001[Music] Dr. Met is not with us tonight. Dr. Hill I here. Mr. Hobs I here. Mrs. Lberg here. started to Miss and Mr. Smith is not here this evening. Um, okay. I guess first on the agenda, well, first of all, I should say both Dr. Breener Pettit and Mr. Smith are not here tonight, so I am chairing the um in their staff. Um, board member comments. I will thank um Sabi Surfer which gave us a discount on coffee for people. So that was super nice and for the rest and we're done. We made it through all the buildings. Thank you to Jen and made over a couple hundred muffins and just awesome such a good experience. So, we're done. But I wanted to throw out the barista man. We call it home drinks. We show
002up and she'd have a long should anyway. Thanks again to you for making that happen and principles for letting us in. It was really fun to talk to the teachers in their natural habitat. Any other comments? I I have one. I I I think the board has received or we've been copied on some uh correspondence with the uh Aspen concert series and sort of the conflict we've been having and scheduling there. Um, in terms of the school opening and wanting to use the facility at the same time, I would just ask David to meet with those folks to maybe discuss potential resolution. Um, no, we're we're just following the agenda. Um, so if there's no other comments, we'll move on to written messages from the board. Like like I just mentioned, we did receive uh
003written messages from the Aspen concert series. We also received a thank you card from the Salida Early Childhood Center that's circulating around right now. Um so we'll just enter those messages into the record and we'll move on to public comments now. Um first I have Aggie. I believe it's is it Elvarez or Elves? Elves. Okay. as far as yours. Um, if you can, yeah, get you one of those and you can just stay seated or stand or however you're comfortable. Thank you. Good evening, members of the board of education and superintendent Blackburn. My name is Agie Alves and I'm a Salida resident and on the leadership team of Ark Valley Indivisible, one of the organizers of Saturday's pro-democracy rally. Nearly a thousand people came out in support of institutions like public schools and groups like
004the LGBTQ and immigrant communities that are under attack. My remarks tonight are focused on the immigrant community. As you know, the designation of schools as safe places that kept ICE out of the schoolhouse was rescended. This reversal along with the threats of mass deportations has created a climate of fear and anxiety in families which impacts learning for our most vulnerable children. In response, school districts across the US and here in Colorado took proactive steps to ensure their student safety and provides guidance and support to immigrant families. While federal protections are unstable, local school boards have the power to act. And that's what I'm requesting of you. I have three asks. First, revise your policies and regulations to reflect the current reality about the role of immigration officials. For example, policy JIH relating to student interviews,
005searches, and seizures and regulation JR JRC relating to student records and information make no reference to requests from immigration officials unlike Denver public schools for one and I believe this is an omission that should be corrected. Also in policy JJRC, the place of birth is included as part of directory information which as you know can be disclosed. In other districts, place of birth is not a part of directory information and I would request this be changed in your policy. Two, adopt a safe schools resolution. It's important for families to know that you will not collect immigration information, that you will set clear protocols for handling ICE requests, that you will provide training to all staff, not just front office staff, on these protocols, and that you will proactively communicate this information to families. I ask
006that you join other districts in adopting a safe schools resolution with these commitments and send a clear message that you value safety, inclusion, and the right of every child to an education. And finally, three, establish an advisory committee. There are a host of other actions that the district can take during these uncertain times, and it does take a village. There may be other policies that should be revised. The website could be updated so that like other districts, it includes resources, information on how the district handles ICE requests, as well as an FAQ section so parents have clear and accurate information. An advisory committee can provide you with assistance and feedback on these and other strategies to ensure that the needs of Salida's immigrant families are indeed being met. Thank you. And thank you all for
007the work that you do on behalf of families. And a special thank you to Kim and Jodie Breenri Pedic who were so responsive when I first set sent my first um set of inquiries. It was refreshing to be to have someone respond so quickly. So, thank you. Thank you. Um, just hold that and I'll have you pass that maybe to Cheryl Wright. Okay, I'm going to talk fast. I'm Cheryl White with Salada Aspen Concerts. For 48 years, Salida Aspen has brought worldclass performances here. Aspen sends us at six concerts a year, paying most of the cost for getting these performers. It would not be financially possible for us to do this without Aspen. This year we're offered a concert August the 9th by the gold medal winner of the Clyurn International Piano Competition that was
008begun in 1962. This competition is held every four years from a pool of 340 applicants representing 45 countries. Six will be compete in the finals uh that will end in June. when we were offered the gold medalist. The only other time in 2022, people flew in from Washington DC, from California. They came by van loads from states around us and the front range. We're the smallest venue that this individual will perform in probably for the rest of his or her life. A will host the winner's first concert on August the 8th and have offered us the second concert. When we started working with facilities manager at that manager at the high school in January, the earliest she would accept booking requests, she said the auditorium was not available for the last two concerts, August 9
009and August 16th. We requested a meeting with the school to see if something could be worked out. After many emails and two meetings, we were told that we could have the 16th, but not the 9th. We have attempted to find another venue, but an appropriate one is not available. When we were told the 9th was out, the reason given was that five months from now, the custodians know that they will not be able to clean the building between the time we are there on Saturday and school starts on Monday. Although they offered us the auditorium on the 16th, seemingly a more difficult cleaning task since school would have been in session the week before and the week after. After we offered to clean the area ourselves, we were told that was against policy. When we
010offered to pay overtime or bonuses to the school staff, we were still refused. We were told that if we give the school our concert dates earlier next year, we might avoid this problem. We gave the dates to the school the first month we were allowed to January. We've told that the school is used by over 300 community organizations in a year. I would guess that the vast majority of these are RA related to athletics. We host six summer concerts. When the school wanted a new high school in 2010, a plan was made to go to the community to see what they would support. After many meetings and much work by many people, the issue was passed. After many commitments were made, including that the school was a community facility and would continue to be used
011by the community as before. There are at least 38 articles in the mountain mail that attesting to this, including having a community watchdog to ensure that what was promised to the public will happen. We have a long history of using the auditorium for concerts going back to 1977. In fact, nearly 90% of our concerts have been held at the high school. Up until postcoid, we had few problems booking the auditorium, even on Saturdays before school began on Monday. We leave the building clean and are good stewards of the facilities. I can talk about the piano if you'd like. There is an incredible opportunity for our students and local music lovers and an opportunity to showcase Salida. What we want is some special understanding from the school due to this extraordinary opportunity for our community. Thank
012you. Thank you. Um Jen Lang. [Music] Hi. Um I'm Jen Lang, Dean of Students at Longfellow. Um my theme is transitions. Um school is um all about transitions, transitioning to next grades. Um, so tonight I'd like to just highlight a few. I'll start with um, high school. Um, I went to the school accountability meeting last week and was excited to see some new I will have a senior next year. Um, excited to see some new course offerings and the schedule. Just kudos to all that hard work. Um, and in our building alone, we have six um, staff members who will have graduating seniors this year. Um, seems like a big bubble. Um and kudos to Mr. Shuffle, our principal, um for thinking ahead to the senior breakfast and um just reaching out to teens and
013saying, "Hey, we've got all these moms. They happen to all be moms um in our building." Um and just supporting each other being able to go to that. So that's um fun. Um all right, I'm going to hop all the way down from seniors to kindergarten. Um we created this year a one-pager um on how to register your student. This is something new. Um, we're hoping that this, um, allows students to register early so we can get class placements. We added a QR code. So, how to register your students. Um, really trying to encourage parents to use infinite campus. Um, if we can start them early, hopefully they're hooked in. And then important dates. Um, we have highlighted here. Um, which is my next one. Um, so we highlight those. We are going to do
014our second annual hop into kindergarten. Um, it is an open house for families. Um, so students and children on what to expect. So they get to come and see the school, meet the teachers. Um, we got great feedback last year. We do a cute little scavenger hunt to get them to move all and they end up with um LPA, our parent association outside um connecting them, hoping to get them hooked in um to that and then we have hooked onto there. We did last year we um gathered question frequently asked questions from parents and then some really cute ones from children. Um so we might update those again. So that was really cute. And then the biggest one is our next one. Um we are going to we are the mountain lion. So we are
015calling this little lions tiptoe to kindergarten. So going back to that theme of transitions that transition from early childhood center or discovery ranch or sunshine in where they might have been there since they were two, right? Like so these big relationships. This is a big jump to kindergarten. So, what we're offering this year is a modified first week of school. So, what we're doing is we're doing a morning session and an afternoon session and that will be that first week of school October 11th to the 14th. Um, we took a model. What's that? Did I say that wrong? August. What did I say? October. August. That really would be a modification, wouldn't it? Thank you. I didn't even catch that. Oh, I was on a Yeah. Um, we modeled it off of high school. How
016high school splits their um, counselors. So, students with last names ending from A through K will be in the morning and L through Z will be in the PM. Um, what this allows is for students to be in a smaller class size with their teacher so they can start building relationships, um, getting to know them better so they can hit the ground running with that full week. It also having taught kindergarten for a long time, that first week of school when you were five is a very, very long, long day. Um, so it gives them a chance to ease into the longer, more academic setting as well. Um what this is doing, I'll go more into the why. What this is doing is this is replacing um an old program that we had called Ready
017Set Go, which only reached a handful of children. So this actually old program started before school um reached maybe about 20 students um and they were placed with a teacher that maybe wasn't going to be their classroom teacher for the rest of the year. So what this program will do or not program what this um modification will be will every kindergartener will get that same ready get ready set go experience and they will be with their classroom teacher um to build those relationships. Um buses will run at their normal route before and after school. Parents will need to pick up and drop off midday. Um students will not be eating lunch at school. Um they're going to have their snack in the cafeteria. If you have ever taken a group of kindergarteners that first day
018into the lunchroom, that's like so we thought by having snack in there first, they can, you know, start to feel more comfortable in there. So then when they have to go through the line, it goes a little bit smoother. Um, of course, we have a fabulous school nurse that will be available for questions, um, medications, um, and help with that. And then the regular school hours would be 7:50 to 3:50 and that would start for kindergarteners on August 18th, not October. And then of course we have it um trying to reach all of our families. We have it in Spanish as well. Am I missing anything, Mr. Sheff? teacher in their not ready. Yeah. And and yeah, no, thank you. And this was actually the kindergarten teachers idea. Um they really wanted more equity. They
019wanted um they wanted to reach more children where the ready set go was just a handful of children. So they pitched it to me, I pitched it to Corey and here we are. So um I'm sure there'll be some things to iron out um as we go along. Um but just wanted to get the word out. Um any questions? Um one other um partnership that I'm working on is um with the parent association and guidest. So a lot of times um parents will drop. I mean sometimes I think the transition is almost harder for the parents. Parents. Yes. Thank you. That was what that um that is that's a great no that's a great question. So um working with LPA our parent association and guidest about like where do you go so you drop your
020kid off you don't have to run off to work maybe until later. So working with them to brainstorm some ideas of building community in we have a beautiful garden space. So maybe making it there, having coffee in the morning, maybe some bubbly waters for that afternoon session. Um, so that is still kind of in the works. Um, I'm open to ideas about how to support families because it is sometimes run home to your husband and say, I need to have another baby. No, that's what I did. I was like, I just drop my baby when he um but yes, that is another important piece of that transition of like supporting parents. Um I know the preschools do a fabulous job of that parent education. So really instead of just kind of coming to this cliff
021and dropping off this cliff trying to make that transition smoother. So open to ideas from that. Can I just for next month can you make sure you give us some update on how registration's going? I know it started this last week and I know there's there's some other shorter times that you give us some update. True. And then Teresa too can tag in. I know that Jim comes to register all of their students. So, we'll have a lot more data for, you know, numbers for that, too. preschooler. Yeah, Teresa and I went to a early childhood counsel. meeting with the other preschools and started to do some more network that was really nice and pitch this idea to them. So trying to build in more relationships with the other preschools so that we get registration
022in early Thanks. Okay. Next, uh I need a motion to approve the agenda with the following changes. Uh we're going to table item 3C which is approving auditor for the previous year's audit and table that for the May meeting. Um move first to review and approve policy JFAB continuing enrollment of students who become non-residents and policy JIH student interviews, interrogations, searches and arrests. And then number three update item what numbers are three three FI32JN community service to be repealed. I have a motion for those adjustments to the agenda. Second. Um any discussion? Okay. Um, we appreciate it. Uh, Dr. Hill, hi. Mr. Hawks. Hi, Mrs. Bunberg. Mrs. M. Okay. Next on the agenda is reports. We don't have any guest reports tonight. Um, uh, we don't have any campus reports either. Um, district reports. Yeah,
023I think um there's a lot of stuff going on, but I'm pretty excited getting towards the end of the year. There's six weeks left, which is kind of crazy to see how close it is. Um the teams are in a really good spot. I'm just really happy with what happening do with families and vice versa. Um I know we did have conversations about ICE and other stuff. I want to make sure that the community knows um we have a good relationship with all of our families um who are deeper to those places of concern and we have we have seen all of them at this time. Um, so I want to make sure as we continue to review our policies, the places we do have. Um, the other thing I want to go over real
024quickly was a grade three through five literacy adoption. So I'm going to send this around. So Cory's here as well to help. You know, I've not been since the pandemic saying we need to pause, get our heads wrapped around systems. I think they're in a good place. this summer and the fall we'll be able to come back to those policies around how do we do the curriculum adoption in nice orderly fashion year to year picking another one making sure we get through them all those are those policies IG and J we looked at last month but grades three through five over two years ago or was it three years ago Cy three years ago the company that was redact approved by the department of ed said oh by the way we're not going to support
025this anymore for we just adopted it. Um and so we have kind of our to say how can we extend that? We've ordered their backstock. We've said do you have any left in the warehouse? How can we push this off? And we're at that place where we can't push stuff. So we went through our process which we do together um representatives from everyone grade level teams that effective in this case third through fifth. We go to the department of ed and say what are the in this case the read act um controls what curriculum they will approve. And so we ordered all those curriculums and the teachers went through each and every one found the finalists and then they really sit down with those finalists and spend a lot of time with them go through
026it. Um they really chose this um they were kind of it's almost a 50/50 and they could see they won but at the end of the day they liked um how this provided resources to the teachers to deal with extensions we might call it. So you've got the generic kid that doesn't actually exist and then you've got psych and talents. We liked the resources in this thought it would be easier um for teachers who might be newer or not as much veterans um who are more reliant on resources as well as um a culturally linguistically diverse students. They liked those extensions as well. Um they like the text but they like man and the other piece in the end of the day like what this one aligns on the CMS closer. They liked how it
027kids and taught them to think in a different way um and provide those things. So that's where it's at. You always set aside $80,000 a year for resource adoption that falls within that budget. Um and I was able to get another $6,000 knocked off today and trying to get more money off the smile. I'm like, "Give me a chance. I'll get some." Um and so it's um pretty straightforward. You can see the quote and that's in your consent agenda. There's not a lot of choices here in that sense. We don't have a curriculum or resources. Um, so we have to do something. That's what the teachers recommend and I have no reason not to support that recommendation whole. Corey, was there anything you felt like should share and add to that? Let's see. I think
028our first quote was like Yeah. So, I mean, we can go through questions if you want. I brought this two weeks ago or last month. I can't remember. That's one unit. When we say a curriculum, that's one unit. That's not the whole curriculum back there for the third grade um that the teacher selected. So, again, that's all of what we're looking for. The other part was really important, didn't mention, was professional development, implementation, having somebody help the teachers have time to learn. How do you go through that? because you just flip through it and read it. It would take you days and years to really familiar. So that comes inside of this code. Uh no, we'll try and put that into the professional development on those opening days. It's a competitive space, but it's really
029important as teachers get that. Uh reason we're trying to make sure we get approved now is we'll have so many trainers that come do it in person. Um and we want to try and get on their schedule first because every to open the school at the same time. So, um you know, if you're last in line, you don't get it. And we set it up. The teachers asked for this. They wanted to have like a generic session of here's how we start it, work with it for a month or two and then be able to go back to the trainer and say, "Okay, let's really spend some time because now that I've actually used it, I have a whole different set of questions that I have a half ago." So we think it's the right
030setup and then if there's still more Summer each grade level there's um $16,300 in consumables. So, how does that work after this initial $80,000 that's been budgeted for it? Great. This is the hard particularly for all teachers like you and I. Um you can't buy the textbook and then hold on to it. And if you want to change in seven years work, um it's really is an issue for us is like all school districts struggled. We've all built our budgets on a world that doesn't exist anymore. Everything has moved to subscriptions. Um, and so we can't even get the full curriculums and the resources to people. It's not just because we want to be on the computer or so that everything has been moved to consumers. Now, part of me wants to say this is
031a corporate takeover and they've done a good job of taking advantage of tax dollars. That would probably be my debt and it's still the way it is. So, what we went through was you I'm going to look on page 204 and look at grade three. in blocks of grades. Uhu of five lines down you'll see the big number 163 times 100 for 16,300. Right. Right. But you'll notice that's a five years. So the reason I couldn't get them to take all the shipping and handling off this is because for the next five years they'll be shipping this materials and giving us access to the digital side. Okay. Okay. Yes. So, um, and that sort of keeps on coming and this is why we had to make this choice because the last company stopped printing and
032stuff. So, there was nothing to send us. So, we were forced into solution. And I like this one better than the Walmart setting so the teachers do. Business So, we're good for five years though at this price. Yep. And I think that's another reason I want to look at because our policy has like a sevenyear cycle for the curriculum of action, but everything that's being sold to us is five years and they say, "Well, you could buy it one year at a time." Of course, that price is much more just like paying monthly car insurance. They charge you a lot more for that option. It's not reliable. But if it's only five years, that means in five years we might be in a situation where we no longer printing this resource. So we have to
033get there's just a lot to really think through our resource adoption how it relates to curriculum things. And you feel good both of you that this company Yes. will be reliable. You would know him as Pierce. It and they have a strong relationship with department of vets almost like in five years they're still going to be list um I don't know if that's a corporate thing that happens I just know it exists so it's part of the reality I don't want teachers to learn a curriculum under five years just update a curriculum that teachers have fallen in love with get the next edition or whatever um just have to like retrain the whole way to laid out that's under your consent agenda. I can't hear you see any reason why you vote no course. I
034did also just from a campus thing I gave you this blue print off I wanted you to see this CASBY the Colorado Associate School Boards you're part of you're just here you got your part this is exciting stay out there's no social like negative you feel like no one is going to have any social judgment if you're like sun's still up I'm leaving I got my words in just to be clear feel free to step out we're here for a couple more hours. Yeah. Um this is two things. By the June report, um the June board meeting, we're hoping to have a quote for either board books. This is what Casby purchased or board docs. We're clear that that the board would like us to update, but Casby's already brought this and so we're investigating
035this. Uh Kim has been reaching out to all of her other um kind of board secretary connections and saying how has board docs actually worked for me. She's getting a mixed bag on um yeah so we're trying to explore this one this month. I just wanted to give you guys an update knowing that in the June board meeting I would expect to bring you a quote for one or the other in a recommendation. I think they're almost the same thing but we're trying to do our due diligence and because if you can stay inside of Cathy, there might be some benefits to that memory. So, I wanted you guys if you wanted to look more into this, you could. We are doing that. So, I just want to give you the update. Um, the other
036one you got has got two pages to it. One is a really long spreadsheet that's so small it's obnoxious, so I can get you some readers like I need. That's kind of there for you to look at a little bit later. I bring that up because um I know as a board as we're looking um heading over to the CBT, I've got another CBT meeting all day Friday. Um so we'll be looking at teacher pay. This gives you some of the salary schedules for teacher pay. Um at the mast's level, masters 48, which be the highest masters salary schedule, and also looks at PDM. It's really hard. No one. It's hard to know how to compare apples to oranges to cherries, right? Because how many days does this district work? How many days does this
037district work? And so per DM um is the best of a impossible comparison storyline. Um somebody's going to say, well, we all work the same amount of hours and there's other factors. You can look at it in lots of ways, but I wanted you to see this because when I'm building a new salary schedule, at the end of the day, I got to break it down pretty deep, right? Because that's the only way I can look at, you know, administrator, dean, teacher, a new teacher, experienced teacher, coach. Like, I got to look at those things so I'm not paying somebody more than somebody who's supervising effectively. Okay. Um, and then you multiply that times 200 days or 196 days or whatever the number is to try and get in and look at the salary schedule.
038So, I gave you a couple things. This position, we don't need to take any action. We've already approved the FTE. The assistant superintendent design that we hoped for was not giving us the right candidates. And I know I gave a report on this. So, the team was pretty clear. The admin team agreed rather than trying to force somebody who's not the right person Let's change our design. So, it's an extra step. And I've gone back. I'm going to be looking for a curriculum and instruction director. So, you have then the job description. I've kind of shown you what I've crossed off. Um, really just focusing in because the teachers, you know, continue to be clear. Jim and I were at a big communications kind of sense making activity on Friday. there's no confusion that the
039teaching staff want more help on curriculum instruction and professional development. They want us to help them. So, this position is right on point to what that perception and that request is and everything else is stripped out of it basically. Um, there's one or two things that I just have to put at somebody at the central office like a title nomine complaint officer. It can't be me. So that's if somebody feels like they're not being treated right, they got to be able to make a complaint. I'm the kind of the judge who listens to the case from all sides and makes a decision. So I can't be the complaint officer, the investigator, and the judge, jury, executioner kind of style. So um we're going to maintain that. So put that there. Gifted and talented. I just
040can't get it. So I'm supposed to do that as well as the assessment. Um, so that gets you to the organizational chart and Will's going to give you the look over there that he's been giving me for the last week of I can't do this list, right? Because basically in order to make this happen and all right, I'll just do it. Okay, I'll just do this. And it means I can do a lot of things partially well. I can't do everything well, right? So it means if it takes me 12 months to do something or I would hope to I'm g have to give myself 24 months or I'm gonna have to say that one gets a C effort because I'm given an A effort over here. Um this is the reality of really making
041sure we're driving our money and our resources towards instruction and towards teachers. This is one of those cost is like to talk as a superintendent board of education on that list. There's probably some other things. What do we need to give an A effort and what are we all going to say that's a C effort with it? That's going to be the struggle and we'll enter into in that sense. I think the other thing the team is we're going to continue to train our own. So we see continue that dean program at the principal level is yielding good stuff. It's positive. Lots of great examples of where that's done going. Um same thing at assistant superintendent district level. We're going to have to train our own up because we're not even involved with that kind
042of money issue. I don't think that's the way it's just so that's the recommendation. There's nothing we need to do. It's just I want to make sure you know I'm changing directions trying reading as best we can. Do you guys want to have a question on that? So you think the lack of uh response uh is due to the salary? That is what everyone believes when they're trying to pull from the salary. Your basic what what's the salary position? Uh 109 starts at um so your basic principle in the DPS system I believe you said about 150 and for secondary principle is your starting spot for principal. yourself to get to a district level. We had two of seven applicants have some building principal experience and they were not a fit. They would be nothing
043I would recommend to me. Um and then everyone else was a teacher who had no building principal experience. So really the key the nice part of having will the last few years is if I get hit by the proverbial Mac truck [Music] test the people we had would not be somebody I'd say here's the keystone what that means then is the principles are going to get support on curriculum instruction vertical teams or their things they want help with to get better at and that means I'm out on vacation Jesse's in charge It's going to go through that school thing. Jesse's really excited about that. Um, you are in charge of Evelyn and you have 24 hours to make change. So, um, on when we think about on the security side, that's a it's a big
044deal. Um, being able to keep all the response in sync and consistent, it's it's hard. It's difficult. So, we're going to have to create some backup layers for those concerns. We're going to have to attach there to get our energy on towards curricular instruction, which I'm super excited for because if all that we really have to we can focus on that because our district's in a good spot. So, I know it's a long one. This is kind of my my month to talk those things. Gifted and talented. I want to let you know about that program. So, that is not something we are going to get the highest marks on. That's why we take the little bit of money we have and we give it straight to the kids. We just approved in total today
045approved almost $10,000 going to kids registration for their events. So whether that's a GT kid trying to go to a space camp and sort of give the money to families that they can get that special extension activity. Um and then the DI teams did really well in our county. We had nine teams, many of them qualified for globals. One of the teams connected to us is chosen to go to the globals. So cut a check for them to pay for registration. Um and then they have a matching grant. So as much as the kids raise, we'll keep on matching them and helping them overcome $5,500 registration fees. It's not their travel cost. So DI is a good spot. Um we are looking at trying to consider the DI piece. Do we um support it further
046with coaching? Does it become an extracurricular activity? What does that mean? There's always implications on that. If you lift one thing up, did you slight amount of community that we always live system? So, those are some other things. Um, ELLL, you know, we add another ELLL teacher. I think we are meeting compliance and getting those things there. I still think it's an area of growth for us. public comments and I can be embedded in that but I think no matter what meeting those kids we're at better JT sped's in a good spot in the grade 12 sped um you have a high case loads in kindergarten and fifth grade this year and so those will be the pinch points and you never know who's going to walk into the early childhood center it's always just
047a ribbon of surprise that we get to pick them up um so we'll But I think we have all the right staff and we're adding more staff. We have more than enough staff and specialist spot for that to do. They're working on case. I will say that Bosey's curriculum dire special director is doing great. It's a fabulous solution. We can afford it and Boseis has kept a flat budget for this year. So they are not increasing. We did a good job of looking for agency. Will, is there anything else inside your world non- finance that we need to just update? No, I think it was pretty pretty much all said in in board report unless there's any questions to any of those items. Okay. I know Aaron's got some stuff on operational wish list. Um
048I sat with Sean. We're working on a couple capital wish list projects trying to get those rolling schedule for the summer. I think we're on pace in that space. And then the other thing I had is Jim from communications on Matt was busy using um we took all this perception data from three different surveys and really looked at it was about 35 of us I think um of staff. So that's collaborate bargaining team council secretaries with the admin team um looking at going here's how teachers and staff are perceiving things. Some of the data I've never expected to see the trust in collaboration, the perception of staff is that their trust in collaboration they're on teams like 96% favorable, right? You got 1% saying we might leave. Um, and you got about another 4% that
049weren't sure. This is back in December. That matches. We've had about is it 4% the number of rehires of positions open%. So um now we're putting that together and then you will get that um with the staff kind of interpretation of that data. You'll get the raw data. You'll also get a communications plan that deals with that deals with technology deals with all kinds of strategies. Um and you'll get that board this year plan. Is there any sort of branding logo working on? Yeah. So, could we try to have the logo be the same on every sports uniform in district and people don't get to create their own logo? Yes. One of the great parts about going and doing this work is we will simplify some things. One of the frustrations someone's going to have
050is they will not have as many options. options right now and right now we are really good on flexibility and we will bring more structure which will reduce flexibility and we'll create some rules and then the first year I'll have to be really rigid on the rules somebody's going to get really frustrated by that and then we'll find our balance point three or four years those are the things going on is there anything you guys want to ask about before we jump the consent move. Yeah, I think if anybody has anything for any of the principles or managers, we can let those folks go on their lives as well. Do you want to take a cookie to go? That was really good. Thanks you guys. You got to stand up stress. What? I had surgery
051two weeks ago. Easy. Any discussion? All right. Just thank you and David. It's obviously a lot of work. I think you might have gotten more policies than any of the rest of us did who reviewed books. I definitely feel like Jay might be the biggest, huh? Is that Is that kind of the end of it? That's it. So now we'll walk this out through June and then next year we'll go back and say okay what were all the ones we like policy looks good is that what we're actually doing or hey we wanted to go back and actually discuss that policy. So now I want to give you a compliment from our lawyer. She was like basically we didn't think you could do this. We were kind of laughing at you when you said you
052were going to do this. So we exceeded all the legal team's expectations that we can do get to by the end of this. So but this is the end. All right. Dr. Hill. Hi. Mr. Hobs. Hi. Mrs. Lumber. Hi. Mrs. Pel. Hi. M. Hi. Okay. No items for discussion. I just got to remember what we moved or changed here. I don't think we added anything, did we? Okay. Um, okay. So, action items. Uh, we're approving second reading of some policies. So, I need a motion to approve the guess we should just go through these real quick. um to approve uh for second reading policy GBE which is the staff use of internet and electronic communications uh section I policy book uh proposed changes and there's 13 of them um about half of them look like
053they're going to get repealed those are IG R curriculum development IHCA law related education IHM-R Health and Family Life Sex Education Exemption Procedure. IHPB gifted education homeschool rag appeal repeal primary uh pre- primary education um regulation that concurrent enrollment repeal concurrent another concurrenc concurrent regulation instructional resources and materials online instructions repeal grading system repeal class ranking and then early [Music] graduation. Okay. Any discussion on any of those policies? Discussion, but with all the repeals, is there kind of a consistent theme that they were like overlapping each other or contradicting each other or just The last time I think we did it was 2008. Um and since 2008 other laws have been written when the laws get rid of guy and writes a better policy sometimes they leave the old behind because it's significant changed them
054all. We didn't picked up the new one and kept the old one and that's the worst thing legally is two answers to the same question. The lawyer is very happy that discussion any others Dr. Hill. Mr. Hawks. Hi. Mrs. Lumber. Hi. Mrs. Hi. Hi. Okay. Next we have we need a motion to approve the salary schedule of steps. Second. Okay. Any discussion on that? Can you have like overview actually? It's important for out contracts early which is a big push we want right because if you don't know if you're g and obviously one bargaining team made it really clear with the district that that was a high priority to them was to make sure those salary schedules follow creative um this is executing that and put this in good spot to get in good faith
055to the bargain team and how much does this represent I mean, it's about Christmas you approved bigger steps for everybody schedules so it changes that number last year the budgetary number wasn't budget It is a little There's actually more teachers than you think a number on it for good reason. There's more than you think who have been at the same salary schedule rather than getting professional development done in many cases decade more. Even if you give them more money, their salaries actually education allow them. It's not just to get over it also then opens up themselves encourages people to grow. rewarded one automatically in a different salary options. Um like hours of professional development because it's not necessarily degrees, right? No, it can in our district it can come two different ways. Every college credit
056hours, semester credits, that's how it's designed. college credits, but the ratio the Department of Ed works on a 15 to1 ratio. We get licenses and so that's how we do the US. So if you went to two day seminar on dyslexia, right? You got 15 hours of contact time on that topic and that's one week and then you have those It's more complicated on the record keeping side. And then do we pay for like if the teacher conference, do we pay for that? Yeah, it's really nice for a teacher, you could I could pay for you to go pay for your sub. Um, you could bring those hours back and cash them in. You had enough to move on the salary schedule. In addition, many times we go to the nice tacos, we'll also have
057a connection with the University of Indiana State and say, "Hey, if you want to pay $90 a credit hour, then get college credit hours." So they get paid $9 credit that in reimburse pay for their tuition for tuition. Do most is it is it common like the screening in districts like that's just education just at a certain level. Yeah. And I think there's good reason for it. Um, take somebody who had their bachelor's degree in 1972, still teaching, you want them to be learning new things. That's why every profession requires it. Um, the lure piece. So, it's there's good reason to push that, right? We are more interested. Here's the final reward. Any other questions about And I pulled it out because I think it's important for the department to be really clear and be
058sure that contract out. Hi, Mr. H. Hi, Miss Lumber. Hi, Mas. Okay. Uh, next on the agenda is uh operational the operational wish list approve that ladies over here. Okay. Could we have a little bit of a Yeah. party already party already party already party already party already party on top of it. So yeah. Yeah. I'm passing this out now. Um, usually for board meeting meetings, I budget till 9:00 and I'm big on budgets, so buckle up. We got two hours on this one item. And uh, no, I'm just kidding. We um, we we had a lengthy discussion about this last month. Um, many of the items on here, this is again just I want to highlight one of my areas that we're me and David are working a lot on growing the business office
059next year is some of the confusion about the approval cycle. Like this is a great example. So, in order to approve the teacher at the bottom of this list, you and to get somebody on staff, you kind of needed to do that two months ago to actually start putting out applications, but then we have the wish list and then you have the budget like you're approving it three or four times throughout the course of the cycle. And so, we want to be able to do be really transparent, but we also don't want to put a bunch of extra work on all of you. So, I'm going to try to find better solutions to that going forward. Um, but this is still the the process that's been in play and I think it is a very
060good process for us to be transparent. Like I said, we had a lengthy discussion. There were a couple changes on this. I think David has spoken to many of you individually at different moments in the last month. Um, the biggest things I wanted to note is the the stuff that's highlighted in yellow was officially only added today even though it's been a discussion for a while. We have huge participation numbers and it's it's not just been a fall sport thing. It's continued on. I think we have people who can attest. I think we have 70 in middle school track. So, uh, we're to a point where like the question is three, four coaches. How do we do this? How do you function? How do we allow our activities department to be nimble? DI is a
061great example where they can be nimble and bring people in without you having to approve a full FTE. And so, we're looking at different solutions. So, this is one possibility. Basically, we're asking to approve that amount of money to go into our activities where we can kind of find some solutions. One of the things that we've kind of talked about and spoke with Marco and Jesse about is having some type of hourly kind of substitute coaching position almost. So, if wrestling gets 50 people, maybe you have people that are going to the meets, you've got your main three coaches, but you've also got, hey, during practice and training sessions, we need more supervision. Maybe we can pay a couple people three times a week, you know, to to do that. So, that's kind of the
062amount of money that we figured gets us in that starting point. Um, and that kind of covers the reason I link that to the bottom is that kind of helps us with these additional coaching positions. I can speak just to the soccer perspective of it. My it's a great example. I'm expecting 51 soccer players next year. I can go to any games with three coaches and and manage a team. Training sessions with 51 is a lot harder. So, if I can have somebody here who can run two or three training sessions, I imagine track's similar, volleyball is similar. I know it could solve some of these issues without a full position. So, it's kind of a way to be nimble and and give them some space to to do that and actually adjust. I know
063that it's hard to always know what numbers you're going to have going into a season. So, you know, the problem is we're constantly reacting to those numbers and I think if we can build the solution, then at least we have some proactive activity. Did you travel? Well, that's the next question. Um, no, I mean it depends on the that is a that's going to be very activity dependent and how you can manage that. Like I for soccer would be a really good example for me. We're probably gonna have to split in some cases and go to different places. We've talked about this. So, that's going to raise some of the cost on transportation. Um, because for me, you don't have anywhere where you can play three matches with daylight and things like that. Plus, we're
064going to have to find five A schools with C teams and things like that for our JP next year. So, we're looking at ways to to do that. Whereas, it's slightly different when you're talking about a a football team or a track team. Like, you have one track meet, you take two buses, you can go it just it'll be really unique, but that's going to kind of have to be a activities department. These substitute bus drivers because their their money the way they're able to pay their hospitals are taking these trips. Then the other thing is buses. So if you have 70 kids on buses ratio, but you're not middle schoolers. But yeah, if you have kids, you're talking a minimum of two buses taking that two drivers out. Plus, I'm telling you right now,
065in high school soccer, coaches get their own seat. That's just how it works. That rule is changing. Dang it. Well, it's gonna have to coach either one So I think we're going to stumble into more often things like gas subd drivers. So this gives us a solution for how to get some like support during practice and it also allows us right now you can't take like classified work for us just violates labor law you can't drive on the clock you know to right that's too many hours it violates so many different stuff plus the other hours option this would allow somebody who works 30 hours a week to come practice and um do something they're passionate about interested in coaching and helping the baseball team but it's kind of locked out. It's hard to volunteer
066versus you don't have enough margin to rise work out balance. making money to their house. This also opportunity to support me as bus driver. Good luck. I think you're looking at people. This is our appreciation. I'm also the party. I'm the one. Oh, the email. Yes. Okay. You'll have to talk to me that way. The answer is right now we have five people returning. We have six. Six. Yeah. Um but yeah, another another couple things on getting on the operational wish list too as we go through that. That was one of the big changes I wanted to highlight also before I forget. You'll see the parah that I added. I talked briefly about that in the report that I sent. This is just a confusion ECC. This is where we kind of go back to
067the confusion of how many times are you approving things. There's debate between the Ela and Teresa transition and then the Sheila and me transition and then me and Teresa trying to connect on what's happened in the past on how many FTE are actually approved for their building versus long-term. This is how many are currently working there. I believe they've all been approved correctly. However, there is some discussion that maybe a half one of these half FTEEs is a only for the rest of this year. I don't think that's accurate based upon how I read it, but so you're not adding any money to the budget. This is what Teresa needs to operate. Uh we're currently paying this amount of people. So, it's a it's a way for us to just again let her go go
068uh advertising for that position. So, that's another one. Real quickly on that, I just want the norm for boards is to approve FT. Yeah, that's right. So, like high school will give you 50 FTE. That's that's a board level conversation. I don't know that that would work in our town, but just to know that would be kind of the standard answer. And if Jesse wants to take his tech teacher and move to be a Spanish teacher, that's his his business. That's that's his job to get the job done. So, we're trying to figure out and look at how to best practice frustrating as bring our habits. I think that's an audience conversation. How can we maybe reduce some of the confusion? And obviously you guys are going to want to be involved in some of
069those conversations. It's a small team from from an auditor and a and a legal perspective. They just care that you have the FTE approved. They don't they don't care is it a social studies teacher, is it math teacher? They say that's up to your principles. It's a matter did you approve the FTE. So um so we're just making sure we're following everything on that for now. And I think we want to come up with a better solution going forward. But um and then the two other things I just wanted to really highlight again, Evelyn's here tonight because of the change recess aids and bus monitor. Um we have three of those positions. We talked about them last month where they're considered substitutes even though they're working every day on a schedule and we'd like to
070put them on the salary schedule, make them a half FTE so they actually get rewarded for coming back instead of coming back for five years and getting nothing out of it. So, that's that change. And I want to I know it's important to highlight that as well that that's on there. Um, and then the last thing that I just want to bring up, Jody asked me a great question um after I kind of sent the board report and she said, "Okay, so you've you feel good about 7 $800,000 coming from the budget in the state, which I hope you saw kind of my thoughts on that. I think we're in a good place." Um, but she asked a question. How do we make up the $250,000 on what's being approved on the wish list right
071now? how the budget if you go and do all the percentages we're at about 64 and a half% total expenditures for the year of what we plan on what budget expenditures and we're roughly 70% of the way through the year. We're going to have a pretty big payout of PTO at the end of the year but I'm expecting us to be under by about 3 or 4% which I I think I've been saying that consistently. Um, but that's $6 to $800,000. And I think that now that I've got a year in the budget, I found some places where I think we can cut 10 here and 10 here. And I I don't think you're actually going to be short. I think we can adjust the budget to accommodate the whole 988,000. So, just something that
072it was a great question by Jody, but again, I think that's been a consistent message. I hope if you haven't heard that message from me that I anticipate we're always going to be slightly overbudgeted, um, let me know because I hope I've been doing that. But I do think there's some areas that we can continue to make cuts um and not be overly aggressive at the same time. Any questions, things that didn't come up since last month before we go further with that? Oh, last thing. I'm sorry. The property liability work comp insurance. Um they're sending me the renewal. I still have not received the renewal, but I did talk to them. I don't I don't expect it to go up a massive amount. And we actually that's one of the areas where I think
073we're still slightly over budgeted. So we can actually we have breathing room in that area where it's not going to change the budget. We have already have here the increase salaries teacher pay00 that's already it would just be CBT discussion to determine how that gets allocated. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is where we're in a a slightly different because we're doing bargaining in the spring. We're kind of coming and saying like, how much are you comfortable with me going into the bargaining room with? That's kind of the way I'm I'm taking it. And so, basically, this allows us to go in and say, we've already done steps and levels, we've already done insurance. Also, there's in the financial plan some strategy for if we're if we screwed up the budget and we have way more
074money than we thought, then there's some ways to actually go about distributing the one-time dollars back to staff and back to other projects. Um, and so this is how much we feel comfortable putting into recurring dollars basically so they can go and negotiate. Now, I think David and I have talked about and we mentioned this to CBT and other groups, there might be value in us saying, "Hey, there's still concern at the federal level on a few things. Head Start's one that we're really monitoring. Nothing has said we're going to lose Head Start yet at all, but there are in terms of the funding. However, they have closed five of the 10 regional offices. Um, so we don't know what that's going to mean long term. There's potential. And if we did lose head start,
075that would mean a a whole business model change for ECC for our old town. Yes. To be clear. Yeah. But it's in terms of the finance part of it like that's again nothing has said we're losing that funding. Every other federal funding for the most part is just being has so far been moved to another department. So from the funding perspective which is all I'm talking about right now I don't see a dip in funding yet. But I do think there might be value in saying hey we're going to put 1500 in now and we're going to have a tenative agreement to put another thousand in at Christmas as long as everything stays um through the next year. but at the same time be nimble in case something massive were to happen at the federal
076level. There could be value in doing something along those lines. But um but yeah, this would give them the opportunity to kind of negotiate that. What kind of negotiating would you expect? I mean I personally Yeah, I mean I I expect it to go pretty simple. I mean like I said they I feel like a lot of the hard negotiations are done. We've done um we've done steps and levels. We've done insurance already. So, we've put a good chunk of money into it. We're also basically saying, "Hey, we're this is technically more than we're anticipating getting." Again, I think we can make some cuts, but I'm asking the board to spend slightly more than what we're expecting to get. So, that means we're having to find other areas to adjust. Um, and there's now something
077in place for onetime dollars where if something does happen, then the onetime dollars are available to discuss, but we're not going to put any more money on the table than what our financial plan suggests at this point. So, I don't anticipate it being an extremely difficult conversation. I'm doing a presentation in the first hour, hour and a half of the meeting. Um I I expect that the conversation if there's a negotiation would be something along the lines of the group saying okay do we want to are we comfortable just putting that in the base or is there value in honoring by making bigger steps or something along those lines and investing that same amount of money in the salary schedule but in a different way. I don't really have an interest or you know how
078they do that. Personally, if there's if the entire teacher staff said, "Hey, this is the amount of money we get. We would all support putting it into steps instead of the base." I don't know how I would argue that against that. I mean, well, I can't imagine that the bargaining aspect of it would be very hard. Yeah. For them if we're just saying here's a big gift. Yeah. I mean how what do we expect anything more from the people we are paying more? Don't didn't you mention something about that you know oh something kind of relatively recently about if if we give more we expect more so what are we expecting in return? I would say the answer on that case just to be direct is nothing else at this time. We're just trying to
079keep our system up to snuff and also trying to make sure that we can take care of the workforce. So it is not a bargaining or an exchange um of this for that in that sense. I think it's just simply us saying here's our values and paying our values. I'm trying to draft. The board wanted us to say no, I would want something for that, then I can change that direction. I I would make an argument slightly against that. I understand what David's saying. We are not expecting more responsibilities. We are not expecting um anything out of that. However, I would say if you're below market consistently, then what you can expect is to get candidates that are not as good at their job. And so you may not get more additional responsibilities or additional
080time or additional etc. But as we're talking about bringing new candidates in potentially we're talking about longevity and you're comparing other districts and we're below market. I'm I feel fairly confident at that point that the bargaining is we're we're looking to retain and recruit better staff. Not better than what we have, but we are going to we are going to have new people coming into the district. And part of what we want to do is get the right people. But that's what you said just before is re uh getting better people in. Yeah, that's I mean part of that premise then is that we're not satisfied with the ones that we have. And so that's one part and the second is with retention if we have employees that aren't that great, we're going to be
081retaining them also, right? So I think there is okay let me speak it differently to what I actually mean because I disagree with that statement. I would not say I'm unhappy with the employees we have. If you are below market and you go to bring somebody new in and you don't have the ability to bring somebody of high quality in then in a few years if we continue to have four or 5% metriculation you will have a worse staff. I believe that wholeheartedly like if we lose 20 teachers over the next four years and we're below market over four years and we continue to not be able to bring in a staff that is at least at a market level for a district our size then I think you will have a worse staff. That
082would be my take on it. So I would not say that our staff is necessarily the problem at this point but I would say it can quickly go that way if you don't stay in market. And with market, we mean just our market, not actually comparing it to class size or days worked because that's what we talked about last time and it was a point that was valid. Yeah, I think it's I mean I think you you there's a million ways you can break out that comparison. Certainly. Um, I think when we compare with the 13 districts that we compare, which is how we've always used it, which is districts our size that are getting revenue the same way we're getting revenue, we're below market. Um, I agree with you like I I think if
083you if you really want to pay teachers what St. Rain is paying teachers, it's fairly simple to do. But there's other values involved in that. So, for example, you could take the four classrooms at every grade level that we currently have at the elementary school and say they're all averaging 24 kids. Well, you could cut one person out. You could put eight kids in each class and you're at a class size of 32. And yeah, you're going to be significantly higher and that's how you get to DPS having $150,000 for secondary principles. Like, it can be done absolutely if that's the model that we want to look at. But at the same time, I would we're not comparing ourselves to those districts and we're still below market. So that's where I would say there's a
084concern actually personally. And I would say in addition to the market piece, there's just a cultural piece. And I would say as a board member, my goal would not be to pay the minimum, but to pay the maximum of what we can afford to pay because we do want to have great staff. And I think we also do want to honor the great staff that we already do have. And I think it sends a message if we're constantly like trying to penny pinch and negotiate and like we're only going to give you this if we get this in return. I think that creates a really negative culture and a culture of like we don't trust you, you're not working hard, we're not giving you anything else until you produce more results. And I think that's
085a great way to tank the morale of the district really fast. I think I think from the board what the teachers need to see is that we see their work, we value their work, and we want to pay them as much as we can for their work. Um, so that would be my perspective on it is I really would be hesitant for teachers to hear a conversation where they feel like we're going to negotiate and like if we pay more and respect more, um, I think we pay more when we hold high standards. And I think that's where this stuff comes in. All the curriculum director and things that we're looking at is like we are trying to push high standards and we are trying to kind of rework academics and take a more direct
086focus to improve academic outcomes for kids. But I don't think that teacher salary should be necessarily tied to that. Do we have a precedent for this large pay increase the one time that uh without it being acceptable? Yeah. I mean you did you gave about what $2 million two years ago this board did. So there's a precedent there but and that put actually a significantly bigger pressure on the budget at that point. So I do think there's something there. Now it wasn't part of that but there's a precedent. Um, so something yeah it's a good question Ben but Ben I just want to add the philosophy that I've kind of operated on and tried to look at everybody is say districts our size right that's our marketing invite per pupil count so that's looking at
08790% of our revenue what's the 50% mark that's the median that's that's what we're describing as market in this analysis um and looking at it from a salary standoint perm in my case. We've got all that stuff pulled out to try to evaluate it. And just like every other position, what's that middle number? That's what I've just been trying to keep. I would just change. Is there anything you think that we could ask our teachers to see? What would we ask? would do that is to ask teachers to change any more days or hours or some other work. We're we're offering a lot of curriculum help that uh on top of an increase on them and they they did not have that help in the past yet. Uh our scores have been pretty good. So,
088we could either say we don't need it or they're actually already doing a good job of it. I don't know what the answer is, but now we're adding adding both in and then changing the the potential assistant superintendent position to again more of a curriculum organizer. So, that's putting that's given that's given a lot of help and I'm not sure which side was needed. Makes sense. Um there's also just the concern that you know the volatility in the government that some people are very concerned with is that a good time to be spending a lot of money and I understand breaking it up. So that's a that's a balance. I think the other thing, this is where we're Aaron and I are saying this isn't the right perfect way to have this conversation because really
089if you're going to take an action, we do take it in action so that Aaron can go build the budget and bring it back to you in the main meeting. It's it's 99% right so you can go publish it for 30 minutes. So you're trying to say here's all the assumptions to build the budget. Um and yet this one probably should be maybe we need to amend a motion to say line five. We approve the operational wish list but not this thing because it hasn't been it needs spend some more time. So when we bring back the May budget um it's got that in there clearly had a chance to discuss it understand we're starting the negotiation. I mean that's going to bring back to your recommendations and say here's what we think and this
090is what we're going to start with unless somebody here said don't do that it should be more or less there. Yeah. In the end they stop negotiate ratify bring it to you as a recommendation like this is not approving this is not approving the budget like at any point this doesn't have to be there. Um, so that is that is certainly part of why I don't like the operational wish list is because like at any point before June or the amended budget, you could adjust this very easily. Um, I I just I I do want to say one more thing and this is a core belief of the business manager that you have currently. Um, and I I think it's a really understandable point that you make, Ben, about the concern about the federal government
091and things like that. And no other district is currently in the position that we're in. Shouldn't say no other district. Very few mountain districts if any. I know David has said no mountain districts. It's very small where we're growing in enrollment. We have a new formula that's been pushed through multiple times, been redised at the joint budget committee at the state level and continues to be pushed through at some level. um they've changed it to where it's a seven-year roll out instead of a fiveyear roll out, but in every one of those situations, we we're we're in the top tier in terms of you can call what you want in terms of revenue. Um and so to me, there's a there's the mixed impact of what does your dollar buy you. So, negotiations, like you
092said, it it does buy you in my opinion the long-term ability to be competitive with recruiting. I also think this is a to use the precedence conversation. I think that the amount of money that was passed two years ago was done in a bit of a reactive state. I think the amount of money that we're saying do now, we're in a very proactive state where we actually are way above everybody else and we can be one of the few districts right now that's saying we are going to offer while these other places are looking at riffing and looking at cutting salaries and looking at cutting positions and looking at cutting supports, we can invest money into it like that. I think you get double for your dollar at that point if that makes sense. Like
093that's not the perfect um I agree but at that point that's what it is, right? Yeah. on my own table. Um at the same time we had to collapse the system we could do that. So I just feel at this point this is one of few being one of the few districts we put enough money on the table and say come be a part of our district if you're really good at what we do. We want you willing to invest in that but every other district is what do we do right now? It just I don't see a better time to put the money up. I mean it's it's as as risky as it is, it's the best use of the place. I can appreciate that. Um one one more question is we had talked
094about where the bargaining team at one point wanted to have around 85% of resources allocated to to pay right is that right financial plan. Right. So is that are we still in that ballpark? I know that we have never made that policy. It's out there until we publish. That's that's our published plan. It's not published policy, right? It's between Yeah. So you're between 80 and 85 is the publish. I'm not necessarily targeting 85, but between 80 and 85. This is going to put you at the higher end of that before you take away any subtractions from people leaving the district. Um higher end, not 87, but still in that. No, you're still going to get the 85. Yeah. Yeah. you're not going to go above that at this point with this with this change. Um
095because you're and part of that is like I mean little things that seem little but if you change the superintendent from a person who's been in the district for 30 not 30 years but been an administrator for x amount of years on the salary schedule not you yeah um to a curriculum person at the salary schedule we have like there's savings there there's savings already I'm getting people have that are coming in okay this person's retiring at the end they're a masters is 48. Now we're bringing somebody in who's a fairly new teacher. Even with a masters, it's a pretty significant savings. So that's before we get to any of those things. So I think you're going to end up between 84 at the high end, like 83 and 84 and a half, but I
096can I'll have a much more specific number for you today. Did you come in under the 80 at the So the budgeted last year we were budgeted between 80 and 85. We came in at 79. Yeah, that was the financial like the plan report from two months ago. That's why that changed the financial plan says if we would come in at 79, we would take that 1% and kick it back. The board's been clear trying to grow our reserves that space trying to build structures and strategies to use that. I also think you're very close to 30% reserves, which is kind of what we talked about. That's the policy that not the policy, but the language that was added to the financial plan um that was written by the board um or at least board
097members. So, um we're going to be very close to that. We're already very close to that. And again, we're expecting to see that our budget's going to be below 100% this year if it plays out the way that I'm expecting it to. So, you're going to see that potentially grow again very minimally, but compared to what it has growing, but I think that'll change to where you're going to be really you're going to be bumping right at the%. And so, that's again what I feel comfortable saying. This is the time to put some on. I didn't mean to smack that. I did not mean to do that. That felt like the emphatic. So, again, robust thing. It's an action item to make us to take here are the assumptions we want you to put in
098the budget which comes back and you vote on the budget in May and it sits for 30 days and then you vote on it again in June like it's like an adnauseium kind of vote like how many times do I vote for this um we can figure out a different way but that's how we have it structured and completely transparent are we comfortable moving on this or do we want to pull that five items out and out of this. I don't need What's that? I don't need four. Ready for vote? All right, Dr. Hill. Hi, Mr. Hogs. Hi, Mr. Lumber. Hi, Mrs. Pas. Hi, Mr. Just want to say thank you for patience. Yeah, I agree with you. It's important. That's why that's good job. Okay. Uh into board communications and committees. Good shape. They're
099trying to get better at the professional learning which supports alternative education teachers. Um that's an area where they do need to grow. They've selfidentified it. They're put strategies in place to get better. So they can't ask and they keep their budget flat. They're doing they're really a lot. So in our solution this year having our own special ed coordinator has been fabulous for our staff. Okay. Uh facilities uh committee Karen, it's you. Well, this is great. I just say h the budget is great. There's no concern for the HA construction project. Budget's in great place. Time lapse in a great place. Paint in the parking lot starts to really tell you how close it is. They're putting in the kickboards and the baseboards now. obviously determined they've done a very good job managing the project.
100Yeah. Next week. No, but we do think we may have contract space that is all based around the county. We have presented another contract to the county. It was supposed to be on the April 15th commissioner meeting the first commissioner meeting and we took another step. Okay. Ken, I just recognized too we did have Dan Short with us tonight for a brief time who's the financial guy at the county. So was was at the meeting part of the night. So I recognize that. But yeah, just I don't know what capacity but just recognizing. Okay. Um, communications I've been kind out of. So I feel like David spending a lot of time pulling a lot. So that conversation I just want to say strong and things like you guys serving coffee. It's part of the communication
101that has been received by staff ready to turn around. Okay, Casby, how you miss the email? Sorry about that board. docing or whatever that is. Uh, regional meetings resume in August, guys. I don't know if you remember those. We did one at the school library. I find those to be interesting. It's cool to chat board members from other areas. I'm not hearing as much legislatively other than budget. David, do you still get stuff from alliance? Do they stop doing that? No, I still have that. I can send it to you on today's update. Thanks. Um the hard part right now is going to be to look at all those updates and um we're just our story doesn't match where everyone else is either listening how they see things and definitely we're just in a very
102strong position academically operational and finances that very few districts are enjoying. So their stories are not the same as ours. Okay. Uh Jack, any updates? I have not heard much from D. Business. Anybody have any topics they want to bring to the board for the future? Okay. Well, our next meeting is May 13, 2025 at 6 PM. He volunteers for agenda review with Joe. Did you say you want to do it? All right. Uh, he motion to adjourn.