Board of Education Meeting - April 2025

001Uh we have any additional agenda motion. I'll make motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. Second. Motion second. Discussion. No discussion. Submit your pressure. Mine isn't pulling. Oh, I was like recovery. Sorry, I missed one report. We must went to the approval of agenda. Approval of consent. [Music] Motion car. Oh yeah. So we have some student recognition tonight. We'd like to see Jason. I think Jason these two students are Olivia Lions and Haiti Carter. They are both of our state or two state placers um in wrestling. They also represented Burlington and Shrine DS which was pretty amazing that they were willing to do that. Both these young ladies won over 100 career matches. One is at 134 and the other one's at 124, which are the two two most winningest wrestlers in the

002girls history. Um they're hardworking ladies. They're both committed to go to Baker University. Um Haley or Olivia Lions is wrestling at Baker this year and Haley Potter went to Baker for track but is also has um accepted a position on the wrestling team as well. So she's getting both of them. So these two ladies are pretty talented, hardworking young ladies. They're not here with us tonight. I went straight from track practice the rest. I'm sorry. Congratulations. Thank you for those concerns 244. We have Bana Kirby and Jeff. Excuse me. I have a copy for everybody. Probably have some extra page. It's the same thing that you guys received by email. So, I just want to make sure you all can see it. The best place I am. Right there. Right here. Excellent. Here we go.

003Okay. So, this is my letter or resignation that I wanted to make sure you all got the chance to hear from me. Not going to cry. That's what I tell myself all day. So, dear US 24 board members, thank you so much. Can you tell how much I love this state job? Love it so much. Uh, dear for board members, due to being informed by principal Jenny Grover, I was going to be recommended for non-renewal of my contract for 2025 2026. On April 9th, 2025, I'm submitting to you my letter of resignation effective at the end of the 2024 2025 contract year. for my positions of family and consumer science teacher and family career and community leaders of America at UCLA and Fiser. I'm grateful for these two years that I worked at Burlington High

004School and look back on them as the most positive and most fulfilling years of my entire career. In the 2024 2025 year, I'm proud to have implemented industry recognized training and certifications for every one of the classes I taught. Each student enrolled in culinary essentials, culinary arts one, and baking and pastry 1 in fall 2024, which is a combined total of 51 students from both general education and special education populations, passed the national serve safe food handler or national serve safe food manager industry level exams. They receive certification and this enables them to receive higher wages when working in food service. Students enrolled in human growth and development completed a collective total of eight hours of training related to topics such as newborn care and safety, the effects of trauma on children, and developmental milestones.

005Each of these professional development hours is childc care industry recognized and it's certified through the Kansas Train Learning Network by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. In 2024, I became a ProStar industry educator in conjunction with the Kansas Division of the National Restaurant and Hospitality Association and partnered with that organization's educational foundation to register all VHS culinary classes as industry recognized career training effective next school year uh in fall 2025 upon the adoption of the foundation's curriculum. I submitted for approval in March 2025, which is right over there. In January 2025, I met with CTE director Craig Coleman about adding a new CTE career pathway. We agreed to add the course event planning and management of the level two ProStart aligned course, qualifying USC 244 to add the travel and tourism CTE pathway to

006its offerings, which increases CTE funding and enables students to earn ProStart certificates of recognition and the ProStart certificate of achievement. In fall 2025, I hope to form the first ever BHS ProStar culinary and Skills USA culinary competitive teams. Next school year's class schedule draft, which I received on April 2nd, had me selected to co-e English 3, which utilizes my prior experience using English language arts. To increase hands-on and career oriented learning opportunities for my students, I partnered with the following additional additional organizations and businesses throughout the last two years. The Kansas Beef Council with their beef certificate program. The Kansas Soybean Commission with soybeans of food program. King Arthur Baking Company as in the bake for good program. The Devil Institute with the Love Notes program for healthy relationships. That curriculum is right over there.

007The Public or excuse me, the Sweet Granada in Emporia, Kansas for a culinary business industry tour. Public at the Brickyard in Witchah, Kansas for culinary industry tours. Kate research an extension with the Coffee County Office, Kansas Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom, and the Coffee County Hospital. In August 2024, I founded Crochet Cats, a power hour club dedicated to teaching VHS students how to crochet. I secured donations of hooks and yarn and hosted meetings in my classroom nearly every week in the first semester and bi-weekly in the second semester. Students made hats, Christmas ornaments, blankets, granny squares, and various other projects, plus friendships among their peers. I'm also proud to report that under my advisory of Family Career and Community Leaders of America, FCCLA, Burlington High School had its first district level star event competitor

008in many years, who then went on to qualify for the state contest, took second place in state in her event, and qualified for national conference in July 2025. FCCLA also hosted eight hospitality rooms this year to fund raise for those expenses, producing delicious meals for tournament workers, coaches, referees, administrators, and more. As an educator, I pride myself on a positive classroom environment. I found the teaching techniques and a deep knowledge and passion for my content. In spring 2025, by teacher evaluation, I scored effective or highly effective in 38 out of the 43 scoring criteria. In only my second year ever teaching CTE, on February 21st, 2025, I received a job offer from the Emporia School District, USD 253, I met with Mrs. Grover the afternoon of February 24th, addressed concerns about those five remaining scoring

009criteria that rated lower than effective, and ultimately I declined that offer because I love this district. I do. uh the joy my job brings me and the excellent excellent exc excellent services and education that my daughter is receiving at Burlington Elementary Special Education PreK program. I cannot understate how I have loved every single day of working at Burlington High School, my colleagues, my students, and the BES staff who have so greatly impacted life of my daughter. Thank you. Best regards, Brianna. Thank you so much for letting me read that. Next, we have preparing a statement. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm sorry. I'm just here representing uh the Burlington Lifewise Academy Steering Committee and over 150 community members who have signed a petition requesting that USD 244 develop a policy for release time

010religious instruction and we have some representatives here tonight from that petition. So, the request that we've made is consistent with the 1952 Supreme Court ruling and is supported by two Kansas Attorney General opinions allowing release time religious instruction for public school students during school hours provided the following are satisfied. Number one, it's off school property. Number two, it's privately funded. Number three, it's parent approved. Currently, there are over 500 thriving released time religious instruction programs serving over 50,000 public students across the nation. What I'd like to do today is briefly update the community regarding our request to be on tonight's board of education agenda, which has also included a request for the school district to consider a draft policy addressing release time religious instruction. In accordance with board policy BCBI, public participation at board meetings,

011we submitted a request to be on the April 14th, 2025 agenda, which is tonight's agenda. Included in our request was a draft policy for board consideration addressing released time religious instruction. This proposed policy was submitted in accordance with board policy BDA titled developing, adopting, amending, and repealing board policy which states individuals as groups individuals or groups may submit proposed changes in board policy. Our request to be on a board of education agenda was denied with the email denial response provided by the superintendent being silent regarding the proposed policy change that we submitted. Though denial of the the though denial of the request to be on a board of education agenda may technically comply with the BC BI policy wording as the superintendent did apparently speak with the board of education president. We believe that the

012spirit of the policy is not being satisfied regarding this significant communitydriven request. A request that where it has been adopted by other public schools provides an approach to building student character that has proven to be a highly effective complement to the school's effort to grow students into educated, responsible individuals. Additionally, ignoring the request for a policy change appears to be a non-compliance with previously discussed board policy BDA. It appears that both the superintendent and school board president consider our request for the school district to develop a release time religious instruction program or policy as a closed item. However, we do not consider the request closed based on a board member discussion identifying they wanted to know more about Lifewise Academy when the topic was briefly discussed during the public comment period of the February 10th,

0132025 board of education meeting. Unfortunately, five of the seven board members have been nonresponsive to our request to meet about release time religious instruction program. It disappoints me that the feedback that we've received from the superintendent and the board president regarding the release time religious instruction program include number one looks like a really good program. It's not just for us during the school day. Number two, we don't want to have to deal with the complaints if we were to have the life wise program. In my opinion, these comments do not reflect complete and thoroughly vetted understanding or appreciation of the positive social and emotional impact observed in students participating in a release time religious instruction program. It should be noted that USD 244 may be exposed to liability in the way it is handled the

014agenda request and ignored the submitted policy change. This could be viewed as an adverse or non-inclusive action toward a religious belief, which is a violation of the first amendment to the constitution. I received a mailer two weekends ago touting the needs for a new elementary school for our community. The flyer contained the following statement. Today's classrooms require additional support to meet the diverse needs of students, needs that have evolved significant significantly since the building was constructed. My interpretation of this statement is that these needs include behavior challenges within the classroom. Lifewise Academy focuses on character development and is a great complement to the wildat way. Schools with the Lifewise Academy program experienced better attendance, fewer inschool suspensions, and fewer out of school suspensions. This is objective evidence of improved student behavior for a participating school.

015Why would we not want that here, especially when it comes with a 0 price tag for the school district? Additionally, we believe that if sustained within the school district, a release time religious instruction program would have a positive impact on the current 7% Burlington High School dropout rate. Our request tonight is that the superintendent and the board reconsider our communitydriven request for for a release time policy for education from from the Bible. It is requested that board members engage, possibly creating an advisory committee working with the Burlington Lifeway Steering Committee, other community members and staff as necessary to perform the following. Number one, objectively review the available information on release time religious instruction. Number two, physically visit with and observe local school districts with active release time religious instruction programs. And that includes in locally

016in our area. Both Madison and Setha have active uh release time religious instruction programs. This we believe would readily address the logistical questions that have been raised by the superintendent. You have how much more time? I have like two. And finally, number three, develop a costbenefit analysis for analysis for a release time religious program within the school district. And in closing, so considering that this is a community supported request, we firmly believe that it warrants a more collaborative and thorough investigation regarding the viability of being adopted for USD 244. We owe that much to our leaders of tomorrow who will be greatly impacted by today's board decisions. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on. Communications. So, we have elementary school report. I don't think they have any additions at this time. Are there any questions for

017me? Anyone have any question? Oh, how's the book? We just finished today. So, the Julian question more question middle school math. I don't have anything to add other questions. question. The only thing I add is um with Sage Bell for nationals for her POI this past weekend. So we have FA forensics FCCLA right now all qualified for and then Kids all for nationals. So, it's it's good to be a wild cat right now. Where is the kid win? Phoenix. I said they're not able to drive this year, so we're more expensive, but getting all the arrangements, Airbnb and all that kind of stuff. So, and they're taking two teams. So, the another team found out. So, they're taking the different grade levels, right? I don't know about that. Yeah. So, they got moved up. So

018he's taking two full teams and I appreciate that he's going to do some engineering classes next year that yes this is this is the second year with our engineering. So we started out with the intro to engineering and so known as engineering design and intro to engineering until beginning. So yes, so we we've incorporated he has a full schedule. I mean he's teaching like six preps, but um that's what you do on your CTE. Um so that's been really good for the kids. And I've been working with Jody. Jody has been working with me helping um cuz we have at Wolf Creek we're planning a big um clean up volunteer day out at the Wolf Creek environmental area trails. Um, and I had contact reached out to Jody to get some volunteers, see if she

019had any students that wanted to do some volunteering. Um, so on the 24th we are going to have around 180 students. Um, very excited. Like it started small, now it's like I said, we'll send them. It's amazing. Yeah. So situation, a volunteer situation. Well, then the nurse and I sat down with the five pages of allergies and beastings. We're like, "Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is bigger than me." Right. So, um, kids that opt to maybe stay out of the sun or stay out of the environment, um, they get to our commons area with the cookie cases and things like that, you know, maybe detail our cars. So, they'll stay around the store and do some fun things. Not our cars, our fleet. Did I bring my car? volunteering. Great. But yeah, just the logistics

020of um we have 29 projects out there identified. So I'm just excited for kids to get because that area has really kind of fallen down um and just, you know, just is not super usable anymore. And so I'm excited to have kids get out and give back to the community. And we're going to um refurbish those trails out there so that the public can use them. So I'm excited for that day. was my third year here and I didn't know it existed. So, I'm really excited how many kids might not know and our adults in our building to get out there. Um, and then we're committing two days. Um, we're going to commit one in the fall and one the spring and because, you know, with the new 2028 requirements, um, meeting community service hours

021is is one way they can do that for their graduation assets. So, it's not fair to ask them if they if we're not also offering some of those availability. So, um get the kids out in the fresh air and um you know, anytime they say free food or whatever that we're going to feed them and the and the the welding class has already gone out to the silo and gotten the gate um take took the gate down. So, they're doing some in-house projects and going back and repairing it and fixing it and taking it back. So, there's some good things happening. Yeah. So, we've got Wolf Creek um our admin team's delivering some more metal to the high school here hopefully this week. They're making some ramps. So like we have a lot of stuff

022going on and hopefully you know we can just this big workday get it back up into a functioning area and then we've got some ideas down the road like tying in with science and technology you know have the the QR codes with information about you know the trees or the wildlife or um because it used to have all that like pamphlets and so that really isn't we don't have pamphlets anymore you know so just kind of it is kind of neat a lot of the stuff that's out there now that is falling apart was built by high school students going for eco projects, you know, that's been 25 years, you know, yeah, well, it's such a unique area that's when our science teachers get out there and other people that say, you know, so hopefully

023we'll be able to get our classes out there as well. So, I just, you know, we have a lot of out of town ed educators that I don't think they've ever been out there either. So, yeah. And that's I mean we want the kids help to help us get it back, but then we want them to like enjoy it too. We want the kids to be able to come out there and enjoy that area. So yeah, exciting. If anyone wants come help on the 24 mostly buy goggles and gloves. Yeah. Sorry. Anything else? Lindsay special education. I don't have anything um maybe in addition I have two openings currently um and interview set up for one they only get ready interview so well not preparers um that right now they're submitting back to me who's

024planning on returning next year and then I'll start creating the list of needs moving forward but it's kind of like push right now Anything else, Lindsay? Great, man. Those of you who are standing back there, we got to be helpful if you guys could come on come on in and join us. And yes, uh I just want to thank you for your continued support of our annual technology improvements. Um, one kind of addition, there is a possibility of a Perkins uh, equipment and supply grant, which actually may cover uh, between5 and $7,000 of what we're planning to spend. Um, so once we find out uh, whether we get that, that may actually reduce um, the amount that we'd be spending of of district funds. So um, hope hope to get that grant to go through.

025We won't know until probably mid June on that. So, we'll just kind of uh hold off on some of the cameras that uh would qualify for that grant on ordering them until a later date. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Anything else for Greg? Greg. We have a lot of activity happening around the athletic complex with our teams and our events going on, but also little kids events and families using the uh you know the outside athletic complex there. And it's just wonderful to see people just being out and about, getting fresh air and being active and uh it's really neat to see the families out and about and enjoying their time. Uh we just recently had our KISSA plan um approved from the state department of education focusing on structured literacy, professional development and again

026that focus on reading throughout the district will help benefit our students and our teachers uh with reading instruction which is very very important. So uh last part I have is uh I invited okay help me out Byron right? Byron, what's your last name? Byron Walker and Jack to come and share a little bit of information about um Opa Food Service Program. They have a presentation on their services. Again, we're not deciding or doing anything specific, but uh again, food service has been a talk of the conversation that we've talked about here. Um and so, uh I'll turn it over to Jack and Byron just to share some information with the board. Hey. All right. As Craig said, my name's Jack Kane. Uh, I worked for Oprah for 8 years. Before that, I was in Kansas

027education 35 years. Uh, 29 of those was at Canon Gava where I grew up. And then I was superintendent at Iola uh 2013 to 2017. That's where I kind of ran into HA. Uh we were having issues with the food service. I didn't even know what a food service management company was until then and um so after I retired, they asked me to uh tell someone. So uh here I am. So uh and this is Byron Wford. Byron telly Wford. I uh I live in Witchah, so I'm local. I have a restaurant background. um spent 10 years with canc before I started with Ela. So I've been with Ela for 12 years. Um it's been a a great opportunity for me. Child nutrition has always been uh near and dear to my heart. So here

028we are. All right. Um so has been familyowned for really over 44 years now. We specialize in home style cooking and baking and we consider ourselves a premier food service company in the Midwest. And that is why. Okay. So, um those are all OPA school districts. Um we started in Missouri. There our home office is out of Chesterfield. Um but when I was in Iola, I think we were number 16 in Kansas. And that was oh, like I said, uh 2014. Um now we have about 66 school districts. Um, and in Kansas there are only about 745 or so number kind of fluctuates of schools that have food service management companies. That's over 25%. We have 66 of them. So um there are some close to you uh Iowa as I said the South Line

029County uh Santa Fe Trail um so some of those. So, why would a school district consider a food service management company? Well, we've kind of identified about eight reasons. The number one reason and how this model works to begin with is we can buy food cheaper than you can. Uh, and because of that savings, we make a little money. We are for-profit company, but the school saves some money. So, at Iola, we were losing, and I know this number sounds crazy, probably is. We were losing $255,000 a year in food service. That's a lot of money. Okay. First year we had OPA, we made $61,000 in our food service account. So, um there I think there's a statue of me somewhere in Iola. I haven't found it yet, but anyway, uh that was that was

030a nice turnaround for our district. But then more importantly, it helped our kids because we were able to take that savings and we bought uh uh you know for computers and things like that and and textbook rotation. We weren't uh we weren't using a textbook rotation. So that money went uh and was well spent on education like it should be. Um the other thing is increase participation through quality and choice. We have multiple choices that we offer kids. Um we stress quality uh in our practice. The other thing that we'll do is make sure that you're fully compliant with federal and state regulations. Um, we do menu development. We have inventory control. Uh, for us at Iola, that was a big deal. Um, we assist you with any state audits. We do tremendous staff training.

031Uh, and we run your program for you. We market it. We, um, try to increase your participation as much as we can. So, Uh Byron, why don't you talk about menus here a little bit? Sure. So, uh here's some choices that we have. Uh just some examples. Uh a fresh market lunch. We try to do a signature item. We do some kidfriendly items as well. So, you would see roasted turkey, meatloaf, spaghetti, pizza, cheeseburger, spicy chicken sandwich. Um we do a grab and go where the uh kids can come in. Sometimes kids like to stay in front of the waiting line so we have easy access where they can go get a clear box with the three compartment three compartment box with the lunch already in there with the fresh fruit and vegetables compliant meal

032so you can grab it and they can go and get out there quick and socialize with their friends right uh so on that items we have items like Italian sub sandwich chicken Caesar salad roasted veggie pa crispy chicken wrap and of course we in some situations we offer either a salad bar, uh, which I understand you guys do a salad bar here now, or we can do a, um, their own personal salad, chef salad, taco salad. So, we kind of switch those around a little bit to keep it fresh, right? Um, daily choices. Uh, so one of the things that kids really like, especially when we first bring it in, is um the adult station. We have tea, water, and lemonade available for high school students, or they can go pour their own tea, water,

033or lemonade. Doesn't cost them anything extra. Some kids don't like milk and that's okay. They can get the tea, water, lemonade instead of milk if it's so cheap or they can have both. Um, some other examples, fast food, not fast food, but some quick things like pancake sausage on a stick. Uh, strawberry banana smoothie with muffin, but we can even do uh flavored ice coffees at the high school. Some high school kids like that. Uh, fruit and yogurt parfets, cheeseburgers, etc. Here's some of our breakfast options. uh biscuits and gravy, western uh bacon sandwich and breakfast burritos, French toast sticks, waffles, oatmeal bar, cereal. Uh so a wide variety of things that are available for your people. We have a corporate chef uh Chef Rick uh who helps develop our meetings. He uh sometimes comes

034out to help us open new district. Uh he is a very very talented person and he's got a great system around working with Right. One of the other things, so go back just one more time, Jack. One of the things that is uh that Rick does that I find pretty amazing and helpful for learning is he'll do videos that are are emailed out to kitchen managers and staff so that they can see how to make a product. People learn differently. Nobody knows better than you guys do, right? Especially these days, videos are an awesome way to learn. [Music] Uh breakfast makes the difference. I can I can tell you in my area and here in Kansas about 80% of our districts uh do a second chance breakfast and I know you guys do that here

035which is awesome. We will continue to do that. Here's some of our signage of some of the things that we would decorate and put put in your kitchen to kind of lighten up the experience for your students. Fresh fruit and vegetable bar. This is one of our signature items. You guys have some in here. We'll probably bring in some more to do. Uh the black cans with the tongs, the red spoodles with colors very important to us and presentation very important to us. So that's what uh that's what we do there. So Jack talked about us being able to buy food uh cheaper. You guys are buying food for 800 cans. We're serving about 500,000 meals a day. So we can buy a lot cheaper than you can. We don't buy cheap stuff and this

036is all the the people that we use. General Mills, um, Fredo Lake, JTM, Sunny Fresh Mission, you know, Tyson, all the top man. We have a piece of a fresh fruit and uh, farm to school, but we'll go into that at a later time. Yeah, if you're interested in farm to school, let us know. We'll talk more about it. We want to get you through this. We appreciate your time. But um, let me go ahead. Take over here. So, uh, additional opportunities that we we do, obviously, if you want our breakfast in the classroom, we do that. Anytime elementary school or anybody takes field trips, we make sure you have sack lunches. At Iola, that was a big deal to us. We were 67% free reduced. It made no sense for us to send a

037letter home telling parents to bring a sack lunch on Thursday for the field trip. We took care of that. Okay. So um uh we do uh supper programs, CACFs, those kind of things. I know you're already doing that program, but uh we do all those things. Essentially, if you want to do it, we'll find a way to make it happen. Uh also catering, any banquetss or or staff breakfast, you know, inservice things. We're glad to do all those kind of things uh to help you out. Okay. Hey, I wanted to talk about the bid process a little bit here cuz it's it's something that is highly regulated by KSD. This is not something we would probably if we could deise our own system, we probably wouldn't do it this way, but KSD does it. So,

038it it isn't our RFP. It is KSD's RFP. So, um we did a feasibility study here um a few years back. Um but the uh RFP um bid process essentially you have to request that from KSD. Uh it takes about I don't know 15 20 hours to fill it out. It's not a it's a lengthy document maybe about 75 pages and you have to uh find a lot of information to fill that out. Um so the request for proposal goes out to every company that is on the state list. I think there's about 17 or 18. Uh you will not get 17 or 18 bids cuz those include state hospitals, prisons, um all kinds of stuff that are on the state list, not necessarily just K12 companies that do K12 um deal. And that's all

039we do um is K12 food service. So this is a 5-year fixed price contract. That that sounds a little scary. It's not quite as scary as what you might think is in reality five one-year contracts. Okay. So, because the board has to renew every year, okay, about this time is when renewals are coming out. And the fixed price is a little uh iffy too. It we can only raise your price by CPI, consumer price index. So the state of Kansas pulls the consumer price index food away from home category in February and it's a percentage. So we can only raise your rates by that percentage. This year it was 3.7% was what the percentage was and then so that is raises your rates on student lunch and student breakfast. Okay. So that's kind of how

040that works. Okay. One of the things that boards usually want to know about is what happens to employees. And there are really three options here. First, I should say the director has to be an employee of the food service management company. And that's not our rule. That's KSD's rule. Okay? So, keep that in mind. That has to be the first one. So, then the board can decide, okay, we want the food service management company to have all the employees. You can make that decision. and you mark that box in the RFP or you can say other than the director everybody else is going to be a district employee make keep the w you determine wages and keep your benefits and you pay for those and all that that stays the same or there's a third

041option and it's called the transition model. We actually created this with Dale Dennis a few it's been more than a few years ago about 8 years ago now um where the board then can decide how you will transition employees. The most popular is u simply an employee retires. We replace that employee, the district employee retires and then that new hire comes over to the food service management company and then over time through attrition you transfer labor over to the food service management company. That tends to be the u most popular um method of doing it. It's a little more politically friendly. Um now the board has some options here too. you can determine how that transition works. So you could tell your employees, hey, we'll let OPA come in and you guys can decide whether

042you want to get your paycheck from the district or get your paycheck from OPA. And in that case, I tell employees, I said, look, and I will tell the superintendent too, as well as you guys, if you got somebody that's on capers tier one and maybe that uh they have some health issues, I would keep them on the district side for sure. If they're get maybe get their insurance through their spouse and they're on capers tier three, they might be a candidate to be come over to OPA. And the reason for that is um our 401k uh program is a lot better than K first tier three. Um they have to wait a year to join it. They're three they're vested in three and then we'll match uh up to 6% 25% up to 6%

043will match their contributions. So uh it's much better than capers tier three. So we give them the option you know to do that or you should I should say you would could give them the option to do that. Um the other one is through attrition which I talked about and the last one we've had some boards that have gone 2 years or so doing the transition and say you know what I think maybe we just ought to move them all over uh and and do it that way. The decisions are completely yours on how you do that. So, um, but the transition model because of of the flexibility it gives you, I could, if I had to recommend to districts, I would check the transition model no matter what cuz you don't have to transition

044anybody if you don't want to. So, and we talked to a lady today that is eligible to retire. Well, she could retire, come work for us, and double because we're an independent contractor. you don't have those rules of of having to pay the penalty of uh somebody that's already retired and hired back. That makes sense. So um I think I maybe done all that stuff. So um so other questions that usually come up. So what about meal prices? Well, you still control what meal prices you charge students. We don't get involved in that either. your revenue streams. We don't mess with any of that stuff. Um, so other things uh like uh you own equipment, so you maintain all all your equipment. It's not like doing a bus service where you you bid out a

045bus service and you get rid of all your buses and then 7 years down the road you say this isn't working very good and then you have to buy all your buses back. You maintain all the equip you have all the equipment. So, uh, in fact, you can get out of the contract, you can do your annual renewal, but if something goes arai and you want to get out get out 90 days, you can do that as well. So, um, the 5-year fixed price contract does not necessarily lock you in for 5 years. So, so is this like HelloFresh for schools basically? I mean, is this like HelloFresh for schools? like you decide the menu and the and you send us the food and say this is what you're going to have on this day

046or so we make a menu for the month. I'll just give you an example. Okay. So So this is I pulled this up in case this this question came up cuz it usually does. This is uh the menu for Lynen School District. Okay. Uh they have three items. All right. uh what we call our our signature item which is a chicken alfredo. We have a combo craving which is a um pulled pork sandwich on a bun and then greens and things which is our uh salad option which is either salad bar or one of our top salads. In this case it's a chef salad. So that's Monday and and with all those three items you saw the fresh fruit and vegetable bar that I had up there. They have access to a fresh fruit and

047vegetable bar. So they have to go and they have to get fresh fruit and vegetables enough to make a reverse meal, right? But they get to choose what they want and then they can go and they can get water, beer, lemonade. So Tuesday, so it comes weekly. The food comes weekly. We make a we make a monthly menu. We we are there. Your employees make the meals, right? We are just there to manage the program. But the food the food delivery comes from our purveyor monthly. It comes weekly. Okay, that's what I was asking. I'm sorry. I just wanted to check comes weekly. We have a month. This is what all the meals for the month and the food arrives weekly. Yeah. Freshman every every So you said our we maintain control of the equipment

048in the facilities and whatnot, but you showed some new equipment. We showed some the black pans, right? So, so does that come from you or that's So, what I'll do is if you guys decide you want to go out for bid, right? So, I'll go and I'll make an extens. I'll look at all of your facilities and see what you have. If we need to bring in uh a fresh fruit and salar, fresh fruit vegetable bar, we will bring those in with all the utensils that go with it. That's part of the bid. That's part of the bid. Now, it depends on if you need them or not. you like I saw some things at the high school that we will use. We may bring in something that's uh for a condiment bar where kids

049can go get pickles, lettuce, tomatoes for burgers, and if we have tacos, they have sour cream, hot sauce, lettuce, you know, jalapenos, those types of things. So, there'll be bar set up. Okay. Okay. So, I have a couple questions. So, how many So, how many employees do you have per like for our size school? Is it like based on how many students we have? And so you need this many employees and like how many kitchens we have. So we what we will do is you will come in, we'll do an assessment, we'll keep it all your employees, right? That's how we'll bid. If that's how many you want in your kitchens, that's how we will bid the program. But do you So do you have a suggested number like you evaluate and be like, well,

050you have five and really you could do it with four. Maybe one employee would do something different in our district. Absolutely. Okay. And then um what is the pay comparison like? So you're that we would come. So we sat down with with the staff today and explained all this to them. This I'm sure there was some anxiety. We sat down and I guess we talked to them for about 45 minutes. Y and we talked let them all. So they would make this whatever they're making right now they'll make this thing. If you give them a R give them their raise this summer, we'll match that whatever it is and they'll be eligible for a raise every year. and and that's if they become employees. I mean, if they're your employees, then eventually they maintain all

051the uh benefits and pay that you decide to pay them. So, and then who recruits? I saw that we we approve the new hires, but do you do the recruiting, the hiring, the Yes. advertising to employ? Yeah. Takes that off your plate. Now, um we don't have a labor pool somewhere else that we're pulling people in. We we're using the same labor rule you have. So, uh we'll but we do have people at the home office that do nothing but try to recruit and that's done Facebook stuff, targeted regional things like that. Um and and then we're sorting through all that stuff. We're doing the interviews and then we're bringing them to you folks and say because they're probably local and say, "Okay, we don't know these people like you do. You have any issues

052here?" And so we're going to run those by you. Um, what was their feedback today when we met? Well, they were apprehensive at first as I thought, as they always are. But after we talked about our program and what we do, they were, you know, then realizing we don't have horns growing out of our head. They were they were they were laughing and smiling at the end of the conversation today. So, we put all the cards on the table. We're honest with them and talked through all the things that we just talked to you about. And they they were uh relieved, right? They uh they understood that uh they're going to be doing the same thing that they're doing. We just get we get different uh systems and processes that we use and uh ways

053that we presentation and the way that we serve food presentation and quality is of paramount importance to us and we'll teach them how we do all those things. Okay. I question. Hey, we good here. I'll move on here a little bit real quick. Um so as we said you're going to approve all hires director. Um, so all your policies and procedures, for example, one of the big ones that come up is when kids don't get high on their lunch. What's your policy? Do you do a cheese sandwich? How do you handle that if kids aren't paying? Okay. And so we don't set that policy, you do. So we follow your procedures on on what you want to do there. Uh, and whatever software you use to keep track of stuff, we that's fine. No big

054deal to us. So, um, the other thing we do is we make sure there's a smooth transition. So, we'll be here a couple weeks before your opening for first day of school and we'll be here as long as we need to be to make sure everybody's comfortable what's going on. The other thing I think that as you saw the dots on the map, um, any of our competitors can't do some of the same things we do and that's the support that we give. You've got Byron lives in Witchaw. There's another uh, regional director that's not here tonight, Rob. will be directly involved in here. And you've also got me so you know uh and and so we make sure that things are going okay and um I travel around the state and I don't know

055Greg I've been coming talking to you for probably five six years. We touch base every once in a while and and so uh um I make sure all the clients are are doing okay and if there's a problem then we fix it. So any other questions you might have? Well my other question is so what about I don't know if we even order food for the summer or this summer cuz a lot of stuff you know things come in throughout the but you know do we have a bunch of overage that's going to be sitting there? What do you do with that? So, we would come in and we would do a full inventory of what you have on hand and we will buy everything that is compatible that that is compliant, right? Anything that

056is out of date or that is not in compliance that we'll be dealing what we pay what we paid for. We we don't have an abundance because again we'll get rid of the food for that we have for the school year. But we will have summer programs. We'll be feeding kids some. We will have trucks coming in if if we are in that situation. So like you part of that study is like you have this many kids so we're going to send this much food. Yeah. So you have so we have systems that we use to to order how much food that determines all that. So then the kitchen staff doesn't have to like oh we need this much of this. We will train it to do that. Right. So the kitchen managers that are

057in the districts right now or in this uh we're going to if they wish to be remain kitchen managers and we will teach them how to do that process and then the director who will be an open employee will oversee all that to make sure that it's correct. Okay. I'm looking at the Lynen website right here. Do you guys manage that website to with Craig or would how would you manage like the lunch menu? So that's a that's a that's the exact same menu. That that website is on all of our districts. It's it's uh it's the same. So yeah, I saw the Southern Coffee County one. It looks way different than the other ones. I that's what made me think who would manage that. Oh, Southern L County was way off the difference. just

058trying to do some work. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is is that as we have some regional favorites, like for instance, I've had out in western Kansas, they they made this awesome hot sauce that they like to put on their uh line. It's approved. We will put it out there. If there's a a recipe item that you like that's like chicken and noodles in in Iowa, they like that recipe. So we we took that recipe, sent it to our nutritionist that had all the guidelines and we served that recipe. So we got an exemption that we didn't have to do the whole grain noodles at the time. So because that was a big Have you ever if you never eat a whole grain noodle, you're lucky. So something you might see because they're really

059hard to get right now. So especially in a school approved. Okay. because uh Tyson isn't making the speedos the chicken crispositos right now for some reason. So they're really hard to get and that's been a frustration not only for you but for a lot of people. So bringing Byron and Jack here tonight. You guys have had some comments in regards to the food service. Uh we can go out for requests for proposals to bid if we want to. Board will have a final say. So you can accept, you can reject. It's up to you. We can continue doing doing business the way we've been doing business. We can put it out for a proposal and we can see what we come up with and then make a determination. But if we're going to do something,

060we do need to get going at least, you know, like really quick here to get the proposals out in preparation for next year. And again, the final, you know, approval will come back to the board. on what you choose to do. And again, I'm not bringing OPA here as Opa is the one because they're going to bid it just like anybody else. They're not they are a company that is very entrenched here in this Midwest part of the United States. I brought them here just for you guys so you'd have some information. So I would I would like for us to go to a request just for request for proposals and see what we get. What's the cost to have a proposal done? It's just time for our time. 15. So, so what about the

061administrators? I'm sorry. What do you think about all this? I comments from my building and I would support us maybe exploring another opportunity because we're not committed if we explore it. Yes, agree. And I' I've worked at a district that actually used ULA and uh kids responded very well. I can tell you what, their Caesar salad is topnotch. And I don't eat school lunch ever, but I will eat that. Um, and kids will go back and they will they will get seconds on it. It is their food presentation is is very very solid from my experience. Most definitely the options um and that you know what I said if you just put the slides up and make it the signs would make the food look better I guess more enticing for the kids. with the

062options um and just the teens and lemonades and options for them. I mean high school to high school you'll get a we do have you know a good following but strong bully is ours at the high school is our is our you know what I just opened uh we opened this last year strong we have good bakers at the high school so um uh so yeah most definitely the sal you know the salad bar maybe you know I don't know an option all but like that's one thing we have tacos that are building. Like we sometimes have sour cream, we always have cheese and lettuce and maybe tomatoes, but we don't ever have hot sauce or not salsa. I mean, like just those things are like the other day kids were like, "This is why

063don't we ever get to have cheeseburgers? We just always have plain hamburgers." And I'm like, "I'm not in charge of that." I mean, just those little things I think would make a big difference. The other thing that we like to do is we like to get a lot of of student input. um and and our best directors get that on a monthly basis uh before we you know put those menus together. Uh and if administration wants to help sit in on that too uh we that that's a we do that in uh other districts as well. We have a wellness group at the middle school that has provided different pieces of feedback too. Um you know when we had chicken nuggets quite a bit that was one of the things is variation of sauces like

064hot sauce. Well, there's no calories in hot sauce. Let's get Let's do it. Agreed. So, what's our risk? Three years ago is having Jack 3 years ago when we did the feasibility study. That was when Diana Hes was retiring. Looked into it. At that point in time, Jack, we went through the numbers. We ran the numbers. Jack uh Christy and I and Jack quite honestly said I just don't think it's a good time for us to do something. We can't really save you any money at that point in time. Now 3 years later things can be a little bit different. I was still serious. Yeah. And you have to remember too a few years ago all meals were reimburseable. They were reimbured because they were free meals. That's different nowadays. So and we'll have some

065more information on that uh that which we worked on more so Christie the same information in regards to yeah I think it's worth it especially I mean we had the teacher linkage before this and you know cafeterian food service was on there several times I think there is no last year too it's an issue if if you don't like any bids like anything or proposals I guess there's really not a bid you reject them and keep doing what you're doing. Any other quick questions before Jack and Byron head out? Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it if it's okay with the board. I would like to at least move forward with, you know, being able to just do the request for proposals. Do we need to vote on

066that or you don't need to vote? You will vote when it actually becomes time to vote one way or the other. Okay, that's what I did. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sorry. So the only thing I have is um myself and one other person are going to go there's a foundation conference on Friday May 2nd at schools one session morning 1 in the afternoon in the morning. So if anybody else wants to go uh myself I'm going rice is going and at least one more person could go if they want. It's a foundation conference. So they there have been so many requests about educational um conferences that someone from Goddard I can't think who it is um they've started this foundation there this the first time in Odora is hosting it and so

067I think it's just like learning about foundations and we actually met with theora foundations conferences well it's a foundation it's kind of a conference foundation I was thinking like the model Okay. Sorry. So, uh, yes. So, we did meet with Udora, their foundation. They have an employee actually, but yeah. So, we're going to go something to anything else. Okay. Move to our court. I wish I could say I was surprised if you walk out every time I said my name is Kyle with Jared one just here to walk you through your packet. You've been on the board before we have those letters in the front. We'll get those at the end of the presentation. We'll dive right into page one. Page 1 through three is an independent audit report. This report as well as a

068couple others at the back are the only thing that belongs to us as authors. Everything else in here is the district's information, district's numbers. I'm just taking the prescribed 5K back. So your first three paragraphs, those are kind of your most important ones. First one talks about what we audit, which is the fund summary statement of regulatory basis, receipts, expenditures, and unencumbered cash balances of the year ended June 30, 2024. Next paragraph talks about that adverse opinion on US GAP financials. Since the district elects to follow KAG, we have to issue that adverse opinion because you'd have material differences in your financial statement. Things like debt, prepaids, receivables would show up. Uh with KAG, all you simply have is cash and accounts payable. Third paragraph is the most important one and that's that unmodified opinion

069on a regulatory basis of accounting. We believe based on our audit fieldwork that the numbers presented herein are a material accurate representation of what happened during the year for the district. So we issue that unmodified opinion um slang term clean opinion the best opinion you can receive on your audit for your financial statement. Those next two paragraphs kind of touch on that basis for adverse and unmodified opinion that I mentioned. And then we get to management's responsibilities and auditor's responsibilities. And then finally there on page two and three, we talk about some supplementary information required by KAG. Some schedules you'll see at the back talks about how to put last year's information in here for comparative purposes. As well as we have that last paragraph, that other reporting um since you received and spend over

070$750,000 of federal funds. You have to have that single audit each year. Um that paragraph just states we put that within this booklet. Um it's not two separate audits, which is a possibility to do. Turn the page to page four and five. in your financial statement statement one. This lists all the various funds of the district. You've got your beginning unencumbered cash balance or your cash carryover for budget purpose. Your receipts, money coming in the door, expenditures, money going out the door to get to that ending unencumbered cash balance. Um, one of the things you have to do um as a state municipality is that you have to follow this 10page checklist of some various statutes and regulations. One of those is that each fund ends in a positive cash balance and that ending unencumbered

071cash balance column. So you glance through there. You will note that there is one negative in there. That's a grant fund. State recognizes a lot of times going to spend that money up front before you actually get the reimbursements back. So they understand that happens at year end especially with timing. So that is allowable. But I always like to highlight you know there is one and it's going to happen in most um school districts with grant funds. But just kind of like to give that reason for you. Next column is your accounts payable. um these are those bills or those amounts incumbred um in that various budget. Uh things like your nom salary that's paid out in July and August, things like that. And then finally, your far far right column is your ending cash

072in bank um by fund balance. And if you flip down there to page five, you can see where we break out those amounts by the various types of accounts held by the district. The only other thing I like to point out on here is that negative number on page five, that less agency funds. Um, those are those funds that the district holds in your accounts, but they don't belong to the district, things like your student activity funds and things like that. So, we'll see a schedule those two about the back. Following page starts with the footnotes, I'm just going to highlight a few of these that are kind of the most important kind of change year in year out. Footnote number one is a pretty cookie cutter footnote. Just talks about K, talks about Kansas

073budget law, uh, talks about the makeup of the district. And the kind of portions that I like to highlight in this but note are on page eight. There's a numbered list kind of halfway down the page. First couple paragraphs underneath there. The first one just talks about that revenue neutral rate hearing. Just kind of highlight that that's still going on. That's this is about the third year that's been in there. We just note that the district did not um have a revenue neutral rate hearing for the budget year. And then the next column is any budget amendments of which there were none. Uh but then we just always talk about that the general fund and supplemental general always adjusted based on enrollment as well. Turn over the page to page nine. We get to footnote

074number two which is that stewardship compliance and accountability footnote. Um this one relates to that 10page checklist that I kind of referenced earlier. We had any issues there. Um this is where they're going to be disclosed. That long paragraph just talks about that negative cash balance that I mentioned earlier sites the statute that makes it allowable. And it also sites that you were in compliance with can Kansas budget laws as well. But note number three, um, kind of the part I like to highlight on that one is on page 10, the very last paragraph in there on that top third one down. And that's just that all your funds were secured at the end of the year for the school district. So just like that, you didn't have any unsecured funds out there. We're going

075to go ahead and flip the page to page 11. This is your long-term debt schedule. Uh this footnote just discloses all the debt instruments held by the district of which you can see you just have the one which is the turf lease and here we just disclose the activity for the year u beginning balance amounts paid ending balance and then your interest paid as well and then we break it down below with that schedule as well and gives you kind of that list of future payments. I always like to remind the board this is a good kind of budgeting tool to have in your back pocket when it comes time for budget just because you can kind of see when those debt instruments are going to come due. um gives you an idea of when

076those repayments might be coming up. Always like to highlight that following couple pages 12 and 13 are your defined benefit pension plan footnote or your capers footnote. Uh the couple paragraphs that we mention here are on page 13. A lot of that stuff on page 12 is stuff from the state legislation regarding um funding capers trying to get it back up to funding. But on page 13, there's actually information pertaining directly to the district. Second paragraph down, we talk about how much was remitted on behalf of the district, a little over $1.3 million. And then we talked about that net pension liability, kind of that scariest one in here. That's that amount that the school district would owe for retirement obligations if Capers were to ever quit being funded by the state. Obviously, you don't

077ever foresee that happening. But since it is an underfunded plan, you can see that number is pretty large, a little over 11.5 million, we're just required to disclose that year in. and that fluctuates greatly based on kind of that state legislation that's in there, stock market performance, things like that. So, you'll see big swings of that. Finally, the last couple footnotes we're going to talk about is on page 15. I always like to highlight footnote number 11, which is your inner fund transfers. Essentially, biggest thing to take away from this is that each of your internal fund transfers all had statutory authority to be made. And then the following page, page 16, that's subsequent events. Nothing to highlight there, but just like to point out that's going to be anything major uh from the end

078of the fiscal year to when we issued the audit. Kind of out of the ordinary for the district that we felt needed to be disclosed, but we didn't have anything to disclose there. Now, we're going to get to that supplementary information that I talked about. That's schedule one. This is that budgetary comparison schedule. Um list all your budgeted funds on the far left. Then you've got your certified budget, those adjustments to comply with that legal max based on your enrollment. Your adjustments for qualifying budget credits. Um these are called budget extenders. Um things like reimburseed expense, loan proceeds, grant proceeds, essentially anything. Um that money is kind of coming in from an outside source to extend your budget essentially. So we sum those three columns up to get your total budget for each fund. And

079we compare that to your total expenditures. And this is where that far right column is your most important one. um that one time that a negative number is a good thing. Means you were under budget in all your funds. You glance through there, you can see you met that requirement. Like we mentioned earlier, the following pages, page 18 all the way back to page 43 are the individual fund summary statement schedules. Um this goes through all that information on statement one and breaks it down in more detail for you. Um gives you the receipts coming in the door, kind of are they tax dollars, are they grant dollars, etc. um gives you the broken down expenditure categories uh supplied by KSD that you follow. Talks about your transfers. Uh this is where that prior year

080information comes into play. So you kind of see what's going on one year to the next. Gives you that budgeted by line item and then your variance over under by line item. I just always like to highlight um if you look at that variance over under by line item, you're going to see big swings. That just happens cuz you're budgeting out so far in advance. state recognizes um that you're bounding total by fund, not by individual line item. So, just always focus on the total number, not necessarily your individual items. Going to slide all the way back to page 44 now. And as you glance through there, if you do review those individual fund summary statements and you ever have any questions or that, you know, we don't get to tonight, as you glance through

081it, feel free to always reach out to us. We're happy to answer any kind of questions that you guys have. But on page 44 are your agency funds. Uh, like I mentioned, you glance through here, you can see a lot of those are your school activity funds. Here we're just kind of giving you the ins and outs for the year. You've got your beginning balance, your receipts, expenditures, and your ending cash balance. Following page, page 46, those are the district activity funds that actually do belong to the district. Um, things like your receipts and sales tax, things of those nature. The next page, page 47 and 48, gets into the single audit portion of here. Uh this is the schedule of expenditures of federal awards. Essentially this breaks down all the various federal grants received

082and spent by the school district during the year broken out by their various departments of the government and then broken out by their various types of grant. Each of these grants are assigned a pass through number um from the pass through entity. So KSD or whoever else the grant's coming through. And then they're also assigned a federal CFDA number. Um just helps them keep those all separate on their side. Next column is your provided to subreients. Uh that would be if you received a grant and then in turn granted that out to somebody else, you didn't have any of those during the year. And then you've got your receipts and expenditures. Uh so we just go through a checklist based on um the grants we've tested before, ones that this um government tells us are

083more risky, things like that. So which ones are we supposed to test? So the two that we tested this year were your esser money. Um it's been a common theme the last few years just because how new that money is. And then also we test uh the IDEIDA grant. So things we do to test those are looking at expenditures, making sure they're allowable, um they're being spent for how they're supposed to be spent, as well as with uh the IDA grant, we're looking at teachers, making sure they're certifying that all their time spent is going to those grants, things of those nature. I'm going to go ahead and skip the next couple reports and go straight back to page 54. Uh you might think later this page 54 has all that information from these reports.

084Um I could spend the time on those reports if you wanted but as you glance at page 54 it's a much more condensed version gives you all the information from those reports. So at the top we talk about that financial statement opinion um adverse on GAP unmodified on KMAG any internal control issues over financial reporting of which there were none. um any issues on federal awards of which there were no our opinion on your compliance with major federal award programs. So those grants we tested which was unmodified meaning we didn't have any issues when it came to testing them. Um that would in the very next line any audit findings of which there were none. We identify those major programs and then the threshold for type A and B programs and then finally your lowrisk

085audit checklist. Biggest thing I always like to highlight is you're always going to be no on a lowrisk audit. And that's mainly because to be a low-risisk audit, you have to either follow GAP or a state required basis of account. Since KAC is elected, you elect to follow that. You're always going to be no. All it does is just change the percentage of grand dollars that we test. So if you're low risk, then they say, "Oh, they haven't had problems before. They want you to test 20% of all their expenditures." It just changes it to 40%. So really doesn't mean anything to you guys other than just how much dollars were actually tested. And then finally if you had any findings of which there were none and any prior year findings which there were none.

086Now back to those letters at the front of your packet. It's just one staple packet there together. First two pages is what they call the presentation letter. Kind of another boiler plate letter. This one's mainly related on if we had issues with management when it came to completing the audit. Um disagreements with trouble getting information, things like that that agent we've been having in those to disclose. We always enjoy working with your staff, but I encourage you to read through there, maybe see those things we might talk about or approach about if we were to have issues. Third page in there are your audit adjustments. Uh pretty short, half a page. Um some school districts you're looking at two pages, three pages worth of adjustments. So that just kind of speaks to the quality of

087your staff as far as making sure that the numbers are presented are correct that you're looking at or reviewing each month and so there's not much modification to them past what you're seeing. And then finally the last two pages in there is what they call the management representation letter. We like to call this one the reminder letter. Essentially each one of those points we kind of talk about during the audit. So it's always good to reread that each year. Kind of refamiliarize yourself with those points. And so as the year goes on, if something does happen pertaining to them, um you make sure to tell us about it when it comes time for audit. So that being said, any kind of questions or comments? I know that was kind of quick. Try to keep it

088as condensed as I can without getting too deep in the weeds for you. Any questions? And if anything ever comes up, like I said, Christy can email us, call us. We're happy to answer anything that you guys are questions. No, I said thank you. Okay. Most approve the 2023 2024 audit has been presented. Second motion second [Music] discussion while you're voting I cannot thank Kyle and his staff enough uh they are just very professional excellent to work with top-notch people and our central office staff Christy Nicole Jen Whitney everybody central office and stuff they do here and then in our local buildings the the office staff they are tremendous just to make sure that we are topnotch with our with our uh with our audit and our reports. [Music] Jojo, thank you. Thank you. results

089monitor report results report. Um who wants to talk to that? We have any question that Everybody's had a chance to review those. Anybody have any [Music] questions? I'll make a motion. [Music] You need a motion? Yes, please. I'll make a motion to accept the results to monitoring report concerning physical education, performing arts, visual arts, and foreign language as reasonable progress towards meeting the board's results policies. Second motion second discussion. No discussion [Music] move 6. [Music] Uh contract approval appointments motion to approve engagement letter with Darren Gilmore and Phillips PA for the 2024 2025 financial audit amount not to exceed $10,300. One second. There's a second discussion discussion rules. [Music] It won't change my vote, but I'm curious why it's 10,300. It's a slight increase. I didn't know if they increased their fee or not. It's

090a nice round number four. 10,000 was last year. So, yeah. Okay. Good. Good question. I figure but I think on it I'm just open enrollment discuss policy. Um as you know last year they made the open enrollment thing you have to do. So did we turn anyone away this year? Not that time frame. The only people that were turned away are people that apply after the 20 days. Are they are they ones that are going to apply that would add to this number for next year? They could administration. So then so they wouldn't bump out someone that already exists. Once you have already been in our district from outside this past year, you're still in good standing. You stay. the numbers that we submitted um in the board agenda are add additional students that could

091be coming in. Okay. Um our administrators were a little conservative with this because we we so for example we could get some an influx of students who actually reside here in Burlington and we would have to take them and then if we have the out of district open enrollment seats that we have to take based on the count then we have to take those numbers as well. You just never know how many you're going to get moved in into your district that you actually have to take. And then additional students that would be in those open enrollment seats. So like for an example, we have 10 students elementary schools. They decide to come back to school that next year, they're se they count for they don't count. They just get to come in USB 14

092extras in a grade and then we say we have how many take that number of seats too. So like 10 you might get 14 in a grade level. There's there's nothing we can do to control that though except like you said be conservative and make sure we're not saying 25. Why some of the numbers are different or if we went back to the old process we had before and it worked very well. for my time. So, so the seven just lets us for next year 7th grade is basically one or like dur zero for fourth. Is that is that basically because we're at our max level for those classrooms and so we had 60 64 kids 62 that class was below 60 last year we had that number and we gained kids that moved into

093our district for that grade. So right, we're at a big number now. That really shows the disparity between grade levels. I mean anywhere between zero and 10. Zero to 10. Yeah. We're trying to keep the class sizes in that 50 upper 50s to 60s range. We kind of that's kind of that that general number that we're looking at. Do I just cuz I've never looked at this these numbers in this way before. Do we know why that kindergarten first second grade is so much smaller? I think that's just the number of babies. I mean, actually has several out of district in it. So, I think that was just the year that maybe there weren't as many babies born. I'm just asking. I think I honestly think of the 40 I think there's 46 kids in

094there right now. I I don't feel like there may be like six out of district. Oh, did was there any discussion at the legislative level to do away with this ridiculous? No. No. policy. I I would I would agree. But no, I will say two of us voted no last year because we didn't really Well, some of us didn't want to give the state the idea that we really support this. I'll say no. Yeah, it's frustrating. I do appreciate the effort you guys have put into trying to figure out how to balance this out as even as possible. I'm not exactly sure who all was involved in that process. I assume you three had some say in it, but I'm guessing you didn't make that decision alone. So, thank you. To administrators and myself, Lindsay

095was involved a little bit discussion because you have to remember too, you have to factor in special education students and needs with with that enrollment piece. So, it's it's it's a team. We do work well as a team. Were families frustrated that they couldn't come the ones that showed up at late I would say they were disappointed um but again it was what was October October when they when they had applied and we have that way of allowing them if they show up late right if we're already to the number well because when they're late if it's after September we don't get we don't know how many did we turn away at the one school that wasn't true I think well we had one family that we had a situation that was here they didn't

096really follow the process of they were out so we had that family in common and then um there was one family that had re inquired like last May with me and then you know they were informed of the process And then they called way after the date and I was like, "Well, it's closed now." And I mean, you know, they were busy in the summer and they just couldn't get it done. I mean, it's pretty much what the parent told me. So, when I talked to a parent earlier this year that they have a they want to bring a fifth grader, not sure at elementary yet, I said, "Well," they said, "Well, if the fifth grader gets approved, do the other others get approved?" I said, "No, it's based upon each individual grade level." So,

097it's not like if Darla has no seats in third grade and I have two in fifth grade and I take the two fifth graders, she isn't going to take that third grade. And that's that's tough. That's beyond our ability to regulate that here. Correct. Cuz once it's in the lottery, it's in the lottery. Um, we have no control over that. Okay. So we we just need to approve motion for this. Yes. Motion to approve USD 244 student enrollment projections and non-resident enrollment capacity as presented. Second discussion. My vote does not reflect you. about that. Motion carries 51. All right. Mhm. Greenbush blended learning. This is for our Spanish one and Spanish two students at the high school. Again, we're doing that online um blended learning through Green Bush. Uh this is their projection. Again, uh

098from the high school from enrollment, we have 17 students in Spanish 1, three, and Spanish 2. And our projected uh dollar amount that we're looking at is again $450 per student per semester. personally and I think it's been a good experience this year from what I understand understood. We've had the same um instructor for two years now and she does come visit campus and does fun things with them. Um and now I and she's busy so she's doing multiple schools but so our kids are actually kind of back into the IDL ages is that they are with other kids um in class like are Spanish too and so they have other schools that they're actually live with. So she manages it all and we have Miss Herardo and then Mr. Felipe are the monitors. Next

099year Mr. Felipe will be um the monitors for Spanish one Spanish 2. So he speaks three languages. And so um I went in on his board and he had what their each of their names were in Spanish, Chu, and then English. So he on the off days cuz there's two days they're live and then the off days then they're doing work. And so somebody who understands it and who can help them with their work. So they has a missard as well. So it's been just having staff alone that can support that not not certified but can support it has been very helpful. Our numbers are not growing though. Um, so we're trying to see how having the discussion how we can get that for the two foreign languages. To put it in perspective, that's a

100class that would require a whole another teacher and we're paying $9,000 correct a year for it. So you're paying less than correct. So this allows us to provide classes that we don't have the ability to do on site. Right. And so if you think about it, it's let's say it's $1,000 a year per kid. I guess 450 per semester. And so for any 000. Yes. Yeah. So, every kid that we add is another $1,000. We're still you're still saving money. So, right now, I mean, it's working and um so yeah, we would almost have to have half of the juniors and seniors signed up in order for it to not be costefficient. So, we do have performance language, we do have French and German, um man, Chinese all available through Ingenuity. Um so, there's some

101availability there. the non-live teacher and then Miss Marshall just went to listen to a training of what's coming up and so we do we're going to have an option for some live training too. So we got to look at the pricing. So if some kid says hey I want two years in German and that's on their plan of study um we will take a look at that cuz we really want to see them do exactly what you know what they want to do. So um as technology and all this stuff you know evol keeps evolving um you know you guys have been very gracious on that. So our kids are able to follow their individual plan of study. This is the generation kids that live through co so training online like that's pretty normal for

102them I think. I guess correct. Mhm. Motion to approve the green bush blended learning memorandum of understanding for the purpose of delivering foreign language instruction to Burlington High School students for the 2025 2026 school year in the amount of $450 per student per semester. Second motion. Second discussion. Is there not another program or limited company green bush limited learning that provides those additional languages for the students or do we have to have like a different contract for every language that we're doing? That'd be through that be through Egeneuity. Yeah, that's a great question. We um looked into another provider, but Egeneuity has been around. I've been working with Edenuity since I was analyst. over 15 years. And um so as they've evolved and they have the live teachers, Green Bush just actually um uh hires

103the teacher for us and that's why we're available able to do it live. If our kids said to any kid tomorrow could sign up for Spanish and do it online without a live teacher. We have the curriculum. We you all have purchased egeneuity curriculum for us and our kids are that's where they're taking um uh biotechnology and cosmetology and they're taking all those classes. Egeneuity is the platform and through green bush they're providing the live instructor and so that's where we're at. So you know next year could be different but she's not she's still coming. I asked her so so Ingenuity has all those languages but they're all self-paced on your own. Yes. would just choose to do Spanish in a face to face for an additional for an additional fee for the kids. So

104there's more kids taking Spanish. Oh yeah. Oh yes. Yes, there are. Combined, right? And then and then and then p put in perspective some of the kids who are requesting German and stuff. we are looking at reading scores and things like that because it is very difficult um to take a French or a German um language without having that conversation or without anybody in our school system that can have that conversation with them because we would definitely match them up. But Spanish is just one that right now is kind of the the go-to. So yes. Yeah, just a challenge to see if what just get more programs if we have one program that already has everything in compass and was my only chance. No, no additional comments. Great. Okay. Any more discussion? motion [Music] secondary

105dairy bid. Okay, you have the dairy bid here from Highland. Um, a question might come up in your mind is if we approve this, would this impact us in any way, shape or form? If we were to go to a food service company and the answer is no, food service company would assume this dairy bid um because they would want to have milk for the kids. So anyway, so not an issue at all um if we end up going with an outside food service provider. So we have one bid from Highland. This is annotated a little odd. The numbers in parentheses are increases, not decreases. Normally you see negative numbers in parenthesis, but it's the opposite on here. Yes. So I see two of them that dropped and the rest of them went up fractions

106of a cent or whatever it works out to. Motion to approve the bid from Highland Dairy Foods Company LLC for the 2025 2026 school year as presented. Second motion second cherry apple juice that sounds delicious cherry apple juice in the fridge. Uh Craig, you want to talk about the Yes. Homeland Security? Yes. This is coming from emergency management. It's just something that we have to uh to adopt every uh to adopt for Kansas homeland security region 6 hazard mitigation plan. Plan's been approved by the county and we just follow along with the county's uh plan. And so I do have we have a number of things for you guys to sign. So afterwards we can make sure you get uh uh things signed here. So it's just sorry I'm just a it's just a follow

107through with what the county is providing and there's no major changes from what we've done in the past on this. There's not a lot of information here. So no. Okay. [Music] We work with the county and emergency management and wolf creek in terms of that preparation piece and go through training and um yes motion to adopt the Kansas homeland security region J hazard mitigation resolution second motion second discussion All those people this job is what all those people know how to believe this [Music] job Coca-Cola beverage agreement. Okay. We um we can we we basically are a Coca-Cola's district. However, we haven't done a contract with them in a number of years. I don't know what the transition happened. Maybe when Dave Watkins left and came on board with a new, you know, leadership at

108the high school and and so long story short, um we uh felt like we needed to get something in place for with them. So, we were a identified, if you will, a Coca-Cola school district. They provide things for us being in Copa Cole School District like the coolers uh the different uh food beverage carts uh and so on so forth. And then they also are going to provide uh sponsorship fund $1,000 annually a year annually each year for a 5year time. Basically this is a 5year type of an agreement with them. They stock our buildings with Coke products so our administrators aren't having to go run the Sam's Club and get all beverages for concession stands and events and so on so forth. they come, they drop off, and we have much much less uh

109uh in the way of work to do. So, this uh like I said, this is kind of something that uh just we haven't we haven't done in a while. And uh just kind of wanted to make it official and with their sponsorship that sponsorship fund of $1,000 each year uh for 5 years. Um like I say, we just felt like it was a something we needed to do to actually make it formal. What fun does that thousand go into? Uh, it can go into a number of different things. But I I would imagine this probably where you want to put that cuz we haven't we haven't had an official contract with the beverage provider. So that'll be something that uh Chrissy and I have to look into. [Music] Motion to approve the beverage agreement with

110Hartland Coca-Cola Bottling Company LLC as presented. I'll second motion discussion. Coach carry 6. Moving on to personnel. Motion to recess an executive session for 30 minutes to discuss supplemental duty contracts pursuant to non-elected personnel exception under Coleman and to return to open session in this room at the end of that time. Second. James, you said 30 minutes. 30 minutes. [Music] James has made a motion. Any discussion? You didn't take the motion to recess into executive session for 10 minutes to discuss supplemental duty contracts pursuant to non-elected personnel exception under coma and to return to open session in this room at the end of that time. Second. Motion to second discussion. That's correct. Okay. I'm not just 17. So 27 27 27 discuss supplemental duty contracts present to non-elected personnel accept to return to open session

111in this room at the end of that time. Include trade marshall. Include tra Marshall. Second motion. Second discussion. Submit your vote. You guys tour the whole building now. Go upstairs and see the I got motion [Music] 15. We're going to go over. So, we move to 15. Motion to recess into executive session for 15 minutes to discuss supplemental duty contracts pursuant to Donald personnel exception of coma and to return to open session in this room at the end of that time. I promise we're not trying to No discussion. Yeah. Like 7 hours. That's not what's happening. Oh, I'm sorry. I was sleeping because uh my Motion to accept retirement request that Tom Bur was regret at the end of the 2024 2025 school year. Second. Second. Uh discussion. Submit your vote. Just getting voting. I'm

112sorry. I think Tom's been a custodian and a substitute bus driver for USC 244 for 12 years. Thank you, John. Just to read that we missed. I'm going to have to vote verbally. I logged out cuz I was looking something up. I know that's what's up there though. Motion to accept request of Peggy CH as food service worker with your cat at the end of the 2024 2025 school year. Second motion second. discussion. Peggy's been a parttime coach for BMS for the last 3 years for your we will miss Peggy. [Music] Is that not sure? I was actually thinking that. I do think that yes, I think it is. Motion carries second. Nothing for students. Nothing for students negotiations. I don't think we need to be because uh we haven't had our first meeting yet

113and uh we're hoping to schedule that very soon. Great briefing. Long night. Thanks for everybody's input. Anything else? Thank you for coming. Obvious motion is I mean we are we are we are got some you want