Board Meeting Comments

Please pause allocating more funds to construction companies. While tariffs and immigration raids will increase construction costs, these should be anticipated and addressed proactively. Explore alternatives. Thank you.

The lack of updates on the tax plan is disheartening. Often, impacted communities are left uninformed, and stakeholder participation is aggressively discouraged. What happened to the other projects that are on hold for the other sites? Transparency in fund allocation is lacking. When was the last time all communities involved in the tax plan received an update? Whether it’s tax plan funds or large grants that disappear into the EBR Schools employment agency, transparency is lacking. We’re patronized for needing education on these matters, yet no one visits the communities for genuine stakeholder engagement.

it’s hard to see this additional spending when our crowded schools don’t have dedicated resource teachers and full time single site school nurses. Everyone claims we prioritize students, but where’s the evidence that increased project funding leads to improved outcomes? The same applies to larger federal grants. Should we allocate funds for non-school-based administrative jobs, leaving classrooms overcrowded, but then pressure under resourced school staff to exploit students for optics and audits? The McKinley High community deserves better and has been neglected.This issue extends beyond McKinley High building; it’s about transparency and leadership in all financial matters that impact students.

I recommend deferring this selection until after the results of the spring election are known. Because the election has the danger of causing the district to be divided into two different entities, with the boundary very close to this site, it would be prudent to see if this money would be better split between two new high schools, one in each portion of the Balkanized district.

Having such a policy seems wise, but this item should be deferred until the draft policy has been formatted into its proposed final form. Please defer consideration of this policy until at least the March Committee of the Whole.

On IDEA.. This may be an uncomfortable truth, but we must confront the extent to which we spend money denying children access to their free and fair education, knowing that most parents lack the resources to pursue legal action. ESS is a significant issue for EBR Schools, and it’s an administrative decision to allow it to persist. If we aspire to greatness, we must address the detrimental effects of ESS, including the associated litigation costs and enrollment declines.