 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. Next, we'll have a moment of silence. So the first item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. So is there a motion to approve the agenda? I do. It's denumed and seconded. All those that oppose say aye. Motion carried. Moving on to older new business. So the first item tonight is, or on older new business, is the bond resolution. And, Brad, do you have anything? No, just the fact that we have our staff here that will be able to present information regarding the bond mission and what needs to be done. We, just FYI, after the seeding, whatever the choice is, I've contacted and have started filling out the paperwork for Piper Sandler that they would be then getting to the state board with the questionnaires to take care of that piece and then fill out the rest of it as we move forward. But then Monday would be the drop date of an official vote on this is what we are doing. So discussion on that? Or just one more to me? OK. So it's my understanding that Rodney Shuckman's here to listen on the committee report. Is that correct? He's calling in. We have Jim. Yeah, let me pass out the information here. Jim, pass it out in the comment room. Option six was the choice of that committee. And then Justin challenged us in a previous meeting to not take all the amount off the radar. So that's the second he should see at the point point two. That's the July 22nd meeting. Kelly King and Tony King, I'm going to invite each board member and the head of 3MAX, we ended up with Kelly and Tony. I'm going to appreciate that coming. Kelly represented the Hall and Alma thinking with that committee that night. And did a good job in representing that. That probably an hour and 15 minutes in that discussion. At the end of that, I asked the committee to just want to stick with the Hall and Alma or do they want to stick with the Pax and Go Alma split? That's option six front page. This is a general concept. Details should really be moved on. Or do you want to consider the Hall and Alma? They said you want to stick with option six, the two town version. And so the result of their work is now what Maria has here. So you go through that. Both of those look at that for a few minutes. And then you can talk to any more of that faculty with some other information on what to put that in. So I guess we're going to hear. So the first thing you have is option six. They're just showing on the start in the middle of Pax and Go where we're using the original portion of the building for grades three through five, as well as the remaining building for the media center, Jen and the commons. And then we have a addition of pre-K through second grade. And then moving the office on to the main level. Give good sized classrooms for the kids and windows of all the classrooms. Then in Alma where the original elementary school is seven and eight, we'll move over to the annex. And then the elementary portion would be used for sixth grade, as well as some flux classrooms that would also support the seventh and eighth grade in the annex, which would include art and science and a breakout room. The district office and the boardroom would also move over there. And we did it, we did it one of these mobiles. And the day here, if you just want to come over at the high school, we've got a renovation to the three storey original stone building and a link connecting the two. This planning cost includes doing the energy performance contract with ESP and they would be doing the HVAC and that stone portion of the building as well as lighting throughout all of those are the highlights of option six. Then 5.2 was moving to where we would utilize in the building in Alma, the grade school would be pre-k through second grade using the annex for some of those breakout options in third grade and then doing an addition for fourth through sixth grade. Then we would go over at the high school building we're showing seventh and eighth would be a new addition link that would tie the three storey original building to the addition or to the most addition. The gym and the game room would then have that interior connection. The wrestling room would stay where it's at and this price includes a new tech shop, I didn't say that on the last one, but on option six it's utilizing, this cost is utilizing the existing shop and making some improvements to it. So BHS has done the process meeting on this and grouping it out on your third page. The items in green on page three are ones that are included in the cost and then the items in orange are additional items that you could add to any of these items and the blue is the cost of the work that ESB is doing. Your packet on your second page and the package that's put together is kind of a lot talking to some of the second page, it looks like this, you could kind of talk to some of them and tell what degree has just gone through so you have a chat version. And then we take on the time to list some benefits and concerns with each of those. So you've got a chance to see some of those things. At the top, we put together your general bond goals so if you know what you're doing and what you're doing, what you're trying to get done, what either one of these and they're all good, they're all very good action items. On the line on option six, you can see all of that $16.79 million on that sheet with the new ag tech that takes it up. That's a good size, that's a good size addition that takes it up to $19.24 million. So remember that option six was using the old building, putting about $40 million into the ag tech, ag building, upgraded VHS analysis so it was fairly structurally sound. On the option 5.2, you can see it's, I put a line there, $16.75 million. And then VHS said, well, if you're losing a channel of the tax ago, maybe you need, of course, something else, something else, like instead of apples for apples, what are the costs? Both of those are under the ceiling that had been set previously at 18.5. Both of them go over when they start adding other additional options. There's a lot of ways that you can work that back and forth and try to taste and make it work. Committee struggled with making tax ago work for three, four, and five. Except for that, recognizing you wanna make use the best use you can of buildings over here. So we'll re-upload that around and make sure that we can make three, four, and five work in the old tax ago. Properly planned it. Properly planned it, that's what it's gonna turn on. That does, one of the things that does do in option six, you have six grades in tax ago, pre-K through five, I mean you have six through 12 and almost so you have somewhat of this balance of equality, if you wanna look at it that way. That does kind of create a six, seven, eight, or a middle school concept over in Alma, but you're doing that this year, you're putting your six, seven, eight together. So kind of creating a middle school concept which is pretty acceptable in a lot of districts. Really big benefit is seventh and eighth grade getting new digs and having a chance to benefit from all of the good things that you have at your home school, especially that newer addition. A lot of losses are minuses on 16.79 or 16.755, both very close to a lot of things you could have. One thing I would like to point out too, in our goals, right, that we had about reduction in square footage, just so I'm clear, Maria, on the existing, we have 171.609 square footage total on each of the models. Well, you could go to another sheet without this sheet here, is that your style? Well, I'm just thinking the existing area, the new area, and totaling them up. This doesn't include the existing shop or the district office, so about kind of... Which is in an apples to apples comparison of Maple Hill Alma, the Alma, the middle school, the junior high, and the high school. And if option six, just totaling them up, it's 171.255, so about 84 square footage. Because you're gonna have to maintain it as well. And so the, it's $760 annual, quote, savings. With 5.2, it's 28,565 reduction in square footage. At $1.84, square footage is 52,559, actually. Just something to, another more data to be considered. And then as far as the square footage reduction piece, that is part of how we got into this to begin with as well. So just want to be transparent with everything as far as data, and not saying one thing or the other, but it's just another thing. Because I know that that's the other thing people would say to you, what, how are you gonna maintain what you, this new conditions and things and additional costs, so. I tried to total out on this sheet, which would be the third one in the package. With the second line, that would be for sure. Right, it's not 40,000 per feet difference, right? I may not have that exact, because we have shopping or other offices in. I took some round numbers here on that second line. So here you can see option six, 181, 5.2, 148. And then I took that down to $184 per foot, to give you the cost, building cost, and then we have other costs. So on the old line, then you have total cost, after that old line, then you have savings, usually. So you have an annual projected savings between six and 5.2 of about 100,000 a year? Yes. There, 100, sorry, $100,000, more savings by doing the option 5.2 is all in Alma versus the one in Paxco split, correct? That's right. Okay. What you got up in Paxco, you really do have a large facility, I need $33,000 per feet. I'm not pausing my numbers all correct. I did take them from the charting that I had, which was the numbers here, but we have some offices, a lot of things that are in there. Well, that may not be exactly the exact, it does give you a general idea of the difference in square foot, there is a difference in square foot. Can I repeat that, that difference in square foot, it comes down to a elementary school that's dedicated gym and a good kitchen, or the kitchen in the library space that you have in Paxco, in the locker room today in Paxco. Yeah, Paxco facility is a good size facility, 33,000, 34,000 square feet as large as you, and then you add additional to it. I'll just go ahead and keep them all rolling and then go through some things that I have here and then circle back around, that's all right. On the top sheet that I handed you in the packet, what I did is just give you a little bit of summary of work, and this was our work here, our interviews, our meetings, our other things, our surveys, bringing a couple of recommendations there on some professional needs. I think it's on the back, the very flash sheet. It's on the back? Oh, it's on the back. Put it together, put it together, put it together. Anyway, so that's just the background, and then what I ripped it down to, we had a speaker that was supposed to come going home and then we had a backup speaker, Frank did not worry to explain that. So what I was doing then is I thought, well, I'll jump on this and record as best I could with a two committee, but the committee came up with a two town model. So what I did is give you some of those best use of existing facilities, greater view of the larger majority of district residents, you can read through this. Unified district, potential being less expensive because you're using, you don't have to build as much new as an option set, you're gonna have to build an elementary, you're gonna have to add your seven and eight, you're gonna add your seven and eight either way, but you're gonna have to add an elementary, and you must, you do not have to use just the past with the price we use at hand. Anyway, I drifted down through that with some ideas. I think Dwayne Hunt spoke mostly on those last four or five. It's important to demonstrate and give and take to accomplish a successful bond, recognize the value of each school facility for each community. It was recommended each time the committee met, and they were put together for that reason, and they were district patrons, friends, and neighbors of yours. It encourages economic development and growth on the broader area of the district and tries to help. In some way, economic growth needs more students, which is something that is not really being addressed at this point when I know of sort of you have a county economic development or some economic development. And then I put in the last 78.9% of districts operating with two-count model. And on the back, I did just some horseback attempts. I took, based on the return on the 2020 U.S. food, $2,334, and then what I did is, what would be the percent and total of guest goals required for a 53% weighing margin. So roughly 1,075 voters to say yes out of 1,334. So the Allen Precinct had 651 voters, and just drifted with me, probably going to be 90% yes on that, but we yield 586 yes votes. Maple Hill's probably going to be too popular, so I put it at 15%, which I think is probably pretty reasonable. Healed 72 votes, McFarland, very supportive. It was your most supportive precinct, so I gave up 93%, gave me 163 votes, facts ago would not be too happy with an all-in-all amount. So I dropped that to a guesstimate of 25, 26, 30%, so I even planned on 27. Then your other eight precincts, you have eight other precincts, I just gave them a 50-50 shot. And that will yield you your 107.6. There's all kinds of manipulation to be done in that, but I decided to take a shot at it and give you some ideas. Somewhere there you're going to have some very, very strong voting in the Allen and McFarland. So then I run over to the Alma Paxico combo, and the Allen could yield 70% votes, my Maple Hill 18%. I gave it a little bump because we now have a school closer to Maple Hill than we did before, and we had one board, or committee member who really spoke to that. Melissa, who said, when she was asked how do you feel about the life, why would we find the Paxico, and we asked her the question, well, what if it was just Alma Holman, and she said, my husband and I would really have to think hard about that. So I think if you keep Paxico open, maybe it's better than a 3% jump. And Farland, again, your best supporter, even 75, a little higher than Alma. Paxico, okay, we're more supported now. I'll put that at 60, and then your other 3% is still 50-50. So I give you 10-74. What you're trying to do is get a margin that's going to get you over the top. Well, that was a horseback. You can take that any way you want. I think you're going to have to, if you really take a look at those numbers, you know you're going to have to really rely on Alma and McFarland in the voting. And then, before we go further, I ask Robin to come in and just express what the committee has gone through with their work and talk about it. So I'm going to use you, Robin. I just want to assure the board that we did, as it may, spend a lot of time considering both options, all in Alma. I missed the last meeting where we thought we were going to wait for the survey to come in and make final recommendations to do for tonight. And that didn't come in because we really wanted to see what the survey results from the public telling us about how a larger group felt about rather than just our observations of what we think our observations were. Jim put the list of very good observations from the committee, got it down, got a lot of thoughts representing the community. I can't speak for the community. The band called me right before the meeting. By him, I was going to share. They said we agreed that those were feelings from the committee. Basically, three things that came out strongly for the committee. You use as many of the existing buildings as reasonable as you feel are reasonable. Keep the bond total as low as possible to help increase probability of a successful. Keep attendance centers in two towns, Paxville and Almond. I'll give you a, this one I shouldn't share, but I'm not sure it. Jim didn't list it in here. Was shared in the committee. I think all the committee agreed that was probable if you went with just an all Almond option. You could expect an organized opposition from the Paxville area with an Almond only option. That's not a threat, but it's just a political reality in this district. You didn't have an organized Paxville opposition in the last one, but the committee felt if you go with an all Almond recommendation that there would be an organized opposition from the Paxville area, it's just one option. The two town options provide the greatest probability of retaining the most students in the district. You won't lose your FTE. It's more probable you won't lose as much FTE for students sitting in the district with a two town option as opposed to one. That's using an inclusionary model versus an exclusionary model. The committee had a time to provide a continuum in the district. We feel any infrastructure upgrades will ensure or enhance educational opportunities for our students because it opens up the budgetary funds for you to use for instructional endeavors in the future. But we implore you to genuinely take into account the political environment within this district. We feel this bond has passed, or you need a bond to pass to give you the budgetary options that you're going to need in the future for you have money from keeping facilities upgraded, older facilities upgraded, and the cost of the square footage to give you the option of using most of the educational options. Frustrating numbers, frustrating because it's been so difficult to get them, but I got the text. This is, I believe, from our phone holders. I got two numbers from it. And one was on $18.5 million on just that amount, what would be the likelihood of how likely to support it. 24% very likely, and 16% somewhat likely. So that gives you 40% of support. Somewhat unlikely, 20%. Very unlikely, 16%. So that's 36% on the unlikely side. So almost a split, 24% undecided. The likely, you use 10% away, 10, 11, 12% away. If you swing half of the undecided, the way we look at it in marketing and with polls, you have a 12, 13% that you can swing forward toward the support. And that wasn't a bad, in Ron's voice, he said, well, that's not a bad starting point. You'd have a good amount of unlikely that you can move. That's with an 8% margin of error. And that's with a 95% confidence level. In other words, if this was done 100 times, this would be the same results 95 times. And I had 125 hundredths of the weighted average, the actual bone responses we got online was 108. And we had to wait it up either, we usually use 125, 150, 175 to work our way up. So it's weighted up with that. The weak part of that is not super weak is margin of error. So what you can say is that likely it could be 48% was supportive or it could be 32%. Your margin of error, you can add 8% or subtract 8% or you can split it and say you can add 4% or subtract 4%. Anyway, 44, 36 opposed, 24% undecided. If you split undecided, normally in a horse race or a campaign, you can split your undecided, that puts you at 52% which we were talking about earlier with solid percentages. Now, the other one that's a big one, all an Alma question, yes or no? 35% was yes. 31% no and undecided was 34%. So again, you've got a wonderful horse race going on which is a little more, I thought, well, I've got to represent the board in some ways and represents leadership here. So I guess that wasn't right. I was hoping for a stronger yes or a stronger no but it was a really clear definition. But that tells you you've got, again, a horse race going on here and split. Being undecided, 34%, there's 17% that you push either way. Usually you can say I'm on your undecided that you normally have a good marketing and good campaign you can push that 17% in the direction. So there you go, there you go. Margin of air, 80%, 95% confidence. We'll have a complete red report. I'm sorry, it is one of the most frustrating things. We've done over 200 surveys with this company. They've been integrity, they've been sharp, they've been on time, they've been great. COVID must have crushed something or done something here. We know our lead researcher is no longer there. I'm not dealing with someone else, actually the owner but he wasn't our lead researcher, his work was intact. So I'm sorry about that but there's probably the two of you are most interested in it. The other questions had to do with closing the buildings. What was their support for that? I have a question on enhancing the shop bag and building something new that's kind of a shiny star for the district that fits very well with who you are. I've been in question on that, putting the elementary in Mexico and keeping the older portion open and used. Updating the Lubezzi High School was another question. So updating the Lubezzi High School, placing elementary school tax go and maintaining the old building, enhancing the ag tech shop. Closing salary lease to make Miller tax go school buildings. And how am I going to do these 418 plus million dollar bonds accomplishing things. And then school board is considered to designate how was the location for all of us in school districts who have not supported what you do about it. But the last two questions are the keys that I'm sure you'll want to hear tonight. Should I have yourself, I don't have any problems, please. You said you'd have them tomorrow. Should be a fairly light-favorite board. You're gonna have all the best for that. Jim. Yeah. So this is the all-in-all amount of support, or non-support, these numbers. And the 18.5 million supporting the 18.5 million bond. Is it broken down for the split? Do we have the numbers or the percentages for the option six? That's my survey. The phone poll? Yes. Oh, no, no. Oh, just a general question. This is just about that. They've been asked, updating the high school. They've been asked, updating the elementary school and tax go and keeping the old building. They've been asked about enhancing the shop. They've then been asked about make well, tax go, salaries, or maintain, or closing seller leads. Then after they've heard that, then they're asked 18.5 million, how likely would you be to support the bond, 18.5 million to accomplish these things for the business. Then we switch the table on and said, well, we're gonna put all of this in all instead. And they will be broken down by age groups. I believe there's sex around gender. Gender is taken by the voice over the phone. Is it code? I mean, parent, guardian, oh, okay, that's all. Got any questions on your cost sheet? Yeah. So down at the bottom, we have high total and low total. So if I understand these correctly, you can take them into account, possible loss or lost income on student cost. So if I read these correctly, the best case scenario for option six is still not as profitable for us as the worst scenario for option 5.2. Is that right? Yes. So we save more money with the worst option of losing all of those kids on option 5.2 over the best scenario of a split. Yeah, let's do that. So let's start at the top and see where that happened. It's up at the top on your average square footage. Right. That's your big one. So. And I'm taking the numbers that I can pick. Sure. Maria's gonna have to put me on those numbers. I'm not taking the numbers part, I'm just trying to make sure I understand them correctly. You have a concentration in 5.2 that you don't have and it is six. You go to the next line, you've got your, that's your square footage times 184. You go to your next line and you'd have some reduction costs because you're not maintaining that double kitchen, you're not maintaining that double custodian, but a little you're still gonna have to have a fair amount of them there. So that's not much of a difference. The next line, the small difference there as well. We really couldn't pinpoint all that till Buster Else, I talked to Brad, Buster Else established everything else, but you do have the school cars that are gonna be driven as well, that's true as far. On the 5.2, I'll just grab a laugh at somebody else's talk, but on the 5.2, one of the things that you really have is that in the high concentration, all buildings and all kids here is, I think you're pushing that into roughly 10 acres. I think that's what we've got and I'm just, again, horsebacking that versus when you have that number of kids that's packing it in, parking is probably gonna have to be extended. You may have to go clear around, practice at the arena, apparently it's open all night school district. You may have to have parking clear around there, put some kind of safety sidewalk to bring those kids back around and use staff parking. So it works out around the, you know, the airport. That was another idea. Playground, you're now gonna punch all of Elmo's elementary kids here when I playground and that's gonna be pretty concentrated. Unless you do something with a gym, you're gonna have all of them now using a gym that in the past, the high schools, had a real luck with two gyms with just a high school. Now they have a junior high, and now they're gonna have all the elementary, all the elementary, not just the other. So if you want to give a take of the numbers, oh, the numbers, the square footage is smaller, so there's still gonna be a lot of pressure. Is it, I'm sorry. Is it upgraded playground included in this at all? Thanks. We transferred some different playgrounds over to one place today, I think. You just, the square footage of grass that you have will now be punched in the air. Just things to consider. That's a good observation. And again, the numbers on range of estimated students' lives versus school location configuration I can't remember how many people I suppose there's three or four of these that I bounce that off. That's a good idea. Lowes were none, all the way to highs in the 25 or 30s. You get a lot of this unless you survey those parents you're not gonna know, but you do need a plan or something. One other question I had, I guess, that eventually will have to be answered is go back to the committee's comment about the organized no campaign per se. I guess in the last fall, there was an overwhelming larger amount of vote no signs in the Paxco area than there was in the Alman area. So I guess I would probably, I think maybe maybe there was a little bit of contradiction there. Totally different bond, right? I mean, honestly, it was a totally different bond. So people place a vote no sign for different reasons and maybe some of those vote no signs come down. But there was a larger amount of vote no signs in Paxco with a split Paxco Alma bond on the table than there was in Alman. So. No, no, no. It's basically one apartment. I mean, you know, I understand. I understand. I get it, but. We won't vote for a bond regardless of how it is. So. If I could, Justin, I agree that I included that for two reasons. One, that there was a clear comment from that committee that they felt that there would be a more widespread and active opposition. So that's one of these. The other thing I'd like to mention, Angel and Iman, I will mention on the second half of that was Dwayne's in comments that he made that last meeting that I wasn't there, but his comments were sure passed along with the rest of us. And I think that fit in to this piece was that Dwayne's has been involved in multiple bond issues across time. And he's been, I think, involved in all of them. And his observation was any of those bonds in the past that had active opposition struggle, they didn't pass. The one that did pass didn't have a great deal of active, larger, larger, I should say. And that's the part that was stressed about a large group of opposition coming from a one school, a college, or something like that. Rather than just an innovation, I'm sorry to clarify that. I may have come back and speak to that. I want to clarify that a little bit. Particularly Dwayne's group. He's been through five or six, five, all five of those, four or five, whatever it was. And anytime there was an organized opposition, it failed. So a lot of those bonds happened prior to me being holding up which part doesn't get involved. But if I also understand correctly how those went, they changed their approach in the last bond. Each community runs on them. And their approach to the community, I think, was different in a sense that they made decisions on what bond they were gonna put on a ballot post-communication with different communities. What do you, here's our needs, what do you guys wanna do to solve them versus here's what we're gonna go do to solve them. And this is why that happened. I mean, if we vote on a bond tonight, I believe that's what we're telling the community, right? Is we have a problem, this is how we want to address it. And here's why, if you start having town causes, this is why we are doing this package where when they finally got one passed before, they went to the patrons and said, help me understand exactly how you want this thing to look. We're tired of trying to pass bonds that maybe don't fit. Tell us what you want and we'll put it on a ballot and we'll get it passed. And I think that came from Dwayne and Fluss. Well, my point being is maybe this, I'm gonna be the stick of the vote. You ready? I think that this turnaround time on this bond was too quick. I believe that it is a failure if we vote on a bond. I'm gonna table this until after they explore that show. The whole, it's toward the whole bond. Yes. Is that your motion? I think our time frame is ridiculous. We have not, we haven't discussed it at all. We've been here 48 minutes and we still haven't discussed it at all. All we do is listen to these people. And now we're talking about listening to people from previous bonds. We're in a situation because of those people from the previous bonds. Well, I mean, that's where I'm headed with it is I don't know, I'm 40 on the board. I did not re-run for my position but I'm on the board until December and I will support the board as well as it needs supported until that date comes because I'm no longer here. However, I believe that it's in everybody's interest to, well, let me back up. We started this whole conversation because we had a budget issue, right? We have an operating budget issue. That got down to the fact that we have so much deferred maintenance costs that we cannot operate the way we're doing and fix the deferred maintenance. We have those deferred maintenance costs because we are overextended on our square footage. That's all been covered. But my point being with that is if we move forward, the same way we moved forward last time, we don't necessarily fix our issue the way it needs to be fixed. I mean, I'm looking at them and I'm not telling you I'm for one option or the other but I'm gonna be budget-driven at this point because I don't care what school, what town my kids have to go to. I've proven that because I have kids in all three towns. So if you're telling me that the budget is better if we lose all those kids and go with an all-alma option, it's still better than the best Paxco-alma option that you have listed here, financially. Why aren't we asking and helping people understand that why is it worth more money? So then the question gets asked, well, is an economic benefit to any of these towns to have a school in their town. Okay, so help me understand then, because I'm ignorant, so help me understand how much economic impact does a great school have to a community? I think it's about bringing the communities together. I mean, that's what I think personally. I think we should do the economic impact to us is getting kids to come to our school. As a benefit to the district, a district's a job and our job as a board is to attract students and to retain students that we have. Any effort opposite of that, I think is completely absurd from a board perspective. To cause the deterioration of your own schools just is absurd. So I guess, I understand the finances. Are you saying one of these options turns students off? Turns students off? Yeah. Which option? I think all in all that turns families that are from Maple Hill and families from Paxico away from our district. If I could speak and I know I'm not part of the board, but that was a feeling in the committee. And I know the generous editor has offered five and 12 on offer back on two. I think it's about that this way. Where that's actually gonna be, I don't think anybody can actually tell you what that number's gonna be until it's done. Our observation, understanding community, taking representatives from the different communities was that two cans of water increased profitability is gonna keep vastly more of those students in the district and keep that budget higher. So they thought it would be larger than this. Does that mean it has to be a, does that mean it has to be a teaching environment presence in their community? Or can it just be a school presence in their community? That's part of the questions that I have is, but maybe we have, we have two rec departments. We have a rec department in Maple Hill, we have a rec department now. Why can the school not invest through this bond invest a large sum of money in the Paxico gym, redesign it, make it a rec program that we hold, you go to a lot of us that are on the board have gone to basketball tournaments, volleyball tournaments, softball tournaments, and there are thousands of people at these events, thousands. So if it is about a, if it's about us being in a community and supporting a community that brings economic development, then we need to be the economic development in Paxico and make that a rec department. Bring all of our kids here, put a rec development over there, we'll fund it because we need to be a part of the communities. That's what the communities are asking us is don't abandon us. Don't leave us. Well, we haven't explored that as an option, but there could be thousands of dollars of revenue that comes in on a weekend of a basketball tournament that's held there because of the increase the size of the facility and made it nice. Wait a minute. Where are they gonna spend the dollars? That's for the entrepreneurs to figure out. Hey, we're putting this in and there's a need. Now we bring in the gas station drill. Really describing the big picture, aren't you? I am. I mean, I think that's what I have a knack for this big picture. Maybe you love people tell me no, but I think that it will at least be explored and I think it ought to be talked about in the Paxico area. It's financially smart for us to consolidate into one school. What can we do to help the Paxico area still have a better option than a grade school? I don't see what the value is of having a grade school in a town does. If we have it here, it's because it's all together. If we have one there, what good does that do to those kind of Paxico? What positive benefits does that allow the Paxico patrons other than eight to nine miles of drive time? Twice a day, call it 20. It's definitely a political issue. There's no doubt. It's a political issue. It's a historic political issue. Probably always a building to some extent. But it's also not just Paxico. I mean, if you look at Maple Hill, yes, we don't have a lot of students that attend Maple Hill. Maple Hill is the only area in our district that has increased in population, over 25% in the last 10 years. But none of those get to attend school. They may not be attending here now. They're not attending any public school. Does that mean that they will always never attend or that town will stop growing? Well, I think that if you look at the demographics, you know that. Well, you know it's probably gonna keep growing to some extent. But not kids that are going to attend. But you don't know whether or not they will attend public schools. I think we're a pretty good answer. You can take a pretty good guess from the family dynamics. I think probably, well, over half of 10 public schools is just a matter of which public school they choose to attend. And right now, a good percentage attend a different public school. They attend a private school. Less than half attend the private school that live in Maple Hill. Over half attend a public school. Either here or St. Mary's, or Rossville. It just so happens that right now, a majority of those students aren't here. If you have facts and figures on that, I'd like to see it. I just thought about the growth. The percentage of growth that we're seeing, and I'm speaking of this before we're going to St. Mary also, that percentage of growth is mainly from the Academy and St. John's. Yeah, in terms of growth as of right now, I would say most are moving towards the Academy. But in terms of actual students that are going to different schools right now, it's over 50% going to public schools that live in Maple Hill. Just in that I could. The committee's officer of recommendation, two school, first school one, it wasn't the improving impact businesses or this town impact school. The reason we were looking at that and the best option was to, as I listed it, number one, use as much of the existing facilities as you can from a budgetary standpoint, to sell the bond to patrons of the district. How are you going to explain to the district patrons that you're going to give up that gym impact school and build something like that over here when you had it at that school? Plus the lunchroom and the commuter room and the computer room, the existing facilities that are impacted by them. That's what, from the committee and the community's observations from that committee, it had to do with the educational benefits of using those existing facilities, the gym being a big one, the town's area being a big one. And then for a long time, we discussed and we were willing to take down the old junior high and move the junior high over here and build a pre-date through six there. But we came back to, because of the cost, and recognizing for the Buncie County and to this district and the history of past bond issues, keeping it as cheaper possible. And that's by using the existing facilities for the educational program in this district, not for keeping packs alive. That has nothing to do with that from the community's perspective. Use that existing gym, commons area, computer lab library, the old junior high, which is structurally sound to sufficiently house three through six. Get your primary, then appreciate through three addition or whatever they did at the pre-date through two. But even having them to do with saving the town for the last build, we were trying to efficiently use what you currently own. If I may. You should and you may, yes. Please speak. So, I mean, I appreciate what the committee has to say on this for a number of reasons. One, we all voted as a board last time when we could have on board to do a split campus and to then come back now and say, that's not what we want now is really a mixed signal to our community. We want them to trust that we know what we're doing, that we have the best interest of the district at heart, but we can't stay on the same page between from November to July. So, I appreciate that it's the same one because that number one validates the previous community group that came to us with this option. And supports that that was, I mean, that was a whole different set of people. And then we have a new set of people coming to us and saying the same thing with the modifications. To Justin's point about having town halls prior to presenting what bond option because the community was able to give their input, that's, I want the community to give their input. I feel like we have a lot of community input between a number of surveys, two community groups, the previous town halls, what they didn't vote for, but also to that point, the community told us what they wanted, we took that and passed the bond. And now we have multiple buildings that if we closed down Maple Hill, we're leaving behind some of that bond. If we closed down Pax DeCote, we're leaving behind some of that bond. So when we listened exactly, and we took exactly what they said and we gave them exactly what we did, did we do what was in the best interest of the district or did we just try to pass a bond? And so I think we passed a bond because everybody got a little something. And I've heard multiple times, we can't just pass a bond. And you're right, we need to do what's in the best interest of our district trying to keep Pax DeCote a viable community because I live in Pax DeCote. My husband grew up in Pax DeCote, we have ties to Pax DeCote, but I think Robin's right. And when he says this is not about keeping Pax DeCote alive, this is about doing what's in the district's best interest. And I would also have a hard time saying to the community, let's bring everything to Alma and we're gonna set up shop all over here. And now we're also gonna ask you to give us more money so that we can renovate the Pax DeCote campus to make it a community center or a rec center that's gonna hopefully bring income to the district. And I understand, I think in the grand scheme things, that sounds like a nice idea. And it's not something I'm super like, oh no, never. But we're trying to ask them, I mean 24 million was too much. And so then it would have to be to bring everything here plus out of shop, plus do that. I mean, there's your what, 18, 20 million. And then you're telling us now we're gonna have to renovate Pax DeCote, that's not even gonna be really a part of the district, it's gonna be part of the rec program. I think Pax DeCote would like to have a rec program, that'd be great, so in Alma, so in Maple Hill. But I don't know how we could ask our patrons for that. And what if we have bad years? What if COVID shuts us down and we can't play sports and then we're maintaining a whole campus. So in my opinion, the community committee has validated what the previous committee has said. Our previous bond did not fail by a large margin. There were a lot of people supportive of it. And for us as a board to say, we supported that, and I know not everybody voted for it. But when we voted and it passed as a board, we supported it. And then they come back and say, you know what? Now we're not gonna support that. We're not gonna support what our community members have said to us, even though it's exactly basically what they told us last time. We're not gonna listen to them. Why on earth would the other community members that aren't here being represented trust that we're gonna listen to them? Now there is a motion on the table. Do we still wanna continue discussing that motion? I know, let me have a second. The motion was just to refresh. Jerome moved to table the bond discussion until after the next board election. So talking about progress, he talks about what he does. And I feel like the progress we've made is good progress. We've done a lot of things in the course of this potential bond that we did not do last time. We had a structural engineer come in, he says our buildings, found out our buildings are in good shape. They're sustainable. We brought on a contractor to be able to review costs, to be a second opinion. A lot of the community wanted that. A lot of individuals in the community wanted that. We brought on communications efforts. We actually talked to people, talked to them on the street. We talked to parents. We talked to staff. We talked to students. We've kind of registered voter surveys. We've done a lot of efforts. And to throw that away by negating those efforts in saying, no, even though you're recommending this, we don't think that's what's best, would be absurd. Are you saying the recommendation that you are hearing is for option six? Is that a recommendation from the committee? But all the information you say has been gathered that you just described is leading you to option six. Is that what you're saying? It's leading to that concept, that two-locating concept. That's what it needs to do. Everything the committee has indicated thus far to us, the surveys that have been done, I know a majority of the staff had said they wanted one location, but as a teacher, if I was asked a question, would you prefer to be in one location with the school or two locations, not indicating anything about the district or that that would be the plan of any sort? I would probably say one location. So is that, are you just, can the teachers want their same? I'm not discounting them, but under the context, I may have answered the same way. In terms of the parents, they indicated two locations even under that context, not even realizing you were talking about that as the future of our district. And the parents carry a pretty heavy weight in my mind. That was like 150 some votes. That's pretty significant. I think if you just listen to what the people are telling you, we have the data. I understand it's not the cheapest. I understand from an operational perspective, it's very possible it's gonna cost more. If you lose twice as many students, I don't know if you can do the math quick, but you actually have less in these bottom two buckets. Justin. You asked all the schools that have already consolidated and shut down other schools as we have prior to the last bond, nobody left. Billion didn't leave. None of the people left. They didn't have the district didn't leave, particle didn't leave. Mission Valley is now a larger school district than Wobunce. Do you understand where they put that school? Do you understand that there's no other schools for those other towns to really go to easily? The previous bonds solidified Alma as their high school location. I didn't vote for that bond. They put that in there. They're giving us no choice today for a consolidated school other than the town of Alma. I'm not moving away from the high school. I'm saying if you can't compare that way because the kids didn't leave. The only other school to be sustainable, listen to the communities. That's all I'm saying. I know. If they listen to the communities. We listened to the communities last time and we're in the worst of scenarios. We did listen. We changed it. We changed it. 20 years ago we listened to them and they said, this is what we want. So we did it and now we have no money. Okay. It was the worst plan possible. We can't argue that. I mean we all know that. They claim. We all know that. I mean we can't argue that. We all know it, but we're here today. So why would we do a similar plan than that? I don't think it's similar plan. I think they planned for growth. It's not a similar plan. That didn't happen. I think they had high goals. No. This is the most reasonable outcome. You're using all of your existing square footage for the most part. I mean you're using the two largest buildings that you already have. You're not building randomly in other places to other schools. It's the opposite of what they did. You're bringing it to use the most that you can. You're building on the very least that you can. Speaking of this option six, there is more space you can sit in that building. That dead space that's around the admin on the bottom level and the media room being that large, there is additional space that can be used for classrooms. Yeah. I think last time that they talked about that, there was concern about putting a classroom in there in that admin space. Because there's zero windows in that area. You can do title rooms. You can do standard rooms. Yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying that that was part of the time. I mean, I'm just saying there's additional potential for rooms there. Okay, I understand that that was the question. Yes. Oh, I just have a question. Yeah, that's our final question. Do we own the ball field area at Mexico? Yes. The district of Napa. I thought we did, but I just want to. And the concession is being too appealing. Good. I wanted to make sure. Because where are you going to put parking in playground and open green space for kids? That was my question. What are you going to call it? Yes. That was my question. And so my other question about this is because we're adding, we're not reducing our space as much as we would obviously be an option by then too. So I think we have a lot of dead space now in that building, the two-story building that we're not using in terms of our modular. So are we still not using a lot of the dead space or making offices in that way? That's what I was talking about. So it was, it was difficult. Where this is, what this is showing. We're showing new rooms for pre-paying for your second grace. The other breakout spaces that we could put into that additional square footage would possibly be art and music. And art, you typically want windows in this space that we have left, doesn't have windows. The other one's music and trying to stop sound within the new structure if you go into surrounding rooms could be difficult. So if that space could be utilized and we could build less, it would just be sacrificing something else. Since I'm getting to the older of the dirt, I was involved in the last log issue. I could be involved with Cheryl's about one of them from my friend's standpoint. Things were different with that last bond. I'd like to remind you the budget was different, the district budget was different, capital outlay was different. The needs of the district at that time were different. The biggest need in the district was not maintaining the budget. Budget was fine. What problem was, you didn't have a gym at that time. And the only way you were gonna get a gym at that time was looking at facilities in the rest of the district and what other improvements needed to be made. That's also 20 years of building technology that's done online when we have computer labs each one of the buildings, libraries to the elementary buildings that we did not have. So that was the major, the need for the bond is different now than it was 20 years ago. It may be it wasn't, it's taken 20 years ago. But I'm telling you, it addressed problems that were different 20 years ago than what you're facing today. They had money, just not enough to build a new gym and dress them, that's how I got the bond passed by looking at how else other than adding, anytime you add just sports, that doesn't serve very well on bond. You don't have any sports stuff in this bond. So education, that one was a need for the gym at the high school and the communities expanded that to address the educational needs of the buildings. Primarily at the elementary, K-8 with technology, K-8 in all two other, two other communities, back still three at that time. Maple Hill back still now month, we didn't have computers in the elementary. They did high school, but we needed to bring that on at the elementary and we put computer labs and libraries to the elementary. That's what's different. I'll probably show that to you. Everything I had heard so far are used for one location. You don't think you are, but you are. I know it costs a lot more. I know it's a lot more. Everything everyone has said so far sounds like we should be going down. We did this 20 years ago because we didn't have a way, we had these budget constraints. Maybe it was mistake, but we all believe it was. Why don't we try to do something similar? Stretch, keep our feet stretched. Don is here, but he has said, we really ought to try to put this in front of the people to vote in Alma. And it fails, it fails, and we move on, do something else. Why would Don say that? I mean, why would Don say anything different? I mean, Don, Don, what Don has, Don's not sitting in the chair, but Don has very vested interest in everything being in this town. So what Don said doesn't really go very far with me right now. No more than probably what I say about Mexico because people can say the exact same thing. See, so... I will say a lot. So what he said, he's got a very vested interest, very vested interest. You're on the list of those. You're saying why would we do that when we look at the back sheet here? Let me see what he's got. He'll tell me so, go ahead. Well, you guys can tear it apart, but what I took is what are you gonna have to do to get that ball down on the boat if you're gonna get 90% of the votes? I'm not, I'm not using it. Don, it's not my job to pass the ball on. It's my job to present something that makes sense. And if they vote it down, votes don't always make sense. I hope we... Can real options make sense in their own right? You can reduce, you can reduce option six if you want. You can make it a lot tighter. You can make them more efficient and be a little more of a base. I'm just saying, but 20 years isn't a long time. They did something 20 years ago. It's really affected us in a negative way. So let's think long term. Let's think more than 20 years, and we need it. The district will end up in Almond. Or it will disband. It will not continue in two counts. Don't we all know that? You would have been great if they were to pass it in 96 to be all in one location in the center. They tried it. They tried it here. So you're admitting to know what's right. They tried it. It didn't work. So they had to move to the next option and the next option and the next option. Then it came down to, okay, we have to do something in an attempt. And so they appeased everyone. What a great argument for a bond. We have to do something. I mean, come on. And then we came in, and what happened? The last election, 138 votes. 138 votes. Well, he's told some numbers. It's going to be close. No matter what we do. What's your point? My point is, I think have we done with the committee's recommendation at the previous bond and not tore down the high school, it would have been a different outcome. Have anything for the high school? Didn't do any remodeling. Right, but it was a drastic change. I know that. I'm just saying there wasn't any there was a same amount that we had. This 16 million only has the same amount. It's $3.8 million to the original. Okay. The $4.8 million, right? Yeah. Sorry, you know, we've only had about $2.5 million. I'm glad you're talking about it. Jessica, a few minutes ago, you mentioned about the other district. So, it's all made or moved when they didn't lose students. One of the things you guys have really tough, I personally work in probably 150 districts. And one respect for another is really unusual. It's how far away Maple Hill is from you guys. The growth of Maple Hill and the vitality there, it seems to be there, but the academy is a growing giant over there. And one reason you probably should make a decision is they're just gonna solidify harder and harder. I'm very familiar with it. I think you're all familiar with the telegroup that has worked its way through the hotels in the United States and how they work their finances and how they make, I mean, I think you're all familiar with the telegroup, right? And how they work their finances. As I understand it from my talking on there with people, this seems similar. This is a very aggressive group that's growing. So, every year it goes by, they're getting stronger. I don't know how they're right going. Yeah. Yeah, we heard that. And they're a giant growing over there on that side of the district. Plus, you've got that negativity of mileage. And I'll just say again, they heard Melissa, the little bungee grinder that has two children, said in the meeting. And I'm not trying to argue one of them yet. I'm trying to just re-focus. He said, well, we want to think very hard about that. I could put, I can read into that line that that's what you possibly, you've heard. Right. I mean, I- I'm just wondering- I agree. I agree with Melissa, said, you know, if 20 years ago now, when we built our house from McIll, if there wasn't an elementary school in Maple Hill, would we have built there? If I had just put my kids on a bus and someone in the Alma? I understand you're a little bit different. I'm just saying, I probably would have made a different thing at that point. Would you have still built there and sent your kids to a different school, or would you have changed where you built? They already exist. See, they don't have an option. They already exist, guys. Already there. They already lived there. I would have probably built some of these else, because we wanted to return to this discussion. We just didn't have that point in time when the drive-to-tweet was far, so that's why we did it. But, I mean, so I appreciate Melissa's comment about that, and I think that it is a factor. And there was one point in time when Cal Valley was going to combine their schools into one. And to me, at that point in time, it was really attractive, because it was still small enough, it was close enough, but it might have given my kids more opportunity for classes that they may not have gotten here. So, you're saying- I'm not, and I didn't do that. But, I want, I mean, so I think that it is a factor for families moving in. I think the families that are now moving into Midland Hill are, they're different. They're either moving there because they're trying to get out of some areas because they don't want to live there, or they're families that are attending private schools in our area. That's kind of the burning area, I would say, overall. So, you're saying that we're 20 years earlier, you would vote a different way? I didn't vote in this because I didn't own the house at the time when the vote happened. But, I'm just saying, you might vote a different way if it were a different time in your life. No, what I'm saying is that I can appreciate where families are at with that. I would love for our district to be in one location. That's what I would love for it to be. I think where there's wide benefits educationally for kindergartners to be in the same area as high school and have that interaction for kids to have that. 20 years ago, you wouldn't vote that way. It's your district, it's your area. This is your area. I know what my area is. My area is, my area is split. Yeah. They're split between. Okay, well, you know, because you live there and I'm sure you know. No, because I walk the streets. Okay, well, no, I'm just saying, Jim, my area is split. It is split with people that attend our school district. It is split with people that attend a private school. It is split with people that attend some other public school outside our district. And that's their choice. At this point, we are not going to change any of those families decision. As the representative of that area, it is your responsibility to represent those that attend our schools at a bare minimum. Right. You're really supposed to represent all, but. Well, how would I do that? I understand that. How would I do that? I would, you know how I would do that? Well. I would understand. Anyway, my opinion is your job is to represent those that defend us. That's fine. I'll resign right now. Okay, so let's bring this back up. So, we have the information from the agencies that we have at this time. I know, I know that. So what, what now? We have to have a motion on the table for this meeting. This is just a discussion item. We have to have a decision, so we're ready to make the final vote on the 9th. And I need the information to give to the people that have gone. Yes, Kelly. I have a, just a comment, because Justin and Jerome both have talked about, you know, gathering additional money. Maybe Justin won't be gathering additional money, but because for me to then work for classes of war, I think it's one thing if we were to tonight put forward a bond that was split, with split communities or whatever, because that was the same bond or similar bond that we did previously. If we were going to do something completely different, I think it would catch most community members off guard. I feel like we haven't, I mean, we've gathered input, but I don't feel like we've provided opportunity for the right thought we were doing. Okay, so just a few other items that I don't think we've talked about though, we've touched on, Patrick, we've talked on some of those. If Piper Sandler was here, they would talk about the interest rates being really low. Patrick would talk about how construction costs are increasing. What they used to increase 5% in a year, we're now seeing 5% per quarter on some materials as well. And Piper Sandler would also advise you on the next time frames. So the election has to be, before or after a general election, so it would be January would be like the next time that you would be able to do a special election. So I, for example, I'm building costs. Are you seeing that exponential increase in building costs in the last 30 days that you saw last previous quarter? I'd say from probably like February 1st to today is the most I've seen. Okay. Probably to the tune of like six to seven percent across the board. Some products more than others. So my followup to that is, can the board or somebody in this room help me understand why we are in a rush to put this on a ballot in November? Even if it is the option six that everybody wants, why are we in a rush to do it right now? Can somebody help me understand that? On that, I do not believe that interest rates are going anyway for the next 12, 25 months. But building costs surely have an opportunity to come down. From what I'm hearing and maybe, and you're in the business, but I've talked to a couple of people in the business that the futures are not saying they're gonna withstand this. So wood and commodity, wood, steel, those things will go down. The problem is is just history. I mean, prices never go down in general. I mean, we're gonna be a year from now. They might be the same. They're probably likely to be a little bit more than today. And I don't like to say that. I'd love to say just in general for all of my business that it's gonna come down. I just don't see it happen. But like what Justin, I think in a different way, so from February to now, it's been crazy. I mean, it's been, the growth has been substantial. That growth hasn't slowed. Like the future of that growth doesn't look like it's slowing. I mean, I'm not asking you to nail it down. I'm asking your opinion because you know the future, you know, the odds are coming up. I mean, what I'm seeing personally within our businesses, I am seeing a little slowdown and that is because of some of the construction costs. But all the indices that we read and forecasting that we pay attention to say that construction is going to continue to grow. The market is going to continue to grow. There's still gonna be a little bit of one build, not necessarily as that price is increasing but you're saying the prices haven't increased to a point where it's turning people away yet. Correct. And the infrastructure money coming through. And they also talk about like the historic, historic record of increasing on prices. We average 5% between 5% and 6% per year for increase. If you go back 10 years, we haven't had a 5% to 6% per year. We've had some years where it's three, some years where it's four. So if you track a line of 5.5% from the last 10 years to where it is now, the prices are where they should be based on about 5.5%. So that's leading to many of the people that I was talking to saying that they're not willing to go down. But we're still guessing. That's a pretty useful price. So it sounds like, so it sounds like, if hypothetically if we don't decide to say this is the one or this is the one that we want to do, then what are we saying? Okay, so we had the motion to table it until after. I don't know if I agree with that. Maybe you guys do. I don't know. So what is the alternative then and what do we want to do? What would be the alternative if we decide not to put up on this note? What do we do in the meantime? We have the information that we've received here. So would you suggest, and I'm gonna ask you because you put that out there, would you suggest then that we instead have community meetings or because I don't believe, I think it hurt us when COVID hit, obviously, that brought everything to a screeching halt. But we really didn't do much during that time. And I think that that was not good. Because when we came back, it was very rushed. So do we just stop all wheels from turning or do we continue to move forward and start doing those meetings, gathering that information? What do you suggest? Or what do you guys think? Because if we're not going to say we're choosing one or the other, then we need to have our next option for what we are doing. I think your board's split. I don't think you can get one pass tonight. Either side. So even if you put one to vote, it ends in a stalemate because we don't have a full board here for one. So what would we do? So eventually the board's gonna have to, somebody on the board is going to have to, somebody at us as a board is going to have to get our wheels on straight, our seats on straight because it's gotta pass us before it gets to the voters. And I firmly believe that we can sit here for another three hours and it's gonna be a split, this again, I expect to go. If there's anything that's even near on the fence, if there's, I'm not looking at it anyway, I'm looking around for it. If there's anyone that's even debating on which one they might choose between. I know where I sit. I'm gonna follow the recommendations of the committee. I'm gonna follow the recommendations of our constituency. If there's others that are willing to do that, know that you don't have to show up at the town halls. You don't have to go to door to door to talk to people. You don't have to do the work, is what I'm saying. I'll do it. Put me in front of the constituency with these two options and I will sit there at every single meeting and I will not say a word but listen to every single page and that grabs the microphone and gets me there. I have literally watched door to door into every single one of our communities. And I have talked to people in their living rooms and dining rooms. I think I have an idea based on that, based on the committee, based upon the survey results of what people are trying to tell us. I don't want to sit around and wait for costs to go up, for people to wonder what the heck's going on, why is the school, I don't want to wait for H-backs to go out, roofs to be leaking. I don't want to have to wait for that. Okay, what do you want? You can call me. You know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. You know what I've been talking with that. And I wonder what the representation of the committee really was by attendance. I've said before that people willing to serve are the ones that have an agenda. I don't know how to say it. The people willing to talk to you, to open their door, or are they more open to spending the rest of the money? I specifically reached out to mail orders from, I asked people, who do you know that voting mail against this? And I talked to those people. You're gonna pretend I'm right? Seven. All opposed, say aye. Stand up. I'm here. We can fill up a candidate, Jara. What you got? You don't act first, do you lose? You laugh, right? You would make sure to close. No, you're not. Thank you. Yes. Does anybody need to know who our... Do you guys obviously need to know who our... Close. Nobody! You're safe. You're not really after a left turn. Ah, you know how things start with a right turn. That's how I got off. I got ready. Nobody. One and three for him. Nobody. Zero. Zero. Right in. Right there. Okay. I'll move this. I'm safe. I'm not safe. You can sit on it. I'll move it. I'll just send my kids to St. Mary's. I'll try to sit on it. I'll be ready to sit on it. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll just sit on it. I'm ready to sit on it. I'll just send my kids to St. Mary's. I'll try to sit on it. Okay, for the... I got told by somebody in St. Mary's that... If you move there... This is somebody in the neighborhood for me. When you come to St. Mary's, you don't think they're home. Could you take whatever's available? Yeah. Was there a building? No. No. There was no room. No room in the site. It's been five hours. Five in no, you know. You don't know what time your bedtime is. We thought it was their building. And a car. It was 20 years ago. He probably won't. It's the end of the vacation. What's that money? He's gonna wear mine now. We could have been 20 years old. And he was at a house over there. And it was when he was here. So they had a... Wait, we're just kidding. We're moving to the house. Are you guys in? Yeah. It's really different. Yeah. For the... I mean... That's not how this is going to be. I don't know how it's going to be. It's really different. It's just one. It should be a car. Yeah. It's a 737 right now. Is it about... Maybe 15 seconds. Okay. So... It's what? Yes. All right, are my 15 seconds up? Yes. All right. Okay. Madam President. I just want to make sure that... I just want to make sure that... I just want to make sure that... I just want to make sure it's re-arranged again. And it's been the board goals in no sense. But it is your responsibility to make the best decision to sustain the school district and provide the best educational opportunity for the students. Whatever that may be. You look like you want to say something. One other thing. Yeah. And I don't know that's the problem. Okay. On timeline wise, oftentimes you have a plan of your... what you're going to do written at beforehand, and then you make the resolution at the next meeting so that you have time to sleep on it and everything. So, if you remember what we did last time, there was a couple things in flux that we changed when we made the resolution. So, if plans and I could still be slightly modified at the resolution on that day. Justin, would you have something? One last consideration. Have we, as a group, thought about the risk of student loss to the other elementary school here at Alma if we move our elementary kids to Mexico? Your risks are all the same. That's my point. Your risks are all the same. So, this is a split decision. It's very tiny. It'll be as high as the voters' box. Would you? No. You look like you're going to say something. Well, we have two options. The motion to select one, or we have a motion to appropriate something, the decision one way or the other needs to be made. Make a decision. Well, I understand Jerome's position. Okay. I understand it because there's no data in terms of the last election that indicates any different. I can't look at precinct data, break it down and say, okay, yeah, they definitely went one way or the other. And for clarity, the last election that we just had or 20 years ago? No, just this motion. Okay. I think that's true for a lot of ours. If there's mixed, they don't correlate that. We don't have precincts, old precincts where we sit in terms of the voting. But going through Maple Hill, it was interesting because all of the people I talked to that attended our school district, there was, of all those people, which I probably, there was probably 10 households. I remember two, because they were very good doing the conversations of individuals who attended our school district who did not support the last one, two of them had. And talking with those individuals and their conversations with other individuals that attended district, they go to Maple Hill. It was pretty overwhelming that we had a lot of support from those that attended our district from Maple Hill. There was a lot of support in the last one. And I don't know if part of that was driven by the people themselves or if or are they sort of underlying campaign that happened there? I don't know. But at least those that attended supported it. And so I do question any representative of that area that does not see that as legitimate. Because of that support. Do you have, I mean, do you want to make a motion? Yeah, I'll make a motion that we move forward with the option of cross-work by a committee. Option six with the concept of being in two towns and not necessarily specifically the layout that they provided because I think that that could be adjusted to include more space within and bring the cost down, potentially. But with the concept of two locations. A motion? There's a motion on the floor where we can have discussion, right? Yes. So my question to you is the last one, some people thought they were right. That's a blank check. We were pretty specific. Now we have a motion on the floor. We didn't before. Now we did. So the patrons question writing us a blank check right now you're going to be putting these numbers on there. You can't go back and change them once you put this on there. Right. Well, we can in some Monday. Monday, we can make minor adjustments. But you Monday made those adjustments out in front of public. Some of the people in public were like I don't like the color of paint. They were wanting that specific information and now you're saying I want to pass up on resolution tonight for 16 blah, blah, blah. What a lot of them didn't like is empty boxes. And how do you fix that between now and Monday and get it out in front of the patrons? This doesn't have empty boxes. That's right. So we have a motion to that has been moved and seconded. All those in favor. Say aye. Aye. Tony. Jim. Is that correct? This time. Aye. But you also. Yes. Now a good option failed because we rushed into this problem. Now a good option failed. I think there was a good option that should have been loaded on. I think more research should have been done. But we're moving on, right? Okay. And. Just fine. This is a question that I just have. So. At the next. I guess I close it to the board. At the next. Meeting or subsequent meetings. Do we want this to be continuing agenda item that we discuss it that we come up with next steps. What do you. What do we want to do. For you. Kelly. I did suggest the next steps now. Is that maybe we have some time. Prior to coming up with. A plan. And I would also. Highly encourage some strong input from our administration. Construction. Have a contact with now. We. Have lots of input and help. For HK. But I feel like those were areas that were. From administration. And. Right. Right. And so I guess. That I feel like maybe there are other things. That. For clarity. When you say the town hall. You were. You were. The town hall correct. Are you thinking we need to go with options. I'm just asking. I'm saying what we just talked. What we talked about. We have a problem. We have to consolidate. And if I voted just on what people are making. No one I vote for both. No for both of these options. Because it pulls everything out of me. So. I am voting and trying to vote. What is the best option and the best interest of our students in our district. To keep it viable in the future. Not. What is in the best interest of my own personal feelings. About. Keeping something to make. So I feel like yes we should have some. People need to have a voice. Not just a survey. They need to have an opportunity to talk. And we need to listen to them. We need to not talk over them when they have things. That they want to say. We need to provide those opportunities. For people to provide. Some. Some of their thoughts about it. I guess. But also giving them. We have a problem. We can't continue with four locations. We can't continue with. It's not viable. Can I. I don't know. Can I explain why I voted no. I don't know. I just want to make sure that I'm not disrupting the flow. So I did not vote. For this. Because and even though I'm in support. I'm in support of option six. But. Because. We as a board are too fractured. Fractured. And. I feel like. We will probably not pass something. That is a good option. If we cannot sit here. And have a civil discussion about it. So. I'm not going to vote to try to pass it. If we can all. The majority maybe. Of us. Come to some understanding that this is what is best. So I did want to clarify that I am in support of that option. I am in support of. What the community group has had to say. But I really. Feel like. We need. To come together and figure out. How to present something that we can all be behind. In a majority fashion. In a civil way. So that we can go to the community. And present the option. With as a united front. I think that was lacking last time. And I think it contributed. That's my position. Now. Yes. For it. Which I'm not. I think this. The fact finding. Is. Is good. The town hall. In my opinion. Asking the question. You tell me. I've been told by some that said they wouldn't. They've done their research. That's fine. But I think. That needs to happen. September latest. It needs. We. We can't just sit. So let's put it on. So. And that's fine. But our next meeting. Or even the. I don't care. This one September. We got him points and dates and it needs. Obviously we. We have three facilities and three different towns. And that's. We need to have one just like. But this time around the front. So I'm just throwing. That's my opinion. You guys. Say whatever. But. We can't say. Oh no I. I agree. So it's. Seven states. Next time. I'm sorry Kelly. So they were. Set some dates. And they had a regular schedule meeting. We're going to set some dates. Is that what you're asking to do. Just. Release. By the September meeting. I think. What. Drum. Yeah. We need to do something. Just. Come to a meeting and have on the agenda. We're going to talk about it. Right. In September. August meeting. We're doing this. August meeting. Well August meeting. Yeah that's what I'm saying. August meeting. We said. Yes. I'm sorry. I was. No that's. Yeah. That's why. Turn it up. There was. For them. To take that. A vote. And nobody voted. That. That was actually. There's a motion. To fail. Because. Okay. So. The. Somebody. Good because. I think. I. Got. Wanted. In way. Okay. Moving on everybody. Okay. I mentioned. Yeah. so. The. Very. The. Okay. Rating. I. So. Moving on. Are we ready. We're going to get. Okay. Yeah. So. So, the community means a great idea. I would also suggest to have a specific facilities group that encompasses three board members, a superintendent, and your maintenance staff, and myself and Maria. And I guess Jim's still on board. And what's the purpose? I would say that would be the group that would probably come up with the data that's needed for information for the community. And then also, they have the best opinion of what needs to happen with those facilities where it's going to understand the operational and three of the board members at least understand it here and can discuss. And you guys all get back together of why and what was discussed and suggested of why something was done, certainly. Because right now, the only thing that's happening is we're having a community member come in and say, this is what we recommend, but none of the board members are hearing the discussion behind all that. They're hearing some of the points that are needed, but they're not part of that discussion. And I think that that should be an important part of both. I think that would be a helpful part to your discussion and understanding of what needs to happen. I mean, even if they're a parent, maybe on the board, and a teacher, those are on that select committee. They're not necessarily coming up with what our next poll is. No, not necessarily. I think they would have a major influence. They're going to be the ones that are most involved. When you ask for just general community members, you're going to get votes that maybe have an agenda or maybe have a certain idea about how something should be considered. Strictly backfinding and making the best possible option. I strongly encourage that facilities, personally, that they understand your facilities. We don't have one. Do you know one? Are you one? Yeah. Right. That would be on the agenda. That's a Patrick's point. That gives a group of people that I think are very knowledgeable and experts in this area. And that's where I felt that we needed more of that. We need a group of experts of operations of the building part of it. That's where I felt like we were. Yeah, those were questions that we got at the last meetings that maybe we weren't able to communicate as well because we didn't have those experts there. We only know your principles in that. We live in these buildings and we have to comply with all the type of teachers. We're very knowledgeable. Okay, on to another fun topic. What is her call? Today. Yeah, not at all. Today, this is what we know. Tomorrow we have a special that's been called by the State Department Education Commissioner a special Zoom meeting to discuss COVID. So I don't know what will... There's nothing like speculation, but nothing. We have heard that on the Transportation Director's meeting that masking was going to be for all students riding buses. But don't know that any time officially to this point. But like I said, it's all going to... Could be changed tomorrow. So, but I just wanted to real quickly go over two or three things because I know you're getting asked and I think it's important that we're out there and don't ask anyone that goes down like that. But yeah, thank you. You're more than welcome to stay. I got to deal with my mom. What this says without going through and changing everything basically is we have the board approved a back-to-school X-Teen COVID plan at the end of last year that talked about controlling what we could control with the air quality disinfectant schedules our returning to normalcy that included mask facilities and washing routines and continued work with the Woodbussy County Health Department. So with that being said it's been expanded some to the... I think it's important for us philosophically that we let people know that we're allowing personal choice and responsibility that wearing a mask will continue to be up to individuals. Those that want to be vaccinated have had the opportunity to do so and people will evaluate their personal risk factors and ultimately make their own medical decisions. And again the fact that we will continue with what we've talked about doing to this point. Some things that I did want to highlight to continue with normalcy I think if we do have a responsibility as board and as administration to keep students in school and so we found out today that we have been approved for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment grant that we turned in for that is a lot to do with testing and providing for that. So rather than have a opt out and mandatory again personal choice leaving it up to individuals to make those choices for their families which we should not be involved in then we are having an opt in consent to test and the families will have an opportunity to go through this and authorize the testing for whatever reason. It could be that I think I had close contact it could be I just don't feel good it could be I just want to know if I had the energy. I thought I had it back in December or whatever and be able to do that it's a rapid test it's 15 minutes it's done by them we have in the process now have been able to hire a COVID coordinator that has some experience and licensure and healthcare nursing, CNA type of things so they will be the ones responsible for that and working through that the students actually will do the self-administering of the test it's not a tickle your brain test it's a simple nose swab in 15 minutes they will have a result and then they can be retested if it comes back positive to affirm that so there isn't a false negative or false positive what it does is then goes into the buncies test to know test to stay and learn test to stay, play and participate what we ran into more than anything else was the issue of quarantines if you look at our data we had 241 students quarantined last year out of approximately 470 not quite half we had 7 positive cases those that were quarantined did not come back positive so with that then they should have continued to be in school and continued to participate now on both sides of it our people will be safe because there will be a test to show that the other thing that it does is quite frankly those that don't want to say I've got this or I've got that or whatever it may be because that will happen because it's important for me to stay in school it's important for me to participate all those things which are viable things and especially for those that just a one time opportunity and so once we're sure the opt in piece opportunity for them so they come in they get tested they have close contact 10 days they get tested as long as they're negative they can be in school as long as they're negative they can participate in play no issues what's the 10 days the 10 days 14 period so they still have to quarantine no, that's what I'm asking so the the time they're standing is right they would get tested so potential case someone's been in contact they get tested they get after getting tested there's a period of I believe it's 6 days is that accurate? I don't know what you're talking about 6 days to get the test back test? no it's a 15 minute rapid test oh it's a rapid test yes sir I'm asking so it's like right then right then and it's every day no I take that back the 6 day period is the requirement of the health department and I only know this is the health department has a requirement that you can't get tested for COVID after you've had exposure for 6 days so if someone because they say there's a big false positive potential or false negative so so student test or a student is exposed they have to wait 6 days they have to quarantine those 6 days no Brad's got a different plan that's what he was just talking about they would still have to quarantine Brad has a different plan he was trying to ask the particulars this plan not that that has been approved by our health department yes and it's going through all and even if let's say the health department says you got to quarantine 14 days because that's what KDHE is saying well two things first of all this grant is through KDHE that allows not to have to quarantine so it's a contradiction to the fact that you have to quarantine by the people that are directing it so then with that thought process then the students are tested daily negative now that's if asymptomatic if they're symptomatic yes they get tested by the county the county then says you must quarantine 10 days or whatever it may be so there is some differences of this the other thing is these are where close contact or let's say I may symptomatic for six days I'm still coming out negative I still have to be in school six days no issues because you're negative so either side of the fence you're protected you're safe those kids are not quote spreading because they're testing negative on the other side of the fence we're keeping them in school we're keeping them face to face we're allowing them to have a normal high school experience or junior high or whatever so and it's all according to the Department of Health and Environment the circle thank you Brad for coming out you're quite welcome so is it 10 days straight then is that where the 10 days come in so from from close contact correct asymptomatic record test 10 days straight okay that was what I was trying to get before yeah and if they do come up positive you're exactly right Jim then they would go to the county we report it to the county and then they do whatever they do but we again have the blessing like Justin said it's been with Ray said hey this is what we're doing what do you think can we do it are you okay with it yes so we have the county administration with the mask piece I would point out to the specifics that I asked them or what's the county commissioners going to do because again we as a local board at this point in time can decide to go against whatever the recommendation is because right now these are all recommendations there's no mandates yes sir so when do we not have a choice when they would mandate it to us the county the county or the state so or the federal government the commissioners correct okay not just the element okay and I would with that comment though say that there is constitutional law that allows districts or people underneath a higher district if you're going to get something constitutionally at a different level like a state level you're doing something that's unconstitutional a group underneath there can legally not follow that law you can do that you can do that and that has happened in different areas throughout the country and that's completely legal and it's within the constitution with this testing we're still free choice masks though correct that's correct just trying to clarify everything right now Ray did say too because he said okay well let's say the question that was brought up okay let's say then if my kids wear a mask and they are in close contact Ray's comment and we'll have an opportunity to talk to him again and ask questions we're maybe one I don't know right and he's and he's waiting for KDHE to make a recommendation and then he's also saying well if it's a mask that's a K95 possibly but is it being warmed correctly et cetera et cetera so it gets back to again the philosophy of we control what we can control we can control the air we're doing everything we can do it we're disinfecting we're keeping our kids safe we're allowing them to have normal high school junior high school careers we're testing to know I think I feel very confident we've got our bases covered and we've got 10th department of health health environment saying we're doing it so because the other thing is just as I would be a board member going what's my liability and so we have that we have that I I don't want to get into politicalness of it because on the other side of the spectrum is if you mandate or force something and something happens to that child are you then going to be held liable so did you get your question well that was part of my question so yes again thank you for doing all this and researching lots of questions and most likely even if they're that has to be a COVID unit they're a massacre but anyway that's my part of my concern is as a district our liability if we go against what CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics and all of these public health officials are saying mm-hmm about masking mm-hmm I do not at all think we should mandate vaccines or ask who has a vaccination I've not that at all but the masking part of it when we have these outside entities is saying K-12 this is what you should do and maybe it'll be the state that does that too I don't know right or that's what their recommendation is and then we as a district don't do that mm-hmm we are taking steps to help keep those kids in school but what if Sally now gets it from Joe guidance she may not have contracted the virus compared to like last year we had all those 241 kids that never got it I mean and I know that this variant that is currently surging is much more contagious than the ones before mm-hmm but anyway I guess my point is I'm concerned about our liability as a district by going against what public health officials are telling us because none of us know it no we are we are going against CDC CDC the variable change I think I know that's where I'm at with this I know with the vaccination point at least the most recent guidance I've heard from the county level is and it's not required to be vaccinated we're not requiring any of our students to be vaccinated from the county level the last that I have heard which I don't know this was but if you are vaccine if you have gotten the vaccine anyone over the age of 12 and you are exposed there is no requirement to quarantine correct I think so for purposes I think it would be beneficial for parents to know that not as an encouragement but just as a blanket statement for all of those vaccinated there will not be a requirement to quarantine if the child is vaccinated it says that in our that you will be adopted it says quarantine options so again personal choice and so the sense of if we don't mandate something and it's a personal choice then I would see how we can be held by them I know I appreciate that I'm saying as a district if we don't require masks if we have all these other public health entities saying you should wear masks in K-12 schools and we don't do it as a district then I feel like we're hoping ourselves up I appreciate that so I yeah I agree with that there's always there's always K-12 those options but let me ask one other thing negligence is always a factor in court correct and they would have to prove that we were negligent I would argue on the sense if we did make mask mandatory because CDC said to then we have to make sure every kid wears them correctly all the time or we're negligent yeah that's true and I'm not going to make this a question and I'm not trying to discount other things I just I know I'm trying to keep my goal keep our kids in person in school keep them from having to quarantine constantly because that is terrible yes both mentally and grades go completely down when that happens every time at least in my household that happened every time for the four times they had the quarantine test here right and so and but I think parents need to know to about the opting in for testing right because if I'm going to choose my kids are quarantined and I'm going to choose for them to not wear a mask and then if I don't want them to quarantine then then I have to opt in for the testing part correct and all that once this is just information so that you guys can roll this over and think about it and everything else and then on the ninth we're going to vote on it and then that's what we're going to do prior to school and so just so that you have all the information hopefully everybody's gotten it so to reporting that KDHE did approve our plan and so it's available and ready to go and so all this will be out there and like you said the other thing is with the consent let's say that all of a sudden I haven't opted in and the day it happens I'm going they're going you're going to have to go home in quarantine I want to opt in you may because I think that's important so someone doesn't want to do that they need to know to stay and continue I think at the high school level yeah so that kids can can play in whatever activity exactly or whatever activity they're doing at the time yeah for sure for sure I got just a clarification question about them because last year if there was close contact and you wore a mask it didn't matter you still had to quarantine is that still not in this case you did not oh yes you did no you didn't yes you did if you had a mask on yes that's what yes yes and I thought that's still the fate if you wear a mask it didn't hurt that way you're actually both right it started out that way that no matter whether you were wearing a mask or not typically his answer was to quarantine but at the end of the school year it did not work like that there were considerations taken if you were wearing a mask I was curious on that if it has any kind of indication about whether or not you can prove a positive test in the last six months three to six months and whether or not that through the estrogen test yeah well whether there's a I guess a the estrogen that's his session I guess do you know what I'm saying like when we got it he told me because I had a positive test from a doctor verifying that I had had so he said for six months I can't quarantine that's correct that's still on KDHE's website and again the thing that would quote then it would show that you have the antigen and so are you going to test positive then well I was just saying you have to have a proven test that you have this code oh gotcha in order for that positive test to be not for that six for that six months have no quarantine your question was would this test positive if you have the antigen and you're saying I believe that it will because it tests for the antigens so that's a lot of being detected that's what I was about to say then it has to be identified as far as a deer then it has a secondary piece of it we still have to go through a trained piece of it to ensure because like you said there could be the false meaning whatever or you have to have your kids and your dad and didn't know it's just baseline everybody baseline but even if if a cow was wearing a mask there may be considerations that they would still have to quarantine without a visa I don't know what the county is going to do it could be yes I mean if they do this and test and test not maybe no I think it's important to understand the school still just like last year will not be actively making decisions about quarantine so yeah we are the ones that call the parents and say sorry your child is in quarantine but that's a directive that did not come from us a decision that wasn't made by the school or the district and it still will be that way it will be a county decision it will be actually the county and the parents and then the county will say go through the same test things okay close contact were you wearing a mask are you vaccinated whatever they do I don't know what they ask and then they make a determination if they're going to quarantine or not is this we are going to have that person also work here at the district office and anticipation of what's going to be happening in the future so they're going to be lots of different things here in the office okay so they're going to be here and then if somebody were to be at like the junior high and they are going to have symptoms or they need a test would they then go to the junior high that would be correct isn't a full-time position yes and the grant pays for help yeah well I know other districts are doing that too yeah yeah I think it helps on either side whatever side you're on I think it's in our responsibility to keep kids safe we're doing what we can to keep kids safe so it allows much more personal choices amen yep yep there will be lots of questions and things we work through but hopefully with some of the training and some things as we come up we'll get no more information keep getting it out there because again we will want to make sure we're going to get this into paper going on and what then we'll start as soon as possible because we don't know yet that what my confirmation with KDHE is you've got the grant and it's like okay well when we go when's the next steps we'll let you know okay well we need to have it prior to school because we need to get it out there to people and the same thing with this you know again did not want to add more to the principals more to the secretaries more to whomever and this cold person can do that yeah we do I don't remember the dates but once Sunday from Maple Hill I believe and 12th maybe that we don't have an open house per se because our freshmen come back by themselves in the first day but we do have our fall athletic concussion video and parent sport night which is a that's almost everybody so and that'd be something we'd share with them too and then also with the the the I don't know are the grade schools have and then Steve that's when it's going to Monday and Monday whatever date that is yep okay that's up to you all right no sounds good all right no got some I mean I've got yeah okay well all that's left so we need a motion to adjourn I still have second all right it's been a bit of a second all in favor say aye aye all right I'm really excited shaking okay all opposed to the same sign we're still motion passed so all right we don't need some motion we're leaving is it on? no it's it's it's still on our premises right well we're still working today thank you friend thank you guys for the information you're welcome good bye thank you bye it's sitting over here this is the camera oh yeah see yes it's sitting over here that's my right you're telling me