recording in progress all right dan's been on the beach all day so is he there he is he's So we have everyone here and it's 5 so I just called to
order that hey are you guys on mute right now we are not i can't cuz I can't hear you wondering wondering if that's my problem um we have sound working matt Hughes can you hear us yep i got I got you
okay so that's on your end Dan better do that in the chat huh it wasn't feedback i got Oh I'm not sure who said that damian damian damian hello hello that's better that's better i think we're good to go with Dan
can you hear us now Dan apparently not look now it's not me that was it was it's not me that was holding us up after all i feel a little better yeah I know i I don't know if he uh Can you hear us now
Dan uh he messaged okay thanks i'll figure it out don't wait for me though so okay are you ready Chris i am ready so we call the meeting to order at 502 and item 2.0 is
[Applause] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item 3.0 O
is agenda motion to approve the agenda i'll second thank you item 4.0 oh we have to vote oh thank you uh and so all in favor I I I all
opposed motion carries item 4.0 acknowledgements and recognitions do we have Did anyone sign up for speaking i don't have anything okay that's for the community comments but we don't have any acknowledgements
or recognition okay uh rec and so item 5.0 is recognition of visitors and community comments uh do we have community comments no are we wanted to sign up you wanted officially supposed to sign up if you want to
quickly want to be able to so committee comments is an opportunity for the public to address the school board on an item included in the agenda in accordance with guidelines printed in the end of the agenda should I be reading any more as our formalities that we
do and so it looks like we have Jason Urban signed up for community comments welcome to the I'm just wondering if there will be a response from last meeting that I was here is there going to be a response at
all we can certainly shoot you an email or follow up with a phone call typically the board doesn't respond to community comments so it's just input but um I can certainly give you a call
email would be better okay email okay anything more no thank you so much for coming Jason um so item 6.0 know is report 6.1 is the principal report [Applause] good
evening all right so as we uh finish out March here uh we have uh recognized um 150 SATU students for demonstrating junior Viking values um it's always a fun thing at the end of the month to at the beginning of the month to bring the kids together to recognize them for
being respectful being responsible being their best the other big thing in Saut Elementary is we're talking um pre-K and kindergarten registration and so we're hosting uh the Thursday after spring break on April 3rd a family fun night we're going to have bounce houses in the
elementary gym um games um treats uh there's going to be an open house going on in our preschool rooms with preschool staff there um our kindergarten staff are going to be hosting elementary school tours for families um and just kind of getting the word out so we really hope that the information is out
now in the community we really hope um any and all families with kids who will be ages 3 to 5 by September 1st come on out to our school to check out all the great things we're doing um in our preschool and elementary um schools so that's what's happening in Satuth right
now and then the big thing in our middle and high school is we're finishing up course registration for next year uh Miss Kovich our school counselor is just tracking down kids who haven't quite turned in their registration forms yet so we're hoping to get that all wrapped up by tomorrow before spring break so
then we can start building out schedules and looking at numbers um spring sports are underway you can always tell it's springtime when you have to walk out of a room at the end of the day and slowly open the door and look both ways so you don't get trampled by a sprinter
practicing in the hallway um so track team is out and our softball and baseball teams are also getting ready for their seasons and then our seniors are really busy um applying for scholarship opportunities um so the large number of scholarship opportunities that are available to
seniors those are all due uh when we get back from spring break so we're reminding them every day to get their I have a very specific unprofessional kind of question um is is it normal for them only unprofessional in that it's not really was my role as a schoolboard member is it normal that's just on my
mind is it normal for him to ask for your bank account number on the scholarship applications i I haven't filled out a scholarship application for 25 years so I guess they don't know huh they vary they're all different so it's
not that it's not necessarily a scam no I mean if if they're getting it from the school they're okay and legit right yeah but they're all different yeah and some are like money comes to us and then we give it to the kid and some are great to the kid and some are you know they're all depending on the Yeah I got a call i
thought that was unusual but I mean kind of feels weird yeah it does all right sorry no that's great but I again I I know I was amazed last year when we handed out over $300,000 in scholarships to our graduating seniors last year in this
small community that's really amazing so um we're like I said we're reminding them every day to get those um applications in MCA testing we're just kind of gearing up for the planning of all that stuff and then um just wanted to thank the community for coming out to conferences this last week and a half um
on Tuesday it was really fun because our Spain travelers were hosting a meal um so it was great to you know have conferences going on and people coming in and sitting down and having a meal and supporting our um student travelers so that was great and then just a reminder to the community that we're on
spring break next week so the kids will school tomorrow yes there is yeah all right that's all I have thank you Josh um so item 6.2 is student representative got a
Okay um hello everyone it's nice to see you all again and we're in the last stretch of three as our last day is tomorrow and then following me we have our spring break and students are getting really excited um we have one last final harra for winter uh winter sports we had two alpine athletes
compete at the Western US High School Championships which brings top high school um racers from the western half of the US and the 2025 event was held at Grand Tari Resort I don't know how to say it in Wyoming and Goshi Deitro
placed fifth in Slalom and the boys team got second overall and team Minnesota got first overall which is really exciting and cool that's awesome yeah and um with the close of winter sports comes the beginning of spring sports so track and softball and baseball are ready to go and our track team has their
first meet tomorrow in Superior um where they're going to be competing indoors and recently um the fifth graders went to Wolf Ridge for two nights and they got to enjoy lots of yamu meals and fun activities and some more education and
the highlight of their trip was the ropes course and then this month our fourth 7th 9th and 12th grade classes had retreats so the fourth grade learned about kindness the seventh graders learned about courage the freshman learned about respect and the seniors learned about wisdom and then during
these retreats they had like small groups and activities and things like that and then at the very end of each retreat everyone would circle up around this like microphone and they get the um opportunity to tell the class about a way that you could be more courageous kind respectful etc and they were all
super fun to be a part of and they were all really high energy and then for clubs recently the National Honor Society volunteered at EATS we handed out gloves and utensils for various vendors and helped set up and clean up and I got to serve walleye chowder for
now so that was fun um for the past couple of months a robotics team has been building their robot um which is supposed to like pick up coral and put it on a reef it's supposed to like imitate that and then recently they got to travel to Duth to compete among 50
other teams and they ended up getting uh getting 26th place and then as Mr balanchi mentioned our travel club was fundraising for their trip to Spain and they had a taco night on Tuesday and then also on the topic of traveling our grades 7th through nine I believe are
about to leave for their DC trip so they were fundraising for pizzas and they're leaving the spring break to go visit museums and historical sites and things like that and that's all the news I could come up with recently cuz I'm already checked out for spring break and
I hope you all enjoy your remarks and if you have any questions feel free to reach out to me through my email uh what day do they head out sunday sunday morning before the sale comes very very bowl is going to state oh I didn't
even know that exciting exciting thing okay super exciting so you have our bra our Yes I do so I have them in this bag and they're frozen so I don't think they'll melt by right now but on my
ice okay now Dan you're missing out on your butter break here some save it for you Dan this one is for you thank you guys so much hi i'm just going to eat dance
appreciate it thank you Greta have a good rest of your meeting you too have a great spring break thank you did you do anything epic oh I do actually want some chocolate yeah take some chocolate i know
okay thank you guys bye all right so item 6.3 is the superintendent report [Applause] thank you um I'll just mention a few things in my written report are um some reminders about advocacy work with the legislature uh I will be and Reena will
be joining me tomorrow uh with Senator Housechild for a meeting and then his town hall uh at the YMCA so that's in there um also in my report um was the note that the LCCMR grant was officially
submitted earlier this week uh that is a grant for $250,000 that is separate from the referendum that um would fund outdoor trail improvements and outdoor learning areas so uh we'll see i've now figured out that that is a long process uh if if
we get past round one then there'll be in more presentations more meetings ultimately then it gets put into the legislated hopper next January for approval probably like like May a third 14 months from now um so it's a super
long process before we'll know if we we got those dollars um but we're optimistic um that's the money that is from the Minnesota state uh in my notes I I gave the board some um notes about you know budget struggles amongst other districts across the state
of Minnesota that's a just a loud cry right now among superintendent uh it's a really good day to be a Viking we're currently financially stable u but it just speaks to kind of the wind that's blowing out there in public finance um over the next couple years and what may
be coming uh and then last but not le also there's a link in my report to the week or the monthly uh progress report from ICS um so Matt who's on our Zoom call today once a month provides an update and so the February um update is
in in your report and then now last um I want to say thank you to everybody who participated in the annual eats event for our education foundation the foundation provides grants for our staff to do innovative and creative and fun things with our students uh the event uh
they are not totally done with totals but it's close to $10,000 was raised uh to push back into our classrooms and into the things that our kids do so great event uh great vendors as great food greta was there serving chowder
yeah great food was amazing this year i feel like this year might be the best ever for the food oh you did i was in New Orleans so I missed it training or something have food there though we had good food in New Orleans yeah yeah don't worry about that but thank you to all of
the donors all the um private auction donors the vendors everyone that uh dedicated their time and money and energy for that it's a great thing for our kids and and for the foundation that's all I have thank you any questions for him or
anything okay um 7.0 is the consent agenda do I have a motion to We just approved the consent agenda right that's all do I have a motion to approve or anything you want to pull out i motion to approve i'll second it
uh all in favor i motion carries i I Oh there's Dan okay there he is he figured it out tech issue um moving on
to item 8.0 discussion and action items 8.1 is to accept the February revenue report do I have a motion do we need to discuss it you have anything you want to say about it the two items that I would just note is
um both on the expenditure um side and the revenue side we see fund six um appearing on our budget spreadsheet and that is the bond sale and then the start of payments for IC and things so um I
will have to do budget revision because currently there's zeros in those spots so that will be presented probably talking through it when we talk about our um uh budget the starting of our budget talks in April so then we'll
have those revisions put in there so that's really all I have as far as this report goes everything else looks um we're tracking fine yep looks like we're a little ahead of budget actually is that true um as far as expenses revenue
side there yeah oh I mean where should we be right now at 70% or um if you look in the gray column from 324 okay you see what last year's percent of budget spent was and then you can compare it to the far right
so pretty similar we're almost right on with last year right and so as far as the um regular instruction that's going to look like we're ahead of budget but then in June when we pay out all the teachers it catches up so that's kind of it's
going to look a little bit low but we're tracking fine okay i'll make a motion to accept the report i'll second any discussion all right uh all in favor i
motion carries item 8.2 approve approve service contract with Greater Minnesota Family Services i little delayed um point of information for item 8.2 uh what the service contract represents is
a 3% increase in our cost uh from last year and you'll note in the language it's actually now crafted so that they can have two FTEEs in that um and uh we don't pay for two if we don't have two so the position is posted we have one
person right now um and they're hoping to expand that to two and uh that was done a a while back um so um that's not a change either so the only real change is a 3% inflationary increase to what we're paying and also remember that the
local healthcare foundation uh has paid for about about half that um through a grant so I actually have a question about that when I was reading it um you know I see that the primary source for a lot of the payments is Medicaid correct
which kind of like makes me kind of wonder what happens if we see the cuts that are being talked about to Medicaid um you know how how how would this how would this happen then or would it yeah it it the
company itself Greater Minnesota Family Services would have to figure out how to manage that fiscal fluctuation and um so like other third party building structures they they bill Medicaid they bill family insurance companies for that time um that's how they get most of
their revenue so if Medicaid goes away do they stop serving those kids do they find other ways to fund the work um those questions will be navigated if and when they come at them you know that's I
suppose one benefit of having a vendor versus like we've got a contracted employee but um that would be Greater Minnesota family's problem to figure out and it might that very well impact us as in losing
time service time mhm i just think um kind of as we go along and you know Department of Education is going away there's just things happening out there that um for me I would like us to be able to
identify what the potential risks are as these different things happen and this that was one that stood out to me here when I saw Medicaid so because sooner or later we may have to make other decisions based on things that are out of our control like that so
yeah you never know uh so okay when we can define when we can define the problem then then we'll start tackling it but at this point in the ball game we're assuming that we're going on with um sort of a partnership with them for
next year all right and it's been absolutely um what's the word uh valued and appreciated amongst our teaching staff that our kids are getting services that they haven't gotten before um it's a big big deal uh
that they're getting services right here at school uh Lisa is a part of our team which is so different than vendors that are kind of outside coming in she's here part of our she feels like a part of our faculty so no I I'm I'm not questioning the
value yeah yeah i'm I'm in fact what I'm hoping is that we have a backup plan you know in case something like that happens anyway that's my only question about it when I read it so do we have a motion to approve the
serving service contract with the Minnesota Family Services i'll make that motion second any further discussion all in favor i I motion
carries uh item 8.3 is to approve the schematic design documents for IC all right um I am going to ask Matt and Damian to kind of take the lead here um guys you should be able to share your screen if you want to um unless you want
me to take care of that um we're not seeing it yet there we go power we are yes um for transparency um Dan Shirley and Reno um and I and Josh and Teresa we've seen this in the PC meeting we've gone
through it um so I know Matt and Damian won't take nearly as long with this meeting as we did in the PC meeting um yeah because that's the purpose of PC is to is to make these meetings a lot more abbreviated so um take it away guys
that's all pretty much that packet right now um so the purpose of this meeting will be to improve schematic design after review
it um so the cover today drawing and review after that we'll do following that we'll talk about overall project schedule it's a
little down the next slide here drawing I'm vacation track so you'll see each area packet pack
so here's an overview or plan of the school and left screen i'll touch on the norththeast corner which is the fitness fitness tradition we have our station box athletic dining room weight
room visitor locker room and then our building services that'll connect to uh the existing teaching area as well as uh um the existing building services um our other major addition is the flex classroom which is on the east
side of the courtyard um and then our third and final area of addition is the um admin area addition on the southwest corner of the school kind of right in front of where the existing admin entrances there um that'll house a variety of um things such as a new
nervous office um counseling area um superintendent's office principal's office business manager's office um as well as a new safe and secure entrance underneath our new front entrance canopy move to the heavy remodel areas which are the areas highlighted in yellow um
all of our toilets and sped um areas are covered under that heavy remodel area as well as our Ojiua and AAC center um you can see that circle around the Ojiua and AAC center which is our new clear story that's going to be rising above the roof there so that's one of our two clear
stories um roof bumpout and the other one is running north to south from the cafeteria to the welcome center so you can see that yellow um highlighted rectangle that butts into the orange around the cafeteria so that's where where a bump out in the ceiling is going to be there i'll move into the orange
which is a medium remodel um you can see our board and flex room um space is that possible DCD area um was one of the orange areas as well as the space underneath the cafeteria that would be new new floors stuff like that um there's a couple sped areas and
classrooms to the north of that just south of the the current GM facility that are covered in that medium remodel area moving on to the light remodel which is kind of that um gray blue area um you can see there's a variety of spaces covered in that um some current
sped spaces some existing elementary classrooms um as well as a flex area west of the cafeteria so those are kind of our four areas of uh construction ranging from total additions to heavy to medium to light
remodel um I'll kind of get into some um SD narratives now so architectural and the SD phase has some drawings that they associate with the um project um but the rest of our consultants kind of just have narratives that they propose at this time because architectural is kind of kind of the first to the plate um
with getting the drawing set up and the title box um and areas like that so once we get the design development phase at the end of May here in early June for board approval um each each consultant will have their own associated drawings and that's when we walk through those drawings um but for now I'll just touch
on um structurals narrative um so it's going to be pre-cast building at the new gym box um roughly 30 foot walls for the new gym 14 to 16 foot walls for the fitness area um the new flex room will be steel stud walls on concrete and concrete slab um and the admin edition
will be same thing concrete slab um steel stud walls on that as well brick veneer um bar joist for the roof structure for everything and then we're going to be adding some glue lamp beams um potentially in some areas such as the
new commons area um and then kind of working around the existing structure within the cafeteria in the media center so there's a lot a lot of good reading there i think it's a five or six page document in your narrative um everybody should have all all five or six pages of that narrative um within
your packet so uh if you have any questions on that just feel free to reach out move on to the mechanical narrative so it's the same thing as structural they don't have any drawings to work off of they're just highlighting um some of the um things we're going to be doing in the school so there's a variety of deferred maintenance um items that
everybody's probably aware of replacing a couple water heaters um rerouting some storm water out of that um flex addition area courtyard potentially just to save on some issues that I've heard about within there um there's a lot of restroom and plumbing retrofitting and moving underground we're going to be
doing um trying to utilize as much existing plumbing as we can but with a variety of bathrooms and bathroom layouts that we're going to be undertaking in this project there'll be some some plumbing work there um running new fire suppression lines um anything and everything like that so this is a
10-page document same thing there's there's a lot of boilerplate items in here there's some overlap with CMTA between mechanical and electrical narratives um but you can you can read through that and highlight anything there that uh like to get brought up so move on to the electrical narrative
um same thing here there's a variety of deferred maintenance items we're going to be um undertaking such as new security um new security st cameras um door access door access control um new paging throughout the school um new LED lighting interior and exterior um 2 by
two's lights where we can 2x4 lights um in existing areas where we're not touching ceilings um new fire alarm probably moving the existing fire alarm to the YMCA so we can continue to utilize YMCA activities throughout the construction obviously we
can't shut the shut the YMCA down so the new fire fire alarm system with the voice evac option throughout and then it'll be just the electrical hookups to all the mechanical units that we're installing whether it be new air handlers or rooftop units um rewiring to the new domestic water heaters um IT
upgrades working through IT upgrades etc moving on to civil um civil was a little bit limited just because we are working through our survey and soil borings right now um but survey is wrapping up this week site survey as well as a soil boring report so um civil doing the best
they can to progress with the design which is limited items at this point um we had to work around a lot of snow and frozen ground obviously throughout the winter here so um civil will be be working through their narrative and plans through the design development phase um but for now they've been working with local agencies to establish
um SWIP so storm water pollution prevention controls BMPs best management practices stuff like that so there's a there's a lot of areas to take into account with the um groundwater potential and uh water just running over over the land and working around
existing structures with that I'll get into project budget and estimates so got a snippet here of the project budget again everybody has this in their um narrative packet in front of them oh go ahead damian any questions on the
actual uh schematic design documents at all anyone has before we move on I was going to mention or Matt was going to mention or I was going to mention that we're going to have uh there in the packet you will find the renderings and you'll find that the architect has marked up those renderings with uh some of the finishes
that they're they're looking to or proposed to use uh so again if you want to take a look at some of that information it's good information stuff that we budget thanks Damian and for board members this budget sheet is page
57 I think in your back 51 sorry 51 sorry m questions keep going going yep 175 technology
tracking construction cost 1715,350 hard construction cost there is a $1 million project for shoes i'm not at this time so this is our large design estimate so on the left side
you descriptions there as well in the middle totals 15 million million 24,000 then you can see the variety of items on track contractor 5% as well as% tax isolation grant
173384 for um slightly over construction budget we're making a lot of this time taking us on that over any questions on that can you hear us
Damian nope i can't hear but I can hear you can't hear us okay did Raina have a question at all nope i
think I just wanted to uh to note that these these charts that we're seeing are going to get filled in quite a bit more as this process goes along right now they're we're just kind of see I didn't understand that can you repeat i was talking the budget mostly but that
these items will get flushed out a little bit more they all Yeah that we're really just kind of looking at the templates we're going to see throughout the project y4 at this point you're going to see is 95
construction cost that's not going to change my project out with it contractor then you'll be able to see breakdown of each contractor what they what they building what they
have left to build as well as projects So they're all nice round numbers right now like that right we'll update this document every month perfect so we're starting out over budget with estimates right now just
broad estimates they're broad we do have you know you know the council area you know the% you know so we're a little over again i don't know how good I feel about
fairly confident well keep in mind the whole bidding process drives this right so you know bids can come in under they can come in over cost of steel we don't know what's going to happen with that so there's there's so much unknown right now
and if it comes in over then we have to make decisions about what goes away what we cut yeah so perfect and with that in mind I felt like our feedback last week when we were in Grand Portage was not very favorable about our round
glass entryway like the the a proposed AAC i didn't hear that i feel like was I am I imagining that that people were like we don't really want to be the first thing in the
building and the idea of the clear glass was the kids want to have make sure it's frosted so people aren't they're not like in a fishbowl that came up but I maybe interpreted that but that's what I felt like I was hearing yeah I mean unless like in the group discussion I
don't think I heard that I didn't I've I've heard a lot of positive about the culturally repres representative approach but the circle and the um some of the floral patterns from the trading post and the lodge and and some of that but um other than the
concern of not wanting to be in a fishbowl that we have heard from the kids actually more than anybody i feel like I guess that's what I thought we heard last week from adults too that were there i didn't hear too being front and center and in the
last was they weren't as excited as the as the design looks about it ics wouldn't I mean it's been in the drawings all along even to the voters this big round
entrance I guess fishbowl I guess that frosted glass that impact I know we have more user groups coming I'll touch on another slides here at
Grand April with GW so that's one we can revisit for sure design next week any other questions on budget register estimate okay with that
timeline changed further along in there um right now we are completed with design for day six and we've already been designing associated with each
mechanical electrical so so tracking changes schedule timeline at this point so next step we're going to have a group of community meeting info input design development
process through that process finding space layout and we will be additional user groups of April tenatively in addition addition to our design project with that that's all I have thank to
everyone and let them open up to anyone questions here matthew can you just clarify the the action that the board is being asked to take what it does so it's just the approval of mathematic
design so you'll just approve all narratives packet and then formal design projects i think it goes about saying well like none of this is like worth it you're not like committing sandstone you know like
this strong is the it'll all keep moving yeah yeah yeah yeah this is schematic design and now we move into DD design development when they get more granular with the consultants and the assessments and and then it's when we get to
approving construction docs that's what are going to go out for bid okay so this next phase everything has to get tightened up tighter and tighter and tighter for approval of construction docks which will be on September 18th if
we follow our our outline is that accurate Matt what I just said y this time is that correct i have a motion to approve i'll second that any further
discussion all in favor i I Motion carries item 8.4 for discussion step and family survey data all right so we need Yeah we need Matt to stop sharing uh and now we're going
to be moving to Cullen cullen um I can mute us when you are presenting but um then you can't hear the board if they have questions so we've It's kind of weird i don't know why we're getting some echo here yeah um why don't you go ahead and share your screen if you're comfortable with
that uh and then we'll walk through uh so for our board members this is the survey that went out to all district parents and staff cullen works with RAP strategies um and uh he is going to walk through what the survey results um were
or are uh and then at that point uh the board can have some discussion about next steps answer questions i do see that on our Zoom call um Lori Christensen is also listening in um so she may jump in if you get to some
questions that she feels like she wants to help answer so with that Colin go ahead and rock and roll yeah absolutely those of you working November remain aware can you sit closer to your microphone Colin just can you hear me can you hear
me yeah i think you have to be closer to your microphone okay okay all right um so as I was saying you guys had [Music] function core groups uh So your parents
your staff uh just to get a sense of uh their attitudes toward uh this opportunity so just to kind of kick things off here um just a quick reminder of where things were left in November um obviously question one um approved
question two and three uh narrowly rejected um but I think biggest takeaways um just at least on our side were um really that um your community regularly shows um very strong support uh for the the decisions you're making as far as uh school investments go um
one thing uh you may not know is that uh your district is the only district um in all of rural Minnesota to have passed voter approved um any kind of voter approved funding uh during the past three presidential elections that's pretty impressive just given the uh relatively kind of tense political
environment um and uh the rates that you know property taxes and just general property values have been going up recently um so it's a really impressive track record shows that your your district uh the residents of your district just really show a good amount of trust um uh in the the decisions
you're making to uh to improve your buildings and your facilities um so this survey in particular um as I said was shared only with parents and staff that's a very important thing to remember here just as we're interpreting uh the results um they're not meant to be interpreted as representative you
know of the entire community or even of all of staff and parents um rather they're uh a reflection of you know the people who are paying the highest amount of attention uh to the decisions you're making and to this capital investment planning uh that you guys are doing so
um definitely useful uh just a quick note on kind of how this survey was conducted um conducted online using the Survey Monkey tool uh a little less than a month ago at the end of February um to parents and staff um all of the uh results that I'm going to show here or at least most of
them are rounded to uh the nearest percentage point um there are a couple that uh won't necessarily add up to 100 just because there was an option for any questions uh for people to respond that they uh didn't know or that they preferred not to respond um so those were just omitted unless they were a
notable piece um of the hole as far as the number of people who took the survey um we had 213 total respondents um about 3/4 of those were parents and about a quarter were employees uh we had a little bit of overlap there about 12% of all who took
it uh were both an employee uh and a parent u met both of those criteria there um and then uh the vast majority of people who took it um have are pretty established within the district have lived here for over a decade and nearly all are property owners so certainly
have a stake um in any decisions uh as they relate to uh property taxes um or any kind of levies as far as what we sought to answer of course um wanted to gauge kind of the relative appetite and attitudes toward uh making any further capital
improvements um with assistance from the RB um and then as far as those kind of outstanding improvements go uh which ones are considered sort of the highest priority which are going to receive the the the most amount of traction um if they progress forward and then uh just to kind of get a a rearview look at the
uh the last um referendum um we asked why voters may have uh voted no to question two or question three um just a reminder you know the totals that we're going to see definitely not static they're going to change uh um over time
uh if you continue to pursue um these these investments going forward um we'll talk a little bit about that uh kind of toward the end takeaways so just to begin here um this is uh the results from uh when we asked about uh how people voted in the 2024
referendum uh 91% of everybody that took the survey uh reported that they did vote in the 2024 referendum um and of those who voted 58% said they voted both in favor for question two and question three um obviously that total is higher
than the the overall community uh given that both of those questions were rejected um uh which is to be expected just given that you know your parents your staff members very likely uh are more likely to support uh investments um in the schools uh the participants who
did say they voted no um we asked what was the biggest reason for that um and I would say uh when we've done surveys like this in the past in other districts um almost always the number one response is something to do with the tax impact it's a version to changes in taxes a
little bit of a different result here um certainly did see some of that anti-ax sentiment um but the the more prevailing attitude was that um people weren't quite sure that your district was prioritizing the right things um in these questions um the the other uh part
of the the pigraph that you're seeing there um in the orange uh that was uh the respondents who chose to actually write out um their own opinion or answer to that question um and in reviewing those uh we saw a lot of those those uh similar kind of sentiments reflected
that uh they weren't quite sure if the district needed a third a third gym station or weren't sure exactly how the improvements that were going to be made as part of these uh these questions were going to um impact you know uh educational success and stuff just given that they were very activities and
athletics uh oriented we then of course asked about um whether or not uh the inclusion of IT RB uh grant funding would impact uh their their decision to vote um on a a future referendum um so here on the left here
you'll see uh this is the information that was provided to the respondents for the survey um we we shared that uh there is interest in providing a $7 million uh grant to cover roughly half the cost of those remaining improvements um and that the the projected tax increase um of a
referendum to fund the remainder of that cost would be about $4 a month uh for the median value home in your district compared to about $11 a month which was the projected tax impact um in 2024 um so based on that info asked if they would support a new referendum to fund
those improvements and as you can see a very sizable majority 70% said yes that yes they would um if you'll recall uh in the previous uh results uh 58% of participants uh said that they had
supported questions two and three earlier so we do see um a bit of a jump uh there in the the amount um that would support and that's what's shown here um just this comparison so these were this is how uh respondents voted in 2024 and
then on the right is how those same people so those people who voted last year um that's how they said that they would vote uh if the Irb assistance was included so um again you do have a share of of people that are you know always going to be opposed that is not surprising um but the fact that uh just
based on those couple of details uh that I shared um people were uh were willing to to some degree um change their level of support for those investments and then we also asked about uh the kind of level of prioritization um people had for uh the the individual
improvements that would be included um in that plan um on a scale of 1 to five one being you know this should not be a priority this is something that does not need to be urgently addressed at all to five being this is a uh a very urgent priority something that absolutely needs to be
taken care of um and then we averaged out the scores that people gave for all of these uh individual issues um initial takeaways um as you can see on the right there uh the kind of first and foremost is that there is positive support you
know belief that these are priorities things that needs to be um addressed but that sentiment isn't necessarily strong we did not see um any particular uh thing any particular improvement that scored an average of over a four um and
so I think overall um our recommendation is that you know anything that's below kind of that three three and a quarter mark um is probably something if things move forward if these improvements are are pursued um it's going to require a little bit greater communication just to demonstrate the uh the need um get
people to understand you know why these were included in this plan um overall and um you'll see that uh there are a couple of things in this list particularly the track and field stations outdoor running track and the ADA compliance issues that are kind of
outliers there um and just can we can kind of anticipate that um in the future uh as you as you look into these improvements those might be the uh the things kind of those those flagship improvements that might uh uh carry these these overall this overall plan so
so that is the individual improvements um main takeaways uh from all of this data number one is is that the strong majority of these teachers these parents they are likely to support a new referendum um if you move forward uh with this and with this IT RB support um
it's uh it's it's going to increase your chances of success relative to 2024 um and just for that reason alone I certainly think it's a pretty exceptional um opportunity that you guys have here for for your district um but then the only kind of word of caution
that that I'd offer is uh was the results um of the kind of prioritization that respondents gave uh to the individual improvements um as I said it's it's there's definitely positive support for those those improvements but um not necessarily as intense as we might expect from uh from parents and
staff just because they do tend to be the biggest uh supporters biggest advocates um for capital improvements so as far as next steps um certainly think that uh this these initial results uh certainly are are grounds for you
know exploring a new referendum um the the opportunity that is is is here just given the uh the Irb's uh potential support is pretty unique and um I don't int I don't pretend to be an expert in the IT RB's uh funding process or um how
selective they are with that but have to believe that that is not going to be a uh long-term um offer um so definitely requires um or merits a good amount of uh of examination um so I guess a question too just to kind of be be tossing around and be thinking about is
that um if this isn't taken advantage of now um what are what are these improvements need to be made going to start competing with in the coming decades kind of the if not now then when question certainly something to consider um an a very clear step um that we'd
recommend that you take going forward is just continue collecting community feedback uh this survey uh kind of first step gauging those those core core groups core supporters um but going forward uh would recommend doing a more kind of communitywide survey to all
residents uh to gauge their attitudes on this get a closer look at how or more representative look I should say um of how your total electorate um would perceive this and then um potentially the opportunity to do a representative scientific survey so something that is
going to be um far more reliable um and we're currently inquiring about some opportunities to to do that that we'll we'll be in touch with Chris on and then lastly um something that you can kind of do right now right away is uh to consider ways to share more information about the you know the
challenges sort of a why um these these uh these improvements were even considered in the first place um I think certainly in the the first uh the November referendum a lot of the focus ended up being understandably on the building space on the learning spaces um
given that that was the first question and the largest question probably the more visible uh to the community um but uh this time around I think there's an opportunity certainly to improve communication about the the why for uh these activities um improvements and that's going to benefit you you know not
only just to uh um improve that understanding and potentially improve support uh for those investments um but it's also just going to give you a more accurate look um at uh what your community is prioritizing so that's about all I've got there um any initial questions on
any of the uh results otherwise I'll turn it back over to you guys there we go yeah any questions so does this uh increase support from this
demographic do you think it's enough to get us over overall like numbers small group um that's the biggest [Music]
reason I think we're convincing people to do this but sorry for sure so I mean I I took the survey so I can't remember it but I mean I look at this and I I see the the jump but if you look
at the how respondents voted in 2024 it's really if you if you combine 58% with 9% that gets you pretty close to 70% i mean is it is it really that big of a jump you know I mean that's kind of like if because I What are we asking aren't
we largely asking to do question two you know how is that two and three how is that asked would you with this new funding would you vote yes for both two and three we did not ask about structure i'm sure that there an
opportunity to potentially turn that into a single question or it could be to propose um it the exact same way as it was in 2024 um but given that we don't know that structure yet it was something that uh was going to be difficult to to ask
about if that makes sense there you go i mean there's also more for the group I guess but I mean if you if you take the people that voted yes for at least two at least to question two that's getting us almost to that same 70% right now you know I I wonder
if from the parent and teacher point of view those people were generally going to vote for it either way that's that's kind of and what would what makes me curious is is uh in the bigger community if the impact of the ILR would be larger
would be larger because there might have been people that are like well I don't want the tax impact but if you're cutting it down from $11 to $3 or $4 you know then I could see the value of it you know what I mean like the teachers and the parents probably didn't really
switch that much if they wanted it they wanted it that's what I And it also they probably the least affected by the tax i mean they're affected by the tax but like the thing where the tax impact is the smallest category right that's only going to happen with people who are actually and who don't have kids they're probably Yeah if they don't have school
it's going to be a lighter i as I looked at it probably what I heard about more than anything else was why are we spending all this money on sports um and we had that discussion here as well and to me I think we
probably and somehow that messaging isn't changing in this because it's still almost all about sports um the auditorium just says auditorium improvements i didn't even know what that meant i mean I I just kind of glanced over it i thought "Oh it said in
the gym." I didn't you know so that having having some a little bit on that community space but I really I really feel like the messaging needs to be bigger than athletics and to me um
having a really quality school attracts families and if you know people that are looking for a place to move or come and start a business are looking they're comparing this school to maybe the one in Silver Bay or the or in Duth or or
wherever else and so to me this is as much as anything putting in this investment in our school our athletics and our theater is really just another piece of infrastructure that makes this community be a little more sustainable
and a little more attractive to families with kids not just retired people and I really feel like that messaging kind of needs to talk about infrastructure and in in a healthy community that's got lots of families in it where people want
to bring their kids so I don't know that's just my two cents worth on that because if it just focuses on we need a track for a track meet but why do we need a track for a track meet what's what what does that bring to the community what does that bring to the
school what does it make our school better i guess also and I mean you can see that the track is is the outlier track's the winner here holy man America's pastime loser or or likes the baseball field or whatever it is you know what I'm saying
the there there's there's just that and the demographic that would be more likely to change their vote or that we're hoping would change their vote is probably not the demographic that cares that much about the track they care more about what what they care about the
future of the community they care about the community so that messaging being strong right has value to bring the demographic we're looking for i mean not that I know anything about it but if I were to be hired to create a marketing campaign for this tomorrow um which I
won't be you know obviously but I I Are you looking for a job no I can't even get my forms in to get uh No I would say that I mean it's it's sport you know there's a lot of sports in here you can't hide that because it's a lot of sports and it's even
I almost think it will look a little different because now it's not here's the education stuff here's the sports now it's just sports which is better I think but I guess I would focus on how meaningful that those activities are to
kids and how they want how that improves their overall school experience um socially how it gives you know every kid something to feel good about not every kid but the kids that do the ones that are theater though well same and the same just generally the extracurricular
i mean it's it's like school you know if you look at these like the drawings and stuff and you see the spaces like school is not anymore just like you sit in the classroom you get whacked with a ruler you know i mean it's not that it's like all these we don't we don't laugh kids
with a shucks but they aren't uh you know what I mean like this is part of school still this is part of education right and that would be I mean showing how meaning I think it would be harder to like hear from kids who are on the track
team right and say no this isn't meaningful you know than to hear I don't know that's that's maybe we we need to get kids out there talking about it more I think that I mean I think you know in videos or do whatever but I I think the other thing is a small community where
there's just not a lot of stuff for kids to do you know that's organized that this is that the sports here really are pretty important to keeping our kids healthy and safe and out of trouble or extracurriculars in general right yep i
think so i do agree that if it were the auditorium sounds less clear than if we called it ahead center for the arts or Yeah and talked about you know things that help you know do our productions better or make it more comfortable for
the audience or dance recital you know dance recital theater all of that you know that that supports these changes support those activities want to chime in um I
thinkeneral schools um It's like how many um could you hear anything that I just said um but so just briefly you know on a percentage basis our extracurriculars just touch um so much more of our
student body than and our extracurricular facilities touch so much more of our student body than perhaps at other school districts you know we got 100 kids in track that's 25% of our high school right there um not to mention um how that facility may be utilized by
outdoor ed um or other classes you know during certain times of the year um when they can use it same with that multi-use field um you know that's now suddenly a field that can be used by not just the athletic teams but it's a not it's a
non-muddy um controlled space that you can go and utilize in PE or other outdoor educational um settings that um is hard to do um outside of summer you know on
our existing fields because they're wet or they're muddy or they're whatever um so it just opens up a lot of stuff and so I think those are I sort of echo what um you guys have said on that front um just in terms of it is it's bigger than it maybe seems on the on the surface and
so we need to sort of message that um and then the other piece is just in terms of timing um you know I think that need is going to continue to be here for our kids that live in this rural community that don't have a lot of outlets so a lot of kids do
extracurriculars um we invest in our kids this is a big way to invest in our kids um across interest levels interest areas um but then the timing piece on it is like just you know efficiency you know efficiency is a popular word these
days and I would say in order to leverage this project in the most efficient manner we take advantage of this huge chunk of money that's sitting on the table and we also take advantage of the mobilization of all of these professionals and contractors that are
helping us execute this thing you know if we're going to restart this process in five years that means we're re-engaging with IC we're paying them again to restart this whole process over we're re-engaging the architects and all the contract and all that sort of stuff
like right now we're like we can leverage that we can be efficient about doing this project um and I I just think that's a huge thing that we need to consider as a board as we just determine like the timing of it you know the need piece we need to message that better but
like the timing piece is kind of like up to us to determine and I and I would advocate on the timing piece that now is the most efficient time to do it um so that's what I got to say about it thank you
thank you so um can I assume from our discussion that moving forward with some more scientific communitywide survey is a concrete next step i think so cuz I don't think this tells us a ton right right right and as
was said that this is these are your strongest supporters uh this was about if our strongest supporters are against it like we need to know that on the front end right so we didn't get that um so now the next step is to test the greater community and uh I'll work with
rap strategies on uh the best mechanism to do that whether it's a both and you and you know one option or the other either a scientific survey or a broad communitywide survey can we do a scientific survey it seems like the the
broad survey is kind of up to the person but I like to hear like pick all these demographics out and get kind of some feedback uh we'll explore that um there is an opportunity I don't quite understand it to talk smart about it but there's a there's something in the works
with I think wrapping um that is an opportunity to tack on to another um communitywide scientific survey um and so being getting on to that would cost us some but it would be cheaper being that it's already in the works with another organization so I'll flush that
out with um RAP Strategies and ICS and I I kind of concur with you Eric i mean those scientific surveys are just a lot more reliable than those that opt in to answer um so it would be good to maybe go down that road um that's a concrete next step um another thing for board
members to be thinking about is u is it is it an ask of 7 million is it an ask of 5 million you know where where's that threshold with the community we know that ITR has committed seven uh and they did that in the spirit of kind of
all of it in one question um so I would hate to go just kidding to it RB that feels a little bad however um as I've given you in my emails uh we now know that we also have uh about $1.5 million coming to us from investments um on
interest earned on money that's invested uh so there's some opportunity here for us to maybe not have to ask the public for seven it might might be five or five and a half which gets that $4 a month down to maybe $35 a month or you know
three bucks a month um on a $400,000 house it's a onetoone match right you can't scale it down and have them still give us $7 million right it's essentially if we scale it down they're going to scale it down too what what we could say is that they've given us a $5 million match for a $5 million
referendum and then they've also thrown in another $2 million um to put towards the additional gym stall because that's exactly what they did that's telling it just just like it played out um so we don't necessarily have to have them vote on the gym stall
that's an item of conversation um uh so Gary Servvenic he he actually recommended um kind of pushing this as a referendum $5 million with a $5 million match to get all except for that additional gym stall and
then they will throw in an additional $2 million for us like Oprah to do that you get a gym stall yeah we know the gym and a new car and we know the gym stall cost 3.5 million so um we only have two of the three and a half million needed and then we got to come up with that in some
other way and that's where I was making innuendo about the interest earned money i get um we might be able to get closer to that so we got to fine-tune that budget lory's on this call she's working on you know how does the budget look a year later and what has gone up and all
of that kind of stuff and are we really at the point where we can ask for five you'll build half a track after our state of our economy oh right and I mean there's so many moving variables but um we're really at this point of a razor sharp line you know like half a million
means could mean a big deal then you also have the ability to use general fund and other resources and donations so um well let's go a little further there are mechanisms we can play like doing some of the parking lot stuff through abatement bonds or bonding
against LTFM funds for some slices to be able to stretch that a little further those are those are the kind of levers you want to have in your back pocket for when bids come in high and all of a sudden you're in trouble so I don't want to burn all those bridges sure no you don't want to spend every on the front
end dollar on the We need something in our back pocket if things go crazy she'll tell me that so um when do we decide about this again i think I asked this every meeting but final decision has to be end of May um well or early June because that's when we have to
submit review and comment to MDE so uh we've got basically April and May to tighten this up and so we'll get going on the survey um and uh hopefully get that out here in the
next month or so and then I would think this more scientific survey be quicker too this thing took a while i'm not sure how they uh how they uh how that works yet so I'll get back to you on that i can give a little bit especially to a more kind of communitywide one uh so it would be an
optin um but uh that would be quicker than the scientific survey just because that uh the scientific survey option that we're we're looking into right now um is going to be on a a different uh different timeline um and the fieldwork for those uh can can take a much longer
um amount of time so um community or an online survey would be quicker scientific would be um a little bit longer and I don't have a defined timeline quite yet from the same people that called the last election a tossup and it wasn't jeez well I mean seriously like you know
what if it's the same kind of principle where the more conservative voice isn't right represented and we get our ass handed to us again cullen scientific survey you're thinking timeline would be more like May or how late how late do you think my guess is
probably probably another popping out of that yeah that might be a barely making it yeah that's cutting it really really close okay thank you for that Colin so concrete next step move forward with a survey of some type i will get
working on that and then um expect to have this conversation again in a month and we'll circle back okay okay um and also uh we have a sophomore student in Mchugh's class working on WTIP story interviewing kids um she and I met today
and um really wanting to put together some good media work with WTIP so I'm looking forward to uh what patients can put together so it's fun to fun to watch regard regarding the potential upcoming referendum yep everything we just talked
about huh yep so I I I want to get kid voices in the conversation here so very cool so we concluded 8.4 I think so all right so moving on to 8.5
accept donations for March 2025 uh yeah send you some ride oh okay you're right 5,000 bucks for the robotic too that's nice
yes very nice it's a lot of big big a lot of big money big money here in this one no amies big money i'll make a motion to accept the
donations um with appreciation to those people that have donated our students second do we have any further discussion uh yeah with great appreciation
to everyone who donated um all in favor i uh all opposed motion carries um moving on to 9.0 personnel item 9.1 is new hires resignations and
leaves of absence we have any anything anybody like from Chris's side or anybody needs to say anything just thanks for all the years of service and dedication to our students here in Cook County and um got a few couple
people leaving and a retirement and uh and some coaching positions there um do we have a motion i'll second it any discussion i also want to echo what Chris said thank you so much for the
years of service and also uh best wishes to people as they move on to whatever is next for them in their futures um all in favor I I all opposed motion carries item 10.0 is to adjourn i'll
make that motion you've been waiting for that all night he jumps at that one it's really hard when it's nice you can just close the meeting all right so meeting closed 619 stop the recording yep
i don't have them all for you