Harper Creek Community Schools Board of Education Meeting 4-14-2025

001I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the standyice for all. Mrs. Alwart is absent. Mrs. Wallace. Yes. Mr. Hverson, yes. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mr. Smith, yes. Mr. Bess, yes. Motion carries 6. And so we will move on to roll call. Mr. Halverson. Uh, Miss Ser is absent. Um, Mr. Halverson is present. Mrs. Risner here. Mr. Smith here. Mrs. Wallace here. Mrs. W here and Mr. Best I am here. Representative Sam Cook here Stanley and Alex Stner. All right, we have a quorum and we will move on to the Beetle Lake Elementary teacher presentation on book creator and uh Mrs. Kaylor. Hi. Um my name is Hope Kaylor. I teach second grade at Beetle Lake Elementary. Um in December I was lucky to take a group of four girls

002to technology showcase at Lancing at the Capitol. Now the last time because Mr. Halverson. I think that's my first group I think is the last one I took was Kennedy. Um so it's been since I think 2015. Um then after co they kind of stopped it and then it was um you had to they only took small groups of uh schools. So we were lucky to be one of the 30 um schools in the state to go uh and the students got to present on book creator and I was thankful to get this through my flex PD that I did for the district. I took it with anim at the CISD. So, Book Creator is an app that students um they take the writing and then they'll show you in a minute. They take the

003writing and then they um retype it onto the computer. And there's different styles they can do. They can do a narrative book. Um they can do comic book all about me or biography. Um students then once they did it and they put it on the app, they um also did some partner writing as well. Um they typed it all out on the book. um they have to go back, add pictures, labels, and also record the book. Uh the cool thing is uh the book um app that I have is the premium version. So that also means that they can share out the book. So they can share it to me. I can share on Google Classroom and QR codes and then we can also print the book at the end, any of the books that

004they want. Uh my subscription was actually up in January. Uh I was informed by Anna Mcrum that the company had looked because I was a LER teacher and so therefore I have a free extension of the whole entire app until next year. So as a result um they had asked that my students come and show this uh app what they're doing. So if you wanted to walk around they did one on just a recent one on spring break all of them. But it's a great app. It's um very user friendly. It does work with all of our technology. You can also use it um uh if you have like at home, excuse me, you can have like an at home version to do because now I have the premium subscription. So yeah, so overall it

005was very good app. I like it. The kids enjoy it. Um I started this group with my power art group that is um my highest group for project based learning. Um so these four girls went I think had a great time and also looked at other districts that did a lot of cool technology as well. Um, I think the closest one around around us was Marshall was another district that was there when we went. Um, but yeah, overall did a good job. So, if you wanted to look, I give you like five minutes and they can show you some of their books if you want to do that. Mr. Taylor, will you introduce the students? Yes, I will. Okay. So, here we have Brees Smith. You can like stand and go once I have Quinn

006Peg and I have Lulu Lawson. And a new person to our district this year is Gabby Garzone. So, yes. So, should we pop up and go check it out? Yes. And if you have any questions, you can just ask me. So, I'm sorry. It's called book creator. Book creator. So, I have the premium version. Anna told me So I was ask [Music] so mine went April 1st of this year. So it'll be April 1st of next year. Oh my goodness. So being a member of DC always yeah I I will ask that but I'm going to do it but I'm going to do November. Oh, for the Oh yes. Here you go. You can get on the other side. I just want to You can be in it. Go stand behind Mr. Smith. So I

007don't know what that looks. They obviously Yeah. So I just do a basic one. There's a comic book. There's an all about me. But so they do a regular one and then they can add pages on or delete pages. So they can search and it searches within the app. So they can't go outside like they can't like go like so they have like their own embedded um images that you can use and then you can record them and all of them go and do it. So like Well, from amplify skill and then they highlight different colors. So you can do that. It's extremely [Music] Thank you guys so much for sharing your Thank you very much. That is really cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, young ladies. As soon as you get

008packed up, I'll Yeah, I don't want to push it. Yeah, I like that. It was It was It was really good. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I'll just give it just hand it hand it to people. [Music] All right, we will move on. Um, Mr. Ridgeway, we have a modification to the agenda. Yes, I'd like to add an action item. Action item G, construction management. And we'll speak about that during U Mr. Robinson's district. He's a construction manager. Manager. Uh manager. Let's say that. Construction manager. [Music] Uh Mr. Hersonson, you have a motion. Yep. The chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approve the addition of action item G construction management firm selection motion as discussed and reviewed. So moved. So it's been moved and supported. Do we have discussion? Hear any

009seen none. Please call the role. Matter. Yes. Sorry. Mrs. Wallace. Yes. Mrs. Rizner. Yes. Mr. Halverson. Yes. Mr. Smith. Yes. Yes. From here on out. Mr. Bass. I v Oh, yes. I'll get you. And I'm here as well. All right. We're having a good time tonight. All right. We'll have that as action item G. Um, and motion passes. Move on to communications and president's remarks. Good evening to all those in the audience and those online. A couple quick comments. Hope everybody enjoyed their spring break. Um the next few weeks of school will go quite quickly. The year is winding down, but preparations have already begun for the 202526 school year. Tomorrow is another opportunity for uh your kindergarten students to sign up for school. Uh this is a great chance for kids to see the

010school, meet uh teachers, staff, and check out buses. So if you have a kindergartener out there, bring them to Harper Creek. When is our next countdown for kindergarten? Tomorrow. So, uh, with that, I will pass it, uh, over to administration and Mr. Rididgeway. Good evening. All right. Yeah. Thank everybody for for coming tonight. I always appreciate having the students in the at the meeting. It really makes things uh makes you feel like the work that you're doing. You can see as the board member, as Bo just mentioned, countdown to kindergarten is tomorrow at six o'clock at all of our elementary buildings. So if you know of a kindergarten age student has a family kindergarten age student, please have them come. It is good to go to all the countdowns just so that they can be

011acclimated to the school and then get registered. Two important things. The Calhoun Area School Board awards are coming up. Um it's going to be at the Calhoun Area Technology Center April 30th at 5:45. So we do need RSVPs if you're going to go. Um, and so if you are interested, simply tell Carla, uh, we're supposed to know notify by April 21st. So if you know tonight you're going to go, please let her know. Um, I cannot attend. We are also, my next announcement, hosting the I8 Scholar Athlete Awards on the same night in the Harper Creek Auditorium, and that's at 6 o'clock uh, on April 30th. Yeah. And the Cereal Bowl is coming up uh, May 1st, 8 a.m. If you have not been as a board member and you can make it, it's really

012nice event. 8 to 9. It'll be done at 9:00. Um, we'll hear from several different organizations in the area. Uh, I know it's a little bit early in the morning, but it's the bre best breakfast in town by our chef, by chef Ruben. Uh, community connections, which we used to call the senior lunchon, is coming up on May 2nd um at 11:30. And so they at that event we have lunch and then I give a school update to the folks that really the attended audience are people who are in the community maybe grandparents in the community that want to know more about the school. Um the lunch is free there's no cost to it. I am going to try to do a little bit of marketing and I'm going to ask our parents to ask

013their parents to come to the meeting. Um we usually get about 20 people. We'd like to make that 50 people if if they ideally and everybody that comes think it's a really nice event. So if you as a parent of a school child if you can invite your parents to it that would be awesome. Um couple qu concerts coming up. High school choir concert May 7th at 7 o'clock and then high school band concert is May 8th at 7 o'clock. It should be high school band and jazz band concert May 8th. I do have uh a a another naming of facility request. Now, I have that committee meeting this week and so if the board doesn't mind, I'll just do both at the same time. Okay. Yeah. Um board tour. Carla and I will be

014getting with you about scheduling a board tour date. We're looking at probably a little more than a half day. um start somewhere around 9ine, finish somewhere around after lunch around 1. Um so look for that in your email. U there was some survey information that was shared by our student board members that you have in front of you about um standardized tests. And then I would say sad news but also good news. Uh Mr. Greenman um has decided to retire after 40 years of service. Now he's back there in the in the crowd. So thank you Mr. Greenman. his last day will be the end of June, but um you know, his 40-year career has been stellar. So, thank you so much for your time. And then finally, I do have some sad news to

015report. We we had um a few employees, former employees that had have passed away. You might know these folks, you might not, but Louie Walter, Louie was the custodian here in the admin building for many years. He passed away earlier this week. M Collins, his funeral was actually today. He was a maintenance person um for Harper Creek for a long time. And of course, Mr. Lincoln, Gary Lincoln, um passed away earlier this well would have been last month. And they all did wonderful things. And obviously Aaron Oliver is not here today because her mother uh passed away um recently as well. So just uh sending out my condolences to all the families and of course thank you to our former employees for all the time that they put into harbor. And that's all I have.

016Thank you. I don't know if it's appropriate or not, but Mr. Grieman, four more years. Four more years. Four more. Sorry. Sorry. Um, all right. Move on to board secretary. Do you have any communication, Mr. Halverson? Um, yes. Uh, want to thank a group of people for donations. Um, thank uh I'll read through each one of these, but thank you for your generous donation to the Harper Creek Community Schools Champion Project. Jennifer Profit $25. Jason Fasel of West M Michigan Truck Accessories $10,000. Angie Brandon Fab Face and Body 1,500. Nate and Morgan Smith 5,000. Becky Weasler 5,000. Brad and Lynn Wilson 3500. Dave Ponchek 6,713.76. Ed and Beth Greenman, $875. Derek and Tara King, $5,000. Anonymous, uh, $2,86155. Regional Concrete, Greg Mesner, $1,000, and Kristen and Brad Halverson, $25,000. Thank you to all of those

017donors. The champions project is our weight room project that we're doing if you're not aware of that. I think pretty phenomenal. Um, thank you so much. If anybody was wondering on the odd amount there, I believe that was a stock uh type of purchase sell deal where it was donated to the um to the school district. Yeah, just wondering. All right. Uh, move on to our next presentation. Hatching result PBIS career pathways presentation uh done by our school counselors and student support specialists. Please come on up. Well, they're coming up in your packet. We've put like spotlight reports for each of the buildings. Mr. Ridgeway will be going through their pres or he's going to pull up their presentation. Oh, yeah. But there are spotlight. They look they look like this. So it's it's a

018comprehensive plan, but then each building had some things that they focused on. Yeah, they will they have name tags this time and they will introduce themselves when they share their part. Can't imagine why she said that. Okay. Hi, I'm Jody Led Better, the MTSS coach for Beetle Lake Elementary. Um, I'm going to get us started. And I've never used this particular clicker. So, to introduce our team here for the elementary, we have um Laura Salinger, who's right next to me from Models Park, uh Sarah Petroski, and Christina is unfortunately sick tonight, so she wishes she could be here. And Deb as well. Correct. Okay. All right. Um, so I have a quick question before I start. Can I show a quick video that's like less than a minute or no? Is that a no-go with

019the link? Is the link in there? It is. Are you clicking on or off? If we could just watch that first. Y I'm I'm going to try to click it. Okay. Thank you. I'll see what happens. All right. Thanks. All my everyone in honor of a person or a group of people because I'm so proud of Brian. All of you get an extra 10 minutes on the playground in honor of him. Do not thank me. Thank him because I had nothing to do with it. In fact, if it were up to me, the two of you still wouldn't be allowed to go. But I guess everyone means everyone and you're part of everyone. Notice this is the only system that I know of where you can remain annoyed at a kid but still include them.

020Cuz you know how sometimes you make a decision on a kid, you're like, "Okay, that's it. They're not going on the field trip or that's it. They're not going to recess." And all of a sudden recess or the field trip come along, you're kind of like to yourself, you're like, "Shit, I kind of want to let him go because if he if I don't make my life miserable for a while, I know but I already gave my word. I can't go back on my word, but I want to, but I can't. But I want to, but I can't. Here's your out. Your out is in honor of someone else. Everyone means everyone, and you're part of everyone. [Music] Okay. Thanks for letting me share that. That was something that we shared at our kickoff this

021year at Bele Lake. We kind of switched um I guess the way we looked at PBIS. So, in honor of having adult behavior needing to change in order for student behavior to change, we shifted our mindset. We wanted all kids to really feel welcome and a part of where they're at. And although we work on that every year, the circle of courage is a big thing for us at Beetle Lake. And so we really wanted to impact our positive relationships and our attendance by having this in honor of. So that was kind of like our kickoff for the year. Um and then our goal for the year was related to behavior. So we we definitely wanted to decrease our behavior referrals um compared to last year. And those were the three ways that we set

022out to go about it is our relationships, focusing on attendance, and then having a very clear purpose. So, this is super small, but what I did um and it's only through March, not April, but I compared the behavior referrals last year to this year. And so, up there, our highest um area of concern for behaviors is physical aggression. But at this point in the year, last year, we had 366 behavior referrals in that area. And this year, we have a huge decrease. we're down to 190 in that area and overall it's 144 less referrals when you compare school year to school year. So that's a huge celebration for us. Um I kind of wanted to lead with the data and then share a little bit about how we got there. So our five initiatives that

023we put in place um for attendance we call it happy to see your face. We do a random attendance celebration every single month. We change whether it's morning or afternoon. Some students struggle to get to school on time so the morning one they won't be there for. Some students are picked up early, so we try to flip-flop each month. Um, that is something that if you're at school, we are happy to see your face and you participate in whatever the activity is. Sometimes it's like a dance party, sometimes it's a game outside as a whole building. Um, and all staff are just on deck to help with that. And then we also have, which is not new, monthly lead assemblies. So that's um a shift when it comes to that honor of. So we recognize

024some, but we celebrate all. So we still have those students who are getting the leader of the month and the most improved leader of the month and they get their recognition, but then everybody in the whole um auditorium celebrates. So one of their favorite ones is we had toilet paper and we turned the teachers into snow people. So everybody gets to participate in that even though we're celebrating those leaders. Um and so that's a monthly thing. And then we also have class lead parties which is something new. So instead of getting those individual recognitions for lead tickets and then the classroom recognition for classroom parties, we also have buildingwide. So we have a big visual when you enter our building and every time a class earns a party, there's a visual that goes up. Right

025now what's up is a ice cream cone and they add a scoop and then when everybody in the building gets it, then we have a whole building celebration. Our most recent one, we had a magician come at the end of March for March's reading month. And then work completion celebrations are the same thing. Our goal is 80%. So getting 80% of everything that's expected of you done 80% of the time. Those are also random. And so anybody who's there and has been working and met that goal, their teachers track it, they come and participate in whatever our celebration is that day. Um sometimes they're crafts, sometimes they're writing prompts. Last month we made um cards for people around the district. And then our regulation stations are something that we started last year, but they are

02616 different stations throughout the hallway. Um, there's I have some pictures on your handout, but there's a bubbler, read and regulate stations, there are coloring walls to calm, sensory walls, tiles, things of that nature. And the kids all have it's like a living, breathing part of our building. And so um all of those things along with our trails lessons that have been in place um for a couple of years now, we feel have contributed to such a huge celebration in our behaviors in our building. Hi, my name is Sarah Petroski and I'm the student support specialist at Soma Elementary. Um, this year we really focused on neutralizing routines to support students um and to help regulate through that social emotional learning. And we did this by using the try method and we made posters that

027we have in every classroom and it's the picture um up there. And uh we went we reviewed it with all the students in the classroom um and they're in most of the calming um cool down corners within the classroom um and focusing on taking a breath, reflecting on your emotions and then thinking you've got this. Um we use um we're continuing to use the blue lead tickets and the yellow tickets as well for the bus to celebrate doing a good job in both the bus and on the classrooms. Uh we have our weekly MTSS meetings where we identify students that have academic and attendance or behavioral concerns. Um we supported these students with the use of behavior support plans, academic child studies, um attendance motivators and parent meetings. Um the very beginning of the year,

028we wanted to revisit our uh TFI, our tiered fidelity um inventory. And we focused on tier one. uh we were at 90%, so we decided to really go back and um hone in on tier 2. Um and we put in place some um this year we put in place uh ways to check in our checkout systems. So we have check-in checkout that we're using and now we um with the help of uh paras and teachers we're checking to make sure we're doing those with fidelity and uh making sure that we're really um reviewing those behavior support plans and staying on track with that. So that leads into our next slide. Um and this is our data um that we really honed in on. So we noticed this year we had a lot of um behaviors

029um referrals for first grade. And so we were trying to figure out what is going on with first grade and why you know where is you know this coming from. So we drilled it down and we found that um we most of it came from first grade male students that were specifically with the motivation of seeking adult attention. We found that there were um five first grade male students that had a large amount of um ref referrals for that adult attention. So I'm going to show the data and then I'll show how we how we decreased um some of that. So, in December is when we um really honed in on that and we had 26 referrals for physical aggression with those um first grade students and then we did it again in March to

030see if all the things we put in place have been helping and we were down to seven referrals with for those kiddos. Um so, adults were we did add adult support to those first grade classrooms that those kids were in. Um, we made sure all of those five students had a behavior support plan that we review every four to six weeks. All of those kiddos are also on the check-in checkout system. What What is check-in checkout mean? Yeah. Yeah. So, check-in checkout um all the elementarymentaries are using it, but it's a tier 2 support. Um, and it's it's for students that are attend like with the Swiss motivation of adult seeking adult attention. So we um I we have four right you guys are doing four as well. If they have four writeups yeah four

031if they have four or more writeups a month then um four specifically um seeking that adult attention then they meet the qualifications to be on check-in checkout. So it's essentially like a point sheet that follows them through the day. Um but they check in with a designated person at my building. It's myself. Um so they check in each morning. Um they get we go through the lead what it means to be a leader um each acronym and um they get points from zero to two. Two is the highest um for that category and they're getting that positive adult attention um and then then it follows them to their classroom and every hour the um teacher checks in with them. So they're getting frequent adult positive adult attention all day. Um and if they don't earn

032their points, you know, there it's like a quick discussion, but it's supposed to be positive so that the kiddos are getting that um positive attention all day. Um so we have all five kiddos in our building and it hap it's all these five first graders that are getting the check-in checkout. Um we also made sure that all of those kiddos were in a small group um where they meet with um Mary, Mrs. Tierney who's subbing for the other student support does runs those groups for us um and they're working on some of those skills. And then we also had the intensive support team come um from the ISD and they came in and observed those kiddos. We met with them and they gave us ideas on some things that we could put in place. Uh

033we're flooding lead tickets again trying to do that um positive praise. Um and then obviously we're doing the tier one continuation. We're making sure that they're um all the kiddos are still getting the trails um social emotional lessons in the classrooms. Can you recap what a lead ticket is? Yeah. Okay. Um yes. So uh the lead tickets are uh we have blue ones that we have blue and yellow. Yellow is specifically for the bus. Uh blue is for throughout the rest of the school building. Um and it says lead. So, you know, has the acronym and there's like little boxes next to it. So, um if a student, say a student's walking down the hallway appropriately, you could say, "Oh, I noticed you're walking down the hallway being a leader and you put a check

034next to it, um to whatever they were doing." Um if they were being respectful, you could put a check next to that. Or encouraging kindness and then you give the kiddo that. Um I think every building does it a little differently with um how they um reward like we have prize cart at our building. So on Fridays, um you do that, too. On Fridays, we'll draw we'll say it's time to draw a lead ticket and then a classroom will draw a lead ticket and they can come down if they were the u one that got drawn and get a prize. But they're just getting that positive praise from um all staff members throughout the building. So this is probably a question maybe we answer after everyone's presented but I'm I'm just curious throughout all these

035are all great steps but what is the engagement and interaction with with the parents as we're going through all this so don't have to answer it now we should probably listen to all the other president but I think that's an interesting element of this I'd like to yeah and I have a question for you guys to think about as well along the way um the um intermediate school district support team that came in. I'd be interested to know what your guys' thoughts were on on them and how that went and how much value they provided. Absolutely. Hi, I'm Laura Celinder. I'm the MTSS coordinator at Wattles Park. I started our section off at looking at some data, too. So, I compared um the referrals that we had last year through March of 2024 where we

036had 520 referrals made up by 111 students. And at the end of March this year, we had 366 referrals made up by 87 students. So, that was a decrease of 154 referrals and 24 students so far. We set two goals for this year. We looked at attendance and behaviors. So our first goal was by May of 2025, chronically absent students will decrease the total number of students by 20%. So we had 67 last year. Our goal was to have 54 this year. As of March 2025, we are currently at 66 students. um for behavior by May of 2025, students with five or more office referrals will decrease the total number by 10% from 642 to 578 and as of March we were at 281. So some of the things that we are doing in our

037building to help those numbers and I'm keep clicking hold on sorry um our M for academics our MTSS team meets weekly we look at the MTSS practice profile and work towards expected in all areas. We revamped our child study process for college and career readiness. We started doing Zello lessons um DK through fourth grade. So, as of right now, we started with doing two lessons per year. Next year, we're hoping to increase the amount that we do. And we are doing a college a career fair. Um, for SEAL, we have tier one lessons in all classrooms. Tier 2 lessons are done in small groups. And the sabers was completed in the grades kindergarten, second, and fourth grade. For PBIS, our tier one was has been implemented with 97% fidelity. And our tier two has been

038implemented with 88% of fidelity. Sabers, what is sabers? So sabers, I'm gonna let Laura speak to that. Our universal screener, if you remember, we have so we have um NWA, which is our academic benchmark, if you will, that everyone gets so we can make sure that um our tier one instruction is meeting the needs and if it's not, we're responding. We didn't have a universal screener proactive screener for um just that social emotional those um employability skills. And so um that's a universal screener that we brought to the board in the fall and um just I we'll move forward next year. It will be everyone. But right now we picked we took a look at the Swiss data where we were having um behaviors bubble up and targeted those to see what else might we

039do to respond. So like informing their groupings, small groupings for tier 2 support. So if it's something, let's say it's anxiety, then there's small group lessons for kids that qualify for those orum work habits. Basically, it's a universal screener. Um once they get to second grade, the students self assess because really it's about self-awareness and and so that's the teacher side and the student side, but the little one teacher what behavior Thank you. Sorry. No, lots of acronyms in the school. I know we're trying to get better, but and some of the things that we're going to work on for next year to definitely help with the attendance goal and with SEAL is that we are going to continue to build an attendance incentive program. We started this year. We are doing it quarterly. So

040we want to ramp that up and have more proactive communication with families regarding their attendance. Um for we want to set time for circles built into the daily schedule so that time would be uninterrupted set every day every class knew what time the seal lessons would be and um their circle time would be one more time. Sorry. So this is for all the students and all the [Music] schools that they were. So all students receive tier one lessons in feelings, conflict resolution and grit and perseverance across all um Beetle Lake, Sonoma and Waddles school counseling, attendance monitoring, PBIS implementation, MTSS, no goel for some of the students is check-in checkout, small groups behavior plans, child study, Swiss and power school data tracking and homeless foster support and few students outside agency referrals. and coordination, crisis

041intervention, deescalation support, and IEP and 504 behavior support. So, that's kind of a breakdown of what we provide to students across all the buildings. Okay, good evening. So, I am Amanda Schultz. I am the middle school counselor. Um, this is Lisa Carr. She's our 78 student support specialist. And Kayn Critellow is our 56 student support specialist. Unfortunately, she couldn't be here tonight because she is a board member for Alvette School District. And so she's at her own board meeting tonight. So our as a support team, our focus this year has been on making sure that we have a solid tier one foundation that all of our middle school students receive. We have also started to implement tier 2 interventions with which about 20% of our students receive. So all students at our middle school receive

042trails tier one lessons in their home room class through our morning circles which is a social emotional curriculum. All students receive positive behavior inter intervention supports which is PBIS. We had a strong tier one system in place for the last two years and are currently working on imple implementing tier 2 supports for our students who need some extra support. All seventh and eighth grade students receive Zello career exploration and planning lessons. And our seventh graders start working and creating their educational development plan, which is a portfolio that travels with them through the years at Harper Creek. Next year, I will be expanding this opportunity to all of our fifth and our sixth grade students. All seventh grade students also receive signs of suicide curriculum in their health and reproductive education classes, which this next oh

043next slide will touch on, but I don't know where my Oh, there it is. Okay. Um, so my goal for this program is to increase knowledge of suicide awareness for all of our seventh grade students in hopes of being proactive and ultimately decreasing the number of suicide risk assessments that are given. Through this proactive program approach, students learn that depression is treatable, and they are encouraged to seek help. Students learn how to identify depression and potential suicide risks in themselves, their friends, and their classmates. This program teaches students how to act, which is acknowledge, care, and then tell a trusted adult. They also learn who their trusted adults are at school and then at home. Um, the students were given a pre and post test to gauge how this program is working. So students were

044asked a number of questions. For example, what does ACT mean? Um what are warning signs that a person may be thinking about suicide? And it also gives them scenarios um and asks them what steps they should take. So there has been a 31% increase in suicide awareness in our secondhour health classes and a 24% increase in our awareness in our third hour health classes. Um an example of a tier 2 intervention that we have put in place is uh an anxiety support group. So students in fifth through 8th grade are given a virtual thoughtful classroom Thursday check-in form to identify students in need of more supports. So using this data and the new mental health screener sabers that we are working on um 35% of students were identified and experiencing very high amounts of anxiety

045that are interfering with their personal life as well as their academics. They were then put into small groups with parent permission. The questions we asked um on the thoughtful Thursday check-in to identify these students were in the last two weeks, how have you been feeling? How how often have you been feeling worried, nervous, or on edge? In the last two weeks, how often have you not been able to stop or control worrying or nervousness? And in the last two weeks, how often have you felt afraid or if something awful might happen? These students were then taught what anxiety is, what it looks like and feels like, and then using the cognitive behavioral therapy model. Um, they are taught mindfulness relaxation strategies that they can add to their coping skills toolbox. They also practice these strategies

046together as a group and then they can see what works for them and that what doesn't work for them. This is a seven-week program so it will end April 22nd. We still have a week. Um and then after five weeks students have reported significant decrease in anxious feelings. So there was a 78% decrease in fifth grade, a 70% decrease in sixth grade, a 78% decrease in seventh grade, and a 90% decrease in eighth grade. So next year we will focus on connecting this to academic achievement and our prediction is that if students are feeling less anxious and are more equipped with these coping skills then we will see less of the avoidance um of class that we are seeing now. Other tier 2 interventions that we've put into place include similar to the check-in checkout

047only at the at the upper grades fifth through 8th uh we actually call it our check-in connect. Um, one of the things that was identified and it was through some of the Sabers data was that we have students who uh in the building identified that they don't feel like they have an adult that they have connected with, someone that they can um feel like has their, you know, their best interests at heart and is looking after them. And so identifying check and connect students using a combination of powers school for me for seventh and eighth grade. Mine was focused on on academics um powers school data with NWA to identify students who had the largest gaps and from a group of kids at the end of last year's seventh grade they were failing two or

048more of their four core classes uh by the end of the year. So what I did was I took that same group and by using all the data that we had I I put together a core group of students to check and connect and they connect either with myself or other adults in the building. Sometimes it's just one of the teachers that they tell me that they seem to, you know, have a better able to talk to better. So, check-in connect is is a very specific um we we get together, we set goals, we check in once a week, no less than once a week, and anytime that child is absent, I make a phone call. And so, they're they know somebody's looking every single day to see that I'm at school and that I

049I have somebody that that is checking on me. Um, currently, uh, the seventh graders that I that I identified at the end of last year that were failing two or more core classes, uh, has decreased by 30%. Those eighth graders this year that are the exact same kids from last year. So hopefully that and then like we said in combination with other tier 2 supports, we're also starting to identify that they are some of the kids also that have the high anxiety. um Kayn Critlo she using the same check and connect with her group but it was based on behavior intervention. So using behavioral data from Swiss there were a number of fifth grade students that had a high number of behavioral referrals specifically in the area of classroom disruption. So using the same technique

050with check-in connect they focused on social skills peer conflict resolution and problem solving skills and so far her data comparison data has shown a 38% decrease in the behaviors. Okay. So some of the next steps we have um for next year we want to continue running small groups and ext expand them to provide more opportunities with students with identified needs. Um, I know right now being the school counselor right now 35% of students need more supports and are currently meeting with me one-on-one. Due to capacity, only about 5% of students are able to access something more intentional in a small group setting. For next year, we would like to explore some options on how to scale this opportunity for more students since it s had such an impact on the students who were able to

051participate in our small groups this year. The goal is for students to gain social emotional learning skills and knowledge that they can take into real world situations and help them be better leaders. By running more small groups, I'm able to provide positive proactive skills to more students on a one one-on-one basis. All right. Hi, I'm Devin Hurst um representing the high school team. I'm the one on the left in case Yeah. Uh, Amanda May, uh, Liz Vernon, Aaron Wagman, and, uh, Becky Gardner's not here. She's running the track meet. Um, one of our, uh, tier 2 goals, um, which is hopefully turning into a tier one goal here, is to increase our college and career readiness. Um we doubled our the the number of classes we had for our freshman focus class from 3 to

052six this year. Um which led to 64 more students receiving that direct instruction. Um we came in and counselors would come in um and and do lessons um each week um working on problem solving skills, communication, teamwork um things like that. Um as well as student peers. So the upper classmen, juniors and seniors would also come in and work on um activities and lessons with the freshmen. Um so we were able to double that this year and hopefully um with a potential schedule change, we're looking to u make that a um schoolwide schoolwide initiative. So taking it really more from a tier 2 to a a tier one um action. Um we approached our scheduling this year um through college and career readiness. So before we had students even start to schedule um we asked

053them to um go into Zello and do a um personality and um skills inventory assessment. Um and that gave them a list of potential careers that might best fit them. Um we had 71% of students complete that. Um, from there, we had students map out what a four-year plan would look like at the high school based on what career or college um, pathway best fit them. And then from there, we moved on to our um, our small groups. Um, each of the counselors pushed into um, to classes to schedule those students directly. So their their courses are chosen um for next year um hopefully um without any too many changes. Anyways, um I guess I I guess I should have this should have been added in there. Um after the after they create the four-year

054plan, um we do also host a course fair. Um this is about a half a day um early early in the winter um January or February. Um, and this is an opportunity for students to explore what options they have. They might not know, especially as freshman and sophomores, they might not know what classes or other um, options are really available or what those classes what it means to be in marketing or um, any of those classes. So, it's an opportunity for teachers to sell their programs to our to our underassmen um, freshman, sophomores, and juniors. For the seniors, obviously, they don't need to choose classes. So, we do provide opportunities for them. We brought in the Battle Creek Foundation to offer um scholarship support. We brought in a representative from KCC for um fast completion

055and financial aid. And um also just had some time and space for them to help plan their future. Um and as you can see um the students who responded um did find this extremely helpful. Um a lot of students, 37 out of 58 said that it helped them choose their classes for next year. um another 18 had already known and um another 19 students are asking for more time and more opportunities. Um so during the course fair um if a student is there for the whole time they can see about five different activities um and students are asking for for more of that. Um we did also implement signs of suicide um this year at at the high school. We were able to push into the health class to do that. Um so this is

056our pre and post data um from that um from that lesson from that activity. Uh question five is a massive massive jump but that's also what the acronym is. Um so kind of learning what that acronym means but we can also see a lot of growth in students um recognizing um signs of suicide and um kind of growing towards that. Uh another goal was to um be more proactive with our communication. So we have a calendar of of what um the counseling department is looking at um for each month. So August, September, October kind of and then going through the whole year. And then we also have a counselor's corner uh that we publish in the in the newsletter. Um the idea here is to be proactive with parents, but also with teachers and students

057so they know um what to expect. So they're not coming to us with problems. we can we can be proactive and say hey this is the next thing that you guys should be should be looking at and working towards um focusing on our seniors um each of us met with the seniors on our case load and um in October at the beginning of the year uh 80% of them reported having a post-secondary plan 20% were on the fence or unsure they had a couple ideas um we met again in February and after checking in with those 20% um 100% now um reported that they have a plan. Um regarding the FASA, FASA was of course pushed back instead of October, it was pushed back to December. Um so those students of the students who have

058indicated um college or post-secary, 54% of them have um completed the FASA. Those students who haven't completed it yet, many of them are waiting on um the parent side of that application. and that's really hard for us to to get in and and help those parents. Um we did offer tier 2 intervention for the FASA. Again, we brought in another representative um from KCC to help those students get that ball rolling. Um and we are looking to check in with those students um as we get closer to graduation. Um we also had 30 students report acceptance into uh 78 colleges and we tried to celebrate that this year. Um, we put up, you can see the picture in the background. Um, we we have students self-report um where they've been accepted and we put their

059um kind of like, hey, they've been accepted on on the wall in their hallway so that they could they could see their peers could see, but it's also kind of nice because the the whole school gets to see like where where students are going and and what their plans might be. Um, some more senior spotlight. Um, at the beginning of the year, um, we had a senior night. This was during conferences in the fall. Uh we were able to get 25 vendors from colleges, local businesses, unions, and financial aid services and we had over 60 seniors and uh families attend. Um it was pretty busy. We'd love to have more people, but to be honest, our space was pretty full, so we'd have to probably move it somewhere else. Um a PBIS update. So, um

060Becky's not here, but two of us kind of sit on these meetings. Um, so we have these monthly meetings. We take a look at our our referral data and if you notice November there's a massive spike and we were kind of expecting it to go down like it did last year. Um, but we had a massive spike. So we drilled down on that data um most of it was sophomores, most of it um was males um not 100% but a good chunk of it. Um so in December we took some time um the admin team um Mr. Mr. Grieman, Mr. Urishious um met with those students to kind of talk to them and get a feel. But we also did a root cause analysis um in the counseling department for those people who had a

061high number of referrals. And what we found was really interesting. We expected we expected that spike to be based on seeking either peer attention or adult attention. And what the students told us was, "No, we are we are restless. We're bored. We are we're antsy. Um and we're just, you know, we're not doing it intentionally. we're just kind of acting out because we have all this energy. So, we took that data and we looked at um what was coming in the future. Um especially with February. February is a tough month. Even though it's short, it's cold, it's dark, um kids, it's just there's not a whole lot um kids are kind of pent up with energy. So, we really focused um on what to do with PBIS on in February. And what we decided to

062come up with was was a brain break competition. So, we kind of put it back on the teachers to like, hey, you guys need to take make sure you're taking some time in your classes, take a break, do something fun, get the kids up moving around, and then we had each hallway compete um with who could who could have the most brain break brain breaks during during the month of February. So, um you can see February our our uh referral data dropped significantly because of that. So, we're really proud of the work that we we put in um to that PBIS action. uh some more savers information. So this is a little different than what happened at the middle school. We surveyed the 10th grade class, but we did not get teacher input. Um one

063reason for that is because it is extremely difficult to get an entire class all at once um because a lot of nobody at the high school has only only all 10th graders or only all 11th graders or only all seniors. So it's nearly impossible to do that. And also the teachers changed from December to to May. So we didn't want to collect data from the fall and have or you know from the fall semester and have um a new teacher that has a different perspective of that. Um from that 10th grade group um 18 students were identified with some risk and three students were identified as high risk. And this is just to illustrate what it looks like for um on our end. Um we can see the total behavior on the left and then

064it also rates social behavior, academic behavior and emotional behavior. This is a um a self-reporting or self assessment. So this is what students believe of themselves. It's what they it's what they're recognizing in themselves. And without the teacher data um you know it's kind of telling that some you know these students are acknowledging that no I'm struggling socially, I'm struggling academically or emotionally. Uh with that data um we planned um individual meetings um 18 was a small enough number um that we feel like it was okay to meet with them individually. So we came up with a program to meet um five times between March and May. And we wanted to kind of we started with like kind of looking towards the future what their looking at like hey what their career or college might

065be and then moving on from there and then from there examining their social or emotional their academic choices and how they could um make some make some changes. So we are in the middle of this intervention right now. Uh future saver savers data however is going to change dramatically next year. So we would expect a lot more students um reporting and um with teacher data we're I would expect a lot more students um flagging as um some risk or high risk. So instead of doing individual meetings here um we would expect to do small groups similar to what's happening um at the middle school. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Board questions and I think we had a couple earlier. So, does anybody want to attempt to answer those or Mr. Rididgeway? I don't

066know if you want to jump in there or not. No, I think the first is how parents are involved. I think was the biggest things in the processes. I can speak to what we do at Waddles to involve parents especially with like when we first implemented the program. We kind of just were focusing on making sure that all classrooms were teaching these tier one lessons. Well, this year it being the second year, we implemented the parent portion of it where we send home with each unit a parent letter that describes what they're working on in class, things that they can work on at home. We also have been more cognizant of including like in our um in our principal newsletter, that's the word I'm looking for, newsletter of what we're working on in PBIS and

067SEAL 2. So those are ways that we're communicating with parents on what we're doing in those things. We also with attendance are health aid calls every single family of every single student that is absent every single day. So trying to reach out, figuring out what's going on, what can we do, if you need help, just to make sure that families know that we care that your kids are in school and if there's anything that we can do that we do that. Um, we're similar at Beta Lake. I would say from the attendance point, we also start with phone calls first. Um our next step is we hold like building level family meetings which would be uh Mrs. Daniels our principal myself and then we invite families to those. Um and then for some instances when

068we're already into the truency process then we also have the ISD they have two officers that will come at I guess like a higher level meeting but usually those are after our mid-year family meetings on our own and then they come for another one um just because they have other resources available through the county that they can offer to families. Um, so that's our attendance, I guess, portion for our behavior portion. Um, it really is mostly about proactive communication. So, we send out positive postcards every single month at each staff meeting so that every student gets one by the end of the year at Bele Lake. Um, teachers obviously do their own positive blooms messages, emails, and phone calls. But when it comes to unexpected and undesired behaviors, usually that is a phone call, especially

069if it is something physical from myself or administrator so that we can go over in detail with the parents or guardians what has happened, what we're doing at school. A lot of them may or may not be familiar with restorative practices. So, we go over those questions with families the same way we do with their children. When we do reflection sheets, um, we have the students get on the phone and share what they've identified as how they were feeling when it happened and what they're going to do differently next time and how that may make them feel differently. Um, let's see. Attendance behavior. We also we send the trails lessons home um or the the monthly newsletters or the the unit newsletters I should say. Those are done through the teachers. And then I would

070say for our like the s'mores newsletters, I don't know if you guys get those for all the buildings, but Miss Hall puts ours out and then I always include a behavior update. It's not as specific as like the board snapshots that we provide, but it's more user friendly for the parent so that they know one area we're really proud of Beetle Lake overall in. And then it also has a goal. Um, so like last month, uh, the goal was we saw an increase in unexpected behaviors in the cafeteria and lunchroom setting. And so then we gave them some talking points that they could do at home to reinforce that behavior. um at our I don't have much to add because we do a lot of the same things, but um this year we did add

071to our Sonoma website um and I think be I think we all have it now, but a button um if parents want to meet with um one of the student supports or counselors um they can make a referral and it comes to us so we can make a meeting um with them. And then also um with our any student that is on check-in checkout, we do um call the parents or have the parents come in and sit down and we go through that process with them so that they know that you know that we're doing that and then that when those sheets come home, they can also praise the kids for that as well. And some ways that we get parents in the building is we had a literacy night this year. We have our

072um wax museum that the kids put on and we invite parents in and our art show. So that's other ways that we get parents in to see what's going on in the school and give them some examples of all the good things that we're working on. Um the middle school's a little bit different because we have a lot of kids. Um, but we do send a newsletter home to our our parents uh the first Friday of every month which includes a what we are working on during the counselor corner gives them some things that they could practice and work on with their kids at home and it also has a PBIS update in there and um attendance reminders in there as well. Um I think we kind of answered this one in the presentation, but

073um we have the senior um senior uh senior night. We sent invitations for that. Um we also send the good news cards or we encourage the teachers to do that and we have the the mailing list. So in an effort to get everyone all the students to receive at least one good news card. Um anything else? Uh the counselor's corner. Yep. Sorry. we publish um we put that in in our newsletter and sorry um and so for any student who misses three days in a row in their third block um an email goes out to the student but it's also includes their parents um and whoever their counselor is. Um and then based on what we hear back from that email and and it's a form email that we've given teachers so they know what

074to say. Hey, we missed you. Um, and then they can kind of make changes as they want. Um, but then based on what comes back from that email, that's when we step in. So, that's why we're CCed on it because hopefully they reply all and then um we can see what's going on. Um, if we don't hear anything back, then that's when we u make a phone call. Thank you. Quick question. So, so do you guys for the high school um do you guys do any early engagement for college career preparation such as communicating to parents on hey this is a timeline for a college visit or this is a timeline to start thinking about um scholarships because I mean when I went to college you had to dial on a phone to get your

075classes. Um it was so long ago I don't even remember what a college visit was. So, do we enga because if we're doing it by the time they're seniors, it's almost too late. So, do we do it as they're underassman or do we have plans to try and drive that engagement? Because I would think if we have high parent engagement, we'll have a much higher success rate um in getting kids to uh either the career path or the college of their choice. Um so one of our goals for um the end of this year slash next year um is to do those senior meetings that we're doing with seniors with sophomores. So to start with them to see what their plan is and then um kind of intervene from there. We're also planning to do

076um for juniors like at the end of the yearish. we're doing uh exactly that like a senior year timeline like what should you should be doing in the summer, what should you should be doing in the fall um to stay on track. Um but those are two things I could think of right now. Did did anybody want to address the ISD um whether they brought good value? Sure. Um what was the question about the ISTD? The ISD support team that came in just our Yeah. Did you feel that they brought value and and a good approach and Yeah. Um I uh this was my first year working I used to teach special education so I've worked with them previously a lot but this was different. It was a different lens to work with them this

077year with gened students but um yeah I have nothing but positive things to say. It was really really great team was how large? Um they had um they had what you only ever worked we've only ever worked with two at a time but they've um we've had like three or four different people come in so I'm not sure if um like they switched roles um but I mean they were super great helpful um gave us a lot of different um strategies um it was really nice because in the past sometimes when you work with people like um they'll say here's what you should do and then now you are have all these other extra things to do. But it was really great because they were like, "How can we help and take things off your

078plate and how can we um support with whether it's making visuals, whether it's laminating things, making schedules?" I mean, they were really hands-on and really helpful. I thought I don't know. Has anybody else worked with them or have anything to share? Not this year, but in years previous. Yeah. I think that a lot of times I'm think of times they have resources that are ready made. So, instead of like working harder, like things like story boards, they have some of those social stories already made. So instead of somebody taking time away from students to go build a social story that's going to be used seven or eight times a week after every escalation, they're like, "Oh, you know what? I have something that's great. We'll just pop in new photos." Or a lot of times

079they have not going to say a better way, but a different avenue to communicating with parents. It can feel very personal. you know, when it's your child and you see these adults every day. And I think sometimes it takes that out of it where the parents feel a little more comfortable maybe sharing some of those ver vulnerable needs that we might have an idea of, but if they're not coming to the table and asking, um, it helps them get, I think, hooked up with other resources that we can't provide within the school, but we can bridge that gap for them. And do you feel like you're getting their support enough and when you need it? I have always felt that at Bele Lake. If there's something like when we have a meeting, if there's something

080that I feel like, hey, I don't feel like the teacher supported or they're saying sometimes I think adults can feel like, oh, everyone's like, you're doing great. Everything you're doing is wonderful. And they're like, but but the kids struggling and I'm struggling. They're really receptive to saying like, yep, we've already done X, Y, and Z for eight weeks. Here's the data. We need something else. Like, what's something else? And since they're in so many districts, they have a lot more minds at the table. And so they are great about sharing interventions or a lot of times how they like when they put an intervention in place, they're great about sharing how they alter it and modify it to make it work. Yeah. Um with that specific question, um this year we did like I don't

081know that it's clear when to get them involved. Um because at our building we got the team involved pretty early on and then um like our our ISD staff um like our tier three were like they should have been involved later on. So I think maybe if we need we might need some clarity on that process like do we work with our tier three team first and then make that referral or do we work with the ISTD team and then I don't know if that makes sense but it was a little bit um I don't know there was a little miscommunication there and I'm not sure that we exactly know moving forward who we who we work with first but in regards to the intensive support team they did a great job when when they

082did get involved. Great board members. Any other questions? Just one thing that we thought of when we did the course fair, there was also an option for sophomores and juniors to attend um a college prep checklist. So that gave them a little preview to All right. Thank you to all. [Applause] You guys did a great job. Thank you guys. Yep. All right, we are going to uh move on to curriculum and Mrs. Williams. Good evening again. Good evening. Welcome my time. Um yielded to that amazing team. Sure. Just to lift up a couple important things that was already discussed. kindergarten countdown tomorrow night and then there's an additional date and the teams are working very cohesively so we're excited um to provide that for our community. uh course books. We are working all of us

083are working on course books. There are links to uh elementary, high school and our virtual which I'll talk a little bit deeper about in a minute. And then the middle school there's just some tweaking that we wanted to do Kim and the team before we brought it forward. So you'll see in my board report, we're just asking that you kind of look through those. Um and then the goal would be to approve them in May and then middle school would be available in May and approved in June. Um there just some alignment things that we're trying to work through. Um, as far as virtual school, um, we know in CO we had to pivot rather quickly and we looked at several resources. Uh, we had criteria and it literally, um, I don't want to say

084frenzy, but we had to pivot quickly and learn like what good criteria is. And the one we wanted at the time was Edenum. And by the time we figured that out, they're like, "Sorry, we're not taking any more people. And so we pivoted and I don't want to say peacemeal, but did the best we could to provide a quality virtual experience for those that wanted 100%. I'm not talking about the people that attended here virtually. Um, we've run that course and simultaneously have been committed to having a K12 alignment for our virtual experience uh both in process and content. So I uh Chris Mer, which I think you all know, she um works with our alternative and she kind of took the lead and we met um just to kind of look at what are

085we looking for? What have we had? And we met with Kevin Face who is the lead of the K8, Mr. Greenman, um Mrs. Ster, our pupil accounting. We just had a team over the last several months looking at and vetting. Chris, I'll let her um if you have questions, answer those. But her and some other people went to see it in action at other schools. Um so so a lot of over the last couple months just reviewing curriculum. So with that we are recommending that moving forward August and on that we move to Ed Mmentum which has two pieces. Calvert is the K5 and 612 is uh ed options. And so there is a link to the course the Michigan course catalog. Uh they are a nationwide like there is such a thing as Alabama

086algebra. That's not where we're recommending you approve. It's just the Michigan catalog. It links you to that. Um the why, rigor, cost, and cohesiveness. Uh those are the three main W's. Um, Chris did pref prepare a couple slides that I'm sure you reviewed uh when the board packet went out. So, if you have questions, you can ask and her and I will try to answer those. Um, I am asking and and we're going to have it available in May that the Michigan virtual course book also be just as a safety net. If there is a course that as our counselors who are working to best align the needs of the students, I don't want want to have to come to the board in November and say, you know, Johnny needs this course and it's not

087available and um ed options. So, we we'll be bringing that to you in May. And again, just as a a backup plan, any questions I guess about the course books that you have as you look at those. Okay. And that that's the number just so you reference number of students doing full virtual. Yeah, it has declined. I mean, we want our kids back. uh the the social skills you have to it helps if you're with people to um grow those but we want to honor there are some families that want to stay a part of the community and so we do have the numbers there for you 52 and then that's the alternative end program center do you Chris do you have anything you want to add to that piece um you know just when

088we started this whole process like a year ago I started looking at several options in the state of Michigan probably like y I went to the Michigan alternative education conference I believe last May or April I don't remember exactly but anyways my primary goal was to talk to several vendors and platforms and then go from there um Lauren and I met and we looked at you know what we have um and it at the time we were thinking of just having something that was that was K12 instead of three different platforms in the district if there's just one platform and it's and it has the rigor that we want and um it's so that's kind of where we been a yearong narrowing process. So if you don't have questions on that you certainly as you

089look at it you can ask them. Um you know we have our honors algebra and pre-calc that was presented to you. We're hoping for approval um as an action item. our summer programming. We do have a six week that we've I've been working with our um supervisors to plan the teachers. Um been very cohesive. We recently found out that a grant we applied for uh with the state um we weren't accepted, but then I found out very recently, oh yeah, they had extra money. So, we're trying to coordinate and that's through community unlimited. we're trying to coordinate like what does that look like with our existing because we we just kept moving on when we heard we didn't get that money and then now we're kind of we're in a tight timeline. So I just

090more to come on that but basically um the nuts and bolts of that is the state has appeared to move the afterchool programming to you have to have a community partner. So we were going to apply for the grant on our own. Um it used to be ers and they just changed the different funding sources but then they pivoted. I mean it felt like a rug was pulled out from under us because we were ready and then they're like oh no you need to have a partner. So long story short we're um working with uh Chelsea who's the director of community unlimited. If that sounds familiar it's because they also manage the GSRP courses um to to just streamline it. So it's exciting. It's not a lot of money, but it is a lot of

091opportunity. And we're I had a meeting with Brett Swan and Na because we're looking at what what what might happen if this is offered at Beetle and how do we like for our we're just more to come. We're just trying to streamline it, but there are some kinks to work out like the weeks that were identified a long time ago in that grant are different than the weeks we're running. Um the grades. Anyways, I'll spare you the details, but it is exciting. Um and and more to come. Uh I think really the the last piece I really want to lift up is we're really excited. Um our superintendent in the area and our assistant superintendent curriculum people um are committed and interested in kind of leaning and learning from each other. So um November 4th

092is a like save the date for our teachers. Um, and we'll have our first that I know of countywide. I know back in the day, 20 years ago, when Cindy Ruble was here and Jerry, we tried did something like this, but this is even better. And, um, I'm super excited. It will basically be teachers sharing. We have a keynote that's phenomenal. Um, so super exciting. Surveys went out to our staff. What What do you as you look at your growth edges and and learning curves, what do you want to have? have and then we're matching up uh presenters with that. So, more to come on that but just great do. So, that concludes unless you have questions. I tried to talk like an auctioneer because like there's a lot testing. Oh, amber state testing. So,

093that's what we're doing in the curriculum department at Harper Creek. Yeah. So, I have one quick question, but I don't want to make it too long, but uh in regards to the three elementaryaries in regards to the pres presentation we saw, how much I I seems like they're kind of doing some of their own stuff and then some stuff that overlaps. Are you looking as curriculum uh director to try to get best practices and and get one standard model for all three elements? Yeah, there are several allow them some leeway to do what they want to do. It's an ambo. So, as we're Terry and I are working together, Terry from Hatching Results, um they're they're setting goals based on their data. So, the data might look differently in the different elementarymentaries. Yeah. The similarity

094the the tights are they all have lead, which is the acronym, right, that we're using for our tier one. They all have Swiss data, which is basically um behavior data that they're responding to. So in some buildings um like you heard it's was first grade in one of the buildings and for whatever reason it looks a little differently and so there was some autonomy as we worked with them to set goals because when you have ownership with your teachers and your student support um you get movement as opposed to you know you all so it's a tight and loose if that makes sense. It's not necessarily one sizefits-all, but I can see it somewhat really what they're learning um as I was I was really excited as kind of a proud mama or whatever. Like

095they're learning just the role of data and where is our um precise problem if you will. I'll give you an example. We had identified in the fall grades that we were going to use sabers because we knew we couldn't do it all at the beginning and we picked certain grades and we thought we did it with great intention. We pivoted in December as we were getting ready to do the first Savers universal screener assessment because we didn't have kindergarteners on the list, right? We had picked a different grade, but we had a lot of behavior in kindergarten and so we wanted to do have another resource for root cause and so we changed who we were going to administer it to so we would have some additional data. They frequently said we drilled down to

096see root cause. And so those are examples of how the data's cycle is why you get a little bit of different difference like if that makes sense. It does. And they own it because they're doing it with their teachers and you know, oh there's probably a part of me that would like them all to look exact like the same. The ownership is what's moving. the results there doesn't doesn't matter as much as if it's if the moving forward. Right. Right. And they're they're they're refining their understandings on what are we all going to do and how are we using that data to drive our goal setting. Sure. Now, as far as um so a piece that maybe really isn't as clear that I want to just lift up is they use check-in, checkout, and check

097and connect, which sounds kind of cutie, but actually those are evidence-based. That's not something Harbor Creek team made up. Those are evidence-based tier 2 supports and there they have procedures and protocols that people that have done research and tried and tested it works if that makes sense. It does and that that I am 100% sure that is why we are seeing the changes we're seeing and we're still in the infasy stage of all those pieces aligning. Um but yeah, kind of seems like to me we're treating the whole kid. Um it it is a very systemic approach that we are taking. Yes. Yeah. I was interested to hear about the um anxiety piece and how that affects kids. And another thing that wasn't maybe illuminated exactly is that tier 2 is a trails. It's a

098specifically trained again an evidence-based and the the health department reached out to us a couple years ago and say we're hiring health educators with a grant. And so we've intentionally like their health educator was at Beagle. um last year, but then Beetle, we had Grace Health move in. And so, you know, looking at the data, the the middle school has a large number, plus you have hormones. Like, it just made sense. Like, I'm like, how do you feel about middle school? And so, she I mean, she's on maternity leave right now, but Christina has come alongside Amanda to deliver those tier 2 lessons that they had in their chart. So, again, it's very intentional, evidence-based. Uh we haven't always done that in education. We good intentions but um a little more haphazard in the past.

099The intentionality is ramping up in a very exciting way quite honestly. I like evidence-based. They use the same term in medicine and pharmaceutical. Exactly. Exactly. All right board. Anything further for Mrs. Williams? All right. If not, thank you. Uh facilities, Mr. Robinson, good evening. Yeah. Hello. Uh thank you. Um I I submitted my report last uh the other day. Um couple things I just wanted to touch on our power outage. Everybody knows about it. Um one thing that was a positive of it, we did get to check the new generators that we bought through the food service program and it actually worked pretty well. So we were able to keep our kitchens and our our walk-in coolers and fridges and all that stuff up and running. So that was a that's a positive. We can

100make a positive out of negative a lot with that. That's always a good thing. Um, spring sports, we're this week is our first really crazy week. This week and next week, uh, actually for the next month and a half, there'll be something every night of the week, two or three events. So, including we have middle school, high school, those are all going on. Testing went well, so we got all through with that. Um, any qu other questions on the report? I was just going to say I really like the new setup for the morning drop off with the cones. I know it's been a little while since you put those out there. I saw you out there watching a couple days. I've been out there most every day. But I I think I feel like

101it makes it flow a little bit better. People aren't driving as crazy through there. So, thank you. Yeah, we're trying. We're trying. There was a few heated discussions over that, but yeah. So, um from the car window and crosswalks all done. It's done. Done. Yeah. We're working with the county still on how to make it user friendly. I I did see some kids use it the other day. There's been quite a few. Right. This season is especially the time that it's going to when we have especially middle school track, uh, girls softball, you know, baseball, those events. And I did notice that cars actually slowed down and stopped and I was like, "Okay, this is this might work." I had one the other day I was watching. He come through and he hit his brakes

102right in the middle of it because he realized, oh, it might take some of that, right? It'll take some It'll take some learn. It's a learning curve like everything else. Um, lastly, we um uh we met with our our building committee. Um, it's been a few weeks ago now, and as everyone knows, we uh interviewed construction management firms. We interviewed five uh including uh CSM who was the uh is the unit that we have been using uh for the last couple uh bonds and and some different things we were trying. We interviewed CSM, Owens, Kimble, Skilman, Miller Davis, and Clark Construction. The way we did these interviews is I assembled a set of questions. We sent them to each of the vendors prior to their interview. So everybody had the same thing. I I talked

103with Mr. Rididgeway, Mr. Silvermeer. So, we're all on the same page. We asked them all the very same questions. And the interviews were outstanding. Uh I can't say one group just did a a bad job. Every one of them, they all brought a little something different. Some brought one or two people, some brought a room full of people, some did hard copies, some did PowerPoints. I It was It was a great experience. Um and uh so, but all five of them did, and I'm going to let Rob elaborate on the rest of it. So just real quick, uh being fair to everybody, uh we had talked after when we did these interviews and we are going to recommend that we uh move to Clark Construction for our construction management. We are just extremely excited about

104what they brought to the table. Lots of energy, I think, would be would be one way to say it. Um if you look at there's a spreadsheet that Jim created, it's in your in your folder that has each of the different uh things. You can see they have a lot more people especially in the area of estimation. Um that was an area that we were really working on to make sure that we have the best estimation possible but very excited about their bond process the pre-bond where you're going out to the voters you're talking people and what they what they had ideas. I was very excited. So with that, um later in the meeting, uh we will have an action item and I'm hoping at that at that time that you would you would take

105that recommendation of Clark Construction and uh basically vote to engage with that company as we move forward. There's no contract to sign. There's no money involved. It's just a like a commitment to that group. We will be getting started very soon though. We will we will start as soon as they get information, they'll start assessing our facilities. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Move on to finance and Mrs. Overber. All right. I'm going to do a lot of talking later in the meeting. So, I just have a couple things to touch base on um for this part. One thing um every year since I've been here, we've had a spend down plan for food service. Um this year is no different. Um we had about a million. One of the things we did was um

106hire an exe an executive chef um to help um John with some of the different opportunities. And one thing that I love about Harper Creek is I feel like we have a great food service program and um they want to educate the kids along with doing neat things and providing good uh food. And we have that uh food truck for example, one person just couldn't do it all. So we have have someone coming in um they actually came and asked for some money to get that a couple things going on that um John and I work together to get the spendown plan submitted and that's all been submitted to the state. Um one of the things is the ovens that are that are coming back to you guys for a little more um gas ovens.

107Um we're going to do some things at the high school. We've last year, if you guys remember, we did the elementarymentaries. Um so that's one thing I wanted to talk about. Another thing was uh the school bond loan revolving fund, which is the debt fund. Um we're ba it basically is the high school, right? Um and it's Did you say it's the high school? Yeah, it's a high school bond, the big high school bond. Uh it was supposed to be paid off on I believe it was 2037. Um we've you guys have done some refinancing in the past. Uh different things. Um also our SUV has gone up. Uh but we have to borrow money uh every year in order to pay back the revolving fund. And one thing that I noticed this year when

108I was doing it uh was we only had to borrow $200,000 um to pay back the 4.7 million. Uh which is great news. Last year we uh borrowed 745,000. The year before that was 1.1 million. The year before that was 1.2 million. So, we're doing good things and hopefully I actually have asked PFM um for a relook at uh when we would have that paid down based on this trend. I asked them last Monday and I just haven't heard back yet. Um I was hoping to bring it to you today, but give an estimate based on the numbers now. I would I would say for sure at least two years taken off. Yeah. for sure. We've taken two years off. I'm actually hoping we're going to get it down to at least three years off.

109Me, too. But I don't want to say that. And how much is our payoff right now? 4 million a year. Uh it's 4.7 million. That's pretty significant amount of dollars that we save taxpayers by refinancing, right? Over and this was years ago, but it did happen, right? And we're investing differently in and things like that. The other thing I have if anyone has questions on it's the same old nothing. So, u just to get back to the 200,000, do you expect not to have to borrow next year then? I without I don't know. DFM will give us that information. Yeah, they they schedule it out on a yearly basis. And if we didn't have to borrow that, wouldn't that save us interest cost as well or not? Mhm. So, yeah. Yeah. One highlight before Ginger's

110done. I know we're rushing, but make sure So, this is the interest earned by month. So, February, March, and so in this school year, we've earned $261,596 in interest earnings. Correct. Pretty good. Pretty good stuff. Helps offset that deficit. And a few years ago, we were getting very little interest earnings. Oh, yeah. And we can highlight there. Very good. All right. Questions for Mrs. Opener. I'll be doing more talking later, so Okay, lucky. Move on to technology. Mr. Mayor, good evening. All right. Um, most of the stuff in the report, the classroom notification and cameras I feel like I talk about every month. So, I won't say a whole lot on those other than we've started installing cameras at the high school and that's going really well. Um, our goal is to have all the

111new cameras installed by the end of the summer. Um, and the guys are making good progress. We need to start on the middle school this week. Um, we'll kind of do those in parallel getting all the lowhanging fruit and then move on from there. Um I was asked last board meeting about the wireless at the high school. So we kind of took upon ourselves to do a little bit of a like a a baseline test of that. We did some speed tests um a series of them. So there's a chart that I put in the board report that had the um the dates. It was the three days before spring break. Um we went around the building. We went upstairs and downstairs in each of the two academic wings. Um and we went to the

112athletic wing. And when I say we, I mean Justin, my tech did all this. and he went around and um three times a day he did a speed test. So we you know look at speed tests and so we tried to keep it as consistent as possible do about the same time go to the same place and use the same speed test and so what that measures is speed and megabits per second which is how internet speeds are usually sold. Um and it measures the ping time which is the roundtrip time it takes data to get from your computer to that one and back again. And that's measured in milliseconds. And so we did a series of these over three days. um did quite a few. You can see on the chart numbers came back.

113We averaged it all out at the end. Um and the overall average was 87 megabits per second with a 27 millisecond speed u response time. And so to try to put some context around these, I looked at some uh what are the what are the guidelines for internet access? And they're actually fairly low. Um the FCC had one where it's basically one megabit per student. So they and so we would need 2,800 students, 2,800 megabits of capacity and um um so the state educational technology directors association suggests 2 megabits per student for district hour size. We're midsize in their chart. So um as far as our, you know, internet speed itself goes, we're connected to the ISD with a 10 gigabit connection through fiber optic cable. They provide our network as well as most of

114the districts in the area. Um, I talked to them and so they don't tap us at any number. We don't have like one, two, five, whatever gigabits. Um, they I believe, if I I'm not 100% sure I remember this correctly, that they have three megabits or three gigabits of service that they share amongst all the districts. And I asked for charts from them for the same three days we did our speed tests. And we were averaging um, it's a statistic thing, which is not my thing, but the 95th percentile speed was like 490 megabits. And there were two points during that time when we topped one gigabit and it was around noon each time. And I, you know, I don't know more details than that. Um, I also looked at, you know, on there's not

115official stats on what a good ping time is. That's your response time. Um, I did do some um quick Google searching suggest anything under 20 is really good and these numbers are aimed at at gaming where that response time and latency really matters. Anything under 50 is is still good. And you get above that and it starts to get less optimal. And that really is something that'll come into play when you're doing something like a Zoom call with a two-way and then it'll introduce delays and whatnot if you have high ping types. So that's the data as it stands now. Um to me it seems reasonably good. we're meeting those guidelines because um if he was able to pull say 112 megabits at one time, then he's definitely getting the one or two um that

116he needs to have based on those two agency standards. Um not to say there's not more that can be done. Uh wireless networking technology changes pretty often. Um the system we have is still supported. It's probably got a couple years left on it and it's one of those things that down the road we're going to look at on our money to try to upgrade. um kind of have to do that every five to seven years it seems like. You buy a new control module and these boxes on the ceiling get replaced and then you know all the we've also been working towards replacing the core network wired switches along the way which I'm interested in doing a follow-up because the athletic area had higher speeds but also higher ping times and we've since over break

117replaced one of the key switches down there um with a brand new one to see what happens. So I'm going to see how that follows up. So, any questions? So, Jim, were there I I don't recall what the exact concerns were, but was there actual connection issues or just speed issues? I think it was more just a a perceived speed issue. Um, you know, I talked to our high school librarian. He's usually pretty, you know, finger on the pulse for these things, and she hadn't had any specific complaints in several months. There was one complaint from the athletic area, which the text took care of pretty promptly, and they were thanked for it. So that I believe that was fixed. Um but we don't have any specific um things to work off of right now.

118I think it it was a request I had um just because I've had folks say, "Hey, the Wi-Fi in high school was slow or that sort of thing." But very impressed by this. Great data collection, very thorough. I really appreciate it. So Jim, one thing that I had told him is some folks when they come to athletic events, they struggle getting on the guest network. So Jim's working on or thinking about what we could do differently to make the guest network a little easier for guests. And I think that goes to my question is it it's not maybe necessarily a speed issue, but the connectivity on the front end. Are they maybe not able to get on for some reason? So yeah, and that's definitely something we can look at. Sure. All right. Any questions

119for Mr. Maynard? All right, thank you for that. Uh, we'll move on to comments related to agenda items. I see none and move on to consent agenda. Mr. Alverson. All right. Uh, the chair calls for a motion that the Harper Board of Education approves the consent agenda as follows. Approve the general fund checks, school services fund checks, um, and student school activities fund checks in accordance with the list discussed. Approve the following minutes as reviewed. Approves March 10th, 2025 personnel committee meeting minutes. Approves March 10th, 2025 regular board of education meeting minutes. Approves March 19th, 2025 building committee meeting minutes. and approves April 10th, 2025 budget committee meeting minutes. It's been moved and supported. Do we have discussion? Hearing see none, please call the role. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wat, yes. Mr. Halverson is a

120yes. Mrs. Alwart is absent. U Mrs. Wallace. Yes. Mr. Smith, yes. And Mr. Bass, I vote yes. All right. Motion carries. 6. Move on to information discussion. School safety. Mr. Rididgeway. Okay. Uh like just like Mr. Mayor, I'm not going to go over the same stuff. So I'll do the new stuff. We are going to get our upgraded safety money soon. I think in April. So we as a committee were talking about how to spend that money. We have 155,000 in of this year and that's additional because we had a few to start. I think we had 25,000 to start. So we have a total of a little over like 180,000. Um and we're going to continue with some of the things that we already have in place. The RA panic alert. Um we would

121like to do a summer school SRO and pay that out of the safety money if it's if it's allowable. Um some mapping with our electronic digital mapping. But we also looked at some other things. We have an AC unit in the server room that needs to be replaced. We're going to get a price on that. See if we can make that happen. Um, and generally what we will do is anything left will go to the classroom notification clock system so everybody knows kind of the P pattern. The most important thing, the EOP, the emergency operation plan final draft is complete. Um, the Jim has it in front of him. So you see a big stack of papers. That is it. It's one. It's not like a one copy for everybody. That's just one of them.

122It's 300 and some pages. Jim has read the entire thing. I have vetted it. The the uh the emergency manager for Cal County has vetted it and the safety committee, we took one full meeting to look at what it what the basics are. And so I'm asking for the board to approve that. I know you might say, geez, you know, reading 300 pages is going to be hard for me to see all of it. I think we need to trust, you know, the folks that have looked at it. I believe implementation should happen in August of 25 even though we may approve it tonight because it does change some verbiage. Um, for example, it goes we have lockdown, lockout, um, currently and it would change to lock down and I believe it's secure mode. Is

123that true, Jim? Yes, sir. Okay. So, it just changes verbiage and doing it in May or April doesn't make to me a lot of sense. Start at the beginning of the year. We need to train staff. So, I'm just very simply recommending and asking the board to approve the district emergency operation plan. You can expect to get in the future individual building plans and individual classroom plans. Those are the next two steps. And we contracted with who on that again? What was the name of the contractor was? Oh jeez, I should have wrote it down for a lockout company. Lockout lockout company. Yeah, they did uh ISD Penfield um I don't think they did Lake Views the tech center. They did they've done most of the ones in the air. I think Homer maybe. What

124I like about it is it brings a format that it consistency they're you're just not going to miss anything there. They've outthought pretty much everything. Would you agree with that? So, it's very thorough. Very thorough. All 300 some pages. Are there any significant changes that we would want to call out? No. The larger community? No, there's no there's not significant changes except for the verbiage. the the what it does differently is it goes into much more detail on any possible thing that could happen including our our card our cardiac plan. So we are required to have a cardiac plan by the end of this school year and it's inside of that already now complete for us and it makes it consistent for everyone. The one thing I like about this company is they put in

125diagrams. So, for example, if we were to do a reunification situation, so we had to evacuate a building and go to an off-site place. It gives specific directions to get I mean, it has the picture of the map how to go, what to do. So, it's very user friendly in the sense that it tells you exactly what to do in that situation. It also has all the forms of all. Yep. Has all of the maps that were made, student forms. It has all the forms. Yeah. The digital maps are in there for like where are all the cameras in the in all the buildings, where is AEDs, every possible all the shut offs for gaps are everything's labeled and then they have pictures of those spaces with directions of how to do it. And then

126there are there are the summary uh pages for lack of better words that go in each classroom. Correct. Eventually they'll be like a flip chart. Flip chart. There you go. Basically date myself here. Crypto, you know. So classroom teachers don't need to know about a uh notes. There you go. A outside chemical fill, but it's in there. You know, people in the classroom need to know what do I do for a fire, a tornado, a lockdown? The basic things I need to know as a teacher in that emergency. What do I what what do I need to do? We'll be in their classrooms. All right. Questions, board members? We are going to Oh, the last thing we just We're going to go to Wildsburg Elementary at our next meeting and we're going to uh look

127at the pickup and drop off and try to come up with a plan for next year to improve that. So, the safety committee will will roam the next several meetings, right? We're going to go to every building. That's we're going to work on that at Wild. All right. We'll move on to budget scenarios. All right. So, at the last meeting, we were discussing um our next year's budget, and we were the first swath. We were about 2.5 million in the red, which is which is not ideal. And so, uh Jinger and I uh went through some processes to say what could we do to adjust that budget and do some different things. So, I'm going to put up on the up on the board some assumptions as well as some some uh adjustments. Now, this

128is not what we are going to do. This is just talking points, okay? So, nobody has to worry in the audience or anybody has to worry uh in buildings, but if we wanted to reduce our def that deficit, our assumptions were we would have $10,000 per student foundation allowance, which we've heard from both the governor and from the House of Representatives so far, our student count of of 2710. Now, on a positive note, if we can increase revenue through student count, that's where we're really going to have the bang for our buck. We had a relatively small kindergarten class last year. Just facts of life. Um, we did a lot of marketing, advertising for kindergarteners. And folks, remember, I'm not just talking school of choice. We have in our district about 500, actually 500 plus

129students that choose not to come to our district. They're either going being homeschooled or going to other districts in the area. We want to try to ensure that we give people in our community, our parents, the opportunity to come to our school. So, increasing that by even 30 students is going to, you know, 30 times 10,000 is going to impact the budget greatly. Okay. Um, we left retirement expenses all the same percentages all as this year. We we're not exactly sure how the budget's going to break down. And then we left also at risk the amount we get from the state and TRA the transportation grant the same as last year. And then the big talk adjustments um uh we decreased by 15 I call FTEES or positions districtwide. Many of those would be um

130people who have left the district through retirement specifically that we would not rehire. But I need to be you know upfront and honest. It would be 10 of those 15 positions would be through attrition. Five would not in this scenario. I'm not going to talk about specific positions. I think it's way too early to do that. I think that, you know, if board members want to talk to me individually, I can go into a little bit more detail, but we're not at a point where we need to talk about positions. But we certainly have talked about we have a lot of people retiring and where can we not hire back? I don't want to have class sizes go through the roof. I want to make sure that we're taking care of our kids, all of

131those things. but this is what it may take for us to reduce that deficit. And then I did a just across the board 5% decrease in transportation technology and maintenance. Um and that would put us in a position so instead of being 2.5 million below board, we'd be 600,000 below board. And as a budget committee, we really feel that this a number around five or 600,000 is a number that we can chew on and do small things to save money. Ginger informed us during the budget committee by simply us saying that we're you know our budget's not looking great. Please be careful on your spending. We are we have saved over the last two months significant amounts of dollars just by saying telling people hey get what you have to have not what you want

132to have. So that that's been been good because I budgeted on trends, right? And things were going going going once we had that conversation. It really did it. People are buying what they need so they have what they need but the extras um they're holding off on. Right. And some people in the audience may say or online or listening to it later, well why I thought our budget was really good and well during COVID we got ESRE's money from the federal government and it it really helped our helped us. We also added I believe it was great to start with five teachers in the elementary schools to reduce class sizes. Well, there's a little bit of pain going backwards now now that we don't have that money. And so that's just facts and we're trying

133to make it us as efficient as we possibly can by and still offering um you know a great education for for our folks. Now I'm not asking you to approve anything just that'sformational. We will continue to work at this. we'll get more information like we have kindergarten roundup or countdown to kindergarten I'm sorry and our kindergarten testing at the end of April. So that'll give us more kindergarten numbers and that will help me understand our revenue if we're going to think we might have more students. That's I'm telling you it's much easier not easier it's much more uh palatable to do a revenue increase than it is to do a expenditure decrease. But we are going to do what we have to do to make this and we're not going to over have folks within

134the district. You know, an example, and I I said this to um some folks the other day, is we have about a hundred less kids in our high school than we did four years ago. So, we have to adjust. We can't just simply say we're going to keep everything the same. And because we had people retire, it's an opportunity. So, we got to take advantage of that opportunity. Is there any questions or suggestions? is the budget committee will be the one that's going to dig it dig the deepest into this. Not to say that the rest of what doesn't have a say, but if we get to a point where we do need to reduce positions, those will be public. We will have it at a public meeting. We're not going to hide behind closed

135doors. I, in my experience, think as soon as I start putting positions on the on the big board, everybody's going to get really, really worried and nervous and create a lot of anxiety that may not need to be there. So, I do not want to do that until we need to. Um, we're in April. I would say by late May, I'll say mid to late May is when we the rubber is going to hit the road as to what we're going to have to do. So, we have about six weeks is my opinion. Only I'd say is, and you and I have talked privately, is just I think we want to do as much through attrition as possible. And as long as we can do that, then we've done our our best. Yeah. And you

136know, for example, the safety money I talked about, we we're we are thinking about ways that we could use that money, you know, within the within the bounds where we're spending something in general fund that we may not have to so we can save money and we do that with all of our grant funds to see where we could expend things that and I don't want to what's the word supplants, but we just have to be wise about what we can do. Proper offsets. Correct. Yep. So that's that's where we're at with the budget. Um, we do have a fairly large fund balance. I mean, we're at about 15% to start the year. We just have to make sure that we don't deplete that whole thing and all of a sudden we're looking at a

137a different situation in the district. We need to figure out where we need to be in terms of our staffing spending now. Well, I mean, it's better we do the hard work now because on a percentage basis, our fund equity is looks good, but on a real dollar basis, a 2 and a.5 million deficit every year, we're we're out of money pretty fast. Out of year, out of money in two years. Yeah. So, it's up to us to do the hard work, right? Yep. That's what they've asked all of us to do. Me specifically. any um whisper numbers on the budget for this year's at this I don't sit on the budget committee. No, that it'll be better. Okay. Uh really because of the the changes that were made early on, it will be better.

138Bring it right down to zero. We'll be all set. I I I don't want to say never, but I don't think it'll if we want to be realistic. Zero is probably not going to happen this year, but it'll be better. All right. Any furtheration there? All right. Line of credit. All right. I'll have I'll have Jinger talk about this one. Yeah, the line of credit is just something we do uh through Southern Michigan. Um it was done be way before my time. It hasn't been used in years and years. Uh again, way before my time. And what it is is it helps with cash flow. So sometimes our state aid comes on the 20th or 21st um and a payroll hits on the 18th or 19th. And so they established uh this relationship with Southern

139Michigan. They actually uh most schools borrow from this uh state to do this, but it's a lot of paperwork. Trun has to sign off. The state has to sign off. Um there's big fees and and and things like that. This is just simply a $500,000 line of credit if we ever were to use it. I don't foresee us using it anytime soon because our cash flow is is doing well. Uh but I just would like to continue having that as a um it doesn't cost anything um to have it. And if if for some reason something happened where a payroll happened and then we got our state aid, um that's that's what the benefit is. And it doesn't cost anything. and they actually match uh the the state has not released the interest rate yet

140that other schools will be paying. Uh Southern Michigan always just matches what uh what the it's really a no-brainer because it it's easier to use, right? It's easier to use. It saves the district money. Um I wouldn't go out for one, but it's uh against the state this year, but it doesn't mean I would never. Um and in this year, it's just a nice backup. We have not used it since I've been here, and I believe before it was used a handful of times for like three days. Yeah. And it just I told the budget committee this just real quick. The when I when I was in Homer, we budgeted from or budgeted, we borrowed from the state and it cost about $40,000 to borrow the the fees, the legal fees and the interest fees

141and all that. Um, and so doing this, it's only costing us maybe $100 to borrow for a day or two if you were to borrow. But if you don't use it, it doesn't cost anything. Great. Looks like no questions. Move on to food service ovens. All right. I apologize coming back for this, but uh after we approved, John said, "Hey, I'd really like to have two gas ovens like a couple days later." And so, oh yeah, whatever. But team effort. But we did go through the process of uh you know, John did his the bidding process and he he got hard numbers and these are installed numbers. Um see if I get down to the bottom number at the bottom. So, it' be two gas ovens, one at the high school, one at the middle

142school. And these things, what John was describing, oh my goodness, you push you put in some chicken nuggets. You push the button, it's like your air fryer at home, it tastes like fried chicken nuggets. So, he said it's going to be so much better and healthy. So, $96,138. It's part of the spend down plan. It's about 10 grand more than we had approved previously. I can't remember what we did exactly, but a little more than 10. And so, what I said, let's just approve it for 100,000 with a 5% contingency just in case. But I've been assured that the gas is already there. Everything is good. So it should not cost us more. Yes, the gas and everything is in place already. So we would just have to put from gas to the oven which

143is Yeah. So I I'm confident apologize coming back. Um I just you know John was you know John. Well in any other situation might say no but with the excess food service funds it's this is a no-brainer. Yeah. This is not coming out of general fund. This is not part of the budget I was talking about a second ago. This is completely and totally separate. And and just to that to your point on the um the extra 5% maybe we start doing that in the future on any of these contracts. So yeah, I know I remember Mr. Hson had suggested that. My fault I didn't put it on there. Even if we had the 5% wouldn't have covered it, but well maybe a 10% super superintendent contingency, you know, a bill to to address those

144types of issues in the future. But if you would, I would appreciate that approval and John would either. All right, I'll move on to CISD preliminary proposed budget 2526. Okay, I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this, but I want to do enough so you have the information. You do not have to approve it tonight if you don't want to, just so you know. This has to be done, I believe, by June 1st. So, we could wait another month if you want. I took a few notes, but I included in the packet their program and service guide. This was in your in your board pack if you want to see because you people ask a lot what does the ISD do? That's their guide. And then they they broke it down to

145specifically profile of services for Harper Creek. So this is a specifically what they do in Harper Creek. Um really one of the biggest things is the special education fund. Um that that's a big piece of the pie. They are also a fiduciary for for some federal state grants. Uh just to keep that in mind. You heard some of our folks talk today about help that they get from the ISD. Um, but they have a a fair fairly uh detailed list of the things that they that they are either in charge of or that they are assisting us with. Here at Harper Creek, we have elementary literacy coaches. They pay for part of that. I think Jinger said 100,000 or so. It's a grant. Just give me just a couple of highlights. One one big one

146that Jinger said make sure I mention was when we send kids to the tech center they pay for the they've paid 100% for the transportation costs. So for the bus um just so you know that's another service they're pretty much in charge of the great start readiness program. All right, down to the bare bones of the budget, which is the part that it looks a little bit more official to county LDA superintendents. All right. And so they have what they call their general fund budget, and this is what we are looking at. I noticed a few things. First of all, they have in the entire general fund budget $7.2 million less next year than this than this year. So similar to us, the assets money ran out. So they have about $7 million less mostly

147through that grant um in total. Which page are you looking at? Okay, so I'm on like page second page. I can put it up here. I was in the wrong packet. Yep. Hold on. I'll just put it up here. Wait, that's not it. Gotcha there. Now all right, I'll make it big. While he does that, board members be thinking if if you think you want to approve this tonight or not. So on the top here, this was the seven million left. So this is their last revision and then next year's budget. So 39 million to 32. And then in the bottom, they are going to spend a million dollars of fund balance. They started with 15 million of fund balance and they have 14 million left on this budget that they're asking us to approve,

148which is a 43.8% fund balance in total. Now, I want you to remember, I know for us, that's a big number. It's huge. But at the ISD, they can't bond. They can't go out to bond to build stuff. And they have the Doris Clawson Center. They have the the building over in Marshall. Um, and they have the tech center that they have to upkeep. And so, they have to have enough in reserves to do building and maintenance. So, just keep that in the back of your mind, you know, of where they're at. So, that's that's the entire general fund. Then, they have the next page, what they call the operating budget. Now, the operating budget only has a revenue of next year of 7 million. So, that's down almost a million bucks or I have

14988,000 specifically. It's 818,000 less year-toear. And operating is what they would spend on things they do for operations. Again, they're going to spend a million dollars or so of of money out of their fund balance. It puts their fund balance at the end at 13,880. It's the same money, general fund, but this is just the operating part. So, most of their fund balance sits in this fund. Okay? Of the three general fund things, most of it sits here, not different money, same money. Um, that's about a 210% fund balance. Again, they have to pay for stuff like buildings that we can do with bonding if we if we wanted to. Then they have something called special projects. I see special projects as lots of grants that come in to the ISD. You'll notice that the

150revenue is less significantly year to year to year and then they do not have any access. They they target to spend all of the state grant money yeartoear. Okay. So there's no fund balance in this part of the general fund. And then they have the last thing and they call it the revolving. We would call this our student activity funds. So they do have students at the Doris Clawson Center in total. Can I interrupt on that one? I actually found out what exactly that was. It's such a small amount of money. It's looked at like a student activity fund, but it's actually not. So what it is is people go there for PD. Everyone within Calhoun County is free, but sometimes people from the outside come. That's where the revenue comes. I wasn't sure how

151it worked. I'm glad you got that answer. I'm sorry. Okay. I didn't mean to interrupt, but I wanted Yeah, there is only um you know the the it looks like the revenue is about 210,000. The expenses are 219,000. So, it's not a lot of money in this one. Really, when you're looking at the ISD's budget, that first page I showed you right here, their total general fund, this is what they have in total. So, they have Oh, wherever I was at for I'm making you dizzy, I'm sure. I got one more up. They had 32 million in revenue. Sorry people online. 33 million in expenditures, spending an extra million next year and they'll finish with a $14 million fund balance at about I think I said 43.8. Do they normally find savings in their budget

152throughout the year? Yeah. So if you remember even me right in I get to make my budget in June for you guys to approve for the and that's a conservative budget based on a bunch of assumptions. They have to do the same thing in January. So yes I would say this is a conservative they'll probably get more towards towards even our in the green. Yeah if you look at their original budget to revenue I mean to their re latest revision it's much improved. Yes. Okay. Yeah, it looks like the biggest adjustment outside of that revenue is coming out of in instructional staff support. So, one thing, can I speak to that? Because I called if we were questioning some things. They've hired um mentor uh one of the things that superintendents brought to them is

153that they wanted uh a better mentoring system. They've hired either one maybe two uh mentoring leaders. Um they hired some truency uh people a new truency person. Yeah. Two truency instead of one now. Yeah. And I can't remember what the third one was but it it would fall under that light. So when when you heard the counselors and student support specialists talking about the support team that came in but asked that question. Um they've added I think two or three members to that team. That's a piece of the pie. Uh they've also added what they call MTSS which is multi-ter systems of support. um uh they're not coaches. I would guess I call them specialists that come in health districts and we have one helping us right now. So that we did get a benefit

154from that hire. So then is this saying they're going to remove some of those? I don't I don't believe that they're going to remove those next year. No, that I think what you're going to see that that they're going to remove are things that are more than likely paid by grants that the grants are running out. Yeah. So, I don't want to put any more energy into it. It's, you know, not our budget. It is theirs. If we have questions, it says in this document that you can uh give them to me. I will ask them. If when we pass this budget, we want to say we want some changes and we can put those in in our motion that we do. Um, and we and they have to look at those. They don't have

155to back on them, but they have to look at the what changes might administration recommend. It's it's a little bit tricky. You know, I I've I've been really would like to have more even more supports on behaviors. They have that intensive resource team. Probably expanding that would be beneficial to the district. Uh board members, if anybody has any objections of of um approving this motion, I think now would be the time to um comment on it. Otherwise, I think um we'll let acting secretary Halverson read the motion. You know, here's the thing. It's their budget, right? I think the push back last year and the push back to me for me still is um it would be nice to see a a clear strategy how of how CISD is going to support the districts particularly

156in the area of spe special education. There's a lot of lot of lot of verbiage and so that I mean I'm not there may not be a reason to not approve the budget but I think it should continue to be a request from this board and the other local boards is that we have some level of clarity around the the assistance and resources that are going to provide in special education. It may all be there, but it's just it for me it's still I know we had a couple letters from parents and again lots lots of good stuff but it still lacks clarity to me. That's my That's my It wouldn't cause me to not approve their budget, but I think it's we got to continue to provide that feedback. And they have a new

157person. So, I I will when when I meet with that new person, I will share the suggestion to come to our board and help us understand what's what those strategies, help us understand the budget a little better. It might be good. It's it's a request that we've asked for many years and just has never hasn't happened. I don't know. One of my super my fellow superintendents at the when we heard the budget, you know, ask every year we'd like to have people come out. That'd be the again, a very specific request would be the new superintendent, have them come and give a presentation to this board. I mean, I would think they would want to do that given that we're all supposed to be working together to forward education for all students. So I I

158would hope they would be be happy to come talk to us or their clients um in my opinion. But so Rob, we have a generic motion. I don't know that we as a board can necessarily constructively add anything to that motion right now. Do you feel it's of value to hold off and for administration to come up with some uh value added uh instruction that that the district like to see or is that something you think you can pass on in person and we just approve a generic motion? Yeah, what what I would suggest is that we approve the gen generic motion. That's what I would suggest and then I would have conversations with their new superintendent uh you know this very similar conversations have happened in the past but to say look if we

159don't see some action on helping us understand what the strategies are at the ISD you know we may go to the ISD board and ask is our next step and I'm not threatening it it's just we we need to see that action because we've asked for it specifically I certainly trust Rob to deliver our message Yeah, I think everybody's on board. All right. Anything further there? All right. I'll move on to the algebra 2 pre-calculus course. I believe we spoke about it last meeting. So, this is the approval meeting. Is there any questions? We had I noticed I think Amanda's gone. I think we had um I two two classes full of kids to take the class. I'll make this bigger so you can see it if you want descriptor. So basically with our new

160the new schedule uh so that kids can stay on pace to take AP calculus um we basically combined the algebra 2 and the pre-calculus portions together. I taught this algebra 2 and pre-calc are virtually the same thing. It's just continuing on uh through through the thing. This is definitely doable. It's a course not the same name but a course I taught when I was a teacher a long time ago. And this is definitely doable. We have lots of kids that are interested in taking it next year. I think we move forward with it. It allows kids to still take AP calculus if they're not ahead in the So, is there any chance that this gets college credit somehow? No. I mean, not through us. No, this this is a high school class. So, and is

161a student wouldn't go to KCC to get credit for this then? Uh, a student could go to KCC and and take a pre-calculus type class. That would be similar to they could do they could do it instead. We we really want kids to take classes with us instead of KCC, but you know, we don't mandate that. So, I guess what I'm asking is what stops them from not from not taking this and going to KCC and getting the college credit versus Oh, nothing. Uh except for if you go to college and you take a something before calculus, it's typically not a credit towards graduation. Okay? That's my experience with my own kids. You got to take calc to get college credit. Okay, questions. Any else, Mrs. Williams? I think I got it. We talked about

162it last time. Yeah, that's the reason. That's what we got. Item G, Harper Creek Community Schools course books. All right, so the course books, we already actually talked about this. We are not looking at um we have the high school and the elementary and I sent the the virtual course book to you. Today is not a day that we're going to approve them. If you want to take a look at our course books to see how they look and feel, but generally I'll just open this if it I think it's a PDF though, so it probably isn't going to the links aren't going to be clickable on what I have. But generally, it has the outline of everything that we do. I kind of like the pictures, right? Always nice. Letter from Mr. Greenman. All

163right. Here is what the credits graduation requirements would look like. And so that is something you're going to want to make sure that we understand as they change. So for kids that graduate in 06, 07, 08, 06, 26, 27, 28, 29, get in the right century. Um, how many credits kids would have to have to graduate. So we have less classes they can take in a school year with a new schedule. So, you know, kids are going to be seniors next year, they have to get to 30.5 and then our juniors are 28, 26, 24, FYI. And those are the classes you have to get credit in. Um, it follows the merit curriculum. Um, the electives change because the number of classes that you have to have. So, seven elective courses and it go it

164goes from 11 and a half down to three and a half. So in 20 2029, what are the available credits when we those kids will be fully on the new system, right? What are the what's the total of available credits if they maxed out? Is it 26? They have to get 24 of 26. I think I I believe it's that number for you. Isn't it like six? No, you have six regular classes. So Okay. In four years, that's 24. And then the seminar class Mr. Agreement is how many credits? After credit after credit. So, so that's two more. So that's 26. 26. So they have to get 24 out of 26 which was sim 91%. Y it's very similar to what we've been doing with the block schedule percentage wise. That worked. It's about 91%.

165I think it's a offers a pretty high uh rigor. I think when I graduated from Battle Creek Central, you could you only had we had six classes total and you had to get 22 out of 24, which is a similar Yeah. number. So, just kind of flipping through it, uh worksheet of of how how it might look at each grade level, what what kids might take as an example, the graduation requirements, talking about lots of different things that kids could take, what counts as a math credit. I don't to go into I don't need to read this whole thing. I just want to kind of get to the bottom where you can see some courses. That is a change. This is a change of going from a four-point scale to a 12-point scale. So you

166can see an A minus is a 37 and A is a four. Currently an A minus would be a 4.0. So it would separate kids a little bit. Say B+ is a 33. Currently a B plus would be a three. Did you say a 12point scale? Yes, there's 12 points here. Oh, 12 different. Okay. 12 different things. Yep. So, that's a change. Uh I know that Misagreements research it with his team. Uh this is where we get extra points for AP. People ask about that all the time. So, AP courses plus these courses at the math science center. There's five different possible they get more than four points. Test out procedure. We try to hit everything in our course book so that people know exactly what they can do online and blended. Battle Math Science

167Center. It's very thorough tech center classes. Uh we have something called the AC AIP program. So kids in middle school can take high school get high school credit if they do this through Western Michigan University. We've always done it. It's not new. Sealed by literacy. So you can get that seal if you if you get a certain score on the WEDA test. I believe this is longer than I thought. Holy cow. 67 pages. 48 pages to go. I'm not doing all of them. So, I just want to get to this point. All right. This is a generally what it's going to look like if you're a parent. Here's the course AP lit composition. The SK code doesn't mean anything to anybody except the state of Michigan, but we have to have it in our course

168book. And this is what it talks about what the kids will do in the class. If you were to click on this, if it were to be um it's a PDF, so I can't. If you clicked on it, it would show you I would call it the scope and sequence. Is that the best way to say it? Yeah. The scope and sequence for the class. not a syllabus but a scope and sequence of what you're going to learn. Okay? And you can expect that for eventually for every class we have at the high school. And that will be the same at the high school, the middle school, elementary. Give you an idea of what we're doing, what we're a viable curriculum, what we're working on. So, and we when we say in our in our

169uh strategic plan, we want to have a written curriculum. When we're done with this, you will have the written curriculum. done and parents will have access to it and they can do pick courses, pick things that they want to look at specifically. Pretty excited about it actually. Okay. So, today we're not approving this, but I want you to at least go through and take a look at the the the high school course book as well as the elementary course book. And then I sent a link to that. What was it called? Ed Mmentum. The Edenum. It's in my report. Course book. It's in Laura's report. I put it in the board briefs. So, there's places you can take a look. Yeah, I saw it in your If it doesn't have the extension of Michigan. I

170mean, it does if you click the link, but Okay. All right. We're going to move on uh the new hires. Okay. So, we have the mic. All right. We have four new hires. Uh I could click on each of them, but you guys can take a look at their their backgrounds on your on your own, I think. So, Cassandra Inman, Beetle Lake Elementary, autism spectrum disorder teacher sheet come in at MA6. Highly recommended. It's coming from uh the center for the ISD that the ISD uh has currently. Um we just have I mean we're up to three autistic autism rooms. We will be at four next year or I'm sorry, the following year with high school ed added in. It's just something as a public school that we have to continue to do. Owen Miller,

171elementary teacher, BA2. right now he's earmarked for um Belel Lake Elementary but we are in staffing process but he's would come as an elementary teacher and then Ellie Osley a high school science teacher BA1 we're very excited about Ellie um she would be we have two openings in science currently um and she will be one of those two to start with and then finally Lindsey Cook and I believe Lindsay is still in the audience today Sonoma Elementary principal and you can see on there what the base salary is the start date would July 1st, 2025. And I'm very excited about uh Lindsay as well. Any questions about any of the new hires? You notice that we we we do have in this case a couple more that are towards the bottom or the lower end

172of the pay scale. That just simply means that they're newer um and they have a they don't have a lot of experience coming in. But sometimes we find that it's it's really nice when we we can bring folks in and help frame them into great teachers as long as they're super excited about teaching. And both of these folks come in highly recommended. All right. Uh comments from the audience checking out. All right. If I see none, we're going to move on to action item uh a line of credit. Mr. Charleston. Chair calls for a mo motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education authorizes the renewal of a revolving line of credit of $500,000 from Southern Michigan Bank and Trust matching the state interest rate for the time period of May 1st, 2025 through April

17330th, 2026 and authorizes the superintendent and or director of finance to make the make withdrawals and repayments. So move support and moved and supported. Do we have discussion hearing? See none, please call the role. Uh Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wat, yes. Mr. Halverson, yes. Mrs. Alwart is absent. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mr. Smith, yes. Mr. Best, I vote yes, sir. Motion. Motion carried 6. Thank you for that. And move on to action item B, food service ovens. As soon as Mr. Hoverson's pen catches up. Chair calls for for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approves the purchase of an oven for the middle school and an oven for the high school using food service funds in the amount not exceeding $100,000 with a 5% contingency pending bid results as discussed and reviewed. Been

174moved. Move. support moved by Mrs. Sorry, it's my first meeting. Moved and supported. Do we have discussion? Hearing you say no. Please call the role. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wat, yes. Mr. Albertson, I am a yes. Mrs. Albert is absent. Mrs. Wallace here. Sorry, I had to solidarity. But also yes, Mr. Smith always beat me to the Yes, Mr. Bass. Yes. And I'm still here. Motion carry 6. I don't feel so bad from a couple meetings back. So, we're getting a little chippy. We do. It's past our bedtime. All right. Um, action item CCISD, preliminary proposed budget 2526. Mr. Alverson, chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Community Schools Board of Education approves the projected 2025 2026 general fund budget for the Calone Intermediate School District as reviewed and discussed. So move support.

175It's been moved and supported. Do we have discussion hearing? See none, please call the role. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wat, yes. Mr. Halverson, I am a yes. Uh, Mrs. Albert is absent. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mr. Smith, yes. And Mr. Best, I vote yes. Motion carries 6. Thank you for that. Action item D, algebra 2, pre-calculus course. Chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approves the Harper Creek High School algebra 11 pre-calculus course as reviewed by the district curriculum council. How about algebra 2? Algebra 11. Sorry. Algebra. Algebra 11. Just just for clarification purposes. Algebra 2. I got to algebra 10 but not to 11. So there you go. Roman numeral. So moved. Support. Uh, it was moved and supported. Do we have discussion? Hearing and seeing none, please call the

176role. Mrs. Riser, yes. Mrs. Wat, yes. Mr. Halverson, I am a yes. Mrs. Alwart is absent. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mr. Smith, yes. Mr. Bess, I vote yes and I'm still here. Motion carries. Yes. 6. We'll never let us down. Yeah. All right. Move on to action on E. New hires. Chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approves the following new hires. Cassandra Inman, Bachelor's Central Michigan University, Beetle Lake Elementary, Autism Spectrum Disorder Teacher, MA6. Ellie Oz Oley. um bachelor's Michigan State University non-eing uh high school science BA1 Owen Miller bachelor's Albian College Beetle Lake Elementary developmental kindergarten teacher BA2 Lindseay Cook Soma Elementary principal start date July 1st 2025 as discussed and reviewed so moved moved and supported do we have discussion hearing See none, please call the role. Mrs.

177Risner, yes. Mrs. W. Uh, Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mrs. Wat, yes. Mr. Halverson, I am a yes. Mrs. Albert is absent. Mr. Smith, yes. And Mr. Bess, I vote yes. Motion carries 6. Congratulations. And congratulations. [Music] We're looking for great things. All right. Uh, action item F, emergency operations plan. Chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approves the emergency operations plan prepared by the vendor lockout USA and reviewed by the Calhoun County Emergency Manager Chris Young as discussed and reviewed. So moved. It's been moved and supported. Do we have discussion? Hearing see none, please call the role. Mrs. Risner, yes. Mrs. Wat, yes. Mr. Halverson, I am a yes. Mrs. Alwart is absent. Mrs. Wallace, yes. Mr. Smith, yes. And Mr. Bess. I vote yes. Motion carries 6. All right. Thank

178you for that action item G, which we added on construction manager. Chair calls for a motion that the Harper Creek Board of Education approves the selection of is it uh Clark Construction as the district's construction management firm has discussed and reviewed. So move support. All right, it's been moved and supported. I'm not sure who got the All right, Mrs. Wallace got that. Do we have discussion? Yeah, just a quick comment. I want to commend Ginger and Jim and Rob. I thought the uh the interview process you guys went through with the the candidates for this move top notch and if there's interest we do have so the every one of them prepared a document and they all answered the questions that we asked very thoroughly if you're interest any other comment please call the role

179yes Mrs. Wat yes Mr. Mr. Halverson, I am a yes. Mrs. Al is absent. Mrs. Wallace, Mr. Smith, yes. And Mr. Bess, I vote yes. Motion carries 6. All right. Items for the next meeting. All as usual, I will reach out by text and email. And yes, that was a lot of talking to uh media adjourned at 8:27 27 minutes past my afternoon. Wow. Right to us.