KUSD School Board Member Robin Cullen

I want to thank everyone who came out to speak at last night's Agenda Review meeting. It was wonderful to hear from so many parents, students, teachers, and community members about the programs that make KUSD special.

We heard about our outstanding music programs, the incredible work being done at Reuther for some of our most vulnerable students, and the impact of Roosevelt's enrichment program. Thank you for sharing your stories. It is important for the Board to hear directly from the people affected by these decisions.

Now comes the hard part: balancing a budget with a $17 million structural deficit.

For the 2026-27 school year, we will use a portion of our unassigned fund balance. This is good because our current fund balance exceeds the maximum level established by Board policy.

KUSD's policy calls for maintaining an unassigned fund balance of no more than 20% of budgeted expenditures. Based on the adopted budget, the district's unassigned fund balance is projected to be about $18.5 million above that target. We will use those funds to address next year's deficit but we need to develop a long-term plan because using the unassigned fund balance is not a permanent solution. Those funds help cover payroll, emergency maintenance, and other essential expenses when there is a delay between when bills are due and when state or federal funding arrives.

Like any family budget, when expenses continue to exceed income, something eventually has to change. We can reduce expenses, increase revenue, or some combination of the two. The difficult reality is that there is no way to close a $17 million gap without affecting something that people value.

I've heard from many community members who believe the district has too many administrators. That is a concern worth examining. I am comparing KUSD's administrative structure to other large Wisconsin districts, including Racine, Green Bay, Madison, and Milwaukee. I want to understand how we compare, whether efficiencies can be found, and what savings those changes might realistically produce.

I've also heard suggestions about closing the Educational Support Center (ESC). I'm willing to look at every option, but it's important to understand what happens there. The ESC is much more than office space. It houses the district's central kitchen (preparing meals for the whole district), maintenance operations, workshops, printing services, and storage for curriculum and instructional materials used throughout the district. Before making decisions, we need to understand both the costs and the consequences.

I asked the administration for additional time because I believe the community deserves clear information. Unless we get more money, reductions will occur for the 2027-2028 school year. The community deserves a say in what those reductions are and to understand the reasoning behind them.

Please keep the ideas and questions coming. These are not easy conversations, but they are important ones. My commitment is to ask questions, examine the data, and make decisions based on facts rather than assumptions.

The more informed we are as a community, the better decisions we can make together.

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The Geek Squad Academy is back by popular demand designed for youth ages 10 to 18.

Youth who register for this two day camp will have the opportunity to engage in hands-on experience with technology like coding 👨‍💻, robotics 🤖, and music production 🎵.

For more information, click the registration link or scan the QR code.

Registration Link:

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Last night’s school board meeting had a full agenda. During my campaign, I promised to be transparent and accountable to you. True transparency means explaining the tough decisions, including a vote I cast last night that I know may have disappointed or angered some of you. I understand and acknowledge those feelings completely.

On the agenda was a proposal to integrate the AST (Administrators, Supervisors, and Technical) agreement into the current employee handbook to increase transparency. The history of this agreement is problematic. It has been around for years—well before my time on the board—and it lacked transparency. Teachers and even some board members were unaware of its specific details, though the full board did vote on it each time it came up for renewal, most recently in July 2025. Regardless of past oversight, the lack of general transparency was a problem we can all agree needed fixing.
Because this agreement is set to sunset on June 30th, 2026, the administration was tasked with integrating it into the standard employee handbook. Through this process, teachers gained some additional benefits, and the AST group surrendered others.

The biggest point of contention was the sick leave payout for the AST group. The group proposed grandfathering this benefit for all current employees and any hired before June 30th. This is a significant benefit that our teachers are not afforded. As teachers have rightly pointed out to me, when their own sick day cap was decreased years ago from 120 to 90 days, no one was grandfathered in. I completely agree that wasn't fair.

While I believe in grandfathering benefits under the right circumstances, I was deeply troubled by allowing this generous payout benefit to continue accumulating indefinitely for AST staff until retirement. At the same time, I couldn't support eliminating the benefit entirely for current staff. Striking away promised benefits overnight feels wrong and echoes what happened to our teachers years ago.

Ultimately, a compromise was reached: current AST employees can cash out the sick days they have accumulated up to the end of this current agreement (June 30th) when they eventually retire or resign. However, they cannot accrue any additional cash-out days after June 30th. What they have earned up to that date is frozen.
I believe this is a fair compromise, though I know not everyone will agree. My baseline filter for every vote is asking what is best for our students. Completely eliminating the benefit right now carried a very real risk: a large number of administrators could have resigned within the next 30 days to protect their accumulated benefits before they vanished. Mass administrative turnover right before a new school year is not good for our students.

I promised to keep you informed and to be open about my reasoning, and that is what I am doing here. I truly appreciate everyone who emails me with thoughts, concerns, and ideas. I value your input. Thank you for everything you do for our students and our community.

Here is a synopsis of the April 28th School Board Meeting. It was long and lasted until after 10 pm. Here is the link to view the meeting. https://www.youtube.com/live/g0omrHQp47c?si=OOaqyIRQNqp4ZW_V.

Robin Cullen and Bob Tierney were sworn in as the newest School Board Members to serve for 3 year terms.
Organization of New Board
Board President: Dr. Carl Bryan
Vice-President: Sabrina Landry
Treasurer: Bob Tierney
Clerk: Todd Price
Todd Price will serve as Delegate at the CESA Annual Convention

Administrative and Supervisory Appointment: Michelle Santelli as Chief Academic Officer

Additional Compensation/Appendix D Committee gave an update: The committee is updating the Current Appendix D structure which is the framework for compensating staff who assume responsibilities beyond their regular contractual duties. The committee categorized all positions into Student-Facing positions (transition to hourly compensation model) and Adult-Facing positions (remain stipend-based). Some highlights: add to the $30,000 for theater related positions at Bradford, Tremper and IT. Add paid opportunities that directly benefit students. This was informational only. No vote was taken.

Approved for the district to apply for a State Trust Fund Loan in the amount of $7,500,000 for 10 years with an interest rate of 5.75. This loan will pay for the construction of the controlled entrances for the 7 schools that don’t have controlled entrances. The interest paid from the State Trust Fund Loans is redistributed annually to fund public school library materials via the Common School Library Funds. In 2025-2026 KUSD’s Common School Library Fund aid was over $1.76 million.

Approved Policy & Rule 4226.1- Staff use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). Tierney and Cullen asked that the administration give an annual update on how the policy is working and if there are any concerns or issues identified.

Approved the revision and renaming of Policy 5450-Law Enforcement Agencies and Schools. This policy will help the district know how to handle what to do if ICE shows up. I am pleased that the safe haven resolution was updated to a policy.

Approved the revision to the Instructional Calendar. This revision reduces the instructional calendar by one week. Moves spring break to the end of March. Friday early releases will be removed for secondary schools. Elementary schools will retain their early release time but the instructional day will extend by 11 minutes. The ID program will retain their early release times.

School Board Goals: We picked the following three
Combine these two goals into one goal: Our community believes the district is a responsible steward of its financial resources. We regularly communicate our financial needs to the public in an easy to understand format.
Our board models mutual respect and professional behavior.
Our community believes the district is effectively governed and makes decisions with the best interest of students in mind.
Weiss will suggest metrics for each of the goals.

Approved renewing the health insurance and retiree underwriting proposal. The health insurance will stay the same (high deductible). There will be an increase of $50 annually for single coverage and $100 annually for family coverage. The pre-65 was separated for the underwriting option because it helps the renewal rates.

Approved the adoption of instructional materials for high school science for $138,593.30. I had a lot of questions about this curriculum originally as it will be using OER (Open Educational Resources) but I was satisfied that it will serve our students well.

Approved new courses at Lakeview K-8 Academy (Middle School STEM Applications and Middle School STEM Capstone). Students will learn and utilize the programming language Python to engage in project-based learning in the areas of Engineering/Manufacturing, Computer Science and Biomedical Sciences. These courses are designed by LEGO Education. This looks like a fantastic opportunity for our students.

Approved the adoption of curriculum for middle school and high school students for United States History, United States Government and Politics, World History and Advanced Placement Psychology for the cost of $877,895.75. This is a huge expense but I felt confident that a lot of research went into finding the best curriculum for our students. It’s unfortunate there aren’t good OER options for Social Studies ( I checked). A high quality curriculum is essential for an excellent education for our students.

Approved the Revision of Policy and Rule 4351.1 Teaching Load. This is INCREASING PREP time for our teachers. The board made this a first and second read so it could be approved right away. This is a huge win for our teachers.

Approved the revision of policy and rule 5220 Nonresident students. This was updated as recommended by WASB. This policy would allow nonresident tuition-based applications to be implemented although KUSD does not have a past or current practice for allowing this and does not plan to do so at this time.

The administration went over the KUSD Parent/Guardian Survey. There were 2,607 responses. Those that responded to the survey for the most part felt positive about KUSD. For the questions about an inclusive community 78.2% were agreeable but 12.8% were disagreeable. For the questions about caring staff 80.5% felt positive about staff Questions about the Learning Environment. 78.4% agree that there are high academic expectations with 10.6% disagreed; 78.3% felt that the school provides regular feedback on student progress while 14.6% disagreed; and lastly 63.6% felt that there is regular feedback on how families can help their child’s learning at home while 21.9% disagreed. While overall the responses were positive there is definitely room for improvement and I would like to see more parents respond.

Approved CFO presented on the deficit the district is facing. There is projected to be a $8,725.051 shortfall for the 2026-2027 school year. The administration recommended that the Board discuss a potential operating referendum.

Declared May as Mental Health Awareness Month

Kenosha Unified School District Organizational and Regular School Board Meeting - April 28, 2026