001All right, I've got it straight up 7:00 on Monday, April 27th, 2026. Call to order the regular school board meeting. All members that present tonight is Matt Camp, Danny, and Scott, and Corey, and Shannon is uh absent this evening. Uh 3.0 is the open forum. We have not received any uh requests for public comments this evening. So, we'll move on to 4.0, the approval of the agenda. We do have a couple that uh couple of things so on the consent agenda. Uh and be under contracts uh for the J. Training Training Hill Group. So, that is the >> [clears throat] >> psychology services for the district. School psych. Yeah, school psych. Um this next coming school year. And then on 16, which is the garbage and service contract, there's a typo there. It says exhibit
00212 up there and it says exhibit 10. Uh that should be called 12. Is there anything else that needs to be added? Yes. Okay. The special board meeting that was held 14 April, Exhibit two, change the adjourn from Percy to whoever actually made a motion to adjourn as I was not at the meeting. You were in the spirit, man. I was in the mood. No. That was the special one. I think she did. It's showing in the minutes. Adjournment. Anything else? I need adjournment. Okay. There's no further additions, I'll take a motion to approve with those three changes. Good man. Motion by Scott. I'll second. Seconded by Danny. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. 5.0 is the approval of the minutes. So, as Danny has just pointed out,
003um change first due to 80 for the motion to read. Are there any other changes to those minutes? Hearing none, I'll take a motion to approve with that change. I'll second that. Motion by Danny. I'll second. Seconded by Kent. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. 6.0 is the music program. Jeff, go ahead. Good evening, folks. I apologize I don't have a sheet for you. Our A/V contractor was here today, and we were doing punch list stuff. So, that was good, but it took away my extra time to make you a flyer. So, um I'm here on behalf of the band and choir um for a possible tour in March of 2027. And we're looking at going to Nashville. So, we're looking for your blessing um for this uh
004tour. It would include both high school band and choir students. All would have the option to go. Um the way it's designed is that we would leave on a Tuesday evening, be back on a Saturday. So, in the beginning of the quarter, so Friday there's no instruction, so it'd be two student days. Um in past there's been tours that have been approved that have missed out two, you know, four or five days. So, we're trying to do our best to keep kids in [clears throat] school, of course, um cuz that's the first and foremost goal in high school. Um and we're going to be doing a lot of things, I could give you a long list if you'd like, but everything from um the Grand Ole Opry to line dancing, as well as performances for
005the students, as well as a master class at a university over down there in Nashville, which is a hub of music recording and a lot of history there for our country. So, um a lot of great things we uh presented to the kids last week, just with, you know, saying we need school approval yet, but they were super excited about it and they're starting to uh clamor and get excited about that for next year. So, um any questions? Is there any requirements that they are meeting all their academically requirements before going on this trip? Um I mean, yes, I guess we have a set of parameters, but if a kid is, you know, academically ineligible, we can definitely, you know, that would be a It's a little hard when they're paying out of pocket and
006they've got their you know money into it, but also on to your point, yeah, if they're failing a class, they shouldn't be missing more instruction. Right. So, we hope that that's not the case, but we'll do everything in our power to help them. How much is it going to cost? Uh we've got it capped at $1,000 per student and we hope we can do something to lower that, you know, it's but it's you know, everything costs more every day. Um doing our best to do um if we can help kids or we can help them, but just giving [clears throat] them enough time here to put away some money this summer and next fall. Uh we'd love to have a thousand 100% participation. That's not a reality. But if we can have uh we'd love
007to take two buses down there, but if we can fill one, that is also um great for our kids. So, does the school pay for any of that thousand dollars? Uh there's no financial contribution from the school district. No, this is from kids and their parents and some fundraising, but um I I'll say that personally I dislike fundraising. It's it's a hard thing. I just it's it's not my favorite thing to do. We do a little bit of it. We give the kids an opportunity. Um but we do also like to offer items where we um offer our music, you know, and then we don't charge for concerts, but maybe a next year event or two next year where we just do special music for our community. Um there's an opportunity in those kind of
008things. I mean, we can um that's the contributions that we Yeah, so are you guys and just by the way of that you're good with it? I'll move a motion. Motion. I'll sit down Thank you. I'll take a motion to approve the band choir trip for 2017 Nashville. All right. Okay, motion made again. I'll second. Seconded by Matt and open for discussion. Hearing none, all those in favor All right, I. Opposed? Motion carried. Approved. All right, second point of order is the honors and recognitions for the audience. All right, I can speak to that. Um the board may remember last year because it was the first time we did this, but uh there is a new program that we have through the Merveld um that is called the Unstoppable Games. And essentially, it's a it's
009a really cool program of competitive games put on um specifically for students with specific special needs. And um the kids who attended last year had a really amazing experience. Um and it's happening again this year. So, we've invited some of our special education teachers to speak to this. Um and this kind of falls in the recognitions area because to make something like this happen, it um it's a Merveld sponsored event. But it does require It doesn't happen without our special ed staff kicking in the extra effort to do all the organizing and determining students who can attend and and making sure that their needs are covered and transportation, all these pieces. And so, I'll let Morgan go ahead and tell you a little more about it. Yeah, like Scott said, that's coming up this Wednesday
010at SMSU in Marshall. It's a high-energy day of adaptive events for our special needs students in grades 3 through 12. Um there are eight activities that come along that day. Um it's relay races, soccer, long jump, javelin throws. Um and it's it celebrates inclusion and teamwork and kind of brings all these students together to celebrate the unique differences. Um this year, Lac qui Parle is bringing 19 students total. It's Appleton Milaca's first time going, and we're bringing four of our students. Um so, it should be fun. Um it's a great opportunity for them to build confidence, um experience success, and show that every ability is truly a superpower. Um I also would like to add that if anyone wanted to watch the opening ceremony, it will be live-streamed on the Merveld Unstoppable Games Facebook at
01110:00 a.m. on Wednesday. So. Thank you. And I would just like to recognize our special education staff and and also the maintenance staff and specifically Brandon Riemer who organized this the first time and has continued to do personally this up in the new reality. So thank thank you colleagues for 8.1 student council here this evening. Then we'll go to our live update. Good evening. Just going to go over some updates. This kind of last time we spoke was about a year and a half and at that time we were working on the air conditioning at the high school. That took quite a little while to install before our school started. Uh really not any headaches or anything like that. We maybe identified a couple of areas in the kitchen where these additional food service spots
012had a couple of speakers in them and I had to make sure they could hear the dishwasher and as well. And uh the other half of that was kind of going through like my inventory if you will of that one equipment. I also decided that I'll pay tool off that will all take my different spreadsheets, put it together into a system and really give us some good data on life of devices, serial numbers, pulling everything together in the real cost and what everything is in our system. So I'm going to do that. Something I can wrap up this summer and get all this stuff in there. So use the AI tool to build my own platform on that so I can take reports and vendors reports and all. Take multiple systems and put it all
013in the bottom and actually have some useful data to make some decisions on budget wise as we move forward in these technology devices. Uh starting off this year with the AI world that's really changed things in the IT world, every profession, I guess, if you will. Uh some of the things that I've been able to do to increase efficiencies, we had a student checkout system. Uh when a student leaves, they have to pay the form or they all have to sign their names. So, I took that, moved it all over to Google Docs. When a student leaves, they just hit a button and it emails to all the students or to all the teachers. They can They can all go in on one common document instead of having to send a piece of paper throughout
014the building. Some other tools, uh some automation tools for creating accounts just to really help our efficiency wise and be able to do things. Uh moving towards the 26-27 school year, lots of projects going on. The biggest one is our VMware, it's our virtualization software that runs >> [snorts] >> all this stuff so that our servers run. There's a company called Broadcom that bought out VMware. They came in and just eliminated all the educational discounts. So, a few years ago, our cost per license was $5,500. In the middle of the year, in December, they raised our price to $18,000. And looking to next year, December when we December 31st, it's projected to be almost $40,000. Seriously? Yeah, seriously. And this is This is industry wide. It's not affecting us. It's not in negotiations. It's It's
015They're just They want large customers only and they're pushing smaller clients off so they can raise the price on the bigger customers and have less headaches. So, uh I with Mr. Lovell good part of the winter here. We have a solution called Proxmox. It's a open source solution. It's something I've used before. There's over 1.5 million installs. There's support for it. So, what I'm going to do over the summer I'm going to take our system converted to the Proxmox. And the only thing we should have is just that additional support. So, $40,000, $30,000 cost moving forward. So, it's it's a huge headache. Um there's some other solutions out there that we can go forward with. This is the most cost effective solution. I'm very comfortable with it. So, we should be good with that. Another
016thing that's affected by AI is memory chips. It's almost like COVID all over again. Like the cost of Chrome devices skyrocketed. The cost of servers skyrocketed. I was able to book all of our Chromebook replacements in March at the March price for next year. So, we were able to secure those. Split quotes were in March were like $300 per device. July was going to be over $400. That much increase. So, there's a lot of moving in the hardware world. Just do it at a shake of the hand and with AI work. Next thing is our firewall is on its fifth year. That's the max I want on that firewall. We've got e-rate funding coming, so we'll be replacing the firewall over the summer. And then the last thing I need to wrap up before July
017and it would be the GoMath adaptive integration for our athletics software. So, there's a a full docket. The the VMware conversion will probably most of the work will happen in the summer. Um there might be a few things that won't get moved over that I haven't done this summer to do that. So, I'll be able to manage that homework but it's going to be a lot of tasks for one person to do that. It's kind of going to wear me out. Thank you, Ruben, for your question. Questions comments today? Do you need help? Um Well, there you go. You're going to ask for help. Do you have somebody qualified that we can contract to help you? You know, we In the summer is probably my busiest time. We've been able to utilize when we get
018to the prom box like in Arizona becomes the main parade of the laws of the help me go through. Uh I would say maybe like a student helper or something throughout the summer. I think you find a student that's looking for internship or anything like that would be would be the most helpful. The most bang for your buck. Okay. Well, I'm just We thank you for your luck. Otherwise, is there somebody you can contract that has the strength to help you with your job duties? And if so, can we get a cost on that? I can look into that for you. Okay. Thanks. The only question I had was And and I and I think this has been talked about in the past but Wi-Fi availability during events and and having ability for guest Wi-Fi
019or students to do their homework, other things during, you know, sporting events or types of items. Is that something that we can get into or Sure, yeah. But we're we're interested in that. Yeah, I guess I don't know if I want to be on my own or not. Uh so, like we're talking about the gym areas and stuff like that. Yeah. All right. So, yeah. So, there there is a Wi-Fi access point in the gym that I it was originally designed for like staff devices, classroom activities. Handles about maybe 100 people on one Wi-Fi access point, so if you want to look at doing that, I can certainly put some numbers together and see what the cost would probably add. Probably two solid access points additional in there to be able to cover that many
020people, otherwise what happens is people's connection start dropping and then they start getting complaints like, "Hey, my Wi-Fi is not working." It's something like that, but yeah, if that's something that you're interested in doing, I can certainly make that happen. I know, I mean, it's very beneficial when you go to big places and the kids can log on and work on some homework or do whatever. Sure, it's kind of a nice thing to have. Yeah, definitely. No problem. Do any of them do homework while they're watching the game? Or they can only do it after? They can do homework while they're waiting for the I don't know. Only if they're sitting on the bench. No, like like when they're waiting. Yeah, no, I think if we just set a couple wires and a couple APs,
021then we can definitely look All right. Any more questions? No. Okay, um we have officially elected our officers for next year. Um our president will be Harper Gronholz. Our vice president is Casey Tweet. Our secretary/treasurer is Brooklyn Wilson. Our junior representative is Chloe Franz, and our sophomore rep is Easton Phillips. Our teacher appreciation breakfast will be held next Wednesday, May 6th at 7:00 a.m. in the commons area. Our end-of-year party will be Saturday, May 16th for all of the active members of the student council this year. Any questions for the student council? Thank you, ladies. Thank you. Uh moving on to topic 11.0, the acceptance of gifts and actually donations for money. We thank you to Cargill. We'll be taking care of that. I'll take a motion to approve. So moved. Motion by Staff. I'll
022second. Second by Kent. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Uh 11.0 is the financials. Drew unfortunately isn't able to be with us tonight. Uh so you can look through the uh usual reports that he presents, investments, [snorts] people served. If I miss Scott, say anything. Um yeah, I mean if the uh you look at the you know, where we're at in budget, things are tracking the way we want them to or as expected. The one thing that that Drew and I did want to point out though is uh we're up six more students this month than the previous month, putting us at approximately 30 students over Well, not approximately, at plus 30 students over budget, and which is a a nice place to be. So, very thankful for going
023over budget. If there are no questions, I'll take a motion. I'll second. Sorry. All right. 12.0 is the payment of bills and claims for the month. Make the motion to approve the April 26th board bills of $158,428.20. March 26th manual checks of $46,179.54. And the April 26th construction bills of $59,223.93. For a grand total of $263,824.67. Okay, we have a motion by Scott. I'll second. Seconded by Matt. Uh any discussion on bills and claims for the month? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. >> Aye. Any opposed? Motion carried. 13.0 is the consent agenda. Uh so, on this month, it looks like we hired a whole bunch of people, but it's actually the summer success. We had a second uh on the spot hires for summer school. And then of course we had that contract
024with Drake Jade um for the mail um which for his services or anyone within his group gets $39,900 for the year. What was that for? School psychology. School psychology. And I I can speak to that. Um I'll districts require us a school psychologist um one or more school psychologists. Uh school psychs are in really short demand or sorry, really short availability right now. Um most colleges don't uh even have a program anymore. Um I know people who've had to go as far as Washington state to get into an acceptable program. Um we've been fortunate enough and this actually goes back to I think it was uh Rick Elliott's last year. We sent over to cross Jay Trendel, who's been fantastic for us. He He provides that service on a contract basis. Uh he's kept his
025fees the exact same since uh all you know, the last 2 years and they're going to be the same this year, so. Um it it's a lifesaver for us because I think we were really struggling with hiring. So, that is 39 Now, is that just for the summer or is that the whole year with $39,100? That's the whole year. He's He's He's been with us uh you know, the last This is This coming year will be his 3rd year. For 2026-2027 school year. And he does a fantastic job. And that's listed on here? No, it's not listed there. Oh, that's what we added. Okay, I have questions on that. Trendel group. I don't think a motion is appropriate. Any motion? Motion by Pat. Second. Second by Mr. Matt. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those
026in favor? Aye. Opposed? >> [clears throat] >> Motion carries. 14.0 is to disclose the bids for the high school gym bleachers for the competition gym. So, this again is using some of that referendum money that is left over. The bleachers that we currently have are original, so they are old um and unfortunately they're not even compliant. So, the buildings and grounds is moving that up to the board to to uh to ask for approval and to the bids. send out the bids for what we need for the future. 14 and 15 are just bids, so it's not like Yeah, it's we're not until we figure out what we're We're not buying them or anything with these two bids. I'll make a motion. Motion by Scott. I'll second motion by Matt. Any further Hearing none, all
027those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Another project that was that we're looking at with those same referendum dollars plus some interest dollars is to update the weight room. Currently, the weight room has got stuff from St. Cloud State and other areas. Um so, looking for some companies to give us a bid on what new equipment, uh the same type of equipment, you know, something that's more up-to-date than what we got. And again, this to Ken's point, this is just to get solicitation of bids, so what's out there, how much is it going to cost us. Could be not too bad to point out. I'll take a motion to approve that solicitation. I'll make a motion. All right, motion by Matt. I'll second motion by Ken. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in
028favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. 16 is the garbage and recycling contracts, again, that's exhibit 12. Which again was Was Wascom Sanitation. They have been considered very They've been very good to us and very fair and um and pricing with us. Who are they now? Wascom. So, if there's no questions on that bid, I'll take a motion to approve this bid. So moved. Motion by Scott. Who's seconding? Seconded by Ken. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. This is 17.0 is the second reading of policy number 523. That we talked about walked through in March uh board meeting. And that is exhibit 13. So, uh if you look at exhibit 13, this was brought up at a previous meeting where it was uh just a reading, but there
029are a number of policies that apply to either staff or students. Um and the purpose of this is to basically draw attention to the fact that if, you know, the harassment policy as it applies to staff, that it the harassment also applies to students. And so, that's the purpose behind this. It just basically denotes that when it comes to chemical use, harassment, violence, uh tobacco-free environment, those apply to staff and students also. Maureen, is there anything to add? Any changes, thoughts, questions? Okay, I'll take a motion to approve the second reading from Matt. Motion by Ken. Second. Second [clears throat] by Scott. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. 18.0 is to recommend tenure for the probationary and teachers which you see listed there. Looks like six for this
030year. Motion to approve. Motion by Scott. I'll second. Seconded by Matt. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. 19.0 is to continue a five-year contract with the probationary teachers. So, these are ones that are not eligible for tenure yet, but we want them to continue on such a probationary contract uh for the individuals listed below there. >> [clears throat] >> I'll make a motion. That's motion by Ken. I'll second. Seconded by Matt. Any further discussion? All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Say something. Uh two, I'd just like to draw attention to this. We did this last year as well, but you know, um moving to tenure with an employee is is a noteworthy thing and and I just want to point it out, you know, because
031that's that's a basically a saying, you know, you you've proven yourself to us, and we want to have a long-term commitment with you as a part of the our district. And and so, I just want to say congratulations to those people who have had that approved today. And moving on to the leaders' reports, Marina Scott and Anita Hindman. Um I do have a couple things. Number one, um just a kind of a circle back to the flex scheduling discussion we had last time. I did meet with students the other day, um and then informed them, walked through the process, um asked for some feedback on a survey that I created in terms of what are some ideas that they would find beneficial for um that flex time. So, that deadline was today, and I have
032not had a chance to look through that, but um I received a little bit of feedback from kids at lunch and stuff that seem they seem pretty excited about the opportunity. Um also, the career pathway, there's a visual in front of you. I I do want to thank Randy Edmonson, who has worked right along with me. Um I think I challenged her technology skills. Um she said she was glad to be done. She She's getting her administrative license, so she's She said she's happy to be done working on this with me. I did not say that. Well, okay, maybe [laughter] I read between the lines. Um but anyway, this is this is a I'd say a pretty close um final component here. You can all read it a little bit better, and obviously, if you
033can imagine it enlarged um quite a bit, but this is essentially all of the classes that we offer at Lackawanna Valley um embedded into the career pathways area, so that kids can kind of get a look at this. And then, what I do hope to do is electronically um piggybacking off of this, put some potential career options on a link from our website that kids can get into and say, "Okay, if I want to go into nursing or or whatever, um we can we can give them a few little extra components there. So, I think when it's all said and done, it'll be a great piece. But, I want to thank Miranda for her her work and assistance with this. Any questions on that? You can read it a little bit better than the last
034one, I think. On your um your survey and results, will you share that with us? On the On the flex? Yeah, I'm sure we can. Yeah. Sure can do. Yeah, I'm sure we can. But, yeah. We're just looking for um ideas. So, you you're curious in what their >> Just what their ideas are, too. Yeah, yeah. Um and then the last thing, uh we were we scheduled to have a mock crash today out here from the National Honor Society. Obviously, with the weather that got postponed. We're looking at temporarily trying to reschedule it for early next week, but it's it's something we do every few years and we're due and it's a pretty powerful experience typically. Um and I think good practice for our local EMT services, etc. So, uh and then lastly, I just
035wanted to we're we're nearing the completion this week of MCA testing. So, um thanks to Marine and all of our teachers for the legwork on that. Um it's just it's a stressful thing. It's kind of the build-up for a lot of work that's been done throughout the year. So, um I'm hoping that we can see some exciting growth and results from that. That's all I have. Well, thank you. You stole my thunder. I'm sorry. I was going to talk about MCAs. I can get a jump on it. You stole it. Um just a reminder though that the reading results are not available on demand. They will not be available until fall 2026. So, that's one piece that will hold us back a little bit when we're setting goals for next year. Um math results are
036on demand, so we have access to those right now. We only have two outstanding assessments, one reading, one math due to an attendance issue last week, and we'll start science tomorrow. I'm pretty sure we have the answers to this, but why is the reading not available? Yeah, so the ELA standards were new The English language arts standards were new this year, and so the MCA is a new assessment to align with those new standards, and MDE has not set the performance level for the standard for the assessment. >> State government is slow. So, they'll work on that this summer, and I'm sure they have everything ready to rock and Yeah, I had that done yesterday. Well, when do you think? Yes. Can we test for science? This starts tomorrow. Science starts tomorrow. Yep. And those
037will be readily available as well? Correct. If you recall last year, those were not like we had them available like yesterday, but Uh retraction, it takes about an hour. So, not like right away, but it takes a little bit of time. So, we can expect to see some at the next school board meeting on our math and our science. So, we can't share those publicly. They're embargoed. The results are embargoed. Like I could, if Miranda said I want to see how my child did, I could share that with her. It's her, but I can't share it in a public forum. So, you can't even share at this just the averages for the Oh, I could do that. Yes. That would be fine with me. I'm not concerned about the individual >> Oh, okay. Yes. Yeah,
038we can do generics. Okay. So, then what? We'll go there. Cool. It went through me, but Well, that They're just not official results until the >> Correct. until they're officially released. It's usually August when they officially take the embargo off. But yes, I can I will have percentages for you. Thank you. >> Yes. The only things I have to add in addition would just be you know, as we're hearing and for preparing for superintendent search, our district leaders have identified reps from the district building leaders, Minnesota Union 70, etc. to be feedback providers for that process. So that's all set up and ready to go. Also just wanted to give a update on the SRO. It's been fantastic having those guys in the building and they've already proven to be very useful. I think Scott
039probably can speak to that more than I can, but it's it's also been great to see them interacting with kids and present during arrivals and dismissals and things like that. So we'll continue to give you updates as we get going. But it's been a good thing. So they're outside when the buses are showing up? And when they're leaving? They're typically here on site. I would say sometimes it's outside, sometimes it's I mean I've never seen kids right when they're here. I mean it's not full time right now, but they're passing time in lunch rooms, you know, breakfast there. This is one both of them do have done an outstanding job. And that's cool, but I'm also more worried about the would-bes out in the parking lot or the ones out driving around. You know what
040I mean? With the students it's great. Yeah. Yeah. Having that presence out there is kind of what we're doing the push, right? That we don't want to be an easy target. That's what I've been kind of trying to message. And I I say the majority of the days that they are here on site, they're on site. They're just not full time. No, I get that. But I'd say even before they were here, they were parked out there quite frequently. Yeah, sitting, parked there. Looking that way, or looking that way, or maybe looking this way, I don't know. But then this morning, are they with the kids? Is what I kind of was asking. Thank you. That's all I have. Uh >> [clears throat] >> just one last thing before we adjourn. May is going to
041be uh kind of busy. So we have this special meeting coming up. So Monday, May 4th, 7:30. Wednesday, May 13th, at 7:30 a.m. again. Uh Friday will be the interview day. So Friday, May 15th, um that'll be an all-day event in the stand room. Um and then if we do need a second round, we've put that for Saturday, May 16th. And then um with hopeful ability to approve the contract uh already on May 18th. Um so that's at 7:30 as well. If the contract is not ready for approval, that meeting will get moved. Keep those in mind and get back to you tomorrow. Just for your awareness, uh chair, Friday I can be there until roughly around 3:00 in the afternoon. And then I have no intention of being there on Saturday, the 16th. So
042I will be absent with previous plans. All right. Anything else for tonight? Um just a reminder for if you haven't done so already to turn in your dollars for scholars donations. Thank you all for remembering that. I think it would be good just to probably say that we're not like we're not rushing into a a superintendent with these dates, right? Like if we there has to be somebody that fits the bill to select those dates and not just driven through it. Yeah. If none of the candidates are viable, we'll continue on and and keep searching. Good point. Anything else for tonight? Okay, hearing none, I'll take a motion to uh adjourn. I so move. Motion by Sir Danny. I'll second. Seconded by Matt. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We are adjourned.