001my [Music] for [Music] she for so [Music] oh [Music] say [Music] so she I have a step stool back in the Cor it's going pretty good be fine you have to have a long how are you how are you good how are you is going so far pretty good yeah ready for the quarter to end or no you we just the high school doesn't mess but we still get the half days so that's so bear with us uh I guess we're still waiting to get the live stream going so as soon as we get it going we'll we'll go into the regular scheduled board meeting so J how are you I'm good how are you good so if anybody's got some really good dad jokes you're not being recorded right now go okay we're good
002okay too late late all righty it is 606 and I need to call to order the UN County School District number one a Board of Trustees school board meeting and uh I need a motion to go into said meeting I'll make that motion Mr chairman second I have a motion I have a second any discussions all in favor say I I any opposed eyes have it please join me for the National No I say National pledge allegiance I ain't singing I pledge ALG to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you I need a motion to approve tonight's agenda as uh identified on the Mr chairman I move that we approve the agenda as
003presented second I have a motion I have a second huh yeah any discussion all in favor say I I any opposed eyes have it motion carries we need to have a motion to approve the consent agenda items a the minutes from last week B payments of bills C approve administrative contracts D approve sped related service contracts Mr chairman I'll make a motion that we approve the consent agenda is presented okay I have motion I'll second I have a second any discussion none all in favor say I I any opposed eyes have it motion carries we will now move on to our presentations chairman Peterson members of the board we don't have a presentation scheduled but I would like to read a document if that's okay part of this presentation yes this is uh I think
004fantastic news for the students of Wyoming so I'm just going to read a press release that we received a couple weeks ago court rules Wyoming public school funding is unconstitutional on February 26th Wyoming Education Association and eight school districts won a ruling in state district court that wy's model for funding public education is unconstitutional the Educators brought the lawsuit because of cons because of consistent underfunding and violation W Supreme Court precedents that date back to 1980 this ruling is a critical step in our state's long road to support and maintain a thorough and uniform education of quality that is both Visionary and unsurpassed as our state supreme court has demanded said Dr Alex SS superintendent of Campell County School District number one it will prevent students it will prevent students from attending unequal and inadequate
005school facilities it will ensure they get the mental health support nutrition and technology that are integral to their success it will also mean our hardworking and dedicated Personnel are fairly compensated for the differences they make every day end quote judge preter FR frolicker agreed with all six of the Educators Arguments for why the current funding model is unconstitutional so six out of six is pretty good these are the six points the state has not properly funded the actual cost to provide quality educational goods and services two the funding model has not been properly adjusted for inflation three the state has not provided salaries adequate to recruit and retained Personnel four the state has not properly funded Mental Health Counselors school resource officers nutritional programs and computers five the state has not adequately and evenly assessed
006school facilities for educational stability and six it uh it state it state has allowed unequal and inadequate school facilities to exist far too long the court ordered the state to modify its funding model to remedy the Constitutional violations saying it will maintain jurisdiction over the case until that occurs the eight school districts were represented by Kelly Pearson of Parker po Adams and Bernstein so uh you guys are aware that we were one of those eight school districts and so my hats off to the board for the forethought to take on this fight for every student in um I think it's excellent news but we still have a a dog in the fight we still have to go through recalibration and make these rulings happen recalibration will start in April uh good news is Senator Schuler
007is on the recalibration committee um we were hoping she'd be chair but she's not chair uh but it's good news we we do have a a friendly face someone we can talk to on that committee um this could have uh far-reaching impacts for education in our state for the next 25 years years 25 years ago was the last Campbell case that our district also participated in and so hopefully every 25 years it'll be worth it uh to go through these uh it uh so we still have a fight on our hands but I think uh this is great news have not heard yet if it'll be appealed to the Supreme Court there is some discussion that for the state to appeal it it very challenging based on the criteria that the Supreme Court uses to
008determine the cases aderes um number one is all constitutional issues have to be solved before it can be appealed and there's no way that any of these issues will be solved before recalibration in April so um it was a victory all around I believe it was well worth the investment um you've probably heard and we'll get to this legislative session did reallocate what was originally proposed for a cost of living adjust ments the very last day after this came out and it was clear that when it was brought as an amendment that the individual at the podium mentioned the lawsuit and that that we needed to get one so good news for all of us and like I said hats off to the board for Willing us to take on that um I'd also like
009to um recognize again the work of of Mr Williams uh his documents are at least the fundamental part of three of these issues uh the salaries uh not adequate inflation those were the points that this District took on and testified against and uh his documents and his ability to explain those documents um made a big impact on the judge so thank you Mr William thank you and that's all I have is my presentation all right thank you NOP great news great news fantastic so we'll go on to our operational budget presentations and Mr Williams will be the first one up see if this talks to each other the rest of us just have to plug it in this must be a special land thing it is there there we go warm Peterson members of the
010board thank you for this opportunity to come before you um I just kind of want to look at the in special education when we look at data it's always postmortem right so we always look at the year previous and I'm going to be talking a little bit about that some of the things that we really excelled at some of the things that we could as far as our state um grades that we give when we have specific indicators that we look at and so they they give us feedback off that this year's data so we're going to be looking at that and be jumping ahead as far as some well some celebrations from this year's and then looking forward to coming school year so just to have a little bird ey view of the overall
011Department as far as our full-time individuals full and part-time individuals that are that are within the district as it relates to special education have 44 certified teachers we have 83 support staff and that's a variety of full-time and part-time situations six uh seven between part and fulltime uh speech and language biologists Consulting teachers are case managers for IPs and honestly that's one of the many varet points of special education and Evon wuse this notion of of case managers and many other places in the country and in the state but for sure the country each individual provider whether it be a speech therapist um if it's just speech and language type situations or if it's just uh more of a special education the teachers are truly or that provider is truly responsible for these things and
012here in Evon we've adopted for many many years long before I ever got there Consulting teacher a case manager model that really helps our people with need kids more versus being married underneath Els of ID require individuals with disability education so I'm grateful for these folks counselors we have six nurses four that split themselves between the buildings as well as our counselors uh two amazing occupational therapists um we have two full-time psychologists and I'll get into our contract people here in a second but two full-time here within the district um two interventionist and what I mean by those is we have um we work with two board certified Behavior analysts that really help the buildings and deep dives into supporting kids and lots of different educational Behavior related things that way and an amazing assistant
013technologist that helps districtwide when we start talking about assistant technology and what that looks like on the I and and be way so that's that's a look at the department now our contracts a wide variety of contracts as well uh disability in y County um Bethany shyler has has been a great partner uh she's most recently the director we've worked with the amazing Wanda Rogers for many many years previous to that as well and so great Partners there we uh we have audiological support I put SLP on here because we have had to contract a little bit in the past for help with those Services um we have an additional Behavior specialist through a contract as well um that can jump online with us and help navigate different things as it's apprach uh lucda um
014they work with us for our child find uh requirements from the state and fer level as they help do those screeners and and again identify students uh CommunityWide before they ever reach the do of our schools so great Partners there um we we work with a a psychologist as needed when we need a bilingual psychologist and so we have him on on standby enough education support or ation and mobility and Mobility navigating your surroundings if you do have those perceptual or visual situations that we need help with uh physical therapy and then in addition to that due to the size of our district we do uh contract with another additional um psychologist and Dr as we as we need his services and he's he works directly with4 schools on a monthly basis so when we
015talk about our measure of Effectiveness and we look at the um the indicators that that were uh that the state navigates us through the areas that we met and again this is 23 24 data we're currently in the midst of building this information that we won't get until next year so it is what it is but I'm pretty pretty darn proud of my of our folks our professionals and our kids in these areas so participation of children with disabilities on Statewide sesss Target um there's there's multiple there's there's two different assessments you can take the ytop or the Y Al no matter what every student has to have access to um an assessment and our kids all have access to it proficiency rates okay it's a big deal and the state gives us uh percentages
016that they'd like to see us meet as a special education department as you can see our fourth grade uh reading and math our seventh and eighth grade reading and math our nth and 10th grade math and then on the alt assessment our fourth grade alt assessment reading in math and our ninth through 10th graders alt reading all it those State marks that they require of us another is the sus suspension and expulsion rates so are we lopsided are for whatever reason do our processes Target students with disabilities and we do not based on all of that data from suspension and aulions LR there's this is Acron in suit so if I if I forget to say one just call me out on it I'll jump in I know it's Mr Bennett's favorites I might just
017throw a few I made out we'll get creative I assume you know what they are I think the vast majority L is least restrictive environment and and there's a Continuum of services the least the most least that works is the general education classroom the very most restrictive environment it's it depends on the camp you're in but it could be jail it could be homebound because you're not with your peers um so there's and then in between that there's a whole Continuum so when we look at least restriced environment they they critique us on students with IEPs being inside the regular classroom 80% or more of the day and we get that standard and that's a really good thing because that that in addition to maybe pull out support we are supporting many many of our
018students in that general education setting with their IEP services and accommodations that way now on the flip side of that students with IEPs are inside the regular classroom less than 40% so we have students that need to be um that need a lot of support for lots of different reasons but we don't want you know we want to make sure that we're not um overidentifying those students that need that much more time out of the generalized setting and so we met that that kids that are in we don't have these huge numbers of kids that are being pulled out and I this I'm F disproportionate representation overall so again whether it's whether it's race or disability category category but mostly just race and ethnicity are we overidentifying and the answer to that was no a
019big one and it's kind of near and dear to my heart this is what I spent a lot of my career doing before I jumped into this was transition planning on IP so every student um at at least 16 needs to have a transition part their I our elementary counterparts never even see this part of the IEP it's not relevant to that kid but once they start getting at that 15 16 we're focusing on how does the IEP help your student um transition into the world of work or the world of post secondary life whatever that might be it could be employment it could be uh postsecondary education it doesn't necessarily mean College it could be vocational training whatever the case is and uh we met the three components uh the two of the three
020components of that the one that we didn't meet was let me back up so the three components are um are the attending a college or are they gainfully employed or are are they both okay and so our students that come back and we make a call a year after they graduate U my high school team's on the phone with them in June trying to call all of our kids that have graduated and say hey what are you doing right we'll talk to anybody we just need to try to figure out what you're doing and um most of the times we get a hold of the students themselves we could uh uh um resource this out to a phone company that makes these calls nobody when you get around or maybe ever but so our our
021teachers called in and what we found is that the vast majority of them like I could be wrong but 80 plus% I believe it's in the 80s are employed and they're they're making a living far less of them are are enrolled in a postsecondary ucation in addition to that though um we look at that combining that still is a high due to these kids students are outw working and that's a really positive thing the last one know that I'm really proud of is parent involvement and what that is measured against is is we give a survey we try to give a survey right after the meeting or we send it home with parents um and we try to get it understanding based on that survey what the state gives us it's nothing that I made
022um do you feel like you have voice in the table do you feel like you have meaningful participation and we met that state Target as well what I will continue and ever continue to work on is to get more and more of that data some parents fill it out some don't I'm sure there's been the occasion that it was forgot to be given at some point dur end leing that way but the the vast majority of our parents that took the survey uh which was a decent amount so that they did feel like they had involv in the process any questions or wonderings at this point no so what we didn't need graduate graduation rate and dropout rate okay I because it's such a a relatively small group of students as you compare to the
023general population I'm not going to go into any specifics but there's there's a handful of situations that need to be taken into consideration with that and the first and foremost is we want our student to stay with us and graduate obviously that's a that's bring um the the level of support and I'll and I'll go into some of this but the social emotional support that the school district ising is making available to students um whether it's whether it's in from the school district counselors or whether it's out of District counselors that we make available to every student that that has that need to try to help meet those social emotions um I go back to our our uh our certified staff whether they not be our teachers our PS are whatever the case might be
024we are surrounding these students with Quality quality people and I think that goes back to the importance of the lawsuit you want to continue do do any uh any of the kids that drop out go to homeschooling um yes um my guess would be yes that way I don't have any specific on that to that point if a student does go to that has an IP goes to home school it's a drop out I they are Dropout but in addition to that I call them and I try to talk to the parents and we say hey even though you've went this route how can we help you with the IEP and there's a whole Ida regulation that we need to still reach out and give that opportunity in addition even if they don't want to
025how do we still support student that has individual disability education qualify thank you question mattt if I can't chairman Peterson members of the board just to add a little bit of the challenges that we face with special education and calculation of dropout rate we've had some heat in the past from our community what we consider dropouts and it's not what we consider dropouts it's what the state considers dropouts for good or bad and I think the most egregious deals with special education if you do not graduate with your cohort so you have four years you're considered a drop out even if you have an IEP and you stay at the high school for two more years because we can keep until they're 21 um they're considered non-completers and there's nothing we can do about it
026that's not our calculation that's the state so this is just an additional challenge with our special ed population um and I think that needs to be the message we do everything we can to get them to that completion but there some kids that just won't make it and um our goal still is to do that but they need to be in there that 19th 20th and 21st year to provide as much Service as we can provide them so hopefully I didn't cut you mattk no and it is it's you know I've been in special education for 21 years um it's the stupidest and I'll be happy to go on record saying that technical it's the stupidest thing that I that's part of Ida is that a student can has the legal right to stay in
027school till they through their 21st birthday depending on where their birthday went possibly further and um still and still be addressing State alternative standards but yet still in that situation you it's pretty stupid it's it's it's beyond stupid it's it's egregious egregious but it is how the law reads from those levels so I do feel like we wrap our kids around with a lot of supports um and we always want to continue to work on our graduation rates Andes that so uh we need to make sure that evaluations regardless of the circumstances are done in a timely manner there are very specific dates that need to be met and given various situations with students moving in or students that need support beyond what the district can provide um that get complicate things greatly but we
028need to nonstop make sure that those things are being addressed and being done in a final manner when I put on postsecondary outcomes again that was a big celebration but how do we utilize uh our resources um differently to help students um go to some sort of postsecondary Education it's not just traditional College more shouldn't there's a lot of vocational training components out there the kids need to get access to it and uh we will continue to strive to do that and then why talk proficiency there was a couple grade levels that didn't quite make that proficiency cut out or cut off and um what I can say to that is the as we're navigating through that is the work of our plc's which our special education individuals are very um integral parts of the
029PLC groups whether it's grade level plc's or content level plcs grade level monitor Elementary in Middle School content plc's at your high school is how are we addressing those needs um again at a different time when not a little bit more time crunch there's a lot of phenomenal things that I'll touch on briefly that we're going to train our teachers with more uh this art science of reading how are we putting uh more and intense writing tools and teacher hands um and just a calculation over all of the I all the time uh there's my chat with parents and teams uh one thing I share with them there is no promise that what an IEP is how it's written guarantees that it's going to quote unquote work we don't fix kids by is be fixed
030um but there's no guarantee that this is going to go work but what the guarantee is that we're going to sit down we're going to look at the data and we're going to adjust as the data shows us as we continue to Le so so Matt on the timely evaluation piece of it this is saying that we didn't meet the target is that like a percent you know what's the threshold to not meet the target the the target is 100% okay and we at okay situation yeah I didn't know if they gave you like wiggle room of you had to be at 95% but they they do the 100% no it's a fair question that's it's like the I if you write a goal to safely cross the street only 100% safety is the only
031way to go on that so that's where we okay thanks fair question so accomplishments again extensive work around literacy best practices with certified and classified staff and I would say one of the biggest heartbeats of our school district is our or our our um classifi staff of our professionals um there are phenomenal right they are phenomenal and so I'm grateful that we can wrap those trainings around them as well and continue to do better at doing that um we have a for the next I think we're on year three this upcoming summer we have a wonderful summer Elementary social emotional learning group that really helps kids prep for that next school year how to how to play how to play nicely literally playing in the sandbox right we got at that age you do play
032in the sandbox so really how to navigate those social situations uh I'm very proud of our elementary Behavior Support uh throughout the district and qualified individuals and uh that we have in there I touched on this really briefly but that mental health support um every student in the school district as it is right now has access to uh uh kapy if it's appropriate and the the referral goes through and it's built into every single building within the school district so it doesn't have to go outside of our building we can get them in support while they're at school again if it's if it's a if the referral is Justified and if the parents are on board and can't do anything without parent support that way nor would we um in addition to that to that
033uh to that piece um we could spend the rest of the night talking about the network of support that our project we Grant offers to to this community where nurse here in the district in addition to that we have a program called care soless that is Statewide which allows any individual any student any family member of a student living within the household or any employee to utilize care soless and reach out to for for mental health support to find a provider whether they're local which they look for local first or go beyond that with tele therapy they'll help set up the appointment they'll help navigate insurance or the of insurance they'll set up uh once that's done they set up the appointment they call and check on them to see if the appointment went well
034if it didn't why not can we get you another provider somewhere else and follow up on that and so it's a nice resource for folks that they have opportunity to use and again that uh that is Statewide so that's a really good thing um all of our team's utilizing the the IEP process to ensure that least restrictive environment that's one of the main purposes of the IEP because we want kids in the least restricted so that looks like compliance support our data support and training and then again a huge shout out to our Consulting teachers we're taking uh various training components of the IP and sharing that with their teams on a monthly basis um our team teaching supports uh we have we have supported classrooms where we have general education special education teachers working
035together in that classroom on lots of different levels uh we have a a a very good support for those folks to do coaching on that how to navigate through the difficulties I mean um it's a big deal having multiple adults in a classroom environment or a learning environment we want to make sure that we're supporting them to best for our and then ultimately our our staff our certified staff they're the key there are number one best practice intervention is the quality people up FR of kids they support one another they push each other they love kids they move mountains every day okay so looking forward we're going to continue to to continue to focus on students through that LR Continuum how are we navigating kids through levels of support how are we reading their data
036how are those those data points helping us to make good decisions um timely completion of evaluations ongoing Behavior Support at all levels specially designed instruction is a big deal and that's what makes special education special is if you need support in Reading Writing math um speech and language whatever that is then you must need specially designed instruction that's what qualifies you for in part for special education and so that's a big deal to keep them meeting through that we're going to continue with the PLC collaboration piece continue with uh districtwide Elementary Behavior Support classrooms um and and make sure those folks are equipped and helping students appropriately standards based IEP goals and thinking in a nutshell what that means is we want every kid learning at grade level right some kids for lots of different
037reasons as they're identified as as whether it's a learning disability or some other type of idea disability those standards need to be where we're navigating kids I think of it as a ladder and have we they may need specific support that a varies rung on the ladder but that ladder is navigating to standards based ter and so our our goals aligning to helping kids achieve those those standards um and then you know the family is the key right at all levels they can they cannot be taken out of the equation more is it legal onic equation but families are the key how to help support families through the process to best I love special education um I love supporting kids education in general U special education is for the sake of my job uh I
038I liken it unto a brain surgeon and I think brain surgeons have a super easy job educ surgeons get a cut in I get a scan I get a whatever else Grand surgeons do we don't have that luxury but we do have the opportunity to sit in front of kids every day do our very best with assessments so our very best with data um reserve the right to have better thinking tomorrow than we do today and and uh it's a great job it's a tough job but I just have to hand it to our employees general education as well because they work hand in hand uh with our special Educators to ensure High qu of education so um that's what I got if anybody has any questions i' happy do I did but kind of
039popped up to begin with um what percentage of our student body is receiving IEPs or special education right now right now we're at about 19% about 19% so that's Nationwide is a little high depends on where you're looking but when you look at is it too high is it too low well I put a lot of confidence and Trust in our various teams and when we talked about when we talked about these people these people they're the ones navigating through those decisions every day so chairman Peterson if I may I I think that's an upward Trend nationally I think we're going to see 19 as a low Mark in the future and that was my point right it just seemed like it just seems to be growing a little bit and I just don't know
040if it is the recognition of the need for some special education that wasn't recognized in years past you know on the evaluations side of kids and disabilities that something shows a little more or an unintended positive consequence of getting better and better at at the understanding where kids are at in their learning Continuum you might find some stuff that you didn't realize was there previous in years past we have a lot of students that uh that move in whether it's from out of state or out of District at least that um that they have to there's a process but we look at those we have to look at those as well to determine how naate into so it's movein our students that we have here so I think CO as well made a huge need
041for speech and language learning right especially the elementary level we've seen a big increase in numbers there blame absolutely right so Mr Williams I you did a great job and uh so I have kind of a two-prong question what is it that you're most proud of or most excited about and then what on the other hand what are you most frustrated about you know mo most proud of I I sincerely appreciate walking into a classroom and seeing our our uh teachers lots of different providers speech therapists occupational therapists Vision Mobility um hand in hand down with kid or or a group of students now be to I think that's where the magic is most frustrated with oh jeez um on a federal level our our government needs to get inter act together and reauthorize special
042or Ida done 2004 so work on long years 21 years since they've reauthorized it and recalibrated it on Bas 4 way through 23 Century I think that's a critical thing I think that has a big effect toting actions in trusty wheeler if I may one of the things I'm proud of is as a board you guys know that in the years past relatively short past we had a lot of concerns about Behavior and the work that that this District's done with behavior in our elementaries and middle schools and high schools is commendable and you've supported everything we've brought to you to help y our teachers in the classroom because behavior is not getting easier it's actually the opposite but uh Matt has done a great job at his staff in terms of these Elementary behaviors
043and uh doing everything we can to modify that behavior so that's what I'm really proud of uh hopefully you don't hear as many concerns and complaints about Behavior as we did two or three years ago yeah great behind every every Behavior situation is a phenomenal thing and we got some really good supports that thank yes thank you great [Music] job Mr O'Neal and Department you're up I think there's room for your whole department up here yeah y welcome You' got your speech prepared mhm there was 10 minute speech right here on it says right here yeah right there comments from boy 10 minutes 43 years have something to say so I don't want to go through a entire slideshow but I I wanted to make sure that um we cover the highlights and answer any
044questions that you guys have for me in the very first slide there it says educational Excellence through act activities we take that very seriously in in our area we we want to work hand in hand with our our principles and our coaches to make sure that we're creating helping create great students as well and we have a policy that helps us do that and our our principles and our coaching staff and teachers alike help make sure that we're striving towards that educational Excellence so I I I wanted to start there then I want to talk about I I put on there for you guys to read dedicated passionate EXP experienced uh but I added Dynamic and caring staff um I have I have the most amazing staff that you could possibly have you know Donna
045Bruce 25 years in in the department longer than than I've been in the department um she's amazing she can answer any question for anyone um anytime and she has she has many hats to wear on a daily basis it's not just answering the phone or typing for me or there's a there's so many things that she does that I can't I I couldn't list them um I I just can't say enough great things about about Donna Bruce and what she does as an assistant in in my department and I'll talk more about that later but boy here 43 years uh we actually started together in the activities Department 13 years ago and uh boy can do anything he's mcgyver that can cook and everybody knows him because he can do that um again Rollins called
046and asked me uh to have a job description put together for a Boyd and Rollins and so we started putting that together and put the list together and it it was several hundred things that he does for us and I sent that to the ad in Rollins and and and she said well we're never going to be able to hire someone like that so we're very fortunate to have obviously very fortunate to have void the sad part is we're probably not going to have void not for very much longer but I have two rock stars that's from the 80s superstars from the 9s and and and early 2000s I don't know what they call them today but these guys are rock stars they are known Statewide I I don't know if any of you know
047that but um these people are known by every ad in this state they participated in different activities with those guys and uh to those folks they are rock stars so not just rock stars to me um they're rock stars too to people around our state um and I wanted them to be with me today because they really are my team they're they're truly they're truly my team and um I couldn't even I couldn't even begin to do this job without these two these two folks um along with 77 coaching positions and 35 activity positions we cover a lot of folks in the district and a lot of kids almost 1500 signups in our our activities Department we we see a lot of people unlike Mr Williams I don't have to send out a survey to
048parents and ask them how we're doing because I get told them regular basis I'm doing terrible so we know uh how we're doing we get we get evaluated every Friday night that's part of our job and um sometimes it's frustrating and sometimes it's great uh but but it is an evaluation every single Friday for us and we know that we know that going in so I just wanted to make sure that I mentioned these guys and if you guys have any questions for them before we move on to the next slide you're more than welcome to ask them those questions I I don't I don't have a question but I just um want to thank Boyd for 43 years and and uh I I did not know Boyd child before I was on the board
049but I've had the privilege of uh getting to know Boyd and and consider him a good friend and just really admire all the things that he did even when uh he hit his phone and and deflated the Dome you know but uh congratulations on on your your uh next move and uh you'll be missed thank you I have to say I'm going to miss you guys are you and and I would like to compliment Boyd and Donna also I've worked with them for many years and Boyd would start my day out at 5:30 in the morning with a I don't know a joke or a get mad at me or just a good friend and he started my day every day like that I I think the the coolest part about having them on staff
050is they challenge me they they if I say let's do this they we come back and say no it's not going to work let's let's try it this way and I do like that I I like that about of my like the challenge and they either one of them yes people they they are often involved in the decision making process and I appreciate that very much from these guys uh measure of Effectiveness you know I I put these up there um 750 each year fall under the activity umbrella from school pictures to Friday Night Lights and I we got a kick out of Doge you know where they sent out the email that you have to put put down five things that you do from the week before we laugh about that about 5,000 from
051the week before and that that became a big deal nationally and I was thinking Advantage you can't write down five things that you did from the week before something's not right your work world but uh in ours it's many things and most of the time it's events setting up events um getting kids to events finding places for them to stay um and all of that and uh we don't claim to be perfect U but we strive to be better every day and like I said we get plenty of advice on how to do our jobs better and and we do take those things and try to be better in some of those areas is our coaches sponsors and and and activity our professional qualified and carrying I I don't want to read this because you
052can read but I will say this is the best coaching staff that I've had since I've been the the ad they they are fantastic I know they take a lot of abuse just like us we get evaluated every Friday they get evaluated every Friday and someone always has advice for us that coach backer used to have to say anyone that's rbbl basketball can coach a team um that's not true it's a very difficult job was much like these guys in their jobs those coaches were many different hats um I was thinking about what I could say to explain this job this job is not one that's done by a single person this job is done by having many people be involved from the principles that sit in the back of this room um to the
053to the transportation department uh special education Mr Williams did a wonderful thing this this winter that I can never repay him for for doing and that stays between he and I but a pretty amazing job he does but I could go right down the list uh to every person sitting in this room and out there at the commercial where the guy steps up and he's got all these people surrounding him he's got his different people that do different jobs for him that's really what I have in my area Mr Thomas makes fun of me all the time about my big staff um we really have a big staff we work with a lot of different people we don't we can't work without uh everyone's involvement so I just wanted to to get that out there
054again you guys don't need to have me read any of this but we do many things um in our department um and it's it's not one single thing on any given day that what's created about the job it's different every single day uh making the most of what you provide us you know we are appreciate don't say that enough I can't say enough about the football stadium I can't say enough about the two domes they're not perfect in any way sheap or form and I gripe about them I wish there were some things that we could do differently but you look at at how much those domes are being used right now um by different groups not only our school groups but Community groups they are used and they benefit nearly every single kid in
055our high school so an amazing thing right now our soccer teams are practicing on a clean field for the first time that I could ever remember and that would not happen if we did not have keac stadium in that Turf that that you guys gave us so um it it is amazing in what you give us what you provide us no is it ever enough it's never going to be enough and I'm just going to be honest um It's never enough we can do more and more and more uh but there is a limit and I hate asking all the time for more and more money um we can we can make it work with what we have so we want to make make the most of what you provide us and try not to
056ask for more uh although I am going to ask for more tonight yes you are something I can't I can't handle uh issues or maybe not I put that on there because um we have Rising costs and unforeseen addition additions such as huddle girls wrestling middle school soccer medical supplies concussion testing officials cost all of these things that have been added uh that are that are very very expensive um I don't know if those are issues or not I I know they're more expensive and it's getting more diff difficult to cover all of those costs um but we we try to do the best we can and sometimes we have to come and ask and tonight I'm going to ask for shot clocks it's required of us next year and they're way out of my
057budget there's no way I I can provide uh the funding to to take care of that budget I have almost $7,000 a piece for the fox themselves and it's probably going to be close to to 2,000 a piece to have them fired in so um and then Mr Thomas and I talked about how many gyms we want to do that in that that'll really be up to you guys in making that decision but I just wanted to make sure that that you guys knew it and wasn't surprise it's here we've known it's going to be here for a couple of years I was wishing it away but it's not going going to go away that's a that's a state mandate State mandate and they didn't fund it unfunded mandates in my area happened quite often
058uh concussion testing the NFL created a lot of that and it's a good thing it really is uh a good thing but the helmet testing helmet testing every single helmet 200 for us 240 helmets a year have to go back for testing and it's about $80 per helmet is that every year every year now it used to be 10 years and you could throw them away and get new ones but now it's every helmet every year and it's 80 bucks to do that it's crazy and uh shoulder pads are coming next where those going to be tested as well so those are unfunded mandates that that are very very expensive how much are new helmets new helmets are close to $500 now I think coach backer when you were coaching about 180 190 bucks that's
059just been a few years back they're over 400 bucks a helmet now and so when we've talked about cost and they talk about inflation being 10% or 20% I put that into your pocket more I mean a helmet that goes from 180 180 bucks to over $400 now to purchase helmet for a kid to play football and that's every sport I don't want to pick on football it's every single sport we have basketballs when I was coaching I remember telling the kids if we have a lost basketball uh captains you're going to put out the Hat you find $52 to replace the the basketball those basketballs are over 100 bucks a ball now roll out there for our kids so things are more expensive but we've been able to Donas creative work we make sure
060that we cover try to cover everything we've been over budget the past couple of years I think we're going to be close this year to getting on budget except for the shot clocks obviously what does huddle stand for uh it's a it's a filming um program so our football stadium has a huddle camera our basketball gym has a huddled camera and another unfunded mandate our coaches have to provide film after every game to their opponents they have to upload that and actually it's it's a great benefit not only for the other teams to scout us but it's a great benefit to our kids as well because our kids can jump on there watch themselves on film at any time it's all there for them so we have that in football volleyball mandated uh basketball mandated
061both basketball programs mandated and both soccer programs mandated U so we have to have it it's about a a $10,000 bill that prior to me taking this job well prior to five years ago um that didn't exist it's again an unfunded mandate from the whsaa very expensive but our coaches use it our kids use it it's well worth the money of everyone's putting it to use because we do things and that are silly like the shot clock and I hope they're all watching up there I think it's the most ridiculous thing we we've ever done in my area but uh so if you do the three gyms we're looking at just under 30 $27,000 to do the three gyms four gyms would be $36,000 we got the bubbles oh we got the bubble the bubble
062the high school and the two middle school we talked about just doing the bubble and U the high school and leaving the middle school out eventually probably be mandated that we we have it in in middle school as well but right now it's not required of us so we could do it for all for it's about 36 grade but our Middle School PLS play down at EMS High School kids play that's I'm sorry I meant the Freshman yeah but we've been actually playing at in we've been using those freshman under protest in some cases but um that's what we built it for so we tried to use it good and so um um it's getting used I you want to look at numbers I I was at track practice yesterday we have the highest numbers
063we've ever had out for track we have the highest I believe that we've ever had out for boys soccer highest numbers we've ever had out I know for girls socer so Spring sport is have gone n we haven't started MD school and that's usually over 100 kids per school just in in track and so our numbers continue to rise again it's a great thing but for every kid there's a cost and just know that so where are we standing on the girls softball I have not had a single person ask okay all right no bring that up take that off can you back that upas a little bit of that so I've not had anybody ask in a couple years well at least a year so uh we do have Middle School soccer coming we
064added Middle School wrestling this year girls uh girls girls middle school wrestling excuse me and we do have Middle School soccer for boys and girls coming next year if you guys grant that I don't know if we're going to do that or not because again there's a cost to doing that so it's it's awesome it it really is awesome to have that many kids I'll tell you this that tells you that our principes are doing a great job that our coaches are doing a great job no matter what anybody in the community says without our coaches these kids would not be be going out as sponsors these kids would not be participating in these activities if they didn't like our coaches if they didn't like what was going on this would not be happening I
065think our kids love being involved in our activities and that includes me how many coaches that we have coaching activities uh Mr oil I have a couple questions okay um with the shot clocks is there a uh there's got to be some type of training education process with whoever does that right I was told so this I'm going to hold Star Valley to this Star Valley I hope you're listening uh they said an eight-year-old could run the shock block because I said that is one more person we have to hire and pay to do that job not only is the it's an ongoing cost I I don't know that people realize this but yes we're going to pay $36,000 for shock CL but we're going to pay somebody $15 an hour to come run those
066shot clocks and uh and yes they're going to be officials getting yelled at for making mistakes and and yes we probably should have training for those I I didn't know if that was part of the Mandate that you had to have some training or something I know you I actually the activities department will provide the training the activities Department this part of the activity Department despises the shot yes yeah so bu a question uh the shot clock whole thing did that go through the border of control the W activity Association approved it Y and you guys all voted on Southwest did not Southwest the Southwest District did not we opposed it the only school that was in favor there was one school and I won't mention that but they they're north of us and we're
067gold and Mar but no the Southwest District didn't vote for it actually I talked to um the commissioner today and said hey I got a quote today for $7,000 per clock that's not installed that's just per clock and he says well we were told it was going to be $2,500 per clock maybe I'm getting duped and so I called a neighbor and ask him what he paid for his and he paid exactly the same as I did so you know it's it's what it so have you been talking about it for a while or is this new it was a it's been about a year yeah it's been a year and and the board of control didn't have much they didn't stop it they didn't stop they think this is going to sa basketball so
068you know uh at high school level I'm a villain because many years ago we did hold basketball and that that comes up in nearly every meeting because of what we did at that time but I actually talked to a coach today he said he held it for a minute and a half and he's in he's going to wind up in the state tournament they would not have made it uh in the shot clock era because he'd have to get the ball back to a team that's much better than than he is so I I'm not in favor of it but uh so what's the time on that how long can they 355 that's it then you got to turn it over but you can be sneaky this you can make them more I so I
069I threw up here one and this is probably not the appropriate time or place but I've heard a lot and I've gotten a lot of grief over this and I want to talk about one My Philosophy and two I want to hear your philosophy on this and um I have a I have my own feelings about it and I can say this I can say let's combine every Middle School Sport and activity and it would make it a lot less work for us and experence that's and it would it be a lot less work a lot less expensive no question that would be the case and I am completely opposed to that I'm not I'm not opposed to work we have two principles back there and I think they're kind of on the same page
070but I believe we give many kids opportunities by having two middle schools we have I use basketball as an example we will definitely have 14 kids that leave the eighth grade and go to high school theoretically we have 24 but I'm going to say 14 14 kids that gotten quality minutes in 23 games per school so 46 basketball games 14 kids have gotten quality minutes in basketball this year alone I had a parent come to me and they said I want to transfer my kid from Davis to EMS because they have a better basketball team that's great I understand that but I help her understand that her son can be the eighth man at EMS or be the best player at Davis yeah if you're the best player at Davis you're getting all of these
071quality minutes you're guarding the best players getting guarded by the best players you may not win a game but you're getting quality minutes and you get a chance of working on your skills and so uh that is just one example as to why I am not in favor of combining middle schools we have two middle schools what a great a great thing let's keep it that way two middle schools because I think we have two very unique principles I think coach Fel is is a sports guy he wants to have his own program BRS in his school right coach yeah and Mr rriso Sports background he wants to have his own teams and and I think that gives this because here here's the question you have to answer where's the team practice so if you
072choose to combine a team which what school is going to be school do they go to so somebody's going to have to get on a bus so you're going to answer the phone calls as to why my kid has to get on a bus instead of the other kid not having to get my bus that's my opinion that's feel chairman Peterson if I may chime in um my opinion we just can't listen to the vocal minority those that are screaming loud us I don't think we need to allow to make the decision especially about Middle School philosophy our philosophy is that all kids should have an opportunity to compete and participate uh middle school rules for selection are different than the high school and they need to be we need to get as many kids
073as possible participating outside the class classroom performing in the classroom that's why we have two middle schools um this isn't the right place and the right time but you need to understand that My Philosophy is we don't change if anything we continue to encourage more kids to participate that's why um with girls wrestling and now Middle School soccer more opportunities for kids we're going to end up with 95% of our kids participating in activities that's what we want I have grandchildren that cannot participate in Middle School athletics CU they don't have them in their schools what a shame that includes music which we have those opportunities and I don't I'll step off the soap box but what we provide in this community is amazing for our kids and we need to keep that not lose
074it because we want some minority vocal minority to have one quality team where their kids can can kid can participate let's don't listen to the vocal minority let's do what's right for kids so that's my opinion it's not the right time right place and as far as I concerned we won't bring it up because this is our philosophy well and and the one thing that you mentioned about kids transferring back and forth in middle school that's been going on for a long time I think we should not be doing that right if you're attending a school that's where you participate in the activity that you want to participate in you shouldn't be able to pick and choose you know academically oh I want to go to School versus if I want to play football and
075be on the better team I'm going to go to this school I don't think they should be able to transfer back and forth for for that and we've been doing it so what was the family over in uh Cheyenne Cheyenne Central Cheyenne East he was a little point guard I can't remember his last name anyway in high school you have open enrollment but he played basketball at Cheyenne East after basketball was over he transferred to to Central to to to do soccer and then he played football back over at cheyen Central he went Central Cheyenne East back to Central because of the programs that he wanted to be involved with is he the kid that started out in Rock Springs no this is that one to sucks the whsa has pretty good pretty good control
076over those transfers now things were a little different they're still they're still going on Mr Peterson you sent an email out about n so that I was going to ask you we are going to discuss that during uh round table so I don't want to discuss that right now we won't dive into that but I would like for you to stay around when we get into the round table to address some of this so you can't leave yeah did you have dinner I've got some chips I I just want to say thank you to all of you because you do provide us a great deal sometimes um it may seem like we we don't appreciate it I know our staff appreciates it I know Boyd appreciates the stadium and you Boyd's bunker and all that
077so we do appreciate yeah for going back to the Middle School philosophy I totally support having as many kids participate as possible so what is the feasibility of maybe even adding be teams so that we can have even more kids do some of these high popular high demand sports like basketball so we you can answer this but we about 10 years ago we tried it we did okay and the first year we had had a million kids out and the next year we had none there's a there's a it the other thing is we try to be a good partner to the rec center if we provide those things then they don't go to the rec center and participate in their activities that's one side of it we also had this we had I think
078almost 60 volleyball players in EMS Alone um the first year we had B Teams there's no room for them that's right so what we wind up doing is saying okay we're going to have a morning practice and an evening practice and then it became well who gets to practice in the morning who gets to practice in the evening and then the next year we didn't have to worry about it because we saw diminishing numbers very quickly because it became a social event instead of a a competition group it's not rec center it's even in the Middle School it's still competition we have expectations um it it's not just okay we're going to go and chat her in the back row because I know his wife is one of our coaches and she would not tolerate
079that that would be very difficult for coaches as well it becomes this more of a social event and it is it is somewhat now but our coaches have high expectations and I will tell you this not opposed to be teams that's that's not that's not a true statement either I just think we need to look at and see um the benefits of having those whether or not we're going to get what we want out of it right being at practice every day being on time doing well in the classroom U it becomes a nightmare for the coaches to chase those kids around because you're not going to have 60 kids that have the I'm going to focus and and compete and do the things that coaches and and our principles ask them to do so
080those are things that we have to we have to look at and evaluate over time okay I will do anything that I'm told to do I'm a yes man I'm also a team player I I mean I I grew up here I graduated from high school here I student taught here I taught here 35 years I coached for 23 years I've been around a long time u b teams have gone in and out um and I guess it's a philosophy that that you guys will have to discuss and tell me what you want because I'm willing to do it it works so right now lar me my sister-in-law coaches in laramy at the middle school level and they have a b c and C is everybody else so right so the the a team has
08112 the B team has 12 and then there's 30 kids on the C wow they don't have two middle schools I try to tell people this all the time differ the beautiful thing about us is we're getting bang for our buck because we actually have we have 12 kids per School per grade so 24 kids in eighth grade get to participate in basketball 24 kids in seventh grade get participate in basketball same in volleyball we have a 120 kids out in EMS track and 120 kids out in DMS track so we have participation Sports and we have and they are highly competitive they do an excellent job we have great kids running track um and then we have the the sports that are limited just because of space in time M there's no limit in
082track you can put them out there same as football same as wrestling B wrestling team and even you know wrestling we had wrestling for the first time we had over 25 kids out for Middle School girls wrestling we're going to have to split our Middle School girls team because we're going to we're going to overload those two coaches that who did a fantastic job overload those coaches that coach those SCH girls us so we're going to have to to have two teams I've heard the clamoring about the combin and all that I hope understand my philosophy it would make my life easier but that's not what I signed that's not the best thing that's just not that's not who I am I can say this make it easier you got to stay around I'll I'll
083see well I had another question um and part of this is just my newness as a new board member so um what how is the pay schedule for coaches determined is that is there a salary schedule that you're following or or does that how does that work it's a point system okay it's a very complicated point system uh a ban to my existence so uh we deal with the point system quite often it was written back in the late 80s um it's you get points for number of kids involved you get points for weeks that you coach you get points for um equipment taking care of equipment taking care of facilities there are many there's there's eight different categories MH that that they get points for and it's it's okay it's outlined for me the
084number of points they get and each one of them are different so um it is hard to explain I get that question from coaches when they hire how much am I going to make well I don't know that until you hire on and we talk about your experience and then what your responsibilities are because that's really what it's related it's about $125 a point so each year you get an additional point for experience about $125 year but that's also negotiated Uber number of kids try out for your or come on to your team for that sport that year you could get even more you could but what we wind up doing is adding more coaches so it never gets to the point where it's coach go and recruiting kids just so they get more points
085it doesn't work that way once they get to about 20 kids per coach we hire a new coach gotcha Middle School's a little higher than that high school is a little lower in some areas but it's also safe you you have to keep that in mind as you hire coaches as well numbers of coaches um safety is is Paramount put that together you don't want to have too few coaches in the swimming pool area you never want to have too few coaches because uh kids will be kids right you know we're all kids at once and we mischievious that's that's who we are and what we are so that's a great question but it's a really hard one to answer do we have a built-in Cola with it or how often do we give raises
086or or things like that they get a step every single year okay there's a step Sy I'm with it too it's a point and that goes through negotiations we've negotiated that last four years I think so it's $125 for high school it's $108 for Middle School those points and so they acre those points that we get our coaches salaries are very competitive so in my experience doing this we've gone to that twice coach has asked us to look at a different salary schedule so we've looked around at different ways it's funded a percentage of the base um a percentage of their salary every time we get close to the end and the coaches see where their salaries would go they've all said no let's keep with the point system because of the experience Factor those
087most experienced coaches are the ones making the most money and those with the most responsibility are making the most money head coaches but we've had Middle School coaches making more than our head coaches because they had 40 years of experience in that sport so um it is a very competitive schedule and what prevents us from changing is the coaches when they start realizing how it'll impact their salaries so um and we for my understanding in terms of recruiting and training new coaches uh coaches have to or people who want to be a coach have to go to Cheyenne and do some sort of three three-day training and then on their own dime and then come and then they can apply is that to get certified is that right yes if they want to be a
088certified coach they have to work through the wbe uh which is in our Personnel Department U they help them through that process but there are five courses that they have to to take um three of the five or are three there are a couple that are difficult to get the most difficult to um to work through is care and prevention of athletic injuries um it's the most difficult yeah because you actually have to attend a course you can't do it online you have to actually go somewhere uh We've provided those courses here at times um we we no longer offer that here they can go to cville usually has one mountain you might have one every three or four years um they can go to Casper to the coaches plan which we will pay for
089them to to get there we don't pay for the course they pay for the fores themselves so they do have to go through that process and it's through the wbe it's not through the district okay so every District in the state has to follow the same guidelines so is it does that but it sounds like not every coach has to be certified to be hired or you give Preference they do or they don't get or they don't get paid okay you have a threeyear transition you could get a transition but you still have to be working towards that yeah do you think we could hire like it would be EAS easier to hire coaches if we did bring the training back to this area rather than asking people to travel um I Really they offer
090care intervention periodically to the next yeah it happens but we don't I really don't get a lot of people that come and say Hey would like to coach right um matter of fact it's just the opposite we had eight applicants can of talked about we had eight applicants for volleyball this year Varity volleyball job that's unusual usually we had boys basketball they had two athes girls basketball about football we only had we had to go get a coach we had to go get aach took him out of the classroom and said hey you're going to coach thank goodness his wife let him he does a great job he he was he was always going to be the guy but that's what we usually have to do we we are short coaches and I'm begging people
091every single year so we went through a training today on the hiring process and we have these guidelines we should follow I can't follow those guidelines because I have to walk into a classroom or call a guy up on the phone or a lady on the phone and say hey we need you to coach come come do this for us and it's usually begging them and and promising them that they don't have to ride on the bus on every trip and whatever we've got to do to get them there so we don't we don't have that I've heard that of different people said hey I'd like like to coach what do I have to do well that that doesn't happen through me that happens through the Personnel Department it really is the wde it's not
092a district issue they have to get certified before they can coach for us they can volunteer go through a fingerprinting process to to volunteer coach and we do have a few of those on occasion but the process U it's not as difficult as everybody makes it out out to be one simple phone call to Don about care and prevention and she can probably send them in the right direction or she'll call me and say he you heard of any care Prevention classes I just received an email from Rivington they're going to H to course someone's always offering somebody's all because every District needs it right it's not just Evon but every District in the state and and I think that's a great question because every school district in the state's going through the same thing
093um we have the majority of our coaches that Co that that teach in our district and Coach um it is difficult when you hire someone outside of your District that is not in education because we have rules we have to follow it's not little where they can do whatever they want to do practice on Sunday if they' like to do that uh have five hour practices if they want to do that or there's so many different things that that as far as guidelines we have to follow follow in the school setting and I think that's what turns some of them off they want to just do what they did with their little Le kids trust me I can be at a gas station and someone will tell me how crappy a coach is and a
094different and and because he coached them or she coached them in little league and they want everything and they don't understand their their restrictions they actually have to go to school they have to do well in the classroom and and we do have a code of conduct they have to follow um it's not everybody just gets to to come and be a part of it so it's difficult when you start talking to folks about whether or not they want to coach in those environments so right I'm just thinking like you know if there there potentially could be people who are interested in coaching want want to participate in the program but it's hard to travel to get the certifications done um and we could maybe reduce those barriers the same requirements to be a teacher
095it's the same organization that has the expectations for so just like a teacher is responsible for every certification they pay for all of those things the same thing is true so TSB so coaches if you want to coach and if you want to teach here's what you have to do to be a teacher if you want a coach is what you have to do this is the organization you have to go through to find out exactly what you need to do to be okay no I was just going to say if they're having difficulty traveling for 3 Days to go get certified then how are they ever going to be a coach traveling across the state especially in our state in our state right you know when used to be in our conference and you
096would travel eight hours to go play a football game yeah and and chairman Peterson pointed out they have an exception authorization so you do have three years once you apply to fulfill all those requirements so you don't have to do it all before you coach the interesting thing is um our accreditation has been in Jeopardy because we've had assistant Middle School coaches that didn't finalize their certificate so it is a big deal um and I know there's been legislation to try to remove that component of accreditation but now all of our staff have to be accredited fully accredited or able to be accredited which means they're an exception authorization so okay and some of those courses folks need to take I mean go to philosophy courses I I think those are invaluable and I do
097believe care and prevention they have to have the first aid card yeah in the first day card I think those things they need to have I don't I never believe those things should go away because as a coach you're put in in emergency situations at least you feel like there are emergency situations at times and it's good that you have some type of training to help you through that process I mean there's nothing worse than see a finger that's going the wrong direction you know it's not a medical emergency but uh it does freak you out and so if you through that training process chairman Peterson and members of the board I appreciate being able to come here every year I want to make sure that these guys CH to come up Don thank you
098you were the best thing well no I I can't I was going to say it was he was the best part of the department but that's not true only par partially okay that's it and that I'm proud of stat oh absolutely all right we can go now on to our discussion items Mr Thomas chairman Peterson members of the board I'm really going to be quick with the legislative update but there are a few things that I think we need to point out first of all before I forget I appreciate those of you on the board that have emailed our representatives and our senator and and lobbied for a specific position that may be the best news is we'll talk about some of the ones that did make it through the legislation but the best news
099is those who didn't that didn't make it through it and I think a lot of it was because we did uh communicate communicated with all of our staff and some of you did a very nice job communicating to our representatives and Senator so just to start off I mean hit some high points um House Bill 46 which is the home school Freedom Act uh kind of interesting I would say kind of the theme of our legislative session dealt with Choice homeschool alternative schools charter schools at the expense of public schools so and that's my opinion um so there was a lot of legislation this one's an interesting piece of legislation if you know homeschooled parents are required to uh sign up with us their curriculum that they provide every year it's never made sense to
100me why they do that because we don't have any control it's not really us if a home if a parent wants to home school they need to do it well 46 does away with that requirement so no longer will they have to submit their curriculum to us um that's why they call it the Freedom Act I guess um the only downside is when they submit their curriculum at least we could track those kids in terms of we knew where they were um there's still an obligation if you're in school and you choose to homeschool you have to communicate with the uh principal that you're going to home school so of course it's just like transferring to another school but if they don't start with us in terms of kindergarten we'll never even know those kids
101which uh is is the parents right but it's just I guess a little scary to me that we won't have any contact with those kids at all um and we do I think uh everything we can to encourage homeschooled parents to bring their kids even if it's for one period so anyone that's 46 I want to ask question question on that real quick there is no ties to any standardized testing with this legislative action at all no yeah there was some legislation that approached that but there is no accountability requirements for homeschool online school or Charter Schools so Brian one of the things that concerns me is every year we send out a letter required by Title One to send out a letter to offer uh Federal program opportunities for our home school and private
102school so I'm not sure how we're going to fulfill that which is a federal requirement and the state really hasn't given us any direction at this point in addition to that special education has to do the same thing to evaluation or services that there so what do you do with your PTS and your oties do you have to do house visits at that point if we if we don't know they're there who they are but if you do know if they they are and all of a sudden they pull them out and they take them home and you still have to provide services there's a lot that it depends on but at least it allows us to offer what's required that we offer by by St in reality typically homeschool parent will deny those Services
103yeah that's why they're homeschooled they don't want those services so but we still are required to do it so probably made our job a little more difficult but homeschooled parents have a little more freedom so um the next one I want to talk about is House Bill 94 uh the reason why I want to talk about it is the governor governor vetoed this um if you're familiar with how the governor vetos he actually vetos it and then he writes a letter about why and so if it's okay I would like to read this two paragraphs of why he vetoed this one this was Charter School authorization amendments what this did away with is a Statewide cap on the number of charter schools that can be put into existence and this is what the governor said
104the recent District Court decision rendered by judge Peter foler determined that Wyoming legisl legislature has unconstitutionally underfunded the state's Public Schools this ruling highlights an urgent issue that must be addressed before we consider authorizing additional Charter Schools the legislator's failure to fully fund the external cost adjustment and other inflationary factors is its approval of universal education savings account ongoing tax reduction and primary impact Educational Funding and the unchecked expansion of charter schools send conflicting messages about its commitment to adequately fund public education the financial strain on our system combined with the litigation raises concerns about whether Wyoming is fulfilling its constitutional duty to support Public Schools uh without a sustainable transparent plan to ensure adequate funding for public schools education savings accounts and other Charter Schools alike lifting the cap on Charter Schools authorization is
105both premature and in irresponsible on the other hand Senator Schuler's proposed amendments on this bill offered a balanced and responsible approach to expansion yet they were rejected by the Senate education committee missing an opportunity to ensure thoughtful strategic growth in Wyoming's Charter sector so if you're familiar with 94 why it's interesting is it's already been his veto has already been overridden in the house yeah um there's a good chance it'll be overridden in the Senate but Common Sense fund public education and then allow more Charter Schools make sense to me so I appreciate the governor's position on that um the next one is one of the ones that probably is the most disappointing to me is uh House Bill 172 or uh the repeal of gun-free zones and again uh the governor chose to veto
106it last year but he chose to let it go into law this year without his signature but he did write a letter and I think it is also imp ful about why it hurts our district so I'm going to read again from the governor uh let's see this got small print compare that effort to the work done locally from the time of my veto letter when only four school districts had firearm carry policies which were one of them to today when 60% of school districts according to the Wyoming Association of school administrators every single Community College and the University of Wyoming heated my call to action and took up the debate this exercise is in local governance was noticed by a handful of legislators who attempted to pass amendments to house full 172 recognizing that
107local process and grandfathering those local decisions such La lack of regard for the principle of government closest to the people so fundamental to our public is stunning elections are impactful and I recognize the overwhelming majority of this legislature opted to drop a political bomb the final outome this legis legislation is not in doubt it will become law ironically the legislature did not need to look far for how to craft higher quality and better supported policy as I promised the state building commission with ample public comment reviewed proposed rules to allow for the carry of firearms in the capol complex these rules have been ready since early January for all that was said about the concerns for their safety legislators could have carried Firearms during the 2025 General Session if these rules had simply been taken
108up by management Council and their passage commended to my desk alternatively a quick and clean repeal this I think it's the important part I stated in my veto letter last year that I support the repeal of gun-free zones I also respect local self-government my actions underscore my passion for both which is not diminished I am left to imagine the legislative session was never about self-defense or a common sense effort effort to extend carry rights more to the point it was always about the legislature grabbing power I find it interesting that this legislature's vote was not so much about the sanctity of the Second Amendment rights as it was who got to control them gun-free zones are not repealed they are now determined exclusively by the legislature that's was our argument all along is we've done
109our due diligence in this District to protect our students we will have to do some work on our cka um it's still allowed in 172 in other words we're still allowed to have our staff concealed carry with our control but to me I think it doesn't make sense anyone that with a concealed carry permit can bring guns into the school but we monitor who can of our employees can bring it in I think that's violating our employee rights I think if we're smart though we can be proactive with this um maybe change our policy cka or maybe not but either way basically fundamentally meet with our staff and say hey if you're going to con concealed carry that's your right but please come to us work with us we'll provide additional training we'll provide materials
110we'll work with law enforcement we'll give you more training and then you can safely concealed carry in our schools um just the knowledge of who concealed carries by our law enforcement has to be valuable so that's I think the way we go with this but there's still a lot of wiggle room in this law that we need to figure out so it's unfortunate but it's now the law so anyway so I mean 172 overwrites our cka no it doesn't so we can't a teacher can't come in with the concealed carry permit and go into our schools they they don't I thought with this right here they don't have to notify us see 172 allows districts to identify employees who can conceal carry so it doesn't override it okay um but again if that's challenged in
111court why can employees rights be limited but anyone from the public can't it makes no sense why would we do that so I don't know the answer yet we yeah we're still trying to figure out the questions but uh I think the best thing is if someone's going to someone that we know is going to carry in our schools we need to provide them every opportunity to receive quality training the other thing is there is limitations in this law that are joked about constantly but uh are reality um the idea that this is now considered a governmental office it is not a school you can constitutionally carry in this facility after July 1 yeah the difference between concealed carry and constitutional carry is constitutional carry is open carry yeah with no restrictions with no restrictions
112um so I've already heard districts saying well we're going to have board meetings in schools because at least they'll be concealed in schools interesting Dynamics this law has created um and we'll have to work through those but uh um some challenges the funny one that I've heard is they're going to have a uh beer cart on their high high school campus Because anyone that sells beer you can't conceal carry in the school so you're just going what what were they thinking um I guess the good news with this is they did not change the age so 21 you must be 21 to conceal carry so and they also added an amendment that no students can can can seal carry in school so if by chance you had someone older than 21 which I don't think
113do but anyway so that's 172 a little disappointing okay let's see House Bill 316 is uh I guess kind of saved us 316 was added right at the end this legislature decided not to F not to pass a supplementary budget bill they just let it die so that's House Bill one Senate file one no budget bill so anything that needed to be funded like schools had to be in a supplemental budget somewhere so this was stuck stuck in 3 uh 16 and again sorry but I think this is good information um I'm just going to read this is from what is this paper it's from a newspaper article says local news K12 funding uh I can't see which school it is but Senators restore full K12 school funding after court decision on the hills of
114the unfavorable District Court decision on K12 public school funding this week state law lawmakers restored the full 66.3 million external cost adjustment on fr Friday which is great news yeah uh funding was brought through an amendment introduced by Senator majority floor leader Tara nethercot to the school recal recalibration bill after the Wyoming Senate nixed the supplemental budget in an unprecedented move Wednesday night nether caught amendments to House Bill 3 316 to the school Finance model recalibration restored the full 6.6 million again great news and she was influenced by the uh lawsuit yeah another good reason um Senate File 13 was a positive bill I believe that deals with reading assessment it'll allow us to do what we do um because there were a lot of legislation that would have made us change what we do
115and how we do it this will allow us to keep our reading assessments that we have been trained on that we use very well so that's I think uh good legislation so there was some good things that came out of it compelled speech uh was Senate file 77 and if you're familiar with that one again I was just curious to me uh the bill prohibits the state and its political subdivisions which is us from compelling or requiring an employee to refer to another employee using the employes preferred pronouns so interesting um Senate file 137 is school Finance reserves it doesn't impact us but it was one of the things I think we supported for our other friends out there in the state this takes the 15% cap savings uh Reserve account to 30% until 2028
116we are below the 15% we did some things proactively to make sure we were above the below the 15% doesn't impact us it impacts other school districts so I think a positive things that was done what I'd like to point out is um House Bill 200 uh Senate file 187 Senate file 178 Senate file 173 Senate file 98 those all went down um 98 is the Schoolboard trustee party affiliation which made no sense to me it didn't pass out a committee at the end educational bankruptcy account which would have potentially labeled School District as educational bankrupt if they didn't hit a certain score on a reading assessment which again is just punitive um fixing reader failure was one of the ones that would have been so much work I don't know how we would have
117done it um Senate file 187 uh Public Employee reti plan contributions they tried to put in an additional increase to wow in retirement we've four years we've done that we've had one year where we haven't so they again didn't make it through legislation House Bill 200 was the parental rights amendment which would have been um it would have just locked us up we couldn't have done anything from assemblies uh curriculum would had to be in at the beginning of the school year you couldn't have added anything as a teacher just not good legislation those things went down and again those were ones that I believe uh several of you communicated to our Representatives so an interesting legislative session um you can get a list of all those that the governor signed all those that he
118vetoed all those he let go into law we have no idea how truly impact us yet so that's to come but uh uh definitely an in an interesting year credit uh recalibration starts in April and we'll John and I will spend as much time there probably as we can to voice our opinion so anyway that was legislative session thank you thank [Music] you it's me it's you it's still youth Insurance UPC I just want you're just through a yeah I just wanted to let the board know that we did hire a consultant to work with our health insurance committee the consultant is Morton and Company out of saltt Lake um originally represent presented how we even found out about him is if you remember Rob Smith was assistant B business manager here for years ended
119up being the CFO in Alpine largest school district in Utah uh he retired uh got with Morton and Company uh insurance companies um Morton will actually assess where we are where we've been with instate out of state opportunities for health insurance make a recommendation to the committee uh committee will make a recommendation to me I'll make a recommendation to you what we do with insurance we hope it's timely enough that if the recommendation is to go out to bid we could do that um they have a lot of work to do uh I think our next meeting's the week after spring break so they have that much time to put all this together um I think it'll be good information at least a lot of questions that are out there about why we do what
120we do I think we'll be answered uh and explained that uh we have pretty darn good insurance it's costly and it's not we're not the reason why health insurance continues to Skyrocket we are just impacted by it um just so you know even though we got a additional ECA there is zero doar for health insurance this year actually we lose roughly $70,000 uh of health insurance money that we've gotten in the past so that's one area that um we'll definitely pound the pavement and recalibration health insurance should be fully funded by the state yeah yeah so anyway that that was one of the things that did not get into the lawsuit that we hope to kind of sneak in there in the future so that's kind of the update for health insurance I'll keep you
121breast as we go Okay C contract C pet members of the board you have a list of the certified teachers that will be approved next month um we do have a couple changes on those lists but they'll be corrected by April um Again by law our certified teachers have to be provided a contract by April 15th they have till May 15th to um they don't have to sign their contracts if they're non if they're continuing if they're non-continuing they have to submit that by the 15th of May so um again great group of teachers we have so that's all I had there okay thank you we will now move on to public comments please state your name and address okay Jared Howton 234 medicine VI and Howton is spelled h o u g h t
122o n okay so um I I just kind of want to explain why I've been showing up lately and uh I actually haven't been showing up to the school board meetings I've been showing up City Council meetings and unfortunately the uh County Commissioners hold their meeting during the day when I got to work so I don't really get the opportunity to make those ones very often either but uh about a year Well actually a little over a year ago it wasn't this last December but December before before last where a friend of mine by the name of Chris Hawkin set up shop down at the courthouse to collect signatures for a b property ballot initiative and instead of questioning and informing the public like elected officials do they berad him they accused him of not
123wanting to fund firefighters or other essential government local government services and things of that nature I'm not going to lie that made me a little bit hot I'll tell you what nothing made me even hotter than the day that I was accused of not caring about local essential government workers won't get too much into that so my big thing is is I I I understand that that there's a need for funding and I understand that there's a need to fund education but I'm going to ask and I understand that for some people especially elected officials that don't like to be held accountable that that's going to be a problem I'm not here to win any popularity contests so first question how much did you put in for this lawsuit what's up I okay so second
124question related to the lawsuit what so now and this kind of led to the reason why I was accused of not wanting to uh fund teachers my understanding is is the state we pay property tax on my property tax bill there's a line item that says you want to County School District number one and I think the bosies is on there too once again not objecting to paying it my question is or so from my understanding is the state collects that property tax and it puts in a great big old bucket and they take that property tax and they deliver they they distribute it out to all the school district is because some school districts may not be able to receive adequate funding due to their population understand that so here's my question for you
125about this lawsuit so now that it's been determined that the state or that the school district hasn't been getting adequate the the adequate amount of money that they should be getting from the legislature how much is my property tax is going to go up go down they say they were this group wouldn't know the answer to that a legislative question yeah it's still in the courts too this sign yeah W statute determines the number of Mills that you pay not us okay that's a fair answer so that's that's my second question so and did my understanding um the state gives you guys money and there's recommendations on how you should spend that money am am I correct in assuming that or not assuming that understanding that am I correct in understanding that it's allocated for
126certain things yes so but it's allocated for certain things but then there's also block grants or block funding that comes in that there's a model that determines the amount of money we receive and it's given to us in a block grant okay but is there is there actually law or something that states this is how you have to spend that money or once you receive that money are you allowed to spend that money how you see fit yes the board determines that so in terms of guidelines that's what the model provides for example starting teacher in the model has paid uh roughly I think $39 $40,000 we pay 53 for a starting teacher salary in this District that's the only way we can get a teacher so we're under underfunded by roughly $113,000 right off
127the bat but that's the guideline our board Administration choose to pay more so we can get quality teachers in our community we also fund benefits out of that we also fund our facilities um roughly 85% of our budget goes to employees salaries and benefits 15% are operational costs um and I would love to sit down with you and show you what Mr Williams and I presented to the legislature that showed why we were underfunded very clearcut Wyoming education in Wyoming constitutionally is a right and by law they are supposed to fund it cost-based we proved that it's not cost-based they weren't funding us appropriately that's what the lawsuit showed um and I can show you document after document and doing this for 35 years you also need to understand all of us are property taxpayers
128we're pitching into the education of our kids you also need to understand funding your property taxes my property taxes will not fund the education of one student for one month we couldn't do it without the state in our community one student for one month is what your property taxes pay that's the reality so a fundamental right in the United States is we provide a quality education and it has to be funded through the tax base so am I willing my kids are out of the system no longer will be here I pay my taxes with pleasure because I see what happens to our community and how it supports our community and supports our country now pardon the soap box but you need to understand that uh um I'm not only an educator but I'm a
129parent and I saw what this community did for my kids and every kid in this community deserves that quality of Education or better 10 years ago our salaries were 10th in the nation we recruited all over the region teachers best teachers brightest teachers now we're bottom of the pack Utah pays more than we do I left Utah to come here because of salaries that's fundamentally why the administration the board choose to sue the state fund educationally appropriately that's all we are asking will it cost the taxpayers more I don't think that's going to come through property taxes there are so many other ways education is funded other than property taxes Wan thank goodness is a wealthy State the legislature has choosed to underfund education for the last 12 years we have it documented we proved
130it in court we're not asking for anything that our kids don't deserve sorry for the soap box but you need to understand my passion with this issue I appreciate that thank you but once again in no way shape or form am I complaining about how much taxes pay ta I didn't hear that at all and I'd love to meet with you come in just make an appointment I'll sit down with you and show a couple documents and you'll clearly see why we did what we did I can tell you that the money we'll receive this year from the increase ECA will pay for the amount of money we put into the law suit plus we already will receive back on that investment and we're talking the next 25 years we'll receive back on that investment
131I wish every District in the state would have participated would have brought the cost down but eight school districts participated out of 49 correct out of 48 48 y y sounds good thank you and thank you from it yeah they all yeah everyone will benefit from it so that being said um if you're paying teachers more than what the recommended is you're taking that away from somewhere else yes and and it's been um there are things that we don't provide but we've already talked about that tonight in our community there are things that we set as a priority that's how we determine the block grant model where are we taking it from well the state provides us eight lawn and grounds people we don't have eight lawn and grounds people so we can take those
132funds and pay our teachers a little more just one example maybe a bad example but that's one I know of uh we fund nurses we fund uh counselors at our elementary school not in the model at all you saw that in the lawsuit too SRO we fund that not in the model our health insurance as we just talked about not funded food for kids is not funded by our state so it just keeps going in terms of constitutional what the Constitution says and what the state should have been providing yeah shot clocks aren't yeah shot clocks going back to the for kids though um so is is that money that you're taking that they would have been recommended for something else for food or yeah we we supplement our uh food service department to about
133$450,000 a year that is general fund money we have to take off the top to pay our workers basically and for food so we're underfunded by we can easily show that for 12 years by up to $500,000 a year but when Co was here back to co um school lunches were fully funded by the federal government those were the only years we didn't have to supplement our food service program thank you I appreciate that bet so I was actually can ask about the domes but I'll leave that for another time come and talk to me about them I'd love to talk to you I'm definitely going to reach out I promise um my my only other question is and Mr Thomas I fully respect your your point of you and your opinion on the gunfree
134Zone I really do um I unfortunately I I definitely disagree with you and I'll openly admit I don't have any children going to school here so but and I and I so saying that I do understand why I do understand why people would be uncomfortable with that so here's my next question what problem does gunfree zones solve I don't know if I can answer that one I mean are you still going to have potentially someone who comes in to kill innocent people yeah it's not going to solve that what it will do is make our job harder to try to keep guns out of schools and one of the points I was going to make is right now we're not that restrictive to parents come in show your ID you can come into our schools
135that may be one of the ways we just don't allow visitors into our schools then no one will bring a concealed weapon in that doesn't have anything to do with football wrestling basketball games where it is open to the public but those are things we can think through it hurts us it doesn't help us my opinion yeah I'm I'm 100% doesn't matter what we think because laws already pass yeah yeah we're debating something's done well I understand that and and I'll explain why I bring it up even though it does seem like it's a new point right yeah I I I'm a person that believes that if you're going to have restrictions on something anything at all there there's got to be a reason and it seems you all are elected as a is a
136government body you administrate a a a government entity right that tells me looking at things on down the road what else are we going to restrict Without Really solving a problem right that that's the reason why I asked and going into that once again I respect other people's opinion on that I'm not trying to say that you know you're evil or you're anti-gun or anything like that if you don't think that people should be allowed to conceal and carry in a school as a matter of fact I was against just being able to carry a weapon in a school without a permit the permit at least provides some assurance that you know how to operate a firearm and it also provides the background so there there's there's a little bit of assurance there right my
137biggest concern would be somebody that's like just went out and bought a firearm s here going to carry it have no experience firing a firearm have never handled a firearm before and then take it into a school yes that scares the ever living hell out of me right but once again you know I just I don't my big thing with government is is government tends to do to to solve problems that don't exist that that's kind of why bringing it up does that make sense yeah if it's okay I I agree and I would ask the question why do we need the legislation why does anyone need to bring a gun into schools that has no business there that's why I understand I don't I mean just to say well we're defending the Second Amendment
138that's not what the second amendment was for in my opinion again but why did we need the legislation they've already passed 21 3132 which allowed employees to conceal carries so they're already raising level to protect kids but why let it open for everyone why was it needed no I I fall back to my previous once again I I definitely understand the point expect it I I definitely thank you for you know sharing it but so I guess and this is just David right I've had kids that uh participated in sports I have coached I have been in environments that have been very very testy and you say not having kids involved with it you go to wrestling match you go to basketball games you go to where things get elevated to a point that are
139we allowing that firearm within a a building that somebody has concealed carry that elevates it to a point in an argument between people we had just the other day uh uh a confrontation in in the uh aisle of our bleachers so the idea of not knowing who is carrying a gun and and I go back to your argument right black ground check and and and they have the ability to uh concealed carry and they're fingerprinted and and they go through the the training and they're certified to carry it all sorts of people get driver's licenses too you have background check for the driver's license but people aren't obeying the laws all the time either well if they're not right okay so I'm I'm just saying yes I understand and and trust me I've got a
140full Armament of guns in my house and I've got a saith in my house but I for me do not want to will not think that it's a good thing to put a gun into a situation with 1,500 people people sitting in a gymnasium where you are heated and things get elevated anyway or you have somebody that comes into a school that's mad at a teacher that we have all the time that can happen with g freeone i I know but the the fact of the matter at least we have some control over it now we did it's over now right we have we have no control over it now what control over did you have for Wyoming passed that legislation that we could um have certain teachers carrying in our schools and we provided
141the training no but but right now concealed carry we could stop you at the door and say no you're not bringing it into our school system you're not bringing it into our school if I'm considering carrying a firearm how do you know I have well that's what I'm saying you you don't but I well that's true it that is true but it goes back to who's going to obey not obey laws but where you are allowing somebody to come in there at least somebody might take it out and leave it inside their vehicle before coming into our schools if they get into a situation because things get elevated in a second sounds good thank you I appreciate that yeah thank um I I I do want to leave off on a positive not I don't
142want to come up here a lot of time think of seem like I'm going to speak about speak negatively but um I I I will agree that and it's been a while since I've been to school but I went to school here in Evon and and I I I will say that although it was a very challenging experience for me during that time that uh uh it did set me up for success I I feel like I'm highly successful today especially since I'm one of those statistics of dropouts but uh I I I will say that it it it gave me enough that even though I made that decision to set me up for Success later in my life so in all the Educators out there I do sincerely want to thank you for what
143you do and uh wish you all the best of Lu no I I appreciate your time I hopefully you didn't think that I was offensive you know in in your comments I was just kind of pointing out my side of what my opinion was just like you were putting putting your side out and and uh I appreciate you coming here I really do I wish more people would come to the board and ask questions I do serious so I I think I think the community needs to know that we're here and if they have questions to come please ask us questions and we'll try to answer them the best that we can and if we can't we will do the research and we will we will let them know so sounds good thank you very
144much I appreciate you all thank you thank you Mr thank you okay we can move on to our action items no more public to be heard just kidding no more public serious it's a sea of blue before me chairman Peterson members of the board I actually have five actions for personnel if we I think we need to separate them make would make sense I think in the long run unless you want to improve them all at the same time no no no I think it's better to separate and number one is I recommend to approve the following resignations of those that were listed yeah so I was going to go down through that then approve the contracts then approve so I'm not going to lump them all underneath a so I'll go A1 A2 A3
145okay okay so underneath the action items well underneath Personnel uh um bullet a is I need a motion to approve the resignations and leave of absence as identified on the documents that were provided to us so moved I have a motion second I have a second any discussion none all in favor say I I any opposed eyes have it motion carries we will go on to action item a two contracts I need a motion to approve the contracts that were presented to us so moved I have a motion do I have a second I'll second I have a second any discussion all in favor say I I I any opposed eyes have it motion carries we'll move on to uh action item A3 and this is the lifetime of service stien I need a motion
146to approve for those individuals that we reviewed uh in the executive session of the lifetime of service stiens Mr chairman I'll make that motion second oh yeah one second okay so I have a motion I have a second you got the second okay thank you any discussions none all in favor say I I I any oppose eyes have it motion carries we are now moving on to action item number B I'm any comments from chairman Thomas I mean uh superintendent Thomas so we do still have to approve the administrative contracts that's five on the list that I have that was that was on the consent on the consent yeah oh thank you yeah okay I'm glad I'm not the only one that messes up I miss the consent item um chairman Peterson members of the
147board we recommend that you approve at second reading efr one which Mill change policy regulation Mill charge policy regulation and efca health and wellness policy um director Stewart is here if you have questions you can shoot away but uh We've Whitted way to these policies for years and years these are policy changes recommended in our audit from WD so any questions for no we're going to let her off the hook yeah wow so I need a motion to approve action item B the second reading of approval of ef1 mil charge policy regulations the efca health and wellness policy Mr chairman I'll make that motion I have a motion that motion Mr chairman I have a second any discussion none all in favor say I I any opposed eyes have it motion carries we are moving
148on to action item c special leave donation um Mr chairman members of the board if there are any questions we do this occasionally um we have a school that is suggested and requested that a special donation of leave be made uh this this was made by certified staff only Um this can be approved by the board special donation if it's not used these hours will return back to the individuals who donated them okay thank you okay I need a motion to approve the special leave donation for the Clark Elementary Mr chairman I move that we approve the special leave donation by clar Elementary second I have a motion I have a second any discussion all in favor say I I any opposed eyes have it motion carries we're going on to action item number D
149members of the board recommend that you approve the discipline of students as identified in executive session okay I need a motion to approve the disciplinary actions of the students that were identified in the executive session so mov I have a motion I'll second that I have a second any discussion none all in favor say I I I any opposed eyes have it motion carries that concludes our action items we will now move on to our board round table and I will give the floor to Mr Wheeler for this discussion oh okay um I received a uh uh an email from uh Mr Farmer at the uh Wyoming School Board associations about uh an issue with uh that's come before the wiing School Board Association or the W Activities Association about nil and um I talked
150with the gentleman today uh that talked about this and uh it kind of came to a fruition uh about a year ago when uh uh a parent wanted to put their child on the uh billboard and be able to to collect revenue from the advertising uh and wanted to know if they would sanction that and and Mr O'Neal I don't know if you were there when that happened or uh a b part of the discussion discussion yeah yeah and and so uh you know so I'm going to interrupt you yeah come up before us Mr O'Neal front and center cuz this is going to be a Hot Topic I imagine in The Not So near future so everybody out there are you guys all aware of the nil anybody got any questions of nil if
151you do then raise your hand stand for what does the stand for so why don't we say it for the video people yeah the acronym yes what does it stand for name image in likeness nil that's weird yeah so yeah yeah so um in in the brief discussions I think that uh it was something that needed to be addressed uh and the kind of the flavor of it was is that they didn't want to have someone with a uniform that said Red Devils on it or some uh mascot or anything that depicted uh the school but it's something that's that's out there um and there are 18 states out of 50 that that have some sort of plan for this so you know Mr Wheeler of those 18 are they all in favor of allowing
152a student athlete to do that so the other ones aren't in favor guess aren AR or have or have not proceed to to adopt anything yeah and in the email that I got um we have two bordering states that are part of that 18 one is Idaho and one is Colorado so I got a question for you maybe you can answer it this because of the nil situation and recruiting situations our students are only allowed to have so much um money or contributions from colleges or from individuals trying to recruit them to go to different universities so how is this nil going to affect the recruitment of our kids and are they going to allow different universities colleges to pay for um name and image and likeness to a kid to try to recruit him
153and our high school kids are making more money than our teachers every single kid that is being recruited in this country today is getting something yep and that's law it's not it's not states allowing it it's not school districts allowing it is is law things have changed kids are getting I just I just watched this on uh uh NFL the draft and they were talking about there will be kids that are drafted in the NFL they're going to make less money in the NFL and they made in college and that's not going to be uncommon it's going to be common uh the situation in high school for us uh we can't limit what a parent wants to give their kid I I think when we when we look at the nil as it as it
154sits in this moment are we going to have a business in town take a kid and put them on a billboard and be they those kids be the face of their company I don't believe that that's going to be uh common I think what you're going to get and and pardon me because I'm not a social media person so you're going to take this wrong but this is just a fact um there are going to be parents or aunts and uncles or brothers and sisters that have money they're going to say you know what I want my kid my grandkid my niece my nephew on Facebook receiving this money and it's nil money what a cool thing that is is it real it's not real it's just what that's what we're going to face it's
155not going to be um I don't know if there's a a large big business in in our community uh that that's going to be doing that I think on on K on the on the Utah news there's only one kid I ever see on there and it's the quarterback yeah uh from the University of Utah that's the only one I've seen that's that's been on TV and they've been used in that manner I just don't think that that's an issue I think uh the whsa has it going down the right path uh when saying that hey you're not going to be able to use our uniforms and they say it's the state of Wyoming's uniform it's the whsa uniform because we are we are together on this that it's Red Devil Evon Red Devil uniforms
156are not only um un County School District number one but they Al also are the state's uniforms and the wh wsa's uniform so what they're saying is you're not going to to use the Evon Red Devil name uh in any former fashion in an N way they're not going to they're not going to wind up putting a kid on a billboard or on TV them wearing their basketball uniform saying that hey I'm representing this particular company and I'm getting x amount of dollars or whatever to to do so that's not an issue I don't believe we're facing a real issue our biggest issue is going to be a parent or a family member or friend uh giving n money so it looks really cool on Facebook on social media I think that's what we're going
157to face director O'Neal it's already brought up about recruiting does this allow a high school kid to be recruited with funds to a university yes I every kid is I think um there's no restrictions on getting money I the entire Unity Utah football team got a truck and pick up you know so yes they're get they're going to get money if they're getting recruited uh and they are it'll be the blue chippers it'll be the top end kids coach F probably be as good as anybody because he was your college recruit um those top in recruits are going to get money there'll be minimum amounts and they're going to be maximum amounts you know you got the quarterback from the University of Texas that was getting they said $8 million a year to play quarterback
158at the University of Texas backup back so so I this is my question to you and maybe you can take get back to the uh whsa my concern is and I don't know how you address this and maybe they're just going to put it back on the local uh uh school districts is you have a a very well-to-do business my daughter is playing on volleyball or basketball or whatever on the soccer team I want to send that soccer team to Hawaii name image likeness they fund the entire trip for them girls to go to Hawaii or they go to Florida they go to California which absolutely affects every other program that we have within this school system because they know if they hang out with this individual and on this program we get to do
159all this fun stuff and go on these trips as a team that's a that's a the the permission always lies with the board first off the board controls the employee yes who is the coach and also the board controls whether they can go on the trip regardless of what promised this it's to me it's so it's it's so complex right now because you're paying a football player $8 million a year but you cannot afford to pay a volleyball player uh $8 million a year so how does that affect Title 9 and those are the questions that are difficult for nil to answer I think it will eventually end the nil as we know it it'll probably be a standard amount that every kid's getting right now it's the wild w it is the Wild and
160and those are the there's no one going to be able to answer those questions it's going to shake out in the courts tot eventually um they're going to come to their senses and understand that these universities and eventually high schools because this this is not an issue in Wyoming uh you might have it in Cheyenne you might have in Casper Cody Jackson some of those more wealthy communities um you're probably not going to have that problem in Mountain View or Evon or or far and Eaton you're probably not going to be dealing with with that kind of stuff I think the whsa is on the right track just saying hey you're just not going to use any of our equipment you're not going to use any of our our cloth um on your own name
161in in Li that's it so uh yeah it's it's a complicated issue it's more of a question for our attorneys and I'm not trying to put pressure on you but attorneys Nationwide because they have title line they have to think about you can't pay a male athlete or a group of male athletes more than you're paying Fe it is title n it is a title n violation that's where the lawsuit is going to come toil yep y so I think you're going to hear more of this down the road but I do believe the the policy that the whsa is trying to to pass um is very good I I I actually made a comment this this started two years ago I made the comment what Dad would want and I'm sorry I won't use
162the word that I use because it's not appropriate here but what Dad would want to put their daughter out there uh and and sell her right on the open market because that's what a dad will do they will do it anything for money yep or anything for fame and it's it's scary to me that we're going to have parents do that uh I think it's a shame we're going to have it and and those school districts are going to have to deal with it we're going to have to deal with it eventually down the road but it's not going to be the the name and likeness nil stuff that we see on the college ranks it's going to be more of uh we want it to be out there and everybody to know that my
163kid got nil money even though it's from Uncle M still nil money and and it gets to go on Facebook chairman Peterson what what I recommend is let's put this on agenda either next month or the month after that give us some time to kind of see where this is I mean I read the policy for the first time today and I first thought well I mean high school was saying no to it and then there were a lot of restrictions so I'm thinking no they didn't say no so it'll give us time to look where this is in the process and what we can do in terms of uh if you want to do something in terms of support or opposition but uh let us put it on the agenda so the community can
164get involved if they want to so my concern I guess with a little bit of this is we are dealing with kids that are under 18 years old and and at what level what are we taking things to you know collegiately they're over 18 it's one thing but then we start messing with kids that are still classified as Miners and to what extent are things going to go with that that be the parents the parents I know but the parents are still I I know what Mr Thomas said that the the whsa can't say no you just can't say no the nil thing it's it's gone through courts it's legal to do the whsa our school board can't say no none of us can say no we can say no to using our equipment we
165can say no to to using our nil name IM lion High School Red we can say no to that but you're not going to be telling kids our parents that they can't put their kid on a billboard and Uncle Bob will pay for and it'll be really cool for everybody to see and again it's to me it's a shame I'm old school um but that's just how I feel about it I think the the whsa is is going down the right path the best they can do with the situation the battles over social media like you said it's going to be just very interesting my kid got $1,000 well my kid got $1,200 well my kid got $1,500 my can you imagine M Mr Peterson what that's going to do in teams oh yeah you
166know I Superstar is going to get all of this recognition and this poor kid down here that has no support in a community um it's going to tear these groups apart that's what I'm afraid of there's not a dad gum thing we can do about it y it it's already happened on the on the college level it's already happened where there's Have and Have knots and it didn't that four lineman that does the blocking for that running back or quarterback gets nothing very little very little to the you're true you're exactly right and that does tear teams apart no I don't know what you were talking about cuz I was the running back I know okay all right thank you thank you thank you all right we'll put that on an agenda in the near
167future and maybe we see kind of where we're at if it needs to be immediate or just informational and I'll get with Mr farmer and if we have to uh investigate other states what's what's happening we will okay all right sounds good all right I need a motion to oh more round I was getting us out of here guys quick two things I I again would like to thank Boyd for a long time I work with him and fantastic guy I saw him one time coming off the field and everybody was gone and I was talking to him I says what are you doing he said well there's always a few loose hands I got to go take care of so he's a great guy the other thing is maybe you don't know or maybe
168you do know or you don't remember but Don denell yep I don't know how many of you knew who he was he passed away the end of February and I believe he coached us for four years took us to a state championship game and I think it was 07 or eight anyway he he Parkinson's got him and he was down in southern Utah his funeral I just thought he was 70 years old and he was a just a fantastic guy I just wanted to say something about it and I was in Mountain View I'm the one that hired him at that first position I was an ad over there so I just wanted to say that much great guy he was married to Jerry Parker St she was she was from Trish her name da
169one more time um I just wanted to uh U announce that uh we've established our Hall of Fame class for 2025 and uh it's the 1997 golf team that was a state champion uh we felt that uh since we have a school named after the man that maybe he ought to be in the Hall of Fame would be rer Davis uh Brett Wilson is a 95 graduate of Evon High School who had a distinguished military career uh Forest Bri is a 74 graduate who was uh worked for the police department the sheriff's department uh was the uh security person for uh the governor and was a state champion heavyweight wrestler and then our last one is a lady by the name of Connie Gerard she graduated in 1959 uh graduated from by in 63 uh
170went to work for Lyndon Johnson in 1963 uh and when Kennedy was assassinated then she worked for him as president and then she worked for Nixon Gerald Ford Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and so she lives in Washington DC I've had some conversations with her talked with her uh I she's 80 84 years old so I'm not right sure whether she can make the uh the the banquet but we will certainly try and get her here the banquet is uh September uh 20th be at The Roundhouse and uh I I want to really thank uh superintendent Thomas and our financial officer Mr Williams uh they have been a great supporter for Hall of Fame and and have really helped us and uh now that uh things are more expensive and costs of uh increase uh
171we we have to kind of take a little different uh approach and uh we we need to rely on our Hall of Fame people to help us out but uh on August 2nd in July uh in August August 2nd we're going to have the first annual uh Hall of Fame golf tournament and so uh that will uh be something that uh we were excited about and uh will be a nice fundraiser for us and get some uh Hall of Fame people here and uh have have a great time but uh I really want to thank those two gentlemen for helping us and uh uh we just need to stand on our own and I appreciate it thank you very much well we need to thank you Dan you put a lot of work into that
172well it's it's pretty fun you know it really is and and uh it's it's been uh a fun thing and uh we've got great people that uh are on our board and uh Donna uh is is a real backbone of it but she does a lot of work for us and uh I feel guilty sometimes because she's getting paid and we don't pay her and so uh but uh that it's it's been great and I appreciate that so yeah I'm done I'll make a motion to it chair well you gave me too much time to think cuz I got like 10 Things I brought it down first and foremost thank you Administration for for following through on the lawsuit I know that we told you to do that but gigantic not just for the school
173district but people have to understand for this community that for and for the state of Wyoming for the education uh throughout the state of w yeah thank you I don't think people realize how much time effort and energy that you put into it so thank you a lot so uh the next thing as we were talking about Hall of Fame Hugh LOM who is from Evanston Wyoming is being inducted into the 2025 University of Wyoming Hall of Fame as a wrestler and we we beat them to it because he's he was inducted 18 or 19 yeah yeah so congratulations to Hugh he was like a six foot wrestler that was unheard of at the time they wanted him on the basketball court he went to the wrestling room Y and then the last thing we
174need to talk about is the $223,000 that was given to us as uh the school board to do the administration on what we were supposed to do with that donation yeah through the uh will Maran and yeah Mar and dny yeah Mar and dny so we've just sat on that for a long time and here we are at the end of another a school year and where we were talking about maybe using it for um scholarships or something we need to as a board really discuss of what we need to do with them that money and uh I think we've just pushed it down the road too often what was it a year and a half ago was over a year I think that we've got it so account huh sitting in no I know
175it's sitting in account right and so that's that's but I just know that that's what his intention of that money was for right and I think that's we just need to to put it back into our kids so so if you got some any ideas or whatever that maybe we can get some presentations to the board about how we want to do that and maybe uh Scott CER he wasn't paying attention so I'm calling you out than thank you so anyway uh if you guys can get together about that and then just visit and just just come to the board and present what we we think we need to do or what you think we should do with it so okay we'll we'll take a look at your recommendations with that being said I again
176got the last word so uh I need to have a motion to adjourn I going to have the last Road uh the meeting I have a motion J well she already did I second the motion then I have a second any discussions all in favor say I I I I he opposed eyes have it motion carries we are good night I'm sure someone's talking if you have 18 so if we