Well, it was to the point where we were questioning whether a door was left open or a window or something like that or we had a leak or, you know, what the problem was because there was it was just a dramatic change. But it was because that we were using, yes, we were using more, but also the market rate went up. So, I I guess some people call that price gouging or whatever, but it's completely legal unless you have, you know, some type of agreement ahead of time. So, that's where just I mean, we've been working on this probably at least a year. And so, just having the forethought to try to We're still working on the electric side. Yes. This is the gas side. So, the gas side was kind of what started it. And so, um you know, we want to be mindful of utility bills and things like that.
There's a lot of things that are going on. At DeKalb High School have we the sign there is a halo lit sign. It's one of the we probably got more compliments on our signage and the middle school has one as well. I'll show you that in a minute. We also put a halo lit sign on our new concession stand. We get tons of compliments. It really brightens up the campus and welcomes people and it's just great great branding for us. That those were all completed just this year. Of course you see the concession stand. That's part of the co-curricular facility. If you if you many of you have driven by a lot of you probably haven't seen the inside. One of the biggest complaints we've had at our old facility is just lines waiting for restrooms, the age of the restrooms. I think these are very inviting and people are going to be very impressed with our our new concession stand, our our men's and women's restrooms and those are in use right now.
Does that make sense? >> Thank you. because I wanted to know if that was different than your predecessors and I think the council's going to be very happy. So, thank you. >> Yep. >> Any other questions? >> Um I know I asked this before um but going self-funded um that is the best um way forward for us as far as benefits. costwise >> that that's what the um third party um has suggested. The other options are um to one which I've asked them to do um is put us to market. Um so Sigma like I said they they adjudicate our claims. Our claims are what they are. Um but there may be some savings if another company other than Sigma were to um were to be the one adjudicating the claims. So, if they take our actual claims data, they can send us out to market and have any other insurance companies bid um and then we can take a look at what the what the other bids are.
We um aspire for a post-test to increase from 12% in May of '25 to 25% in May of '26. For this assessment, we track growth on D um DNA ELA assessments for our kids in grades 3-8, and this slide shows the change that has occurred over time. To the far left, you can see the pre-IBM one two and post-test from the '24-'25 school year, followed by the pre-IBM pre to the IBM one, and then the pre to the IBM two. What I want to um make sure the board understands is that when we are doing this comparison data, we're looking at kids who took that pre-assessment, and those same kids who took the IBM one, and then also kids who took the pre-assessment and also took IBM two. So, imagine um Teya enrolls after we've administered the pre-assessment, we're not going to see her data pulling into this because we are doing a true comparison from the pre-assessment to ultimately the post-assessment.
And it talks, you know, it it reflects that impact they've had both on students and their colleagues. Both Chad and Amy are incredibly vital parts of our educational community and our union is thrilled to see them recognized for their commitment to our profession. Second, our next board meeting isn't until May 19th. It's the day before graduation, right? So, that's going to be a a wild week. So, I wanted to remind you that Teacher Appreciation Week is May 4th through 8th with National Teacher Day on Tuesday, May 5th, both of which honor educators nationwide. Teacher Appreciation Week goes back to when First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped push for a National Teacher Day to recognize educators and by 1980, thanks to the work of the National Education Association and its affiliates, it became a nationally recognized celebration. More than anything, Teacher Appreciation Week is about making sure that educators, not just teachers, but all educators in our lives know just how much they mean to our communities.
Separate cuz the percentages are different. So, they should be voted separately. So, I want them split out. If I mean we we did in the past, and I guess maybe I didn't see it last year, but when I saw this and then I went in there and looked I I think it should be sep- you know, voted separately. And we yes, and we can do that for next time. Next regular board meeting and a good catch, Bill. I appreciate it. Yeah, I agree with that. >> I guess I I'm just for understanding um that's not possible to do now like just vote on them separately. >> it's written that way, I we have to approve it as in this this format. So, that's why we have to go back, separate them differently, and and that's no big deal. >> And I asked Dr. Cara, you know, the time frame.
So, Oh, everybody does. I know Art would whine and complain that I kept her house too cold. I said, "Put on a sweatshirt." That's what my roommate college always said, "Too bad." Put on a sweatshirt. Yeah, I mean, "It's cold." I said, "Too bad." I said, "I don't want to pay those huge bills." Yeah, and utility costs are just I mean, you're you're kind of stuck in some ways because you have to have utility. You have to use it. But, um yeah, just controlling costs. Okay, thanks very much. So, it's important to remember like if the price is going down, we don't get the benefit from that. But, it just helps us budget. Mhm. Cuz we're going to be fixed We're going to be fixed price-wise and amount-wise, right? Or is it price-wise? >> Not amount-wise, just price-wise. We're going to be fixed and stuff.
We have a track meet tonight. Our softball team has also been using those restrooms and the softball team is also using storage. That's attached to this building. So everything that we have out there is in use this spring. So that's that's good to hear. Of course we had our turf football field several years ago. That's been in play I think this was our fourth season. Mr. Wagner, yes. And that one's a little more well known project being centrally located in the district but I you can see kind of a before and after of the old visitor side bleachers and and we'll see some of the new updates that we've done there. Here's the press box with the audio. The audio is now in use. It took some time to get some of those components. We have used the press box for middle school meet last night and the high school's using that right now for their track meet.
Um the the other option is um the the state plan, which I don't I don't know too many um districts that that are on, but it does exist. Um, and what I would ask is that when that third party that we're paying to do this uh bidding for us, so to speak to include in that analysis what it would look like in in the event that we did decide to go uh with the state plan and kind of do an applesto apples uh comparison so that we could review it in finance committee and and kind of um draw some conclusions from that. >> When was the last time we went out to bid for the insurance? >> Not since I've been here. >> Yeah. open a while. >> We're We're due. I I want to say the when I asked them about it uh the month before last about going to bid, I want to say they they said it's just over five years, so it's it's time.
Um May I ask a question, and if you don't have this answer, it's okay if it's given back, but do you know about what percentage of kids were actually capturing from that pre-assessment to the first benchmark and so on? Yes, and I'll tell you that in just a minute. >> Okay, awesome. Sorry. Yes, thank you for reading my mind. Uh so, while we see here from the pre-assessment to the IBM one to pre-assessment to IBM two, we see a 1% increase, we remain below target, and we will need an additional 9% of students to gain a level by May. 1,057 students took that pre-assessment in grades 3-8. Um therefore, pending, you know, any enrollment shifts, approximately 95 students would need to increase in proficiency when we um take that post-assessment. Um interim measure 3.2. This is the percentage of first through third grade emerging multilingual students who score at the 50th percentile on the FastBridge oral reading fluency, and our goal is to increase from 6% in May of '25 to 12% in May of '26.
If the board will indulge me for a moment, please. Uh this is one of my favorite thought exercises. I've done this on a few committees. I'd like for you to think about your favorite teacher or educator in your own kind of personal educational experience. So, for argument's sake, K through 12. So, just take a second, think about that one teacher that really meant something to you, you know, the teacher where you felt seen, that you you looked forward to that class every day. You got it? Okay, good. All right. So, um now that you have that person in your mind, I want you to ask yourselves a few questions, okay? What made them such a great teacher? What kinds of opportunities do you think they had to grow and improve their craft? What challenges do you think they faced behind the scenes that you weren't aware of as a student?
It's we're early. Yeah. So, we have plenty of time. It's not holding or changing anything. We've just got to have change the wording. >> Mhm. So, May will be totally fine and we're within Yes, sir. Okay, so I need a motion. Yes, so can I have a motion to remove number eight action report alpha number two postpone it to our next regular board meeting. >> Moved. Moved by Bill. Second. Seconded by Dr. Hall. Uh roll call, please. Mr. Sawalesh. >> Aye. Dr. Hall. Aye. Ms. Venegas. Aye. Ms. Woolfolk. Aye. Zeit Stern versus and I. Mr. Gallegos. Aye. Mr. Brown. Aye. Motion carry. And I'm assuming we're moving to the May business meeting, so we don't have to make the committee of the whole special meeting, correct? Cuz we're not supposed to vote at the committee of the >> We can do it at the regular meeting with with uh >> Just so we don't have to make anything special about committee of >> Yeah.
But, again, that's why we could go into a longer agreement, but I'd kind of like to just do 12 years to compare Firstly, yeah, sorry, 12 months. I just to compare and see how it worked out for us because again, we did 14 months, but the next winter could look totally different. Right. It's similar to what what River Co-op does for our personal homes.
Sound is amazing. You will not get complaints from people that can't hear. We might get a few complaints from people who think it's too loud. But we we can dial that down if we need to. It's always easier to turn it down. It's very hard to turn it up when it's not working very well. So that is an excellent improvement for us. We also just this is a picture of the old. You might not recognize it. This is the old press box on the visitor side. So we were able to reside that and we matched kind of the the colors that we had on the we put on the current new home side. So we'll have that press box over there and it looks really nice on that side. Also picture on the left you can see it's still a work in progress. Our discus and shot put areas for the track.
>> Yeah. Okay. So, is that something we're looking at doing sometime? Yeah, I I told them that that's uh come the next renewal period. I I want um an analysis done to look at one put us out to market to see if um anyone can can beat Sigma for those administrative claims. Again, we are self-funded. We pay for what we use. So, that number is not going to change, but the administrative fee and the stop-loss fee that that might be um an option for us. Louisa, just the in the superintendent circles, it's a it's a it's a torturous uh conversation every year because, you know, if you're cruising along and you're h and you're self-funded and you're having a good claims year, >> that's great. And then it, you know, the problems come in when you have a really high cost claim year and then you start considering other options.
For our younger learners in grades 1-3, we monitor oral reading fluency. This graph shows again that change that has occurred over time, and we've even gone back an additional year into that '23-'24 school year, so you can see those patterns. The December assessment data indicates that 6% of our students scored at the 50th percentile, which is lower than the performance seen in the last two years during that winter assessment. Therefore, we are below target to reach our goal. To achieve the goal, we would need to increase oral reading fluency by um 6% pending enrollment patterns, that's about 54 kids. And this is the um interim measure that we didn't have previously, so this is the one we just started monitoring this year because of the um oral reading fluency for not just for the uh Azella assessment, but also for our state assessment. Yeah, if I could just point out really quickly what's important, too.
What supports were in place so that they could keep showing up for their students every single day? If they were teaching in our district today, what barriers might they encounter? Do you believe that the teacher was fully supported by their own Board of Education, administration, and community? And if so, what did that support actually look like? And last question, still thinking about your personal favorite teacher, what would it take, not just during Teacher Appreciation Week, but year round, to ensure that all of the educators in our district can be that person for our students. As a district, let's work to turn that appreciation into action that protects students, strengthens our schools, and ensures educators are treated with the respect and support that they very much deserve. All that being said to the members of the Batavia Education Association, forever and always thank you for There's a lot of you here.
Yeah. We're good. Okay, moving on. Number eight action report number eight alpha personnel and culture. Can I have motion number one to approve the contract for assistant principal of Monia Elementary School? Moved. Second. Moved by Jamie, seconded by Bill.
Any questions regarding the Yeah, thank you for for saying that. You're welcome. So, entertain a motion to approve the constellation pricing agreement where we have the fixed price for the next 12 months. Correct. Going forward and then reevaluate. So moved. Second that. All in favor say aye. Aye. Uh next on the agenda is person personnel is end of employment. Mhm. Um high school English teacher resignation. So, we have been very blessed to have Anita Hart with us for the past 3 years. She's stayed in our ELA department, but she's moved back and forth with different grades as we have needed her to. Again, she's been a blessing to our students and to our staff. She's a a joy of a person. Her personality is phenomenal. The kids have enjoyed having her. The teachers have enjoyed having her. Again, she has just been a positive impact on our school and our culture, and we thank her for her time.
That's on the south side of the high school complex and they've been our track kids have been using the discus all spring so far. The sorry, the shot put all spring so far. The discus area is just a little bit too muddy for us to throw the discus at right now. So we are using the old one this year and but we're hoping the grass it's starting to turn green. We can get into that before the track season is over. Few other things. There is a picture of the new bleachers and on the inside of the gym there doesn't look like we did not Why why did you take a picture of the gym? If you recall we had this really old yellow kind of English whitish yellow paint that was up there and we had this beautiful mural that was painted several years ago and this was just the last step of making that gym look nice and fresh which we do use for graduation.