions. Um, sometimes they're the low bidder. Um, many times they're not. Um, so in this particular case, they are the low bidder, but they are, um, in terms of bidding out of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin office, we work with them very regularly and they do, you know, they do a great job. So, >> and are they getting all of it or are they getting a portion of it and the rest are getting some as well? >> So, that is their syndicate. Okay. So they are kind of the primary, but then all of these different underwriters will likely be getting a portion of it. So um not all of it will be placed or um uh not all of it will be handled just by them. >> Thank you. >> And only the low bidder has to give us their list of um their their list of other um underwriters that are in the syndicate with them. That's why you don't see it on the other biders. >> All right. This is a resolution. So, it's a roll call vote. Joan, roll call. >> Dr. Gerspitch, >> yes. >> Dr. Hawker, >> yes. >> Dr. Kelenberg, >> yes. >> Dr. Lowour, >> yes. >> Dr. Parker, >> yes. >> Dr. Theelander, >> yes. >> Chair Sherman, >> yes. >> Resolution passes unanimously. >> Thank you very much. Thank you again for coming. Okay. [snorts] >> Okay. Um, and Maria, you're going to stay up here. We're going to look at our preliminary budget guidelines and assumptions document. Um, and I'm assuming you'll state this, but we we look at this every year, approve it, and it leads into future conversations. So, correct. >> I have to take it with me today. Okay. >> Sorry. So, this is the third year that um we've had these guidelines. um this format in place with our priority based budgeting um process. And so before you this evening is our fiscal year 2026 27 preliminary uh guidelines and assumptions. And again this is again just uh for uh your uh approval this evening. Uh it sets some baseline uh assumptions uh for um the district as a whole um for our budgeting framework. Um again to set parameters around um overall uh objectives on how we are calculating our our overall initial preliminary budget. So before you here is the framework around priority based budgeting um our strategic uh direction and um that model and then um our strategic plan initiatives. Again, um we are our focus for our key initiatives for fiscal year uh 2627 uh again is uh focused on literacy, school culture, equity and inclusion and social emotional learning. Um again, our strategic plan objectives um again are based on the Minnesota Department of Education's comprehensive achievement and civic readiness goals. So again, we get a uh report of those goals. Um and then enrollment down um near the end of the document here. We uh did prepare our projections for staffing based on our uh initial projection from our MARS office uh as of February 5th. And um we'll coordinate uh with schools um and update any additional allocations of staff um over time as necessary. Uh the revenue projections. Uh you did see projections uh within our fiscal forecast, but again um currently the revenue is projected based on um formula allowances uh that are in our current state legislation. Um there may be changes that will bring forward um with a budgetary uh revision. Uh again, the levy revenue uh was all based on uh just this past December's levy approval. And for our expenditures, uh we did do an initial fiscal forecast. So again, that forecast uh that you just recently um reviewed again uh has a projected uh shortfall of about 5.5 million for the general fund. So that's based on our initial assumptions for salary benefits and all of our non-s salary categories. Again, fund balance in accordance with our policy, we are striving to maintain uh that unassigned fund balance and uh working toward that uh 5% of our annual general fund budget. So that is again a goal of our district and uh we will be sharing a timeline at our March meeting and uh additional presentations and data as we uh continue with the budget uh presentation. And then according to um state statute uh we do need [clears throat] to adopt a budget no later than July 1st um for the next fiscal year. So again there is an updated uh website um at the uh at the link there within the document and thank you to the communications team for updating that. So there will be many presentations uh and data as we continue throughout the months for your reference. >> Great. Thank you for that. Um so again, this is just kind of the formality of approving this document. We will be having multiple conversations that will be brought back to the board and to the public. Um I will go ahead and make a motion to approve the guidelines and assumptions. Is there a second? >> I'll second. Right. Director Hawker with the second questions for Marie. Seeing none, all those in favor um of approving the preliminary budget guidelines and assumptions raise your hand and say I. >> I opposed. Motion passes. Thank you, Marie, very much. Our next presentation related to budgets um is going to be our transportation update. And we have Tom coming up and Carissa to speak to some of this. >> Good evening, [clears throat] Board Chair Sherman, Superintendent Funk, and members of the board. Thank you for allowing us to um come and talk with you a little bit about a lot of work that has been happening in the transportation department. Um I am going to give you a high level overview and Tom is here to dig deep and correct me if I say something wrong and also just answer any questions you have. Um, we're trying to keep this high level, but there are really, really, as you can imagine, involved logistical pieces to transportation, and Tom is the expert in that area. Um, and is really helping us to do some creative and, um, I think cost-effective things. As Dr. Funk said earlier, and as we heard during our board retreat earlier today, transportation is one of our largest cost drivers. Um, we're a long, skinny district covering a lot of 150 square miles, I believe. And so it is just complicated to run buses. Um, and it does cost a lot. So what we are trying to do and what we have been charged with doing this year is find ways to be more efficient to cut costs without impacting the quality of service that we provide. We still need to make sure we have safe and reliable service. Um, so it's been quite a challenge, but thankfully our team is up for the challenge and doing some great work. Our commitment always is to make sure that our kids are safe, that when they get on that bus, they're going to have a good experience. They're going to get to school ready to learn. Um, at the same time that we're keeping that commitment, we're also looking at operational efficiencies. We do know that we've had underutilized routes in the past. Part of that again is geographic. We have parts of our district where there's just not a lot of students and we have to run a bus up there to pick up a couple of kids. And I hear for years people saying, "I drove past a bus and it's empty. Why are you running empty buses?" Part of that is just geography. And so, um, it is a challenge that we are trying to address by making sure that we're filling seats and using those buses more efficiently. Um, we're also looking at things that we've already done in the district successfully that maybe we can build upon and we'll talk a little bit more about some of those models that have been used successfully over the years that we can expand upon and use at a a wider level. And ultimately, we're trying to minimize disruption to family. I would love to say that there wouldn't be disruption to family, but some of these changes are going to impact our families. Um, but we're very being very intentional about minimizing those or having a good reason why we have to make those and helping communicate that to families. some things that we've already done this year. Um we've talked about a few of these I think at the the board level or you just might be aware because you had phone calls or emails at the start of the year. Um we are doing centralized bus stops which means we're not stopping at every driveway. We're not stopping doortodoor. We're really trying to bring neighbors together to more of a central location. That makes it more efficient for us to to run a bus. We don't have to stop as many places. Every stop adds minutes to the route. Um and and ride times too for our kids. We want to try to keep the ride time shorter. So centralized bus stops was new for families this year. We did get some feedback on that, especially in the areas of the district where there's like a culde-sac. Um we're not going down culde-sacs or some of those private roads anymore. We're asking families to come to the end so that we can pick them up there. That was definitely a change. Um last spring we asked people to opt in for bus service. We used to just route kids, especially at the elementary level, everybody was routed to a bus, but there are a lot of kids who don't ride the bus. And so by asking parents to let us know ahead of time, that allows us to be more efficient in how we're filling those buses. The board is also aware last year we changed our walk no bus zone at the secondary level. We went up to the state maximum of two miles. That was a hardship for some families. It's definitely been something we've heard about from families um asking kids to either walk or find a ride if they live within that two- mile area. At the elementary level, it's a half mile. The state says we could go up to a mile, but we've been really intentional about wanting to keep that to a half mile. And we know that special education transportation costs are rising as well. And so we're trying to find efficiencies in that area. Some of the things we're looking for for next year on top of what we already just talked about is moving our routing inhouse. We've been working with our transportation vendor, Schmides and Suns, for years to have them do the routing. Um, they're amazing. and they do great work for us, but we have a staff now that can do this work. Um, we look at it a little different lens than they do. So, we're just again trying to be more efficient in how we run those routes and try to save costs where we can. One new thing that we discovered this year is that charter and non-public schools are um they have students that open enroll into those schools and we were picking them up at the boundaries and driving them to a charter or a non-public school. So, these aren't our students, they're attending a charter and we realized we don't have to be doing that. That's probably 50 some students that we're putting on a bus um at $85,000 a bus that we don't have to be paying for anymore. So, we are cutting that and we've had communications with our charter non-public partners to let them know that that is a change coming for next year. And another thing is the single pickup and drop off location. Um this is a change for families. We've allowed alternative addresses. So, as a parent, you could say, "You can pick up my kid at home on a Monday and Tuesday, but they're going to be at daycare on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday." So, really, we were routing that child to two different buses and taking up room on buses. Um, and that again is not efficient in filling our buses. So, we are like most of our neighbors, and from Tom's experience, he said really every district does this where you just have 1 a.m. pickup, one pm pickup. If there's a joint custody um case, then we would certainly make an exception there. So, those are some operational changes that we're looking at and then there's some bigger systemic changes. So, we'll get into those. >> While while we're there, we didn't necessarily establish it when we were asking questions, but while we're looking at that, um the single pickup and drop off >> because that's going to be a hardship for some people, a change. Um >> is it can be a separate morning and afternoon. Absolutely. So it can be two different locations, but just but only it's the same all week long. >> Exactly. >> Okay. >> Yes. So it could be home in the morning, daycare in the afternoon. That would be fine, but just >> and flip-flopped in the afternoon. >> Yep. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Can I ask since you brought that up? I'm pictured like a divorce situation. There's mom's house, dad's house, but actually you're talking about daycare being the exception. So if >> No, there's a joint custody exception. So if it is a split family household and they live within the attendance boundary of the school, we would still make an exception for that and they would have >> two locations. Okay. >> Yes. >> But they would still each each mom and dad how they're treated is like the single. They would each get one pickup and one drop off. >> So they would each So that those joint custody would be the only duplicates in the system compared to right now we have several hundred others. >> Okay. >> That take empty seats. Did we see an increase in the utilization of multi- stops when it when we changed school start times? >> I don't know that we've seen an increase. No, I think it's been something we've had a lot of for years. I don't know that we saw that many more coming from last year. Okay. >> Uh you talking like for centralized stops? >> No, he's talking about the need for more daycare. Really? That's what it's coming to, right? Okay. When we changed our school start times last year. I have not heard too much about that. >> I think the numbers have been pretty consistent. >> Okay, >> board members, you saw a different map um earlier, but I just wanted to show you Brook. So um Brook View is in the middle kind of where those arrows are pointing. The top screen is Eagle Brook Church and then right across is Brook View. What we have noticed is um in the past our routing software determined our walk or no bus zone by the roads that a bus would take to get to a school. What we have discovered is there's a lot of walking trails. Brookview is a great example because they planned their city very well. Every neighborhood has an outlet to a trail that leads to in this case Brookview. Um those areas that are circled, we've run buses there before and there's more. or I mean on the other side there's there's a lot of areas where we were running buses and when we put our half mile circle around it putting those walking trails in place there are a lot of kids maybe a bus load full of students that we wouldn't have to run a bus through because those kids could walk and um talking with Mark Drummerhausen who was the principal there at one time he said kids a lot of them do walk already um especially on nice days so maybe on a cold day they wouldn't but on a nice spring day kids are already using those trails and so this is one way um that we can be again more efficient not have to run buses through those neighborhoods and really utilize that half mile walk no bus zone. Um so we've looked at every single one of our elementary schools. Brookview is probably the one with the biggest impact. Rutherford, um Lily Lake, um >> I just looked at Stonebridge, I found a couple trails, right? >> You know, because everybody was telling me there's no trails on the back side of Stonebridge and sure enough this evening I found two >> and so getting those placed and then reestablishing that walking that does it just increases that footprint just a little bit. So, >> and in partnership with our cities, we had some conversations with them earlier this fall about walking to school, knowing that this is the direction we had to go and utilizing these walk no bus zones and cities have been really responsive. If we let them know what those walking paths are, they will ensure that trails are cleared and maintained and taken care of. Um, we had conversations with all of our our different cities to talk about that and with Washington County as well. So, our plan is to establish these trails, follow up with the city, and make sure that we are clearing them and keeping them safe for kids to get back and forth to school. The big change, um, the big wild change is a transfer model. Um, I'm going to let Tom give you a little bit more information about this because it is something that he has experience within other districts, but it's very new for our public school parents. Um, it is something we've been doing with charter and non-publiclix for years, though. And the thought is that kids get on a bus together. So, our charter schools have done this. They've gotten on the school bus um with our kids. They come to an elementary school, they get on a different bus, and they go to their school. And what we're talking about doing is eliminating our third tier in our three tier busing system, moving down to two tiers and really picking up all kids, public, non-public, charter, prek through 12, all at once. And one of the big reasons for doing this, if you can think about our school district and the size and the geography, we in some cases had four buses running through a neighborhood. Think up in Marine or down in Afton, picking up a couple of kids and then another bus comes through and picks up a couple more kids and then another bus comes through and picks up a couple more. Um, we can have one bus go through that neighborhood and pick everybody up together. And what this really looks like in the morning is a bus goes into a neighborhood, picks up all the kids together, they go to one of our seven elementary schools where some elementary kids would go straight into their building and the other students would get onto another bus and be transferred out to their school. Um, in the morning it works pretty slick. It's easy to see on a map of what that would look like. Um, it gets a little more complicated in the afternoon. Before I get to the afternoon, any just general questions about that? >> Okay. Oh, I have a question. >> Yeah. >> Um, those people that would transfer, are we talking everybody or just certain areas like you mentioned, Marine, Afton, >> everybody? >> Everybody, >> largely. There's a few exceptions. >> There are a few exceptions. So, we're looking at um capability. And when we say transfer everybody, that's not necessarily the case because some of those buses, if I'm coming in and I need to collect my middle schoolers, my middle schoolers are going to stay on, but the high school St. Croy Prep and uh St. Croy Catholic and the new height students, they need to get off once the other feeder buses [clears throat] get there. So basically what we do is we have them not come in all together as in what they're traditionally used to is we bring them in. I we route them in. So there's handfuls that come in together because then we can establish those transfers and then the ones that need to leave they can go out and start their second tier. the other ones collect. Once they're full, then they head out and then they make their drop. Does that kind of make sense? >> So, >> Dr. Funk, >> I think very important for people to understand when we're talking transfer, we are not talking elementary students. >> Correct. >> And we do not transfer anybody until the bus is on site. >> So, elementary students get picked up and they are taken to their elementary school where they get off. Correct. >> Older students, your secondary students either stay on the bus or they transfer to a different bus on that site. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> So on both the morning and the afternoon, our elementary students get direct service. So Still Water, our public school students are going straight to their school, getting off. On the way out, they're going from the school straight home. Um so that is important to our elementary kids. Different for charter and non-publiclix. Um they will and they already are doing this. Um, so it's really not that different from them except they'll be with public school students as well at St. Croy Prep. Um, both St. Croy Catholic and New Heights are already on buses with our our students. So again, not much of a change for them. Um, we have been asked already like what does this mean for ride times? Are our high school kids getting on the bus a lot earlier than before? No, that's not the case. We've been looking at this and I will tell you in a minute about some changes we have to make to maybe start times that help with that. But ultimately students will be getting on buses the same time or around the same time at the secondary level. Ride times will be about the same. They won't be longer. Um and we can explain that more if there's more questions. But ultimately that is something we were really concerned about too. We didn't want to go against the the research and the reason that you made the start time change was to make sure our high school kids got that extra sleep and this does um allow us to >> protect that. Protect that. >> That was one of my questions. Thank you. In the afternoon, elementary school students are going home as we mentioned. So that's tier one. Um what's different and what allows us to do this is again the geography of the district. What makes it challenging is those buses that go the farthest out to the north and south to get all the way back to the schools to pick up secondary kids in the middle of the district is a really long drive. So what we're doing in this model is essentially running some of those buses out to the far corners and instead of having to come all the way back to the high school or the middle school, they're going to an elementary school transfer site and we're bringing those middle school and high school kids there there to get on a bus and go the rest of the way home. So if you kind of picture it that way, what happens is our elementary schools go home and then they come back either to a to one of the transfer locations or back to the middle or high school. Um and then they go back out again. There's a lot of logistics and moving pieces to this. Um, if I ask Tom to share more, he's gonna go really deep. But if there are anything high level, [laughter] you can already see the facial it. It takes a while to understand this concept. What I can share with you and like when I was router in St. Cloud, we did this in two different locations. Uh, St. Cloud is 250 square miles. We're 150 square miles. This is very similar in geographic. And I was just thinking about that on my drive this morning from St. cloud is on the the the far west side. We actually use like the miss uh the Mac Center, the hockey arena and I know we had two contractors that actually utilize that parking lot and we had over 30 buses actually make a huge massive transfer because we had two high schools, two middle schools, etc. doing that and that just helped facilitate because then when we're sending a bus out to those far pieces of the neighborhood, we don't have to send two or three buses. it actually shortens the bus ride once you get that established. And timing is everything to that. So, we don't want to really gap those timing. So, it's just timing on all of these departure times and then if we can load in a certain wave and then get those buses moving. So, like I said, there's a lot of moving parts. So, I don't want to dive way into the weeds and we're still working on the logistics to that. So, >> one thing worth mentioning um for both the morning and the afternoon is Tom alluded to this, but we're we have in the past always used a a system where all of the buses arrive at the same time in the morning. So, let's say they show up at 7:37, doors open, everybody gets out all at the same time. This is really using more of a phased approach where buses are kind of coming in over a longer period of time. And this is something we've had conversations with our principles about. Um at the secondary level, they love that idea. 15 minute window for kids to be coming in. Makes it a lot easier for breakfast, for kids to kind of come in, get their breakfast. Secondary kids like to have that time to kind of connect with your friends, maybe get settled into the day before you start right off into classes. So, they were really excited about that. It is a change at the elementary and it will require some changing in how we supervise and we've had conversations initially with principles and we'll have a lot more with them about what that would look like because elementary students will be coming in a little bit earlier than what they're used to and it'll be kind of phased into where there's a small group of kids coming in um within a couple minutes of each one. So, it is a different model, but again, food service is excited about it because when you get 300, 400 kids all coming into breakfast at one time, it's a little chaotic and this give kids a little more time to just ease into the day instead of being rushed. Um, so we're we're looking forward to that, but it is a change and something we're coordinating with our schools. >> Yeah. >> How messy does weather get when when when everything is has to be so precise to make this all function? What what happens when it snows? >> It's similar to what we have going on now. It really is because if you you'll have delays, so it may end up holding the bus. And I just sat down with the contractor today because that was one of the questions that came up and we dealt with that in St. Cloud as well. And basically what I I look at is if we're in the morning and we're bringing in students and a bus is running late, they may have to because I know once they're leaving there, they might have a second run. So that run might be established a little bit. So the the bus garage could actually dispatch possibly to go do that. The question is is we have all those transfers, right? That bus might have to just go drop off and then drop off at those other sites. So we have to have a plan B in place, right? So I kind of look at that already and then I look at and going as a bus driver myself and as you as well we have to think outside the box and going I have to step up to help. So I know going okay you know what let me grab these kids and I can help facilitate this because I know you're coming. So we just have to kind of work on what our plan our original plan is and then if there are some delays because we know from those furthest points I almost expect that. That's why when I look at routing, I bring them in the closest wave because now if we have a wave, a time uh like a time window that we can drop instead of being very specific, even if we're 10 minutes late, I have a little bit of a buffer, right? So that could give us enough room to not even even really phase any movement issues at all. It might delay a group getting to school instead of they're one of the early groups. They might be one of the last groups, but they're still there on time. Does that make sense? So, >> thank you. The audience can't hear. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Say all that again. [laughter] >> Can I ask how um this is one we get a lot of parents rely on kind of that bus app? How does our bus app handle kind of the tr the transfer system? >> Will it will there be any interruption or will No. So the app is designed so how we have the student scheduled. Okay. We don't currently scan um so the parent can't use that. But what they can do because we'll have them established they'll they'll pick up bus and then they'll make a transfer at that location. that app should be tracking that and then once that bus that other bus is there and then once it starts moving then that parent will know that okay it continued on that route and then it makes the drop. >> So those apps are designed to actually show a transfer. They're not designed they're not just solely designed for a single ride. They're designed to actually show transfers. >> Great. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Can I ask a quick question? Um, for the afternoon drop sites, um, the North Central West, will those be schools as well or will they be outside of the district? >> They'll all be schools. >> They'll all be schools. That's really important. All of these sites, I think, um, parents need to know, are at school buildings. Kids are not standing out waiting for buses. They're going to be transferring from one bus directly to another. Um, especially at the start, we will have a lot of staff on hand to help people navigate and figure out where they're going. Uh, so we've had a lot of conversation about that as well. Yeah, definitely. We've said it it will be messy the first couple days, but frankly, transportation in general is really messy the first couple of days. I mean, kids are learning, staff are learning, it's a lot. Um, but I think once they get into the routine, as we've seen with our charters and nonpublic who already do this, um, it's after they get used to it, it's not a big deal. >> Yeah. >> Um, I don't know if it was policy or just practice. Um, previously we didn't mix older and younger kids on a bus. Is that going to change? You'll have a high schooler with an elementary on the bus now. >> Well, I would argue we have been doing this again for years with our charters and nonpubliclix for um I don't know the number of years, but for quite a long time we've run a model like that and um we have also seen some positives from that. One thing I'll talk about later, but from a parent standpoint, um you can send all your kids off to the stop together, they get on the bus together, and you're done. You can go about your day, right? instead of having to get your little one on and now we have to wait for the middle schooler to get on and they're the ones that are dragging and you're kind of like rushing them out the door. So, I think there's some benefit to that. We've also talked about um what some of our drivers do for our current routes like this is they have the kids that are older sit in the back, the little kids up front, middle areas, maybe if siblings want to sit together. Um so, we would definitely have some of those practices in place which we know work. Um and this again the the kids riding together is maybe a little unique to our public school families but something that happens across the state um very commonly. >> All right then you did answer this question so I'll alter it a little bit. So the kids will go to the elementary school then they might be shuttling over to the other school. They'll be waiting in a bus. You know they're not going to be standing out on the sidewalk. Uh having said that so you might have multiple buses because you're going to have more than a bus load going to the high school or the other middle school. Will they just once one bus fills up it goes and then the next one starts filling up? >> Are you talking about like at a transfer site in the morning? >> At a transfer site either morning or afternoon. >> Yep. That's what we're Well, in the afternoon it has to be very specific. Um because it depends on where they're going and we want that timing to to go. So let's say I had four buses going to like Rutherford from the high school and they were mostly high school. Each one of those buses with the high school leaving 10 minutes earlier than the middle school. So if they're going up to Rutherford to help cover that area, they each have time to maybe make a stop or two. So they'll make a stop or two on that southern part of Rutherford for high school and then go into Rutherford to make those transfers. And then what they're going to do is they're going to sit there and collect all the middle Stillwater Middle School, St. Croy Prep, >> uh St. Croy Catholic, and the New Height students. And then what they do is what I've noticed is it literally takes like 10 to 15 minutes sometimes to get to some of these neighborhoods. We actually go up there and it's actually quite unique because you go up there and it's like, okay, I have all these kids dump dump dump dump. I drop them off and it actually shortens their ride in some of these cases really quickly. And that's what I've noticed. It's just the timing effect of getting a timing to when they get released, what wave they get loaded, just that whole timing piece. But if we have a delay, we have a delay. It doesn't move anything. We don't want students to transfer until all those buses are on site. Dr. >> So Tom, the question is in the morning kids pull in to Rutherford. They there's a bus going to the high school. That bus gets filled up. It leaves for the high school. >> That is correct. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Y >> moving on. Um just a little bit more about the why for the transfer model. As we talked about, um we currently are on a three- tier system. One of the things we have found with the three- tier system is um we're charged by two-hour increments and that third tier often takes us into excess charges which get expensive. Um by eliminating that third tier, we're eliminating excess charges which um really helps us to save some money. It also reduces um the total number of buses that we need. As we kind of talked about, we're using our buses much more efficiently, filling them full, and we don't need as many. Um that helps us a lot in our rural areas on the north and south side of the district. Um, we can ensure that we're doing safe transfers by again having those at school sites, having staff, working with our bus drivers to keep kids on the buses. And I alluded to this already, but from a parent standpoint, I think that that simpler morning routine is definitely a win. Um, I've talked to several parents who have been frustrated this year because, you know, sometimes it's kids are getting picked up at different places. there's sometimes a special ed bus that they have to get their one kid to that need need some help and assistance while their little kids going over here. It gets really challenging when you have all these different routines in the morning. So, from a family standpoint, um you can send your big kids out with your little ones, have them wait together at a bus stop, they all get on together in order to make this work. Um, one of the things we're talking about doing is being able to adjust the elementary start time and end time a little bit. um we don't need as much time in between tiers as we did in the past because we're not sending buses all the way out in all the way back out. So we are thinking that we could get our start time more to a 7:55 or an 8:00. This is a real win I think from our families. We had a lot of feedback when we switched start times about that 7:45 elementary start time being so early and there was a desire by many to could it be eight? Could it be closer to eight? So this would allow us to do that. um it really supports that model for us and we feel it would be a benefit to families as well. Um so it would change the start day. The end time would also then be adjusted to reflect that and we're still kind of working on what that timing would be but trying to get closer to that 8:00 start time is is a goal with this. >> How would this impact pickup time? If there are kids getting picked up at 7:15 today, what would that mean? Yeah, we've started looking at that and really it's about the same and you can you know more than I do about that, but >> it's a very good question. It kind of depends on the neighborhood. What we've seen in so far in our platform that we've been routing is it stays the same. It could have up to a 10-minute uh longer ride. But keep in mind when I set that first term up to just do the planning state, I created a 15minute buffer where I was dropping 15 minutes earlier because I wasn't sure on what timing how the whole timing piece was going to play out. So we actually used some of our students in the far like a south aftton area and actually it it buffed it. It came out about the same if anything five minutes shorter overall ride time. So, it it's one of those that our whole goal is to keep that ride about the same. It might go up a little bit, but ultimately keeping that ride at that 75 minute or less for sure. And what I'm seeing is it actually drops it. >> And overall, our average ride time for this is a is about 20 minutes. And then where we see the exceptions again are the far far reaches. But in those even as we're pulling those numbers, they look very similar to what they are currently. So, we're not asking kids to get on buses a lot earlier than they currently are. That's part of why we're shifting times, too. Um, by pushing this elementary start time back, we don't have to be running our buses out quite as early. >> I guess my point is there's very little benefit to moving to the 8:00 time for parents that you have a lot of parents pushing back saying, "Hey, it doesn't actually benefit them at all if they're still having their pickup at the same time." Is that I mean, am I am I listening to this right or am I missing something? There are a significant significant number of parents who drop their kids off and who do not like the 7:45 start time. Okay. So, that's what we're talking about. >> And we were talking largely about the high I maybe misunderstood you. We were talking about the high school. That's where we were feeling like we've heard feedback from just internally as we were talking about that that our high school kids are going to have to be getting on the bus so much earlier. That's what I was referring to. For a lot of our elementary school kids, um they're going to be picked up later too because we're adjusting that time. So, if you live close to your school and you already have a short ride, you're going to be getting picked up later um because we're adjusting that time, too. Does that help? >> Okay. I we were answering that from more of a high school standpoint. >> And I will say when we were when we were deciding on the start times, we were hoping to get to 8:00 and when we didn't, there was a lot of feedback that parents and families were disappointed that we were at that 7:45 in elementary and not that 8:00. So, I I really appreciate you guys not forgetting that feedback and trying to get that to a better spot because I think it will help some. >> Anecdotally, I'm a Lake EML parent and it was just in the newsletter again about the importance of trying to get your kid to school on time. That 7:45 is what time we start because I know they continue to have even now this far into the year a lot of kids who are showing up 5, 10, 15 minutes late to school. So, um I think this will help for some of some of our families. Okay. So, what all this means for our our students, we talked about siblings are able to ride together and neighborhoods are able to ride together, too. Um, so your friends that maybe go to a different school, you can actually hang out with on the bus on your drive to school. Um, it's much more direct bus routes and there could even be shorter ride times as um Tom started to allude to for some kids this is going to shorten their ride times and we talked about that drop off window too on the front end and the back end. We do know that there's going to be concerns. Um we've already heard some of them from you. The the mixed ages on buses is definitely something new for our families and so um we are planning to communicate with them to talk about what that looks like and also to take feedback on how we can make that work. Right? We've seen it work with our charters and nonpubliclix. We know other districts are working but maybe from our parents they'll give us some feedback on how we can make sure that that's effective for families. Um we got some feedback from one of our non-publiclix that they were concerned about their kids riding with public school kids. So, there are some that's also a change for some of our families to be on buses with different schools. Um, the transfers that we we chatted about, we were intentional about making sure our elementary kids don't have to transfer because that would definitely be a concern as my preschool or kindergartener trying to figure out which bus to ride. Um, so they'll be having that direct service. And then with the ride times was obviously one of your first concerns. We know parents will be asking that too. So, we're already putting together frequently asked questions and updating our website um tomorrow morning. There'll be new information on our website including FAQs and we'll continue to get that feedback from families and help address those concerns. >> Um, what's going to happen with like our special programming hubs like for GATE and for our AU families? Is that factored into this process? >> Continue to offer hub stops. Yes. >> Separate from this. >> It will be part of this process. >> Yes. >> Okay. Integrated into this. Yep. >> Okay. Cool. Um, you probably said this already and I just didn't absorb it. So, and your third bullet point here, more direct routes. I'm picturing the high school kid. He's up there somewhere and previously or currently he go right to school. You know, just make stops along the way. But now, he or she is going to stop at an elementary school, linger for a while, get on another bus, then go there. That's going to lengthen their time. And we just gave those kids an hour of sleep. Are we taking some of that away from them now? So looking at that, because if you look at the high school runs right now, >> uh, >> we're going way up there and we're picking up one child here, one student here, one here. And when you look at the total miles for that route, they're quite lengthy. Some of those are really long, like an hour and 40 minutes long. Now, that's not from their first stop. It takes that long for them to get up there. So those routes are running well over an hour. it it's pushing the 75minut threshold especially on the far northern and far south. So what we have going on now is we're actually going that neighborhood and picking up everybody. It's fewer stops. So what you're seeing is that first first leg if I'm going to Rutherford is actually the same or it's actually shorter because it's fewer stops. It's just we're picking up that many students because we're picking up everybody in that neighborhood. Fewer stops between the two routes. Correct. The >> Yeah. Because we don't have that the geographic footprint for the route is going to be a lot less when we're picking up everybody because we can't fit everybody on the bus. >> Okay. I think I'm getting >> So instead of covering this big area with one bus, you're covering a smaller portion with one bus everybody. >> Does that make sense? >> Thanks. >> Yeah. See, and I looked at some of the footprints that we currently are doing, and then I looked at and said, "Oh, I can have one bus just do this, and it has everybody." So, I don't have to run three buses in there. Now, I'm only running one. That's perfect. And the AM the PM is still we run the two because the elementary still has their own run. So, >> okay. So, that's the transfer model. We'll move on to um Oh, I'm sorry, the impact on the charter and private schools. So, we are also looking at changing school hours for um SR Catholic, St. Curry Prep, and New Heights to make this work better. We've had conversations with the leadership at all three of the schools. They're well aware of the plans and the impacts on them. Um and overall, we're supportive of the change and and working with us. Um I think we've covered all those other things. One thing that we've we haven't talked about is we are also trying to make sure that our service to charter and privates is more consistent with what we're doing at the district level, too. Um we had discovered last year that we were providing um we didn't have the no walk bus zones around a charter or private school. So kids weren't walking, they were getting a bus no matter where they were. And so we have changed that. One example is like inspiration across from St. Croy Prep um is within a walk zone. They have a crosswalk and a light and all that crossing guards and things there that make it a safe walk for kids. So we are just making sure that we use the same standards that we're using. Um we talked about the no busing for outofd district students who are going to a charter privates. So switching gears completely um another thing that we have discovered is our special education costs are continuing to rise. A lot of our specialized transportation um there are times where we were running solo routes for students. We were doing a lot of different things that are very expensive. A van costs the same as running an entire school bus. Um, so we've been working really closely with our special education team and with our vendor to try to figure out how we can find more efficiencies in special education. And um, this was another idea from from Tom that I think makes a lot of sense, and that's to run a few of our own vans. Um, not to take over the entire van fleet, but to have a few vans that are district- owned. We have district drivers that will be able to run some of those more expensive routes that um, we could take off of our overall vendor. um from our vendor and take those over. And the big change is in our midday routes. So these are kids, a lot of them who are going to maybe a care and treatment type program or who are being shuttled between buildings for different services. Um there's a lot of kids in those situations. Some of these are 5 to 20 minute drives and we get charged in two-hour increments. So, if we could run our own van, we could utilize um that van to pick up a lot of these kids, drop them off, and kind of run during that whole time instead of being charged in these these increments. So, this is a way for us to save some money um be more efficient and take over some of those more expensive costs. We have purchased three vans already this year and we're looking at another three vans. These are capital expenses. Um so, we we would purchase the vans from capital dollars and we think we could run these at was it a third of the cost of what our vendors run them. really close to that. >> Why don't we do the entire van fleet? >> We don't have that many capital dollars. I mean, we run how many vans through our vendor right now? >> Uh, right now, currently, I'm seeing about 38. >> We've had that conversation. >> There there's a number of factors there. So, we would have to set up our own dispatch. We would have to right now the bus facility, we own the bus facility, but our vendor has rights to the entire facility. We don't there's no room for us there. Um so where would we put the vans? Um and then the the third component is the maintenance component of it, which is all right, we'd have to hire maintainers, have a shop, you know. So we are incrementally growing. I will tell you my intent is to own all the vans eventually, but we're we're dipping into it at this point. >> Tom and I are over here going because another thing I [laughter] did mention that we've talked about too is just the staffing, trying to hire, keep people in play. I mean, it's it's a lot um with these positions to just maintain the staffing piece, too. Um >> you have experience in this. >> The day-to-day operations I cannot express. I know you see it a little bit, but it's just as a I've held every position and being the director, it is very intense and you have to really keep your eye on the ball because there's moving pieces every minute and that's that's key. So, >> so maybe for the future, but our idea was we just dip our toe and try it for a while. Um, and >> for a third of the cost, I'm okay with your brow sweating. [laughter] >> I know. I know. >> Yeah, >> I'll take the heat. >> Yeah. So, definitely um a phased approach. So again, we bought two or three vans this year. We're actually um we have some driver positions that are out there right now that we're trying to hire so that we could maybe utilize for the last month or two of the school year to try this out and then have a couple more next year and really be able to get this going and see how it works for us. >> And and the intent really is, you know, our contract with Schmidy's expires in two and a half years and we'll have an opportunity to renegotiate, you know, bus garage, everything to be on the table at that point. and and we did meet with them back in November or December. Uh met with the ownership and told them we are this is a direction we're going. So we give them the heads up that this is something we're doing and it's complete within our contractual rights. >> So overall looking at the things that we've discussed so far, our projected cost savings um are broken out in a couple of different areas. We're conservatively estimating about 663,000 in savings. Um we are not yet sure how much we will save on the walk zones that we talked about. We're Brookville alone, we've been out um Tom and Courtney and Julie have actually been out there walking paths and got their little phones out making sure that the mileage is right and comparing it to what our software says. Um we really think that there's probably a bus load or more of kids just there that we would save. And again, we're doing that at all of our elementary schools. So we have yet to determine that. We think our cost savings will be upwards of this. We also don't know exactly what it will look like with our um van fleet. If we can really use that and turn those around and use those vans um efficiently, we should be able to have a higher cost savings there, too. So, this is what we feel comfortable saying right now, but we're really hopeful that it can be a higher number than this. >> Okay. Um, is there um like a logistical or financial reason why it wouldn't make sense to um move everything like the like the so all the start times are later? Does that mess up like the end days too like the end times too much? Okay. Okay. [snorts] >> Yep. >> Okay. Did I just push the things back too much? >> Okay. Um this is something you have seen before. I think we shared this last spring maybe as we just look at our transportation costs. Um it's important to note that um this is a very rapidly rising expense for us. You'll see the difference um especially across the bottom of total expenditures. The numbers on top do not add up to the numbers on bottom because there's some staffing and some other things that are factored into the bottom number. Um but when we spend $14 million from our budget on transportation, it's clear why we have to make some of these changes. And I think that's important for our families to understand too is we want to focus our dollars on the classroom. Um and so if we can do things to be more efficient while still providing safe and reliable transportation then um you know that's that's really what we're trying to accomplish with this. There's a lot of communications that need to happen around this. Um so we are already working on messaging. As I mentioned the website is being updated tomorrow. There'll be FAQs and more information about all these changes. We will be having some direct conversation with families who are impacted. Like as we think about those walk zones, there'll be communications to families letting them know um that they are now in a walk zone and explaining why. Um so all of that will be happening between now and the end of the school year. We do have a tra transportation opt-in process that will be happening. I think we're opening that window at the end of February. Yes. trying to get that information as much as we can before spring break, but for sure by the end of March with the plans to really route in April and May with our preliminary routes so that we can have a really good um plan in place and also so we have time to very carefully proof and make sure all this is going to work as we actually get into the specific kids going to specific places. Um we had a conversation today with Schmides and Suns to share this with them. Um we they've been a great partner to us this year. um they've helped us find a lot of efficiencies and we're committed to working with them to make this work. Obviously for them as a vendor, they want it to be successful. We want it to be successful and we'll continue to to partner with them to make this work. And ultimately by the end of July, well before the start of the school year, families will get their route information and um know exactly what things will look like for next year. We don't want them to have any surprises by July. So it's really important for us to get all of this information out to them ahead of time so they know what to expect. I think >> yeah I just had I mean and I know you guys are thinking of this but last year was I think the first year that I didn't hear a lot of start of school bubbling up issues on transportation. I know in past years it it has been quite messy. So part of me is um a little apprehensive on you know changes initially. You know, it's necessary but difficult, but I know that we want to make sure the experience for our families. Yes. >> So, this is going to be a crazy statement, but the transportation team we have in place right now has probably been together as long as any team that since I've been in this district. And so and for sure by the time when when school starts um all three of the the routers will have had significant experience in what they're doing. So trained um experience in putting the routes together. So I'm feeling much much more comfortable about um where we're at with uh with the team that [snorts] Chris and Tom are are working with here. And I think the reality is I mean the state is cutting funding for special needs transportation. Um there are challenges budgetarily all you know across the landscape. So these operational efficiencies are hugely important to the classroom and to our students and families. So I appreciate that. Uh Director Theander. >> Yeah. No, thank you for the work that you and your team are doing on this. Um obviously the um you know transportation logistics are critically important to the strategic direction of our district. You know both financially of course as we're seeing with some of the cost savings but operationally and even just from a community trust standpoint. So uh I know these changes can be hard for families and and and unfortunately I know that you're on the front line with you and your team of hearing all the tough um feedback. Um, so I would just ask community just to be thoughtful and and and u know that we're trying to do a lot uh for as uh Chair Sherman mentioned for for less money and we're doing our best to keep it in the classroom and um unfortunately you have to be the bearer of some of that and uh just want to thank you for the continued work that you're doing and um you know just being creative and curious to find new ways to do things better. So appreciate it. >> Awesome. >> Oh, thank you. I I just want to make a comment if I may. Um it I knew coming here it was going to be a struggle. Um some areas are a little bit more difficult than what I was anticipating. Um but I told everybody around me I was very transparent. I'm going to be the person asking questions. Why? Why are we doing it this way? >> Because without asking that question and planting that seed of going why are we doing it that way? Is there a better way to do this? because we could actually be doing it that way to help save costs. So th those kinds of things I'm going to continue just diving in. This is just the start and you're absolutely right. The changes are um if a person just looked at that they are pretty dramatic but this is a normal piece to a lot of districts in the state already. So but I understand that it is a change here because everybody's been used to that. I do want that comfort level too. Um, that's why I'm a pre-planner. I want our routes actually pretty much established before the end of this school year. That gives my team and myself and our contractor enough time to actually review, proofread, and actually to coordinate because with these changes, our drivers need to understand what we expect of them at these transfer sites and how do we respond with these issues, not just having the route, right? And kind of looking at those issues. So there there's a lot of thought process into that. So and that's usually what I've always looked at on the routing side. So >> thank you Tom. We appreciate that. >> Thank you. >> Yes. >> Say uh thank you. Uh and then two comments. Uh thank you for creativity and and the effort you're putting into this. The two comments would be one I do have concerns around the age uh of students uh on the bus together. um and look forward to seeing how we're going to address that and how we're going to creatively um come up with a plan for that. The second is um regarding for the internal van fleet um looking forward to seeing how we are going to measure the savings on that and um make sure that the utilization is being used and we're tracking that. So look forward to hearing both of those. >> Okay. Can I share what I shared with? >> Um, on one of your last slides, the the bottom I'm sorry. >> Yeah. So, the the 14 million >> there's routes, but there's also field trips, sports, uh, ski clubs, and transfers between schools. Is that part of the 14 million? >> Okay. So, right now we're looking at routes and all that other stuff will just come later, right? >> So, we've had some conversations about >> So, I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you a great one right now, Pete. Okay. So we had a conversation with the AD three months ago, two, three months ago. >> That's correct. >> And so I mean I want to share everybody in this administrative team is take looking at how do we reduce costs in this district. So the AD came to us and said, "Okay, we have ninth grade baseball driving across the Twin Cities to play Minnotonka. You know how expensive that is for our for a bus to take ninth graders across the Twin Cities, wait for the game, drive them back, etc., etc. Do you think there's enough teams between here and Minnotonka that we could be playing locally for a lot less cost um from a transportation angle? And it was like yeah absolutely. So now he's putting parameters in place. Sub varsity here's kind of the circle we want you want you uh competing in u because again okay everyone realizes we have got some pretty significant costs here. So that's something we're taking a look at as well. Um and and there's some other things with the vendor you know that that you're aware of that we have some pretty interesting costs uh associated with activities. So we're looking at that too. Thank you. >> Any more question? >> Just make one um comment. Thank you for this. It was a really interesting um conversation and again very creative. Um I've been on the board through a number of cycles of busing changes um and they never tend to be popular. So I am very much bracing myself for um what people are going to have to say. That being said, there's definitely pieces of this that I'm really excited about for once. [laughter] So, um I love the neighborhoods that people are coming together in neighborhoods. I mean, it'd be great for my kids to ride with their neighborhood friends again. Like, that that is a significant piece. And in terms of the multi-age, I mean, yes, I I can understand how some parents might be hesitant. I can see how others would be thrilled to have their kindergartenner go with their fifth grader or their their ninth grader or whatever on the same bus and take care of each other and opportunities for leadership among the different ages. So, um, I can definitely see some of anticipate some of the arguments against it, but I can really see a lot of potential in this and also the 8 8:00 start for those elementary school students and maintaining um, getting our kids and quite frankly all of our kids, including our public and charter or non-public and charter schools. Um, they will also be benefiting from this change as well. Um, and I know I'm not supposed to be necessarily looking out for them, but I am like I appreciate that we are serving all of our kids in the district in our boundaries um, in a much better way. So, in addition to the opportunities to save cost, which we absolutely need to find. So, I am really excited about this. I know people are not going to be, but I am. Thank you. >> You're welcome. And um Tom, I just want to say I I appreciate and I know this comes from the entire team um from Dr. Funk and his his team, leadership team, Carissa, everyone, but I appreciate the thought process now that you have some stability under the team to say why do we do that curiosity as director Theelander said, why would do we do it this way? How can we better serve students? How can we serve students better in a more efficient manner? is going to pay off dividends um in these tight times. So, thank you very much for this. >> And Courtney and Julie aren't here today, but I need to give them a shout out, too, because to that point, the questions, they have amazing questions. They're finding a lot of things that I don't think we would have seen. Um and they're doing a lot of hard work to help us come up with these solutions. So, they need a little shout out, too. >> Absolutely. >> And they're the ones who take angry phone calls. So, [laughter] >> they they really do. They really do. They are kind of our upfront. I would like to make a comment to kind of address the age group. um if I may because when I talked with the contractor today I know that was one um interesting eyesight that I got when I mentioned that I'm used to that as in St. Cloudor and Becker. We did that and that is a normaly depending on where you're at in the state. How and as a bus driver, how we dealt with that is the youngest ones always up front. Preschool, kindergarten, first grade, the older ones in the back. Here's where it gets a little tricky. And I'm not going to say this funny, but it is kind of funny because I do have families that siblings absolutely cannot sit together. [laughter] And then I have families that siblings absolutely have to sit together. So, how do I adjust that? This is how I addressed it as a director. I said, 'Okay, if the older sibling has to sit with the students, I'm going to put your mind at ease. They're going to sit with your younger student, but they have to sit up towards the front. Why? I don't need your younger sibling sitting in the back hearing stuff that they probably shouldn't be hearing because as a bus driver, you would know I can't hear very clearly beyond the third or fourth seat because it gets muffled. >> I need to be able to hear what's actually going on. And that's where the limitation of those little shenanigans are going to go off. And honestly, in the morning, it's usually not an issue. It's usually in the afternoon. So, that's just from my 30 some years of experience. >> Bringing up that we we and we have policies in place that bus riding's a not a right, it's a privilege and behavior expectations are there. And so, there would be hopefully some of the communication around that will include some of those expectations. So, >> yes, absolutely. So, and I I I've seen it where we do bus ridership in neighborhoods and that does seem to help facilitate that >> because everybody knows everybody. So, that actually simplifies a lot of stuff. >> Great. >> So, >> well, thank you for this information. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Okay, our next item up for this evening is a negotiations update and Chris will be coming up for that. Well, good evening um board members. Thank you for having me. Um [snorts] so um at the board's request and as part of our commitment to regular updates um I'm here today to provide an update on negotiations um and um also to provide a little bit of clarity around our teacher salary structure. Um, as many of you know, the teacher contract is a continuing contract, and that means that current terms and conditions of employment remain in effect unless or until they're modified through the negotiations process, which occurs every two years. Even during periods when a new agreement has not yet been finalized, the existing contract continues. I'll provide more detail on negotiations at the end of the presentation, but for now, we'll begin with an overview of the teacher salary schedule. And just as we start this part of the discussion, um I just want to remind everyone, I think you're mostly all aware of this, that um the salary schedule is just one part of compensation for our staff. So there's medical benefits, there's taxes, retirement, and all of that that all um contributes to total comp. But right for today, we're just focusing on salary schedule. Um, across Minnesota, most districts use a similar uh step and lane approach um for teacher pay, although placement and overall um compensation levels vary by district. Um, other employee groups in our district also have experienced steps um in their um salary structures um or wage schedules. Um but for them, lanes are more um um about different jobs. So when you move a lane or a level that's a different job with different skills that are required um and different levels of responsibility. Um for teachers it's a very unique situation because um the teacher has the same job but there are different um lanes within that. So as we move forward here so the um this is just definitions just to get everybody on the same page here. Um steps are determined by levels of experience. Um there are 19 steps in our teacher salary schedule. Um a lane is a level of education or graduate credits earned. So there are 10 lanes in our schedule. Um and then the negotiated um schedule adjustment. This is when um a percentage change happens to the entire schedule. Um most of our units uh in this round have negotiated about a 2% annual increase. Um so steps and lanes um those movements are in addition to that salary schedule adjustment. So here's an example. Um this is a a step change. So teachers earn steps for years of service. Um and this is a built-in annual progression. Um so in our example here we have um bachelor step one to bachelor step two. So you can see there the difference in pay. Um and again that is before um any negotiated um adjustment to the schedule. Um for our purposes the um entry step for a bachelor step one is $53,710 and the top step for a PhD step 19 is $108,366. Then we have a lane. Um so lanes are educational experience or educational credits earned. So um a teacher applies for a graduate program. Um and um it's an approved they have to get pre-approval and so they earn those graduate credits and then they move lanes. Um so you can see the example there is a BA to a BA15. Um and so you can see the the pay change for that. Um this system is set up to reward professional growth and advancement. Um which is is critical for our for our teachers to keep moving forward with their um educational experience. Then um we have what happens if there's a combination. So at times um and in many instances teachers will be working on their graduate credits and they'll take their credits um and they'll get um then they get a step and a lane at this at the same time or about the same time. We always get um many more um lane changes in the fall. And so then at that point um assuming we have already have a contract settled, they're going to get their step um increase and then they're going to get their their lane change increase at the same time. And so there you can see the difference um for a step and lane combination. Any questions so far? I'm going kind of fast here. Looks like we're good. >> Okay. Um so this is an example of kind of mid and late career examples. Um so the first one there, masters 45, step five moving to step six. Um and then M's plus 45 credits step 16 to step 17. Um so as a person gets as a person gets higher in the salary schedule those those step increases get a little smaller. Um but when we get someone um one step off of 19, so essentially what we would consider like step 21, then those teachers are eligible for longevity pay. Um, so longevity pay is um currently at $65 a year per year of service um with an average of around $1,700 for teachers who have earned that. >> Um, I do have a question on that. Um, just to clarify, that's that's something that's not a one-time no longevity. Okay. Thank you. Nope. Um so this slide just breaks out kind of gives you an idea of where our teachers are on the salary schedule. You can see that um you know we have the the vast majority of our teachers are in the late career stage. Um and this was based on um numbers we had this fall. Um, and then Stillwater Area Public Schools, um, has paid teachers very well over the last few years. And I think what that tells us really is, um, that the teachers union has done a really good job of negotiating. Um, and also that when the district has had money, it has applied it to teacher salaries. So, I think, um, those two things have worked well. Um so as far as the negotiations um update, this is pretty small, but this has been up here before. So these are um the meeting dates that we've um that we have had thus far with the with the SCA. And so you can see that last one there is our meeting this Friday. This is a slide that we've shared before. Um so this just shows the board um where everybody else has settled. Um and then um I am very um pleased to say that we have had our first meeting with our nutrition services unit. Um and so um we will be um we're in the process of costing out what their interests are and then we'll be moving forward with that process in the next couple of weeks. Um and then in addition to that um we also received notice just this last week um from the PAR association that they um have submitted their intent to to bargain. So we will be moving forward with that one too probably later in the spring perhaps over the summer if that's an option. Um so um as we conclude I hope that this overview has helped clarify how the salary schedule is structured and how step and lane movement work um within that framework. The intent was to make the mechanics clear so that conversations could be um could have a shared understanding. And then lastly we continued to meet with the SCA negotiations team since announcing our mutual intent to move to mediation and that continued work has brought us closer to a settlement. I want to acknowledge that our discussions remain professional and respectful and productive. And while perspectives differ at times, both teams are committed to serving students and staff and maintaining the long-term stability of the district. We view mediation as a constructive next step in the process and look forward to working with the mediator to help us reach an agreement. can for the um for the board and for the community. Can you explain a little bit about how mediation will work and >> yeah what we can expect. >> So um it sounds a little a little bit funny but we have two rooms set aside and um the um sea will be in one room and um district negotiators will be in the other and then there is um a mediator who just goes um back and forth between the two rooms. Um we will um each party will have their own documentation and paperwork to share with um with the mediator. Um and then we will have ours ready to roll. Um and then that person really just goes back and forth. Here's what here's what's been offered here. You know, talks about, you know, the pros and cons of that and then the same on our side of it until we hopefully reach an agreement. So that's a plan for the full day. >> Okay. >> So we've set aside a full day. >> Great. >> Any questions for Chris? >> Um could you flip back a couple slides to the teacher salary schedule? Just the the one with the early mid late career the box. That one. Yes. Thank you. Um this one caught my eye because I um going through the audit there was a page that kind of did an actual breakdown of every single lane and how many teachers were in it. And I definitely noticed we have some very um tenure teachers which is wonderful and really um benefits our students a lot. Can you talk a little bit about the early we only have 66 in the earlier. Why are we having trouble recruiting people or is it just people stay and we don't have that many positions opening up. >> So I would say it's a mixed bag. I think people stay. >> Okay. >> Um but kind of to that you know to that nearly the last slide um we have a we have a very um rich contract. I mean this that there are a lot of benefits to working here. Um and so we attract um experienced teachers which benefits our students. Um and they're placed higher on the wage schedule on that salary schedule. Um up to up up to nine years of experience is is directly um given credit for and so they'll land on step 10. So they you know that's a draw um that recognizing that experience and then um the associated um pay that rolls with that. So, if I'm understanding this correctly, a lot of our new teachers are maybe mid-career already um and joining our district, right? >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> This was very helpful. I know um when I'm out in the community, I get a lot of questions. So, having this laid out is very helpful for the board and for people watching at home. So, thank you very much. um your efforts. I want to say just in kind of I know it's been new to come bring these updates to the board table and um I really appreciate your efforts because I know it takes time to to come and and prepare something. So, thank you. >> Absolutely. It's my pleasure. >> Thank you. >> All right. Our next item is a construction update. And with that, we'll welcome Mark and Heather. You guys want to sit by me? Okay. [laughter] >> He knows which side the bread is butter. [laughter] >> All right. With that, good evening, Chair Sherman, superintendent of [laughter] Punk, members of the board. Um, tonight we have a few items here. The first one is a construction update. um kind of update you the progress of our new Bayport Elementary, the new Lake Elmo Elementary, and then the Oakland remodel as well as addition. So, I'll start with the elementary schools. Um just kind of an overview. Uh last fall, we took the first tour with the staffs kind of end of September, early October. They got to sense kind of walk through the building. There wasn't a lot of cement down or even framing, but just get a sense of kind of the construction, what that looked like. Between now and spring break, we're going to take the staffs through the building again. Um, but you'll see kind of where we're at from a progress standpoint and then we'll do it again one more time um kind of late spring before the school year is out to kind of get a really sense what their space is going to look like as they think about and plan over the summer and get ready for next school year. >> Hang on, Mark. She's looking for he's going to be done before. I know he's going to be done before I get >> No, we're fine. still still the interim. >> Um with the elementary schools, we are on budget and on time with both elementary schools. Um Oakland is a little bit different. Oakland, we are on budget, but unfortunately with Oakland, um we are delayed a little bit. Come late fall, we had our steel contractor went out of business. So when it was their time to get ready to rock and roll, um they were not there and we went to to do a site visit and their their shop was totally empty. So, there was a process that we had to get involved with legal of terminating the contract and getting a new contract and those sorts of things. So, that's all settled, taken care of. Um, the steel now is in the shop drawings and getting ready to be um fabricated. So, hopefully in April is when we'll get our steel and kind of be back on track. So, once we get to the Oakland slides, I'll kind of talk through that a little bit more and some of the implications um that that looks like, but hopefully it's not going to have too big of a implication in the long run once it's all situated. So, let's just hold on that thought for one second until we get to um Oakland Middle School. As I go through each of these schools, I'll start with Bayport and then go to Lake Elmo and then go to Oakland. On the website, the Bond Project website, there's a um Spark page, a kind of a website that tracks the progress from last spring all the way up to now. And so, there's actually videos and pictures every month that they take. So, you can see the pictures from last June to August to October to date. So, you kind of see the progress um from each one of those. So see that these are just some of the images um to highlight some of that those spark pictures. So starting the exterior Bayport Elementary. This is in the back of the building on on the south side but where the playground is in the blacktop area. So I'll start on the left side of the screen. The just reminder the Bayport Elementary is a river theme. So as you look at the left those classroom spaces kind of uh are supposed to simulate that sediment rock. So, if you're cruising down the river and you kind of look at the bluffs and the rock on the side, that sediment rock, it's a little dirty right now because it's in construction. Once it's done, they clean it. Um, it's really going to pop in the middle there where that glass is. Um, in our common space in our cafeteria, which you'll see that you're looking at is the media center. It kind of simulates a waterfall. So, as you're cruising down, kind of see waterfalls as you're cruising down the river. And then the right you don't see you see a little bit of it, but you kind of see a gray area. Um, that gray the gym is kind of the bluff. So, as you look at it from the from the front of the building, you can kind of see the overhang of the bluffs there. That gray in the back is kind of the gym. So, you have the waterfalls, you have the sediment rock, and then the bluff uh areas in the back. Now, [snorts] as we go through um some of these images, I'm going to just start at one side of the building, kind of work our way through. So, moving into the cafeteria. So, coming from the bus lane, you walk in the cafeteria. Some things to notice, the cafeteria here um is is almost complete. There's Tazzo flooring. Again, you can see the the blue with the river theme. You can see the waterfall windows there. Um, in the back middle, kind of towards the left, is that kitchen or the serving area. On the right side, that entrance is that vestibule out to the playground. So, easy access for kids for lunch recess um, in and out there. So, it's not disrupting learning as kids go outside and inside from that lunch recess standpoint. Looking at the gym, the gym is a one-station gymnasium. All of these gyms, as a reminder, are full basketball courts. They will be wood and they're full-size basketball courts. Currently, neither one of those buildings has a full-size court. Um, but eventually you're going to see right now the gym is used a lot for storage at all three of our sites. But here's kind of the the gym and and beginning a painting in there. Looking into the media center. So again, big open spaces. You see the natural light there off to the left. You're going to see that a theme in all of our spaces, whether it's a cafeteria, media center, classrooms, whatever that looks like. Um, so a lot of room for collaboration. Um, and our book stacks. On the bottom there is the media uh classroom. So it's adjacent to there. So if a classroom wants to come down there before they check out books or small groups of kids, there's a classroom on the bottom. The top is our science room. So that's kind of on the the bluff will be overlooking the media center kind of overlooking outside. Kind of really has a bird's eye view um for our science room upstairs. And then as we enter the classroom pods, um you can see the dry walls up um and the next phase is is painting and then casework um from the um classroom pods are on the right side there's a couple classrooms on the right. There's some small group rooms. It's kind of hard to see. If you look in the back there's kind of stairs. So this is a bottom level. Those stairs are going upstairs um to the top uh classrooms up above. But you can kind of get a sense of what that classroom learning pods look like. So I'm just going to kind of pause it there and I'll stop after elementaryaries and you'll see why here in a second. So when I get to Lake Elmo again you have that that spark page to track the progress at Lake Elmo Elementary as well. El Lake Elmo is actually the exact opposite. So if you notice where Bayport again from size and orientation of the building they start in the cafeteria work their way all the way to the to the classroom spaces where Lake Elmo you're going to see here the classroom spaces are more complete and they're working their way to the cafeteria. Just a couple different philosophies. They're both on track, ready to rock and roll. But you're going to notice like one classrooms are farther along, one cafeteria is farther along. Um, but it's all part of the plan. So, as we look at Lake Elmo here, um, that's a prairie theme. So, think of the adjacency to the Lake Elmo Park Reserve. So, that's kind of mimicking the stocks there on the prairie grass and the classroom space from the exterior point of view. [snorts] Looking into the media center, again, big open windows. Um, they're using the on the left picture, those doors are kind of using that as a as an entrance in and out for materials. So, they're not quite finished that area yet because that's one of the main thoroughfairs um for materials for our classroom spaces. You'll see that the stairs upstairs with the balcony. If you look really close on the stairs, you're going to notice the the railings are not even. They're not sequential. They're kind of angled a bit, trying to mimic the prairie grass kind of swaying in the wind. >> Is it safe? >> It is safe. Yes, it's all [laughter] Oh, there's the the spaces are are all up to date. Um, but that's kind of a intentional kind of homage to the to the prairie theme of that swaying um prairie grass in the wind. Now, looking at the classrooms here again, a little farther along, you can see um they're painted. The casework is starting to be um installed in there. Some of the classrooms have, you know, kind of the four walls that you're looking at on the right. Some on the left have a divider or a a glass or a sliding wall in between. That wall can be opened up completely or each every two panels is its own little um opening area. So you can open up just one little panel or you can open up two or just kind of use whatever that works for your lesson or your unit. You can open that up um as much as you want here throughout the day. Just moving on to a music room. Again, just noticing the natural light, the tall ceilings, kind of the big open spaces. One thing when you get to see it is just the size of those rooms relatively compared to their hundred-y old buildings that they're in right now. there's space in in all of our um learning spaces for our kiddos and staff to have great learning environments. And then now moving on to the cafeteria. So you can kind of see Bayport Cafeteria was pretty much done, ready to rock and roll. Um we're here. They're just getting to that area um with the framing and kind of moving on to that that next point from there. So I'll stop here from an element. Oops, sorry I lied. Um one more. Um looking at the gym uh the two-station gym. Um again, so just the size of Lake Elmo. There's two full-size courts um with a divider wall in the middle. Our gyms do double as the uh storm shelter, which we have to have by law in case there's a a severe weather incident. So, both of those will double as our uh storm shelters. So, with that, I'll stop before I get to Oakland and entertain any questions or comments that you may have. >> Uh full-size gyms, one at Bayport, two at Lake Elmo, >> correct? and full size. Is there any additional space around the outside? Uh so think if you ever been to Brookview, it's a full-size gym. You probably got three rows. Yep. You got bleachers, three rows of bleachers on one side for assemblies and and all class meetings and those sorts of things. At the middle school level, there'll be enough for them to have an assembly there to gather, which space they currently don't have. At the elementary level, you'll have those three rows of bleachers um in their gyms. >> Okay, great. Other questions before I move on? >> Okay, moving to Oakland. So, starting at the gym. So, the gymnasium is um almost complete. So, just waiting on a little steel. They're deck and joist. They're a little farther along um than the other ones. That's the exterior picture. Again, a picture here in the interior. And I'll get to the phasing here in a little bit. As we move to the six class edition, you'll see that um all the prep work and all the the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, all that ground work is done. There's actually blankets on top of it right now. So when that steel comes, they can pull off the blanket and ready to rock and roll. The plan is um for the exterior spaces. So the six classroom edition here, if you look at the next slide, there's a two classroom science edition is these will be ready by MEA. And so had conversations with the um principal Jardino and the administrative team there. They're okay with it. We'll be okay come fall in terms of classroom usage and those sorts of things. It's not ideal. Um, but to be honest, if we're going to have a a contractor go out of business, this was actually the site to have it happen because there's already a school and a way to um minimize that. Had it happened at one of the elementary schools would have been uh would have been a bigger deal. So, um, they're all ready to rock and roll with this. Looking at the last one here. So, there's kind of two phases. We just took a look at the additions there on the outside. At the bottom left, that green, excuse me, that blue is the two-station gym. Right above that, that green is the two science classrooms. And then to the right there of the gym, that green on the bottom is our six classroom edition. So now that the the gym should be ready to um be ready to rock and roll around sometime after spring break is what once they get the that um and that's very critical because the interior renovation is that's a critical path to make sure that has to be done day one before school starts. And so if you remember last year when we did the high school edition, we started on the high school edition about a month or two early to kind of get a head start because kids know the routines, they know the buildings, they know the spaces, so it's ready to go day one. Similarly here for um Oakland is we're going to take the gym as soon as that that steel comes. We're going to take the current gym which is going to be renovated into the media center as well as student support services. So, if you take a look at the right there, that orange student support services is your counselors, um is some of your family means therapists, some of those um individuals. Those spaces will start before school year's out. And again, have talked to the administration at Oakland. They're all set, ready to rock and roll. We have a plan for how that's going to shake out um to to go through there. So once the steel starts and and I'll update you in our weekly update about what that looks like and when the current gym and that current or that uh new students uh services suite will be offline and start construction so we're ready everything's ready to go day one from an interior standpoint and then just those six classrooms on the bottom and the two science classrooms on the on the left will be ones be done around MEA. So, just a reminder, the overall project is the two-station gym, the six classrooms, the two science rooms, two CIP rooms, um, which is special education rooms are the orange ones there on the top. A new media center. So, our current gymnasium becomes the media center. Um, that's the blue. A new music room is in the current gym, that blue, the bottom where it's red. And then a new design and make room because the design and make used to be where CIP is right now in that orange. So, just to kind of take you back of how we ended up here is we kind of took the current staffing when you add the new capacity, what type of rooms do we need? We knew we need new science rooms. Um, we need additional gyms. Uh, we need additional music classes. The other um subject we can incorporate in that six classroom um addition on the bottom. So, with that, I just want to take a minute to update you. And >> so, when is the work going to happen in the commons area with the media, the new media? Is that going to happen this spring? >> This will happen this spring. Y >> Okay. So then talking with Ann last fall, she's got a plan to to have kids move around wherever the construction is. >> Okay. >> Same thing we talked about high school. She'd rather have the disruption this spring when kids know the routines versus starting a week or two later and and having that disruption at the beginning of the year. So she's she's on board with it. >> And then when those classes come online in in October or next year, so you can just move them into it. But we since we're not at capacity yet. So, >> correct. Okay. >> Yep. >> And whether that's over a break or I mean I mean however that looks, we'll we'll work on that and what classes go there and those sorts of things. >> Very helpful. >> So that's what I have for um the project update. >> Great. Any questions? >> Thank you. >> One question. the the gym at the new gym at Oakland. Is that going to have a different parking access or somebody going to have to walk through the whole school to get there? >> Um, let me go to So, there's not going to be parking access on the bottom left just to get there. >> So, there is going to be a new lot. Um, so there a couple different ways. Kind of depends how building flow. You could go through the main entrance and walk down the hallway. You could um by the cafeteria. I know at night some of those doors are open by the cafeteria and they come in the doors from the north end and come down or there's going to be a new parking lot by the CIP just the the close to there a smaller lot but where that that top orange is there's going to be a small parking lot there as well that could be utilized for that. So okay I think it's just kind of see how the building flows and how those rentals work to see what makes the most sense. >> Right. Okay. >> Great. Any other questions? Okay. Well, get comfortable because we're here for a few action items now. So, the next um item is an action item. Approval of furniture for new elementary schools in Oakland Middle School. >> And I'm gonna take this one. >> Great. Yeah. So, how exciting, right, to get to um spend money on furniture. >> So, we started this process. Just wanted to give you kind of a a overview of what that process looked like for us. So we started all the way back in July meeting with Innovative Office and looking at the scope of all three projects. So Oakland, Lake Aloa, and Bayport. And then after that, we've had multiple meetings. Um we've had a lot of meetings with some of our user groups. We really value and want to make sure that they had insight and input into the furniture that's going to be in their spaces. And that was really, really valuable. And I'm excited to say that all three of the projects have come in under budget which woohoo. And now um Oakland's is fairly wrapped up with the the color visions and now we're going to be looking at Lake Elmo and Bayport and do the same thing. And we'll be keeping of course with the theme of the river and the prairie. And I just have to say that the brick work in those two buildings on the outside it just seeing a a picture doesn't do it justice. I was amazed. I was thinking they were going to be like prefabbed and just kind of put up, but they are brick by brick. So, I would highly recommend you go take a close look because it's quite spectacular. >> And do you have any questions for us in regards to the furniture components? >> Questions? >> Great. Um, so I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Great. Director Theelander with the second. All those in favor of approving the furniture purchase, raise your hand and say I. >> I. [snorts] >> Opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. And thank you to our taxpayers for their support on the bond. So, >> and speaking of the bond, we got one more project here for the bond. So, looking at the last one here that we bid out is the multi-sight security project. So, the security project is in three phases here that we bid out. The first phase is the strobe light. So if you think back, it's the blue flashing lights in areas that's hard to hear. Think gymnasium, the kitchen, the cafeteria, the music rooms, and the exterior of the building. So if there's a lockdown or if there's something going on in the building, when they hit that button, the blue strobes light up and then that's the signal for areas that can't hear a PA system um is that blue blue light strobe system. So that'll be in all of our buildings throughout the the district this summer. The second piece is uh additional cameras. So right now we have most of our cameras are digital. We do have some analog cameras um from quite a few years ago. So, it's getting all of our cameras on the digital system and then all getting all the cameras up to our district standard at all the buildings. So, some of our buildings have great coverage. Um our coverage is in common spaces. So, think hallways, um corridors, lunchroom, um some of those areas that have all of our camera access outside to the playground, main entrance, some of those sorts of things. So, some of the buildings that do not have that currently, those buildings are the ones that will get upgrades to um have the same security camera access and coverage in all of our buildings come next fall. So, that'll be part of the the coverage that happens. And then last thing um is the laminated or the security glazing. So, in our entrance areas, the security glazing is, you know, if somebody does um you know, take a a sledgehammer or does um you know, shoot in there, it would kind of spider, but the glass isn't going to break. And so, it's some of again, some of our buildings have it right now. Some of them do not. And over the summer, it's making sure all of our buildings have that same security in our front entrances, vestibules, and front offices. So, there's three kind of different projects or different scopes within this bid. So, we opened up bids um on February 5th. Um, again, this one came in under budget. We had a budget about 1.489. Um, excuse me, the budget was 1.7 and then the the total cost was 1.489. So, about 200,000 under budget um for these projects here. So, with that, I will open up to any questions or comments that you have about our security upgrade projects this summer. >> Um, is there a motion? >> I'll move to approve. Great. Director Hawker with a motion. Is there a second? Great. Director Kelzenberg with a second. Um, any questions for Mark on the security upgrades? >> It looked like a number of these only had a single bidder. Is that normal? Is that what we would expect? And >> why? >> Typically, we want more. So, if you look at the next one, I'm going to come to the next one really good coverage. So, each there are seven work scopes on the next one. Each one kind of range from three to seven biders on one of them. Um, looking at the pricing that we got, um, we were comfortable. We know the companies that that bid on it, we're comfortable with their price. Had we were not comfortable with either the the company or the pricing or those sorts of things, we would rejected the bids and then went out and done that again. But again, it's something we looked at internally of saying there's only one bidder for each of these. Is this something we need to look further? So, good question. >> Appreciate it. Thank you. >> Great. Any additional questions? >> Okay. All those in favor of approving, raise your hand and say, "I." >> I. >> I. Opposed. >> Motion passes unanimously. And our last item for the evening is Lily Lake Elementary renovation for this year. >> So now we're shifting gears from the bond to our long-term facility maintenance. Again, replacing Lake for Lake. So this goes back to last summer when we approved the the 10-year plan and kind of the projects this summer. It's bid out in two phases. So we took Lily Lake separately just because the volume that's going on in Lily Lake. We're actually opening up bids this Thursday for the multi-sight for all the rest of the projects and they'll be coming at the next board meeting. So, Lily Lake specifically, um the big thing that's happening there is replacing the boilers. So, it's replacing the steam boilers and the hot water heaters and the entire school. Um in addition to that, it's looking at the K1 wing and replacing the furnishings that were original in 1969, such as the casework, the plumbing fixtures, the domestic water lines, flooring, lights, and yes, chalkboards. um in those areas. Um looking at this, there were seven work scopes and and and director Parker pointed out, we had really good coverage in each one of these um work scopes and from a bid standpoint. We had three to seven on each of those. So the uh the budget for this was 3.3 million and it came in at 3.1 and change. So again, about 100,000 less here for this project um for the Lake Elmo LTFM. So with that, I'll open up to any questions or comments that you may have. Um, I'll go ahead and make the motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Great. Director Lowour with the second. Questions for Mark. >> Okay, seeing none. All those in favor of approving, raise your hand and say, "I." >> I. >> I. Opposed. Motion passes. Thank you very much both of you. >> That concludes um our business for the evening. So just again I want to thank the board and the staff for kind of we had an early start here today. So thank you for making the time to to extend your evening. With that we're adjourned