June 3, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

Okay, good evening everyone. Adequate notice has been given. Please stand for the pledge. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda?

I move to approve the agenda as posted.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Public comment, do we have any public comments this evening? None. Okay. We'll keep it going. All right, we will then go to our first presentation for the budget option. John. And John, while you're getting yourself ready, I'm going to say very nice things about you now. For those in the room or at home that don't know, this is John's last official meeting as CFO for the district. And John, I think just on behalf of the board that we've just enjoyed working with you immensely over the past four years. You have been a tremendous advisor and good steward of the district's funds. We know it is not goodbye, but we look forward to continuing to see what happens next with you and staying in touch. But again, just really want to say thank you on behalf of the board and everyone.

Thank you for your kind words. As I've told others, this was kind of an unexpected adventure in my career. And it's been a highlight of my career. So I've thoroughly enjoyed the experience and working with the boards here. You know, I really applaud the work you do because you lead well. And with that, I'll be happy to talk about the budget.

We're on pins and needles.

So we made at the last meeting in mid-May, we presented a preliminary budget. And tonight, we're turning that into a proposed budget for next year. There were some minor changes made to the budget, not material too much in nature, but basically corrections that either we missed at the time for the preliminary budget or came up. So we've made some minor corrections that amount to about $63,000 of changes or increased spending in Fund 1 and about $197,000 of decreased spending in Fund 4, which was a duplicate entry. And we've also added a number of increased or improved labels on the capital improvement projects. And we consolidated the technology improvement plan at $675,000 into one grouping and added some more descriptors to that as well. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time going back through what we went through the last time. We'll see if we can't advance this. I think it jumped more than one. Slow response. So the budget has been prepared properly as it's required by statute and policy and it's ready for board adoption. It is different than prior years primarily because of the PROPO spending that we're introducing as well as some increased capital spending that's budget funded for a variety of projects. We have shifted revenue from fund one to fund four to accommodate that increased Kaplan project funding out of fund four and you'll see the fund balance decline. It still remains in a very strong position for the end of when we get to June of twenty seven. These are those changes that I mentioned just momentarily ago. The budget is balanced everything else in this page You've seen before we have reasonably estimated our revenues are pretty Mario I think we've done well projecting our expenditures You know in this process. We're trying to foretell the future really about 15 months in advance of when it's going to happen or reach year-end next and we all have a cloudy crystal ball, so it's not perfect. So actual results will vary somewhat, but we're pretty good at estimating our costs. I mean, 80% of our fund one spending is pay and benefits, very scheduled and programmed, and except for turnover, it's more apt to go down than to go up. When it comes to supplies and services, those are well programmed as well and mostly repetitive, and we pretty well know what they're going to be. So we're pretty good Balancing out funds one and two fund three is totally predictable very scheduled type of expenses in fund for With our capital projects We're making reasonable estimates on with them some things that can affect that is timing You know whether things happen sooner or later then we anticipate may shift costs from this year to the following year even bring them forward a year, but I think we've done a good job programming these particular projects. As we go into the future, though, some of these projects that are in this year are just partially funded this year and rely on funding in the subsequent years as well. We do tie our budget to the strategic plan, the three goals of that plan. And here are some of those connections. And we presented these at our last meeting as well. I'll just run through them this is goal one how we help people feel safe in our area in our schools. Strategic plan two how we help them grow as learners some of our investments that are making that happen and go three how we support the well-being of our learners in head and heart. Revenue snapshot overall revenue inflows are 130.2 million. Again the big piece there that's unusual is the sale of bonds. Voters authorized 135 million in April. We anticipate selling about 45 million of par bonds and expect a receipt or proceeds from that with premium of closer to 47 million dollars. Our expenditures, we've also at 136 million, primarily causing a reduction in fund one. And spending about $45 million of that Prop O funds. The other two million of those receipts will really go to reimburse costs that we've already made in the current year for consulting fees primarily. Fund balances will end up the year with slight decline overall, but mostly in fund one. Operating fund balances also show that decline. As you can see, we've been As a percentage of spending, we've been in the mid-60s. We're going to push down into the mid-50s. We have policy that says we'll stay above 25%. And as a matter of recommendation, I would try to stay above 35%. But we're in safe territory here with this change. This is about the GO debt that we expect to issue. We have new existing debt that's paying down and will be paid off in two and a half years. And then we have the new debt that we expect issue in about two or three tranches, with the first one being in the neighborhood of $45 million. Mr. Nord may make other decisions from that, but I'll let him make those decisions and discuss them with you. Prop O, as you know, is $135 million authorization. And that's what the voters have allowed us to issue. We cannot issue more than that in par bonds. We can realize more than that in proceeds if they sell at a premium. And that is likely to happen just the way the market is right now. First tranche of 45 million is probably going to happen this fall. Here are the proper cost estimates as we understand them today. These have not changed since they were first developed in February. We are in the design development phase right now and And by August we will have revised numbers At that time. I would hope to see some of the contingency numbers resolved either move into cost of construction or eliminate themselves in some way We also have The budget funded projects the CHF performing arts Improvements which are mostly noise and HVAC related the adzec field improvements to complete that project in the WMS field Again, these are total costs. Not all of them are facilitated within this budget but span into the following year as well In our capital purchases, these are the projects that Exceed half a million dollars And Glen Ridge, we've got 28 million programmed there. Eight million into the CHSCT wing. Nine million for Gayfield. Three and a half million for the Bridge Campus. And you can see the others that are there. But those are the major expense that we have. Within the budget document, we have a message as required and all the various numbers in a number of views so that you can hopefully gain an understanding of not only future spending but how it compares to past years. And with that, it's ready for board approval. I'd be happy to answer any questions. the financial position of the districts remain strong and Again, I'm pleased that to tell you those messages We're not in a crisis mode at all. We're in a strong mode and hope that continues You have to take any questions or comments We get a motion first to bring to the floor

I move to approve the budget for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, including expenditures sourced from federal programs as presented.

Okay, any questions for John?

I'll just say in case anyone's watching this and curious, we had a conversation about this budget two weeks ago. I don't have any more questions. I ask my men.

I did have some questions by email, and I think I answered them. But I'd be happy to discuss them further as well.

So I was questioned via email. Most of my questions, again, were answered two weeks ago in the preliminary budget session. I just asked for a little bit of follow-up on what those additional items were. So thank you for explaining the additions to the summer camps and the student services that were not in there before, so good to have clarity there. Yeah, I don't think I have any further questions either.

Okay, any other questions for John? All right, then we'll take a vote. So all those in favor of approving the budget for the 26-27 fiscal year, including the expenditure sorts from federal programs as presented, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, thank you, John, and your team. The budget is approved.

It absolutely is a team effort. We've got a great team in the business office and all the building and program and department leaders do a great job managing their budgets and making their requests and doing them in a prudent way.

Absolutely, we agree. All right, well, John, I guess stick around. So we'll now move to the module school facility at Fontbonne.

As you know, we've been working on a project to establish a modular school facility on Fontbonne campus. That's been our preference due to its location and relationship to Glen Ridge attendance area. We've been having success with Wash U developing an agreement. We're not quite there yet. In the short term we are working on an access agreement and we've got the spin. They developed it. We read lined it now they red line that. And so we've got another version back that is being reviewed. I think we're very close to having that signed hopefully in the next few days. Then we'll be working towards a lease agreement, which I would expect to be presented to you in August. That lease agreement then will cover all the terms and conditions of our occupancy at that location. We've been working with Mobile Modular, who is out of Chicago, although I think they may be headquartered in California, but their regional office is in Chicago. and had numerous conversations over time. We started the conversations with them because they were recommended to us by our consultants, Perkins and Will, who had seen their work on various projects. And they are a turnkey operation, which is what drew us to them initially. And we haven't found somebody else that was willing to do that full scope of work. In the meantime, the project or our precise location at Font Bonne has moved around. First it was in the southeast corner, then it was in the southwest corner, now it might be in the south central area. And so as we have tried to develop this, we have not reached a final conclusion on Some of the cost I think we know the cost of the structures themselves There's a price when they deliver it which is on my memo there of 1.3 million there's monthly rent and then there's a charge upon return when they disband the site the site those costs are fairly figured out and The costs that are not fully figured out are the site prep costs and some other amenities that we may add to the project. Now that we're working with the potential of demolishing buildings on site, that'll probably be done through the permitting and the project documents will probably be developed by Paragon. BSI will oversee the demolition itself. And either BSI or mobile modular will be responsible for some of the utilities and grading. But that is still to be determined. So we do have estimated costs for mobile modular for some of those services. But again, the exact scope of work will be determined on the final plans when they're drawn up. Ultimately, we have worked through this and decided that it that it fit under our policies using cooperative purchasing and have worked through a cooperative purchasing agency known as source well they're located out of Minnesota Minnesota. And in that process we actually were able to draw these rents down by about one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars through that process. So we're caught ourselves at a meeting now in June and not another meeting till August and a need to get this project advanced in the meantime. So we're proposing to you that you authorize us to work with Mobile Modular to negotiate and finalize and execute an agreement pending resolution of the various outstanding scope of work items and review appropriate reviews by legal counsel. and allow us to make this move forward. I think our goal is to get the lease done by August demolition done this fall and these this project begin coming on site in like January and be fully complete and set up by middle of May so that when teachers are exiting for next summer They'll be able to see the facility and start moving in and understand how it all operates, not have to wait until summer break is over before they see the facility. So that's the plan. Mobile Modular understands that timeline and they don't have an issue with meeting it. So we'd be happy to answer any questions. Yeah,

thank you for that overview. Can I get a motion to bring this to the floor?

I move to authorize the superintendent and CFO to negotiate, finalize, and execute an agreement with Mobile Modular pending resolution of outstanding scope of work items and reviews by legal counsel.

Okay. Any questions for John?

Just because this is a, it's not a real robust market as we've talked about, could you just explain a couple of the extra steps you took to ensure yourself that this was, you know, the right people to work with? I know you did some checking around. Just state a little of that.

Well, the first thing we did is went searching for another turnkey operation. And there's plenty of people that will sell us buildings and bring them to site, but actually assemble them the way we need them and fully prepare the site and connect them, that's unusual. So this company has a national presence. They do this nationwide and regularly. We then went searching for references. We've had conversations with I think three different school districts one in Illinois one in Ohio one in Florida about their experiences. One in Florida in particular we had a zoom meeting that was lasted for quite a while from a massive district down there that that has used these folks for years and puts up campuses and takes them down and moves them around, and it's quite amazing what they do. The other districts are much smaller scale, and they've only used them once or twice for building projects very similar to what we're doing. All of them had very satisfactory outcomes with mobile modular. The one in Florida in particular, it's unbelievable what how big that operation is and how often they move these around and rehab them. But they gave us all good advice and satisfactory remarks from them. And then we also began looking through ways to control our costs and that's when we ended up on the cooperative side of things talking through costs with Sourcewell. And all of that has led to today.

Aaron.

Thank you for doing that due diligence. And I think just one clarification, when you refer to turnkey here, you're talking about the site prep, those things that you just mentioned, the connections, not necessarily like a homeowner who is a turnkey vacation home and it's all fully furnished, right? So can you talk a little bit about the furnishing situation that we'll have?

So the plan will be to furnish these with furniture out of Glenridge. We'll move Glenridge furniture in there, and it will stay for the duration of the modular campus. When Glenridge is fully renovated and rebuilt and ready for reoccupancy, we'll buy new furniture with that facility. When Merrimack then exits their facility and occupies the temporary facility We'll probably dispose of their furniture and they'll just you continue with the Glenridge stuff when Merrimack's ready to reoccupy We'll put new furniture in that building And ultimately then the modular campus will be disbanded and any of our assets will be disposed of at that time

Thanks Yeah, I think

you know we're gonna have new buildings we need to have new furniture and I Don't think we'd want anything less

The only thing I'll say is I just really appreciate the thoughtfulness around the timeline and getting this done by the spring so that Glen Ridge, the Glen Ridge community can really have some familiarity with it before heading into the summer, all of that. And I think that will help their transition a little bit too. So I just wanted to make that comment. Anyone else? Oh, sorry, go ahead, Chris.

Along those lines, because you said that, Yeah, thank you again for all you're doing around this. This is an exciting thing that we have found a company that's able to do such a great like fast but also just really efficient work in terms of turnkey. But I'm excited about the timeline too because it allows the parents by then they'll actually be able to see the physical space Even if they can't go in inside, I'm sure you guys will think about like getting them, how quick you can get them in there. But it's great that it'll be there in that summer. You know, they'll be able to see that it's there and then on our online, I'm sure by then we'll have a bunch of great info about what it is and you'll have all this information. So I just appreciate the fact that you're thinking about May in terms of, you know, so that all of that beginnings thoughts and comfort level can start happening. So I thank you for doing that.

I should mention that one of the scope of work items we're still trying to determine is covered walkways between the facility and over to Dunham. That's not in these numbers yet, but we're exploring that with them and how to make that happen.

Because kids and staff will be going between buildings every day. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, with ice, you know, yeah, that's something that, yeah, that makes perfect sense. So, great.

Yeah, Meade, go ahead.

Thank you, John, and thank you, like Erin said, for all the due diligence. And I imagine, yeah, this is a small market of companies that do this sort of work. So sort of similar to what Chris was saying, and I had some questions, and I thought you answered them really well. But I think for maybe this purpose, it's good in case there are people listening at home to know kind of how you're thinking through. You know, some people might think, oh, these are modular trailers that are you know each classroom is going to be in their own trailer and to go to the bathroom they've got to go outside and that i wonder if you could talk a little bit about kind of the configuration like you shared with me um about yeah what kind of that experience would be like for the kids

So these will be in pods and the typical pod will have eight classrooms and restrooms and hallways between down the middle of the units or the pod. So there'll be three classrooms on each side for grade levels. There'll be restrooms and then there'll be two more classrooms for specials. And so they can operate within that unit currently that fits our model very well. We're currently three classrooms per grade, so we can put two grades per pod. And we'll have three of these pods and there'll be a separate pod that will have offices and additional support services within them. So they'll be structured that way. These are long, Modular units that they bring in on trailers on wheels and then connect them all together to provide that classroom space so Nobody has to leave the building the safety of a building to get to the restroom

Thank you, and then since You know we're all fairly fresh off the storm from last year Could you talk a little bit about? sort of What you're thinking about or what the team is thinking about for a storm shelter? and Yeah Whether they're gonna fly away or not.

Well, you know, I mean It does seem like we have had some stronger storms in recent years these will be tied down like so that they just can't blow away, but you know, they're not gonna If we if they were to take a direct hit from a tornado, they're gonna suffer quite a bit of damage. I The Dunham Center is a very sturdy building, and that's the best place we could shelter people in for severe storms. So that's going to be used as the gym, the cafeteria, and the storm shelter when needed. For typical rains, average rains, storms and stuff, I think they'll be safe right in their own classrooms.

So what I'm hearing is we're going to have active emergency preparedness plans developed that will center around the Dunham Center, which has been a building there for many, many years.

Yeah. Okay. Our safety and security gentleman, Mike Parkinson, has been actively discussing these with us.

And I would imagine the district in Florida is mindful of With hurricanes. Another, you know, they're not probably, if they've used them for a long time and in many places, chances are they've experienced some weather there as well.

Yep, for sure.

And yes, to your point, sort of just thinking around, I'm sure that the team is also, like you said, developing sort of safety and security. I don't know if there's going to be a perimeter around the facility, it seems like.

Right. We plan to fence the perimeter of the modular school facility and playground areas will fence that in. There's going to be we won't be fencing the parking lot area though. I mean that's going to be open but we'll fence the rest of it.

Thank you so much.

Anyone else. All right. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed. All right, it passes. Next up is success ready student assessment. Can I get a motion on that? Next page, yeah.

I move to approve the district's participation in the success ready student assessment pilot.

Hang in there guys, it's the last one of the year. All right, any questions, any comments? All right, then all those in favor of approving the district's participation in the success ready student assessment pilot, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, it passes. Consent agenda.

I move to approve consent agenda items 5.2 through 5.10. I second that.

Good, good. All those in favor? Any opposed? Great. This is excellent. I'm back on board now. All right. Board communications, I will start out by saying I should have said this at the beginning, but I do want to recognize that Pam is not here tonight. It is an excused

absence.

We're upping our governance game. All right. CRSWC, Leo or Ben, has there been a CRSWC meeting recently that you'd like to report on? Sure. Oh,

okay. We had the first post-election meeting of the CRSWC. It was a Not in the normal quarterly sequence partly to deal with the damage that was done by a storm a few months back we also had the you know election of the officers and We approved this new scoreboard or Swimming touch sensor system for swim meets That was You know there was some discussion about that and it's an item that's primarily used by the school district. The center is a joint school district and city facility and there have been some discussion about how to think about that but ultimately we concluded as a group and I'm glad we did that you know that partnership which is basically a money saving partnership it's a dual use arrangement. Depends on it being fully Utilizable by the school district for the school district part of those tasks So they're spending money to on something that the city maybe doesn't need ultimately we're getting this dual-use facility that is creating greater value for our community than it would otherwise and That was the conclusion and I'm really glad we got there. I

Great, and thank you guys for your work on that because that is important. And it's worth noting congratulations to Leo who is president of the CRSWC now, so yes. Moving on, wellness, Chris and Erin, was there a report on the,

no? No,

we reported that. We'll keep it going. Equity, all right.

Yes, we did have our last meeting of the school year on May 20th and reviewed the survey results of the staff survey around interest in different types of affinity spaces and then also talked about the plans for professional development in the year to come with how that ties to the Goal 1 initiatives, et cetera. So I think and also to SEL as well. So looking forward to actually there will be a new equity coordinator coming on to join Dr. Poole in leading the equity committee next year. and thanked Dr. Daniels for his service, so.

Great. Mead, the Tech Study Committee.

Yes, we missed Ben. Ben was excused but absent.

I brought my note, my doctor's note. I brought

it. No, it was like the second to last week of school, I think. And, you know, that's – I was very grateful for all the teachers and staff that were there. I know that, you know, in the middle of May, that's not a – After school, that's a hard time. But they were there doing the work and they're doing some really cool stuff. So they're split up, as you know, into groups of kind of the model of instruction group and the group that's dealing with AI. The group that's tackling the model of instruction is working on a couple of things. One being kind of parent facing. So how are we explaining our tech use and what kind of like our examples that we can show to parents of the tech use that that's happening in schools to kind of enhance the transparency and communication and then something. And there's kind of discussion around how to make that you know is that like an infographic with you know different text parts and videos perhaps on a website and things like that which I think is cool. And then there's the teacher facing kind of component. So some teachers are working on like a playbook of kind of questions to ask themselves around whether or not certain tools or technology is useful or what just thinking about what is kind of enhancing the project with technology. So that's neat. And then the AI group is working on kind of a decision tree about AI and so when to use AI. And I think, and I can talk more, Luke can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the decision tree could be, is for teachers initially to think about kind of how to help Coaching their students about Ai use so but also kids are going to have to kind of go through a decision tree as well about whether or not to use Ai but. And then kind of categorizing assignments or tasks into three categories like red yellow green. Red being obviously like we expect no Ai use. on this thing, yellow being we might have this project be assisted by some AI and green being maybe a little bit, I don't wanna use like freer because that doesn't sound right. But an expectation that AI will be probably used in the project. So there's kind of discussion around should there be a list of like acceptable AIs like which large language models we should be using, and is this a poster that goes up in classrooms, those sorts of things. So it's really interesting, very important stuff, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

Thank you. Chris, SSD Governance Council.

Yes, Monday was our final meeting for SSD Governing Council. It was a tough one. Lots of people in attendance trying to, there are lots of passionate people around what's going on with SSD and we did pass the fiscal year 27 budget. Um, and you know, that's a positive thing. You know, I, it's not easy to have to make the cuts that, you know, SST has to make, um, for anyone. So, you know, it's a heavy heart that, you know you have to make cuts that are going to affect people's, you know, take home pay. And that's really rough. So, one thing that came out of that meeting is that we know that SSD is going to be making some asks for some help. They just don't have a choice. Otherwise, they won't be able to continue to serve the needs of students. So, that's where they're at. And... Yeah, the other things they discussed were the CSIP, the three goals of the CSIP, and that was great. We also tried very hard to elect another board of education, a special district board of education member that didn't happen again. It did not. So what's great about this is there's this process with With the Governing Council, we elect their Board of Education members. And there's a process, you know, a set of rules around the way that happens. And on my four years on the Governing Counsel, it's happened twice now where we've had to take votes in multiple different meetings. This is the first time where it's now going to a third meeting. Um, so we, luckily the president of the governing council suggested there is going to be a subcommittee created to go over their rules around electing people and maybe some making some new bylaws, et cetera.

Is that because you need 50% plus one and they can't get there?

Yeah. Yeah. And it's, does someone

get eliminated like off the bottom?

No, no, it's very interesting. And again, it's worth looking at because we've come to this so many times because what happens is you go around the table, there's a roll call. Good, yeah, come with me, be my like attendant at the subcommittee meetings because it's fascinating. What's that? Oh, okay. No, yeah, let's chat. No, it's, you go around a roll call and, you know, there's 22 partner districts sitting at that table, right? And we, you know, you have stuff before the meeting, you read about the candidates, et cetera. At the meeting, there's predetermined questions that they answer. We can't sort of... I think in most of them, you can't even ask anything off the cuff. It has to be predetermined. Anyway, you go around the table. If everyone votes a certain way, you just vote again. Everyone votes the same way again, you just vote it again. Yeah, three times in a row, everyone, nobody changed their vote. Well, guess what? We didn't get to ask any more questions. Anyway, it's a problematic system and I'm happy to be a part of making sure that we get this done in a way because guess what? The Board of Elections of the special district is really critical More than ever. So, yeah, I'm going to put some time in to helping them make sure we make a streamlined, you know, election process.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Thank you for that. Thank you for your work on that, Chris. It really is important. And then, Ben, Parks and Rec?

Parks and Rec. Yeah, it was kind of a couple interesting things. So, first of all, the tennis center lighting is going to be replaced in the next couple weeks. or at least in phases. I don't know. For those of both the school, the district, and community that use the tennis, which is a very used facility, the lighting is not the best. So it's going to be great. The other thing is that the Hanley House, as most of you may know, is one of our great historic treasures in Clayton. It is being reopened, kind of not full-fledged. It's had a lot of... challenges with the building and but they've been able to fund certain kind of critical ones and looking to do more in the future but one of the things that was mentioned is there used to be a school district Hanley house kind of connection if there was some involvement between the district and the facility I was thinking be just interesting to bring that up in case we want to revisit that now that it's opening And then lastly, let's see here. Oh, yeah. So in the Shaw Park former ice rink space, which is always on the agenda, they have partially funded. It's passed city council. So the project is green lighted. However, there's still some budget or fundraising to be done. I was not aware. I was always under the impression that the city had the budget to do the whole project. Apparently not. But So be it. So may take a little while for that timeline to actually be realized. Thank you.

Great. I think that's it. So on behalf of the board, I hope everyone has an excellent summer. Oh, you have one more. Sure. Go for it.

I was just going to say happy summer and something I did just want to throw in there is happy pride month. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you for saying that. You're welcome. So happy pride month and.