001I figured. Okay, I'd like to go ahead and call the meeting to order. Um, we do have a quorum present. Meeting has been duly called. Appropriate notice has been given. Like to welcome everybody here tonight. Special night. Um, tonight's pledge will be led by Mr. Gage from the Leading Edge Aviation Foundation. Thank you. >> Thank you for coming. >> On the front row, this is what you get. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Next item is public comment opportunity. We had nobody signed up this evening. So, we'll move on to approval of the agenda and the minutes. >> I make a motion we approve the agenda and minutes.
002>> I'll second motion and second. Any discussion? All those in favor? It's unanimous. We got some presentations this evening. First one up, Mr. Dwey is our 30 years of service. So, we have four employees this year that have reached a huge milestone and that is 30 years of service to the Mountain Home School District. And so, we will call each one of you up. I just want to thank you. Um, for myself, and I know the board feels the same way, the district, you have made a difference in hundreds of lives, some of them my own personal children. So, that's one of those things that you go, "Wow." Right? um it's not just professional, it's personal to many of us that are sitting here today. So, thank you all for what you have done and
003what you are going to all continue to do. So, um we're going to start with Mr. Keith Alman >> 30 years. >> We're gonna take a picture. Congratulations. >> Next will be our Miss Leah Carter. >> Congratulations, Mrs. Cotter. Now, Miss Carter is wait what Mr. Schmutzky calls a quitter. But we sure do appreciate the work. >> And Coach Leonard, >> I know, but Mitch said he'd like to say Mr. Well, I can't say >> 30 years. >> Thank you. ANY words of wisdom >> for those of us that are not >> tear drop tea drop. We also have the pleasure tonight of recognizing two very special employees who were voted by their peers as the outstanding teacher of the year. And first of all, we'll do our Richard Padet Extra Mile Award in appreciation
004of your willingness to always go above and beyond what is expected. The Mountain Public Schools presents this to Steve and he was voted on this by the entire committee. >> And the best part of this award is it does come with a chest for >> $1,000. >> Any words of wisdom? Keith was gonna write my speech. >> Oh, Keith was gonna write. >> I've known Steve now for over well over 30 years. Um, and it is an honor to be here tonight to see him be recognized by his peers um for what I have known for many decades. >> Um, he is a true servant. He would give you the shirt off his back any day of the week >> and most of his department is here to celebrate with them almost all of them.
005So in appreciation of your loyal and dedicated service to the education of our children, Mountain Public Schools presents exactly 20 years later than her mother received this award. Teacher of the YEAR will also receive a check for Wow, that's fun. >> Yes. >> Doesn't get much better than that. >> No, that's that's good stuff. Good stuff for sure. Thank y'all. Well, now we've got to move on to the work. So, we'll move on to our reports. Miss Lawrence >> and Becca, >> just hang on. This is fun, too. >> We're gonna have I want to say one thing about Miss I got to be the principal Nelson with her for two years and if I was having a bad day and just needed like a Z moment to calm myself down in her classroom. It
006was always the just a really wonderful place to be and I'm I'm so happy to be here. I was honored to get here. Um and then I want to come on down. >> Come on down. So, Mr. Casper was not able to be with us when we recognized our National Merit finalist because you were >> I was at a track meet. he was representing our school at track meet. And so I asked if there was a possibility of him coming tonight and he graciously said yes. And if y'all remember um Jack Coleman was our other National Merit finalist and we're so proud of you. Um do you want to tell them your plans moving forward? >> Well, I'm going to Baptist University. Um and I'm going to be rooming with my running teammate from here,
007um Colin Matthews. So that's going to be fun. Um and the National Merit Scholarship at actually finished covering for my tuition and then now I can get my state um scholarships to cover for housing and food. So, I'm pretty much >> wonderful. Do you have a favorite memory in high school before you go big? >> I don't know if it's a favorite memory, but this past year I've um grown close to this friend group back here that support >> me back here. Uh yeah, we've hung out a lot and it's been really good because before that I didn't really have like people that would always be there consistently. So I've been able to hang up that. >> So did you enjoy graduation >> outside? You have any questions for Kayan before we send them off?
008>> Do you know what you're going to be majoring in yet? Uh, right now the plan is double majoring in finance and accounting, but that could change depending because I know a lot of people change. >> Good point for having a plan. >> We'll see what happens. >> Else question. >> Notice my license plate when you leave >> and you'll need to get one of those in four years. >> They don't give it to you after that. You >> still have to pay for it. >> That's soon as you really know. So >> that's my that's my school. Yeah. >> As one of your former teachers, I am so very proud and I knew this I knew this would come. So congratulations on your hard work. >> Thank you. It was definitely part of part
009of you doing that. >> You were a blessing. >> Thank you. You too. >> Well, thank you for taking time. We wanted to honor you. So I'm glad that it worked out for you to come tonight. I'm glad your fan club was able, but thank you for being here. We're so proud. >> Thank you all for coming. If you're here, our special guest >> now. It's fun. >> How are you guys? >> So, I have a really quick story before we start. Um, I've learned a really valuable lesson in the tech department. Um, you can't trust AI for everything. So, this presentation has now been completely redone in the last 24 hours thanks to Miss Dwey. Um, chat decided it would um improve some of our scores um and make us look really, really great.
010>> Pretty good. >> Um, but yeah, I've learned a really, really good lesson. Keith tried to say, "I told you so." Um, but it's been great. But we want to focus on 310 tonight. Um, K2 scores were just re-released Sunday night about nine o'clock. Um, no, Monday night. Monday night about 9:00. Days are hard. Um, so we will spend another few minutes looking at K2 because it's such a vast difference in what is assessed. It makes more sense to look at 310 as a chunk and then um as at K2. So, if you'll go to the next slide. So, I am not going to read all this to you, but I want to explain the logistics of what you're looking at. So, we have always been able to look at scores by teacher. So, if
011I'm teaching a fourth grade class, I can pull my summitive scores, how those kiddos did in third grade, so I have a starting point where they're beginning my classroom. Those scores have usually always come in in the summer. And we know that during the summer or September sometimes um those scores came in now. >> So every kiddo from 310 has a summitive score from last year that we've been able to build on all year. So we've always been able to do that. Our building administrators have that view that they can now look at a a classroom or a cohort of students to be able to see, okay, they started at 40% proficient. They ended the year at 96% proficient. what is this teacher doing? How does this academic rigor look different from a neighbor? So,
012those views are there. It's wonderful. It's consistent. But then, as I had the flu last week, because that's great timing. Um, I was laying in bed and I was like, I wonder if there's a way. And there is. Um, so I was clicking around. We also have a different view in Atlas that now we can take and compare curriculum. We can compare standards from year to year to year. I've been calling it a pedagogical report because it sounds fancy, but it's probably wrong. But it takes the student factor out and it looks at standard by standard. How am I doing as a teacher in mastering standard one or standard two or standard three? And we have three years of data. So when you look at these charts, the three years are the trend lines and
013those are scale scores. So I want you to notice the hor or the vertical, what is that? The y graph. If you notice on the Y side, it looks like, oh my goodness, third grade went up amazing like they and they did go up, but those scores are are very close together. So, just pay attention to those numbers as you're looking. So, you've got a visual and how did we do as a third grade ELA group over the last three years, how we do fourth grade, how we do fifth grade. But the awesome thing that chat was able to help me do is I asked it to identify those trends. Identify the standards that we've struggled with for three years. Identify the strengths. It's pretty consistent. And I just went through and summarized all of
014them. I did not give you the whole page. I'm going to show you that at the end, but it is amazing to look and just click through all of the ELA grade levels and all of the science grade levels. Content vocabulary showed up as a weakness in every area. That's an easy fix. Like we're back to the vocab days and here's the word of the day and like so that's something that immediately can be implemented. So I've organized these by building and then in the bottom right corner you'll see the subject area so that you can go back and and look at where are we performing well and where are we struggling. We shared this with building administrators also this week. So, I'm super excited just to be able to give another view of how
015we're doing. So, if you'll just click through those, Kelly, I'm not going to read them all. Um, and go to the very last slide, please, unless you want me to highlight anything. >> I'll take questions. >> Can you tell us what grades showed improvement? Could maybe you highlight the grades that did show improvement and the grades that we realized that we have got some, you know, the percentage improvement. >> At the top of my head, all but two areas showed improvement. One area stayed the same, but it stayed the same from year one to year three. It dipped last year, so it went back up. Um, and then one one math level, I believe, went down, but everyone else has trended towards improved proficiency each year, which is what we want to see. So, this
016is what I'm calling the money piece this um tonight. It is amazing. Um this is made with my new friend chat, but every grade level and subject area now has a document that looks like this. So, I asked it to create an administrator action plan. What can a building administrator do that they can go in and be very specific and targeted? So, when you look at those specific goals, now we're not stabbing at the dark still. we've got even a narrower focus and a an easier place to put a pen and here are the standards that we're going to be focusing on. So, do they align with our essential standards? We would hope so, but that's where the work starts is where is this focus and what does it look like? So, wanted to give
017this to you in a big view. I know there's probably a lot of questions. Kelly, will you back up one slide? the little bitty numbers that are not in a straight line that are on the bottom of the line graphs. Please don't judge me. Um those are the number of students tested. So you are going to see a huge difference in ninth grade and eighth grade science because we added in biology. So you're going to see >> um I think it was like 60 something more kids um tested in biology, >> 80 kids >> than they did um in science. So hopefully everything is correct. Um Chad is no longer my friend. Um I've learned my lesson. But it it's amazing to have this and be able to take one factor away. As a teacher,
018I always said, "Man, I had a bad class. Man, I had a really rough class this year." Well, about the last three years when I didn't teach standard two. So it gives me something to focus on and gives me something to celebrate. For the last three years, I've knocked standard three out of the park. So I'm going to help my cohort >> and some of the work they'll do this summer. A lot of the collaborative teams are meeting for PD flex days and now that they actually have some we've never had that in the summer to work with during our summer professional development. So they can take some of this information, look at their pacing guide, look at their central standards and just see if there's some adjustments they need to make based on the
019trends with the data. So we are getting um a lot better at using the information as we get it. And so that's been exciting to watch too the teams. And then they're also, we did this before, but they're also looking at level ones, level twos, level threes, and level fours and seeing how their classes fluctuated from even their previous summitive or beginning of your interim to the summitive of this school year and they can kind of see they maintain the levels or improve the levels. So that's another good lens that the teachers always look at. The other anybody want to guess how many assessments were given in the Atlas portal for Mountain Home this year? >> Just take a guess. >> Take a guess. Wild guess. >> Wouldn't even know where to start. >> 23,600.
020>> Jeez. >> So between our interims, our screeners, and our sumitives, just summitives alone, there were 7,900 assessments. >> Because now working at K2, it used to just be >> it's unbelievable. And it only crashed once. Um, so the state has done an excellent job in beefing it up year after year. We were a little disappointed they pulled K2 back, but they pulled it back to recheck. Um, and so now it has been re-released and it it's actually a little better than it was the first round. So >> the proficiency numbers are on each slide. You just show the proficiency. So that is there as well >> change in that over the three years and you'll see the trends. So, >> so do you said that the sample grade level analysis came from AI like
021it's not from the atlas >> atlas portal? So, the I went to the Atlas portal and found the cross-sectional report, downloaded the report for each grade level and each subject, saved that as a CSV, upload that uploaded that CSV into chat, and then put in the prompt for it to summarize it and spit out the wrong numbers at first, but it went through all of those CSVs and ran whatever it does in the background to compile all of the low areas, high areas, is >> is that what you found in Atlas? Is that useful as well to and do teachers have access to it and they could actually >> take that and see okay I did not apparently I didn't teach this to mastery >> um is there something that exists in the portal that
022would allow them to generate practice quizzes tests CFAs >> so grades 310 um the classroom tool is a test generator or an assessment generator and you have a lot of options for how you want to build that. Um, if I was a teacher and I had this data at my fingertips and I'm looking at my standards and I know these are mine that I struggle, I'm building an assessment based on the standard. So, you can vary it from one question to 200 questions. The classroom tools not considered to be a secure environment. So, the teacher can actually walk through and teach how to respond to that prompt. they can create >> an assessment in the portal that students can access and take and they can analyze that. Okay, that worked and move on. >> Yep.
023>> Um, do our classroom resources and curriculum textbooks have a way to create assessment? Back when I taught science, I had a test bank and I could create an assessment how many of questions I wanted on this particular at the time frameworks. Um, do they have that where these two things we can ensure if this is a weak area that I'm going to make I I know my these students have demonstrated this. >> So, I can for sure speak to the curriculums that have been implemented since I've been in the chair I'm sitting in now. 100%. Yes, they're based on Arkansas standards. I would benchmark and and savage my perspectives. You can go into all of those. >> We have the Alex tool. >> Um you can go into all of those and align it
024to your Arkansas standards. Um and to follow up to your first question, teachers do have access to this based on students that they have taught. So I build rosters each year in Atlas which assign students to my classroom. So I can't go in and look at Miss Partney's classroom because I didn't teach those students. So there is that confidentiality piece in there as well that it's limited to students that you serve. >> But when they do the BOI then you also can find their weakness areas. So you can target that and in intervention >> some of these things could be utilized. So, what some of the work we've already started um if you pair what she put in the CSV with the individual student profile, the individual student profile will show you, for lack of
025a better word, kind of the pillars within that content area. And you can see you can rank their areas like they were they were top in this, second in this, fourth in this. Um and so what we've already started doing with some of the teams is grouping students based on how they scored in the pillars. Like group needs more support and um you knowformational text, we're starting to group them and we're going to use that information to help with RTI as soon as school starts next year because we already have we can already do the groupings. So that's one way we're addressing the individual data and kind of a new way when the school year starts um with new grade level standards for the year they'll be in. Does that make sense? And they can
026do it tier one as well. that's not limited to RTI because they have individual student profiles on every student that they >> have on their roster in Atlas. >> And so there's lots of different ways you can use that information either in tier one or through RTI. >> Is there an expectation that we are using atlas for some CFAs to make sure that we're getting to these >> levels visit CTS? I I mean the teachers are just naturally doing that because it is helping their scores get better obviously. The other thing is the the language of the classroom tools in Atlas matches the language of the test. So that's why the teachers like it so much >> that the formatting, the questions, all that looks like what they're going to see on Atlas. >> And
027then like she said, they're doing a lot of whole group teaching with classroom tools. Like they'll put and I've seen that in in every building. They will put a a tool a classroom tool on their screen and use that as a classroom activity and talk through how would you answer this and why why did you pick that answer? So, they can either do it, you know, as an exit ticket or as a you know, one-on-one piece or they can do it whole group. So, there's just a it's a pretty it's very it's a vast land is what I would say as far as different ways. But, they were um the classroom tools has gotten better over time. There weren't a lot of assessments in there at the beginning and now that we're three years in,
028it's populating. K2 did not have anything in tools. We're expecting to see that started in third grade. But another thing you're able to do is like you can show second grade teachers what a third grade assessment looks like. Hey, this is where we're trying to get them. So second grade that on their radar, you know, they have to do a 15 paragraph passage at the end of third grade. So how do we get them there? So there's a lot of different ways to use what's built into the portal >> and they have had training to make sure we know. >> So I'm thinking of a a specific teacher that last year scores were very very low and she was very disappointed. She's like I'm doing everything I know what to do. Um she reached out.
029I can't tell you how many different sitdowns we had and how many questions and texts and let me try this. And I will say she bought into Atlas and um it's a K2 teacher bought into the Tesllets and giving that point in time assessment and moving on. Her scores this year are incredible. >> Um the growth that her students showed this year and she bought in. She So yes, there's training. Um I go to CT teams I don't know how many times. I spend lots and lots of times. Um, I got to meet all my Nelson Wils friends for the last several years and working on IRPS and what does that look like? But yes, there's training and Atlas itself has training online. So, the teachers can go to specific trainings um just within the
030portal on their own. >> Was it used to we had to wait for release items? >> Oh, no. >> And we would practice those released it because you really don't know release items and released rubrics. We really didn't know if we were teaching to the level of expectation. >> We have writing exemplars and writing rubrics that show um what you need to achieve to score a level three or a level two in the different um formats of writing. So, it's it's very much a pinpointed target. >> Great. >> There's not and I do want to say there's not an assessment for every standard. Sometimes our teachers >> but some of them aren't there's not quite enough in some standards math has some places where they they don't always think they have enough in there. So
031there it's but it's gotten there's more and more I guess is what I would say. So it's a great place to start. >> Looks good. Thank you. >> Sorry questions. >> Good question overall. Miss Lawrence. Well, overall >> we're pretty pretty excited. >> We've been very excited about the growth in the sport and just the teachers just they have worked so hard to try to do the right things and and I know we're all about it's all we talk about the scores and and all that and some of the teachers like I don't want my student to just be a number, right? So, we still have that, but within that, what they're doing is they're teaching at a more rigorous level because that this is what it makes you do. And it I mean, it's
032the kids are just they're just learning a lot. And the teachers have been so um just I mean, y'all, they've had grit. This has been really hard. >> Um it has been really uncomfortable for teachers that have taught a long time. I think our newer teachers might have it a little bit easier because they don't really know any different. Um, but everybody has put in the work and everybody's collaborating with their team. We don't have people working in isolation. Um, and then I do want to give a shout out for administrators because they have been in the meetings. If you go to a collaborative team, you will see an administrator in the room unless there has been some kind of emergency. Um, and I mean a big one. It's not like they've just stepped out
033to do something minor. Um, so if you go in the meetings, you see the administrators toas are going. I mean, it has been a a team effort and I think that's one reason we're seeing the scores improve is because it's been such a collaborative effort with with everybody on staff. So, our special ed teachers are in the meetings. Um, we've had counselors in meetings. It's just there's just a lot lot of work happening to try to help the kids. So that's the good part. That's the part that's hard to see on a screen. So I do want to brag on that. >> And Miss Lawrence and Miss Camp, you both have been a huge part of the work. >> And thank you. >> I I never thought that I would love data or as Keith
034calls it, data, but it really is. >> I'm sorry. Keith and I share a wall, so I have a bell on my desk. when I need something, I just ring it. He He comes running. Um, it's great. But >> I've seen it. I have seen it. >> The the foundational piece of, and I know I've said it over and over, but I'm a teacher. I never knew what the target was. >> You know, the target >> and then I'd get the released items and be like, "Oh, I I'm still doing that." And so, it is so much more rewarding to be able to see. And here I can tell you three years ago the overall mantra from teachers test is too hard, this is too hard, this is too hard. >> I don't hear that
035anymore. The rigors increased and the standards have increased and even in in Facebook groups for the state. You look like it is it's an excellent platform. >> Subjective question. How are our teachers doing with the increased rigor, the increased grit, the the all the effort like H how how our teacher has a culture? How how are we feeling at the end of this year? >> They're retired. I'm looking at my back here. Um when they see the hard work they >> they're going to see it. >> And it goes back to being part of a team. I think that has saved when things have been really really hard. I'm going use our third grade teachers as an example. We haven't even touched on third grade promotion tonight and we're not going to. Don't worry. Chris's
036probably about to play music to get me off the stage, but um they have had to redo so many things to meet just the compliance pieces of learns and um that I think when I look at all the groups and all the work that has been done, my heart has really gone out to them. I mean, I taught third grade >> and they even at the very end, they didn't get their scores until the last week of school and they were sending letters home and doing all those things, contacting parents because you have to contact parents and they just never they never gave up and they really truly did not complain. Um, and so they were very happy that we started early and got out early this year. I think that was kind of a
037blessing. They do need they need some time to regroup and rest for sure, but they also their tanks were pretty full when they saw some of the sports coming in. >> Good. >> So, they just redoing your lesson plans. So there's a learning curve to this. Like next year, you know, so we're changing a lot of stuff. It'll it'll >> next year it's going to be more stable. >> It'll flatten out a little bit, right? >> Yes. >> Definitely a lot of the kinks of the actual portal are knocked out. K2 had a lot of unmet expectations the first couple years, but that's pretty much getting there with them as well. I love the individualized piece that Atlas brings >> data wise to to address needs of children >> on every level. It's not just
038>> it is taxing I'm sure on teachers but it it you know your students and back in the day we were doing drs but this is brilliant and I think some someday soon people will start talking about Arkansas and Atlas and what we're doing with students. It's pretty incredible test, but kids do have to be taught and shown how to take the test. So, when people think that we're spending too much time classroom wise, kids, >> we used to practice writing so many lines in a box for the benchmark test. So, it has to happen, especially for the littles. >> So, it's good stuff. Great job, teachers. >> I never doubted them, but it's hard hard work. >> Yeah, it's It was fun to see the wins like they they deserved they deserve some victories
039after working >> as hard as they did this year. But >> we're gonna keep going. Carry on. >> Thank you. >> I think Matt's still up here. >> Financial report. >> Okay. >> We get a break. Where's Chris? Stay up here. Good evening. >> Good evening. Hello. >> We'll start with the statement of changes in fund balance for the month ending April 30th, 2026. We ended the month of April with 16,69,628.86. I really don't have a whole lot to point out tonight. It's been kind of a April was a little boring month, but I will say it's exciting that in fund 6409, we did finalize that radio purchase with the DOJ grant. And so I'll be asking for reimbursement for that $67,000 this month. So, >> any questions? >> Moving on. >> All right, moving
040on. Let's look at the statement of revenues, expenditures, and changes in fund balance for the month of April. We ended the month with total revenues of 3,737,571 and total expenditures of $3,654,43655. >> Any other questions? all my classes. >> I just noticed a word on different notes before. >> Interesting. Moving on to our fund balance tracking for our operating funds. >> You're not going to use them. I'm going to >> We ended the month of April with 9,531, $148. And that was funds one, two, and four combined. That's a little about 221,000 from last year, but we're kind of holding. Not sure what that our June funds are going to look like. We're still hoping for more tax revenue, but we're we're just holding. So the next we have the changes in fund balance for
041our activity funds and we had 660,658.98 in all of our activity funds combined. >> Any questions? >> Okay. >> The following pages are system reports to support these spreadsheets. You also have the pi chart of the budget and then for the month of April and following that you have the April check register. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Enrollment report. >> So we are at five from April. Uh 3,635 students. We did graduate 308. Some of those were early grads. So, they weren't showing up on your enrollment enrollment report. You see, they had 273 for seniors. Some of those kids were already not attending. Just got to walk at graduation. Um, Mr. Roach did have some news. We're at 211 kindergarteners. Um, that is right where we ended basically last year, 220. So, we
042are expecting to have a few more kids this year. hoping to be in that 240 area at least. >> Cool. >> Student transfers. >> Two student transfers. So, we had two in. >> That's when >> I mean, we'll take it. >> Okay. Moving on to our technology report. Mr. Manleski. So, Becca is going to go over a few things first kind of related to the technology committee um part of the updates. >> So, we did have a tech committee meeting um this semester and it was a little too late in the semester to have really excellent attendance. So, we learned some lessons. We're going to back it up a little bit, but um some of the things that we presented to the tech committee for them to take back to their buildings. Um looking at
043our AI usage and our approved AI platforms for teachers. Um yeah, I've said that a lot tonight. Um we um need to expand that a little bit and allow our teachers um maybe to look at some different ones. Claude was not a thing last year and now it is a big thing. So teachers have submitted in different requests. Um so then the tech department will be going through those this summer. We'll have some platforms ready that we can roll out to teachers at the beginning of the year so that they can use and we know that they're safe. Um also I've come to you many times and shown you screen time and student usage and just so you know a little bit of a history of that. That's been a manual process that I've done
044from GoG Guardian. Um it limits it to 15,000 lines on a spreadsheet. So you can it takes a little bit of time. So I tend to gripe some when I'm working and you know everybody can hear and Matt um save the day. Um we first we um got an email from Canvas that said hey we offer screen time monitoring. So Steve and and Matt and I joined the Zoom and it was $10,000 just like everything is on Canvas but they guarantee it and we were like I'll just keep doing it. It's fine. So then Matt comes in, sweeps in, and finds an analytical piece that Clever, which is our single sign on platform. Think of Clever like a bulletin board. It holds all of the signons for all of the 19 different things kids need
045to go to. Um Clever has some analytics. So if you'll open that analytics spreadsheet, this is what you're going to see coming from us from now on. Um, so if you look at click on third grade for just a second. We're able to break it out by grade level and you So at the top of each of these, we've just ranked the percentage of time that a kiddo's spending online. And so you've got a total number of minutes and I think this was a 21 day sample. I can't see that far. um in 21 days there's a total of minutes and then you average all of the students and that's about how much time they're spending per day. So you're I believe that says 62 is that right? So about 62 minutes a day for
046this 21day sample in angle. So, same data, just looks a little bit different. But then what we did at tech committee, if you'll click on that first tab, is I went through Becca Brain and just started writing down what does this platform do? Why are we using this one? And just started making a list to see where can we one save some money. How many different supplemental curriculums are we purchasing? And then two, where can we trim out some of the things that maybe are not the most appropriate for our kiddos? So, we went through and talked about it and it was pretty eye openening for everyone to see the ELA. Um, how many latest greatest teachers watching something on Tik Tok? Oh, I'll try this one. Um, so we have a plan for moving
047forward and just asking our teachers, um, what does curriculum adoption look like? So, we did present a draft document to our tech committee that anytime a teacher wants to purchase or install a free trial of curriculum X, it will go through a procedure that starts with the building principal. Um, and it will get checked. It will go to Matt for security checks. So, hoping we can streamline that down a little more. So, um, and then last thing for tech committee and then I'm going to quit talking. Um Laura Strider and I went to Department of Ed's data summit a few months ago and they brought up something that's been around in Arkansas forever called Arkansas Digital Sandbox. And basically it is a place that you can upload things and it rellinks the thing. So I
048can put a YouTube video in digital sandbox and then it's going to scrub out all the ads, make sure it's safe, provide a transcript, you can build a quiz into it if you want to. And then I shared that link with my students through Canvas or through whatever. It's no longer a YouTube link. So now we have figured out a way that we can block YouTube from our students. But that's a whole broad thing. So think about it. If I'm in Bradford's class and I need to know how to tear apart a computer, where am I going? >> YouTube. >> Gonna go to YouTube. Um, so I want done figure out but I know I know. So, we're going to be able to train our teachers at back to school time on here's how to
049use it. Here's how to set this up. If you want more help, book a time. We'll come meet with you. But now, teachers will have the ability to shut it down completely in their classroom. So, super exciting. I know our kids are going to be so excited. Um, and I' I've been thinking like I turn on my TV in my office a lot and there's a live cam of some eagles that had babies and it's so cool. You've watched them grow into little eaglets. That's YouTube. >> Yeah. like it's logging time. So I know I know but just exciting that things continue to move forward >> and I will quit talking. >> I'm going to go through the rest of this just kind of get some of these points. If there's something you want to
050know more about like what is just ask me and I can explain a little bit further, but I'm not going to go into super detail on each one of these. Um in tech committee we did talk about a potential MacBook refresh. um this winter. So, we were talking about it for this summer originally. We're testing a new MacBook that came out, the MacBook Neo. Um it's about twothirds price of a normal MacBook. Um the stock on getting those is kind of hard right now. A lot of jumping in on that. Um so there's kind of a value increase in the winter for refurbished MacBooks. So the company that we use with Apple that will buy ours back, um there's a little bit of increase during the fall. So, we kind of looking at maybe doing
051a refresh this fall, pending budget meetings and all that kind of stuff. But, uh, so we still have some good value in our MacBooks. We're kind of getting that peak where next year is going to start dropping off pretty fast as they get older. So, if we can jump in the Neos and save, you know, a third off the top plus sell ours back, I mean, we'll be able to get almost two years of a lease out of that, you know, a lot of money. So, um there's been some talk about K1 uh Chromebooks versus iPads, especially with testing. So, we kind of did some price analysis on that. Um a couple years ago, Chromebooks would have been a lot cheaper. Um right now, Chromebooks are almost the same price as an iPad. So, from
052a cost standpoint, doesn't really matter. It's going to be what the teachers want to do. Um, and so we're going to they're going to be tech committee members of those buildings are going to be doing some surveying to their teachers and find out do they really want Chromebooks versus iPads or is there a way to do 50/50 or you know stuff like that. So um tech operations uh -ate work for this coming school year is complete. That's always done a year in advance. Um and uh so we're mainly doing core network switches that were done uh 7 8 n 10 years ago. So we're kind of hitting that cycle for those. Um the project cost for that year is $166,000. Our share after is $33,000. So that's a huge, you know, um benefit of every
053five years that cycle changes over. So our fiveyear cycle we have 750,000 to spend over those five years. So this year's network switches, couple years will be Wi-Fi, you know, just different different things to keep the core network and internet going. So um we're doing a partial camera upgrade at the high school. Um we're replacing 24 cameras and upgrading those to 54 cameras in the three different areas. That'll be the 300 hall Agra area, 700 hall acme, and then the new gym and all of that area. And outside looking kind of football field, concession stand and all that. So, we're not touching anything under the big cop right now. Just see what happens in a couple years. Um, we still have 100 hall, 200 hall, Dunar, and we've got a lot of cameras at high
054school. So, this will be a good um upgrade to kind of boost those areas. Um, and there was some state security money that was left that we're going to use to pay for that. So, it won't cost us anything out of the pocket. So, uh, Eli's Law, um, I don't know if you've all heard of that. That's basically audio recording devices in changing rooms and locker rooms. Um, we were I was kind of just putting it off until it's not due until the 2728 school year. Uh, found out we had some security money. I was like, well, let's see if that will cover it. It will. Um, so we kind of jumped into some quotes and stuff. The reason I was waiting was there was no good affordable device to do what I wanted to
055do with it. Um, all the products they want to sell for this are would cost us $30 to $50,000. It's just so I've kind of been waiting doing research. I found a device that is perfect. We're able to use an existing recorder. Basically will act like a camera but will be an audio feed. um super easy to maintain and do and it's going to cost us about $15,800. So, we'll knock out Eli's Law with that and then we're good. And we'll have some extra mics if we need to add one to a different area, but that's basically high school, Kingston, Junior High, um all the locker rooms, Dunar, changing rooms in Dunar, uh stuff like that. There's about 25 areas where we'll have microphones and then signs stating that it's a stuff. So, super that
056we're able to knock that out for for that cost. So, um Chromebook repairs, um I just want to brag on Martin. He's logged over 1,600 repairs this school year on Chromebooks. Um just the fact that there's one person kind of doing that and he's consistently logging everything he does is giving us some good numbers. Um, and it's interesting seeing the trends of the different buildings and and stuff like that. So, uh, and and I want to say we do all the units that go out of date, we harvest all of those screens and and use them. All the screens are the same in all the Chromebooks. So, it's really nice. And then he's able to actually found a way to pull the keyboards out that normally aren't once you, you know, once you take them
057apart, you can't pull that keyboard out without destroying it, basically. So he's found a way to get that keyboard out and reuse some of those. So we're we're saving between five and 10 a year just on parts and you know and we're not going to get that value back. The Chromebooks aren't worth anything after eight years. So we're better just to pull the parts out and then we scrap them. So >> but any questions? >> What you did for Eli's Law is huge >> and you need to be publicly thanked for that. Well, it's a it's a it's kind of a unconventional yet conventional solution, but I'm going to share kind of how we did that with other schools in Arkansas, other schools trying to figure out >> for it. And it's there's not just
058a really high quality audio recording device out there. We had to go overseas to get it, but >> it'll be good. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Great work. Y Thank you. >> Thank you. Next item is our second read for handbooks. M I do want to say two things. Sorry Chris about before we do handbooks when we were doing our testing in every building. We did have our tech team. There was someone in every building to help with technology issues along with Miss Camp um which helped our all of our testing sessions run smoothly. So I do want to say that and thank them for that. And I also want to say K2 scores are going to be presented in June. Um I didn't want you to think we were not going
059to acknowledge some of the incredible scores we saw. K2 um kindergarten is um something to see. So one and two also but just really some exciting work on the foundational part. So we'll be sharing that with you next month. Um this is pretty simple. Our handbooks we have done some edits. This is our second what we're calling our second read. um any of the edits you'll be able to see through highlighting, strikethroughs, comments. There's it's pretty easy to see what's been tweaked on there from the last time that you received the handbooks. Um so it's just the original link if you need anything re-shared. Kelly and I can reshare anything that you need. Um but there the edits are are on there. Um there are some additions with that 565 in there you might want
060to take a look at. Um we did some graduation things. So, if you have any questions or concerns, um, reach out. We can get those back to the handbook committees and make the adjustments because you are voting on that in June. They approve you'll approve them in June. So, any questions? >> I do expect a few more a little bit. There's some more work to be done on high school with a few things I talked to Miss Russell. So, please be looking and I can let board members when that's done, I can let you know. >> So, you'll know to to bring that back up and take a look at it. Is that >> y >> acceptable? Okay. >> I think everything else is >> and trying to update staff. You'll see. >> Oh, of
061course. Yes, that'll happen. >> There's a lot of red at the just all that's going on. So, but our our committees have met since they um shared that first read. So, just wanted you to know that. of the honor graduate. I noticed there was a change in the high school. Is that changing? >> It hasn't changed. We haven't changed. I don't think anything's been changed yet, has it? >> It's in discussion. >> Are they like the AP classes? Were we inching that up? >> It It did. That that started with the graduating class of 27 >> and it was >> It started when they were freshman. >> Okay. >> Four. They have to have four. >> So, they have to have four now. Yes, ma'am. >> I'm just noticing. >> So that class, so I
062think you probably saw that 26 was marked out. >> Yes. >> So that's because they're leaving. >> But yes, they were under the old honor. This group that graduated >> and now the new Okay. >> That's a good question. and a change in early grad that was in there as well. The GPA expectations for early >> early grad. >> Anything else? >> If you can't find something or have questions, reach out. Any of us are happy to answer or get you the information that you need. >> Thank you. >> Board action items. Request to purchase bulk school supplies. Miss Carter. We began purchasing supplemental school supplies in the 201819 school year and that has been just a very helpful thing for our families. And so tonight I'm bringing to you a recommendation. We posted for
063sealed bids around the April week of April 27th and they were opened on May 15th at 10:00 a.m. And if you want to take a look at the bid summary sheet, we received three bids. And the recommendation tonight is that I'm asking you to accept bidder number two in the amount of $130,695.74. That includes tax, shipping, and handling for the purchase of bulk supplemental supplies for the 202627 school year. And those supplies would be delivered directly to the campuses as requested in the bid. >> Heard the recommendation. Do we have a motion? >> Make a motion to accept bidder number two as recommended. Okay. >> Second. Motion and second. Is there any discussion? Have we ever used this bidder before? >> We have not. I requested from the company three references and I was able
064to make contact with one and the second one we kept missing each other's phone calls and I never did get to actually speak to that person and I never heard from the third. the uh one that I was able to talk to did give them glowing recommendations said that they had used this company for multiple years and would continue using them. >> What did we spend last year? I think this >> last year's request was forund 21,000 I believe and I don't I don't know that we ended up spending that much but I think I believe we did I'd have to go back >> year before was quite a bit less. I will say we give the committees and the principles have the opportunity every year because we want to be good stewards of the
065supplies and the money and they do check inventory to make sure they're not over orderering and so last year I would say we probably didn't order as much. This year I would say they were out of some things so they're restocking and you guys could answer to that. Um, so that is part of the price increase because and some maybe even ask for some different materials and supplies that they had not asked for in the past. >> Can you just really quickly for for our parents out there watching or whatever, what does this cover? And because this is something that we just voluntarily do that we don't have to do. We're doing this to help lower those those school costs for our families out there. So, what is this covering for us for these grades?
066>> Well, each building asks for something that's specific for them. It could be binders, pencil pouches, glue, scissors, crayons, colored pencils, >> regular pencils. >> Yes, regular pencils. Um, uh, index cards if they're speech writing or things like that or using for study guide, study aids. Um, sometimes if we have some funds left over, the schools may Hey, we realized we really would like to try this. Do do we have any extra funds that maybe we didn't completely use up and so we may go back and and order something that they want to use that happen to not be on the list. They also have Expo markers that they use for their dry erase things. Crayola markers. Do they ask for Kleenex? >> That's me, >> Mr. Not supplies. >> Don't you forget it. >>
067And the whole goal behind this is, >> you know, this is a tough time. Some people are struggling to just feed their families and it's very stressful if they have multiple children and they're trying to spend $100 for each one that they don't they don't have. And so this is one of the services I feel like we provide our families and I'm most proud of. >> Thank you. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. Thanks, Miss Carter. Begin approved to request to approve 2627 asurances. >> The Arkansas Department or the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, I'm used to calling Arkansas Department of Education. Obviously, it requires us to bring the list of federal program as assurances to the board for approval. And this is to ensure our superintendent signs off on this as
068well as the school board president to ensure that we are going to follow all the guidelines necessary to receive our federal funds through ES and IDA. And so the recommendation tonight is that the Mountain Fountain Home Public School Board approved the federal programs asurances for the covered programs under ESSA and IDA for the 26 27th school year so that we can receive funding. >> Further recommendation. Do we have a motion? >> I make a motion we approve the 2627ures as presented. I'll second >> motion and second. Any discussion? >> Do these change much year to year? I mean, there's >> it's pretty good little read and I've read through them pretty read them pretty closely in the past, but >> so I looked I pulled up the 2526 >> and they had they're almost I
069mean I think they're identical. Okay. >> We changed the dates >> um ourselves. >> Okay. Actually, they g they give them to me with the new date. >> Oh, but I thought you put that date. Well, you put the Oh, you put the I'm sorry. You put the board member the board date, but those are the dates we put in. But >> when I looked >> Sunday night, >> I was pulling up the 2526 and they were identical. >> And I did go through and put NA beside the ones that we do not receive. So, you would know which ones Okay. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Unanimous. >> I guess I guess you're done for the evening, Miss Carter. Mr. tonight. >> So, uh the district is in need of a multi-purpose 34
0703/4 ton pickup truck uh to be used by athletics, band, and then in its off season um to have a home over at maintenance. Um we've been looking for one. We can't find the one that we want. Um when they're a used vehicle, we are not required to do bidding or quotes. we can just go purchase that. And our thought is to word this a little bit differently so that if you give us approval, um if we found one tomorrow, we could go purchase it for that price or less. Whereas otherwise, if we found one tomorrow, we would have to wait an entire month and it may be sold by then. So, um, I'm asking you, uh, to approve the purchase of a used 3/4ton pickup with less than 100,000 in miles in the amount
071of no more than $40,000. >> That's right. >> We'll do our best. >> I'll make a motion to approve this recommendation as presented. >> Second. >> Motion and second. Any discussion? So it says in here it is going to be your to drive around from campus to campus instead of your personal vehicles. Is that >> it will be that too? Yeah. Um it'll also be you know maintenance needs a truck. >> Like I know here in in a few weeks we're going to be short one. >> Sure. >> I'm not going to take it. So >> I've seen some wellused maintenance vehicles around. Right. >> Rough vehicles. Um, we haven't bought any. I can't recall buying any maintenance pickup trucks. >> We have purchased two, but they're under 20. >> Okay. >> So, we've been
072doing our best to budget for one. I'm going to try to budget hopefully for one more, but we've been fortunate enough of that. We've been getting them >> a little higher higher mileage. I think the last one was like 18,000. So, we have that to come here. >> And I'm assuming this will be a gas basel. >> Diesel is about $10,000 more expensive. So, okay. And then the last question was where the band and athletic how do those typically get transported right now? Is it boosters that are pulling like the band trailer or the athletics trailer or is it is it department vehicles >> to go to these guys? >> Athletics you you're able are you able to work it out some? >> FFA truck. >> Okay. >> Um a lot of times especially in
073the fall they're going to a lot of their So when we go that we car dealership and ask if they have >> gotcha borrow steal >> band it is a boo it is a parent well a booster that has been driving their trailer has been pulling that trailer >> I think there's definitely a need for it. >> Yeah. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Chris. >> Request to approve 2627 canvas. >> Sorry, I'm back. >> Hey, the work truck that this old maintenance truck that we have at Tech is be beautiful. >> Does it have floorboards? >> It's so bad. It doesn't have any license plates on it that's screwed in or >> you don't have to push it and pop the clutch. >> No, it works.
074All right. >> All right. Um action item for canvas renewal. We've been to Canvas now for six years. Um I think it's still a pretty good fit for Kingston up. Um I don't think we could cut it for Pinkston. Um, so we've kind of kept all the licensing, I mean, as far as the schools that are using it the same. Uh, we did negotiate down price a little bit. Um, the increase was about 6%. It was, uh, 31,605 on the initial quote. We kind of got that down a little bit about 2.8% 2.3% increase. Um, so we saved a little bit, but we didn't really change anything this year to affect that pricing. you know, every year for the past six years, we've kind of cut something out of it to keep it about the
075same price as what we started paying for it, you know, six years ago. So, um, so I recommend that, uh, the board approve the renewal quote for $30,420 with instructure for canvas for the next school year. >> Heard the recommendation. Do we have a motion? I make a motion we approve the 2627 canvas renewal as presented. >> Second >> motion and second. Any discussion? >> So is this a threeyear? So we're locking ourselves in for for three years to get this pricing. Is that correct? >> No, that's uh that's the next Let's go Guardian. >> Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. I'm thinking ahead. Okay. Jumping the gun. Jumping the gun. Okay. >> Yeah. They're not doing any multi-year pricing on instruction still. So >> is there something good better >> with less money? >> No.
076I mean yes and no. I mean all the products that you pay for are about the same price. So there's other options. There's schooly is one of them and structure and then there's a few other ones. Um they all cost about the same. Um, the option for down the road could be go back to Google Classroom, which is what we used to use, which is technically a free product. There could be a little bit of cost associated with that because they've changed their the free edu product over the last six years, but it would be a fraction of what this is. Um, and I think if if that's the way that we need to go because of money or we want to go, then we need to talk about that and give the teachers a
077year to plan for that. Um, you know, I would I would hate to cut it now for next year, but if it's something we need to talk about and when we go into budget meetings, we might talk about that. It could could be to where I'm not here next year with me asking for this. >> There's many schools that use that. There are a lot of schools that use it. ASU uses it. So, I mean, that is a this is kind of a nice benefit is a lot of our kids that are either taking ASU courses, you know, it's it's all familiar. It's the same looking system, the way it operates. So, it is nice and a lot of colleges use it. It was originally a college uh learning management system and then they jumped
078into kind of K12 um mainly around COVID because there was a need for something like that. So, What does it do specifically that would separate itself from something like a Google classroom? >> Um, one of the big factors we use is the grade book within it. Like the parents have a cleaner spot to go look at all their students grades and what work is due and stuff like that where Google Classroom doesn't really have that. So when we went to Canvas, we kind of pushed all the parents to go to the Canvas grade book and then they can communicate with the teacher and stuff also with within that. um rather than going kind of to the old email. Yeah. >> You know, to to the home access center to pull the grades and stuff. So,
079there's that benefit. Um >> it's it just kind of flows better than Google Classroom does. Google Classroom. It just has a simple front end, but everything is still folder based underneath it, you know, where everything is housed in Canvas. So, it is a little bit of a cleaner, >> easier access to information as well. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. As a teacher, I would say I prefer Canvas to Google Classroom. >> Yeah. And it and most of the teachers now like they can take their course from this year, they can roll it to next year and they go and make a couple changes that they need to do and they're, you know, if the curriculum hasn't changed or if they're using a curriculum that plugs into Canvas like Savas that plugs right into Canvas. So
080they can pull their textbook and everything right from Canvas. >> Understood. So Google Classroom, they would basically there are some plugins for it, but they basically go out to Savas, log in, read their textbook there, and then go back to Google Classroom >> to plug the information in that. Yeah, I'm with you. Okay. >> And that's how Canvas gets you once you've got everything in there. It's just so easy to keep going. We've had this robust conversation in the past a couple years ago, >> and it'd be very difficult to switch back away from campus and have everyone redo their lesson plans, upload them into Google C classroom. My concern is we keep getting less for the same amount of money, right? So, the prices are going up and that's going to continue to happen.
081>> That's been my argument for years with instructors. >> They've got you right and they know it. >> I'm like, you are pricing yourselves out of K12 education. >> And I don't know if that's their goal or not. I can't imagine it would be at this point, but every year, you know, usually, I mean, it's been up to a 15% increase that we've >> dropped some stuff down. If it continues to go higher, it'll bootstrap you to a situation we have to go back to. >> Right. >> It's going to be one of those things where like we have another option over here that doesn't cost anything. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> You know, >> and when there is that other option, you know, you you balance it out to we're optimizing staff. Where can we
082where we use our staff or save a little bit of money here and there and then we're you turn around and you spend $30,000. Well, there's a free option, >> but it'd be difficult for our teachers to make that switch. It's a one time rip the band-aid off. >> And so, yeah, we need to be smart about when we when we do it. And maybe this year was not the year to do it, right? When we're looking at Atlas so much, but it's something to keep watching because >> also have to factor in that the human resources needed to make trigo classrooms work. I mean, it it's free, but it's also going to require probably another tech person to make sure everything is running in it correctly. >> Yeah, the training and stuff would be
083a little bit more on it. >> That's a good point. Do you remember the original cost when we first did this? >> I don't have all those here. I think it was like I think it was right around 30, but we had 12. We had two second grade and up and then we cut Nelson Welks one year and then we cut Hackler. We cut the studio product that was 10,000. >> Um because we were up to I think like 46 47,000 for >> you know two three years ago. Okay. And then we've kind of I think this is kind of >> Yeah. But Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. >> And then and the hacking that was fun. College campuses and high school instructure was hacked. >> Yeah. And and we're we're monitoring that situation to ensure
084that it turns out the way it should prior to July. So so far everything's going like it should with the data breach that you know company would have. So, >> Mr. Mendleski, is this something that the tech committee could look at a little further? Maybe just to I mean after Yeah. You know, for the next school year >> and and that's kind of like if it's something that we want to look at again, then this is kind of the first year we didn't survey all the teachers and we didn't do all the stuff that we've kind of done the last couple years. And uh but if it if it's something that I mean, we could definitely put it out there and get some feedback on it. I mean, now, especially since we have a smaller
085pool, we're just Kingston Junior High School. You know, we might get some different feedback than we got from the other grades back in the day. So, >> what does K5 use right now? I mean, they used to use Canvas. What are they using since we've taken Canvas? Nothing. There's no LMS that they're using. Okay. >> I guess that question they didn't switch to Google Classroom. We don't have any using it. Would it make sense to use maybe some of those younger grades as a Google classroom >> um >> test test >> risk that we take with that is increasing screen time. >> Okay. >> So yeah that's something that they would rather. >> Okay. >> Yeah. That kind of happened at the same time with like let's do more >> physical things have teacher showing
086them things and >> standards based report cards which we we weren't to per say on Canvas and so when we did that we took Canvas away and then we devices less so yeah that's just one which we've seen a lot of improvement >> um so that's just something to consider >> great thank you >> budget where is is this coming from the tech department budget or is this coming from >> title one title Yeah. >> Any other questions? Okay. Hearing none. All those in favor? Unanimous. >> Let's do it. >> All right. So, the next one is the GoG Guardian renewal. Um kind of same thing. We've been using GoG Guardian since 2018. Um it's uh teachers use it, we use it, the counselors use it. um you know it has it has the classroom
087management for the teachers the the threat assessment the threat findings that you know it's always looking at the students history and real life time what's going on. Um and uh so this this is a one where we also try to negotiate almost all of these renewals because they they go up so much every year and there's usually some room in there to negotiate. So, one thing that they're doing is a three-year pricing. So, um the initial quote this year is 12% increase. We can lock in at 6% increase and that'll hold, you know, that same number for the next three years. So, who knows what will happen after that? Um I've had the same conversations with them. You know, I'm like, you have the best tool out there, but you're pricing yourself out of public
088schools. Um, and but I've also talked to a lot of other people that have switched to another product like, well, we're going to save $10,000 and go to another product. They're back to your guardian the next year because it just was a nightmare. So, I think they do have the best product available, you know, and it's used for so many things. So, it's not just like a one use software um that I think it's it's definitely worth sticking with it. So the renewal for this year that I recommend you all approve would be for $33,945 be year one of three. It would be the same for the next two years and then um that's should come out of title one also where it's been paid for before. >> Heard the recommendation. Do we have a
089motion? >> Go ahead. >> I'd like to make a motion that we approve GoG Guardians three-year commitment as written. I'll second that >> motion. Second. Any discussion? >> Yes. It's it it also will like if they have any type of online activity, it actually alerts correct like an administrator if there's something being typed in inappropriately. Right. >> There's two different sections. There's a smart alerts. So that's going to be like explicit content, explicit language that will go to the principles of the building, those alerts, and they can review them. they can see the screenshots of what the kid was on. Um, >> even email to email, right? Like if it correct. >> Yeah. Um, I mean it will it it looks at some of the words, but it's more or less looking for content like
090images. Um, now if they're typing something in Google Docs or an email, it will pick that up a lot of times. So, a lot of times they'll just get a snippet of an email where they're talking about something. Yeah. Okay. Um, and that's that's also working for the keyword blocks and stuff like that of certain websites. The other part of it is GoG Guardian Beacon, and that's going to be your threat alerts. Um, anything to do with threatening somebody or a threat around the school, a school shooting, if they're talking about guns, if they're talking about bombs or anything like that, that is going to go um straight to the counselors. >> Um, and if you, you know, like Mr. something gets those and stuff like that. >> Um, and there's not a lot of
091those and I mean 99% of them are false positives, but I mean it's a hard hard thing to pick up but um so those get reviewed and I mean there's a lot of them that it's just >> ends up being nothing, >> right? But it's just enough that that kid that student can be talked to and you know a lot of other stuff comes out and the student can get you know the help that they need for whatever if it wasn't full-blown threat. So, >> and then you kind of answered my second question which which you spoke on that really in your opinion this is the best program for the money because I think obviously from a safety standpoint it's very needed but but you you believe that we're in the best situation with what
092we have. >> Yeah. Um I think in our product billboard that has all of the products that we use, most of them are pretty topnotch. I mean and this one is is definitely at the top. So yeah, >> any other discussion? >> Y'all have heard me talk about lentures and do we need something or not? Go regarding something. I said this last year, it's it's we have to have it, right? There's no option to it. It's the best. And and this one we have to. If I had any heartburn this year, it'd be doing the three-year commitment pricing. Um there shouldn't be any issues with title one funds over the next couple years, but what happens if you know >> and this and this isn't like sign a blood contract. This is just a commitment
093that we're saying we're going to renew this for three years. >> Yeah. >> You know, something happened or or whatever. I mean, we're not tied to a contract to >> So, you're going to save 2,000 a year by committing to three years. And that's good. But if we change our minds or something happens to title one funds or whatever, >> right? >> Um I guess they go back and collect the difference. >> I'm not sure this is what we would cut though. >> Exactly. I think if this turn into an operating purchase, it would turn into an operating. >> Well, like I said, I agree this is 100% needed and I have no heartburn regarding like it should be. >> Yeah, it's a no-brainer. >> Any other questions? Hearing none. All those in favor? >>
094Thank you, sir. >> Okay, last one. Save the best for last. >> Uh, Chromebook purchase for next year. Um, this has been a really difficult topic this year because of the AI and the memory crisis and the processor crisis and all of this stuff. It's an excuse for companies to just just race the prices away on it. I mean, >> you can see on the detailed bid sheet, I mean, we're at $44,000 over last year for 650 Chromebooks. Um, and we're actually included in this is a deferred payment option that we're going to do because if these Chromebooks go up more than $17 a unit by July 1st, we're over that. We're over that payment that we'll pay included in this project to keep that price where it's at. No one is guaranteeing pricing more
095than a couple weeks right now. So, it's just and they're expected to go I mean Chromebooks have some of them have gone up to $400 or $500 and you're like doesn't make any sense you can go buy a MacBook for $4.99, you know? So, but you have to look at serviceability and everything with that. So, um so they're they're a lot higher. um $232,000$185 or $232 $185.94 which does include green packaging and the deferred payment program um is is what I'm asking for y'all to approve Chromebooks for next year. >> Heard the recommendation. We have a motion. Make a motion to approve the recommendation as presented. >> Okay. Second. >> I'll second. >> Okay. Any discussion? >> Where's the money coming from? >> Should be coming from title one. >> Should be. >> Thanks, Uncle
096Sam. >> We actually think Miss Carter, you want to speak to We've been told that we should have no delays this year in our funds. Correct. >> Um Mr. Knight did a fantastic job filling in for some when we were doing our free and reduced lunch forms and he has the highest percentage we've had in I don't ever >> ever. um that should we do have a decreased number of students, >> but we're hoping that that at least equals out or improves what we've received in the past or at least for this year. >> And and just to mention, I think we'll be able to start looking at our numbers a little bit next year and reflect that in student counts with the amount that we order. We should be able to go back to
097600 next year. probably the same price that we're paying this year for 650. But um we are doing Nelson Wilks refreshes here. Um and that's a carted, you know, it takes more to put them in carts than it does one per student. So because you put the max number the state allows in a classroom and I think we're still cutting that by one for every classroom. So, um, you know, we did that with Kingston last year. We really kind of pinched hard to make it work with still buying 650, not having to buy 900 that actually went into King Pink, you know. Um, and and we're on the tail end of some models. I mean, we're still using the Dells from 2018. They're still licensable, so we're still using them, but we're losing about five
098a week. >> Eight years. >> Eight year. That's antique. >> Yeah. So they increased the licensing during CO to 10 years. Used to be five years for a Chromebook. 10 years on a Chromebook. I mean, >> you know, you've got about 30% of your student class that's going to take care of them good enough to to make it last that long. >> The rest are not. >> Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Hearing none. All those in favor? It's unanimous. >> Okay. >> Thanks, Steve. >> Thank you. Go spend some money. >> Okay. Good luck. >> Don't like it. >> Miss Lawrence request to approve curriculum purchase. >> Okay. I'm here tonight to talk to you about curriculum adoption. Um board policy 3.42. 42 states that the group home committee is to review and make recommendations
099with respect to the textbooks and other instructional materials. Um the rationale is the selection of highquality instructional materials is essential in providing instruction and phonics for all students. After months of research and committee meetings in the 2025 2026 school year, it was decided that the Amplify CKLA grades K2 skills program will provide for the need of HQIM in our literacy classrooms. These resources will also create alignment among grade levels and subject area classrooms. The cost of these materials will be will be split accordingly between operational and federal funds. The recommendation is that the Mountain Public School Board of Education approves the adoption of the Amplify CKLA Skills K2 for a total of $114,696.80. $104,476.80 will come from operational funds and $10,220 will come from federal funds. And that is because the the second part that
100$10,000 piece is for the boost program. Um so there's two parts to the adoption. Um the the boost will be more of a supplemental and we did get to see that as part of the hit grant this year. We we got to participate in boost um that that came with our hit grant. So we got to see that live. >> Okay. No questions. >> Heard the recommendation. We have a motion. >> I'd like to make a motion that we accept the CKLA purchase for K through2 and the boost program >> as presented. >> I'll second motion and second. Any discussion? >> Is this primarily for the materials or is it do they license out like for us to be able to use this? Do you pay them a lensure fee? And is this a year-over-year
101or is this a onetime purchase? >> Okay, so that's a really good question. Um, this is a little bit complicated and I don't want to go too long into it, but um, we have been using connections for several years as this part of our literacy program, for lack of a better, it's the phonics part. Um, that is not on the state approved list um, for HQIM. And I attended a training with Sandy Shepard. Um, we were strongly encouraged to have something new on our adoption list for this upcoming 2627 school year. Um, and Miss Carter and I are working on that for the ARF right now. The complicated part is our benchmark workshop, which is what is like the comprehension skills piece of literacy is still on the approved list and we have one more
102year of that adoption that we've already paid for. So, fiscally, it makes more sense to finish our adoption with benchmark. it's already paid for and that's K5, but we have to replace the phonics piece for K2. And so our committee, we actually had a K5 committee since Hapler inherits our our readers. Um we investigated three programs that are on the state approval list for HQIM and we spent um several sessions just looking at materials. They took the materials back to their buildings. Teams were able to um they had demo like demo accounts. they could get in and see what their platforms would be as teachers. Um, and the vote was not unanimous. Kindergarten lacked a program called UFly, but the other grades did vote for COA. Um, this is under the umbrella of Dibbles. If
103you're familiar with Dibbles, this is the company that does Dibbles. And the the committee's hope is that a year from now, we would be adopting the K5 program. and it would be what we call bottom of the rope and top of the rope and it would be one program for K5. So, we're just kind of inching that way with doing the phonics adoption first. So, this is broken into three grade levels and you can see there's the teacher classroom kit. Um there's a digital license and then there's consumables. So, with this approval, we have two days of training plan for teachers to learn how to use the materials. Um, >> so is this a >> one time cost for how long? >> This is for one year. This cost is for one year. So what
104we can do a year from now is get a different pricing if we're bundling a bigger piece and for longer. Like we want to do three-year adoption, we can get a price break. I had them run that, but we because of our peace mealing this year, we we decided what one year adoption would be the best. Our committee decided that would be the best way to go. And generally >> will come back with the bigger. Go ahead. >> No. No. Generally, you're replacing year to year. It's the consumable piece. >> Yes. >> And so, >> not the teacher kit. You wouldn't need a whole new teacher kit >> or training. >> And the teachers, what they did like about this um especially grades one and two is it does come with a lot of a
105lot more print and a lot more ways to do some encoding practice. And that is what we have felt like connections has been lacking. We just haven't had enough application to an application to writing through that phonics program and we still will use that for intervention because it is excellent for reading intervention just not always for tier one. >> I got to attend some of the committee meetings and the presentation by the company and I was really really impressed. >> Um I've also in educational circles uh CKLA is talked about as a program that we we want, but we don't really have a choice. We have to have an HQIM. >> We do that. Um, you do lose funding if you don't support an HQ program and and literacy and we don't want to do
106that. So, >> any other discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Thanks, Miss Lawrence. for discussion. >> I mean, we've already kind of hit on it, but I think our teacher, our cadre of teachers, you know, they deserve a real big thank you and acknowledgement for what they did this year. We started off the year talking about, hey, all the interventions and all the stuff that we're doing differently and we we sat back and excited for the year. Let's see what happens. And I we're seeing what's happened. And so, um, we can't just, I mean, thank you. Please, please tell your staffs at your buildings that it's noticed. It's appreciated. Um, and it's impressive. So, so thank you to the teachers. >> Thank you. >> I guess that's it. You're up. >> That's it. >>
107Okay. >> We didn't want to steal anything off your list. >> No, it's a short list tonight. So, first of all, last Friday we celebrated with not just students, but families and teachers and you all because we had 308 walk across that stage. And Miss Russell, excellent job to all your folks. That was a And I mean, guys, we we talked about there were nine governor's distinguished scholars this year. That's a lot for us. Eight of them had been our students since kindergarten. that says something about the work that our people are doing and our administrators are leading and our families are buying into. So just very thankful for, you know, that's the pinnacle was seeing those kids. Summer maintenance work it's underway. Thank you, Chris and his team. Lots of planning and work and
108of course just diligently getting after things. So thank you. I do want y'all to note that our August board meeting will be August the 6th. So, you may not have that down yet. Um, I was looking at the calendar and Miss Partney and I have a standing date and I need to we're gonna have to back that up two weeks. >> So, I almost did that already and thought I better make sure everybody knows ahead of time at August the 6th for policy. We must have that meeting before the first day of school. So you Kelly sent out >> today red and >> she did >> after I said Kelly Kelly we have a meeting August 6th and she said I'm doing it got it. So thank you Miss Kelly for keeping us organized. >>
109Um September 8th I have scheduled APSRC to be here for a general board training. I'll send out details soon, but um very general roles, responsibilities, some general finance training just kind of make sure APSRC is doing a lot of training right now across the state with school boards and I think several of you all have attended some of their lunch and learns and had had looked at some of the things they're offering. So, I actually took what one of you had sent me about a two-day session they were offering and they're going to condense that for a couple hours for you all that night and and us to to work together as a board. Summer is in full swing. Happy Memorial Day to everyone. >> Safe and enjoy. Okay, guess >> we'll go ahead and
110go into executive session for personnel.