001[Music] Hello, Falcons. Mr. Flesher here bringing you our video update from our July school board meetings. Now, I'm going to start by backing up a little bit. So on July 10th, the school board held a special meeting, a work session. And during that session, uh the board had an opportunity to listen to a presentation from our community members that are on our facility task force team. It's about 15 individuals from inside of our school district. A good range of of of folks. Some have kids in school, some do not. Um Appington Parkersburg um both represented there. um as they kind of work through a little bit of their work. As we've kind of talked about before, they've met multiple multiple times about two two and a half hour meetings in the evening. So, we're really
002thankful that they gave up their time to really kind of help us work through this process. And some of the things that they did during that time, they looked through all the community surveys that maybe many of you took the time to fill out and thank you for that. about things that they appreciated in our last bond referendum proposal, maybe things they didn't like as well, things involving property tax impacts and things like that. Took all that information and really just started working it through a process, really, really smooth process. And then they brought that proposal um to the school board on July 10th. Here's some of the big items that they kind of brought through. And we're talking about overarching concepts, kind of bigger picture stuff, not super specifics, but here's some things that
003they uh kind of identified as um most important or most urgent. The heating cooling system at Parkersburg Elementary, the electrical system at Parkersburg Elementary, and the heating and cooling in Appton were some really, really big ones. And these aren't necessarily in the order, but they're all kind of in that same box. and then safe and secure entrances again at those two buildings in the Appton building and in Parkersburg Elementary. So those are some of the big big priorities. Something else that we know that we did hear kind of through this was that we wanted to keep all three buildings in at least a similar configuration or the same configuration that they're in now. So that was something they kind of shared back with the board as well. They also identified some things that they kind
004of really um felt were important items kind of maybe prudent really think about maybe they could go on a a a potential referendum this November or maybe we can fund those in a different way or put them into a longer term plan and that was really looking at the CTE space particularly the high school career and tech ed education the two spaces that would have the biggest impact similar to the last referendum really the a and industrial technology spaces is okay. So, that was kind of their next round of this. Some things that they really talked about um as uh enhancements that we should uh keep on our radar. Um future planning, if you will, for the board. We're updating athletic spaces and maybe getting into a conversation about some kind of of larger community
005recreation wellness space that could definitely serve all the needs of the school district and our students, but also the Appleton and Parkersburg communities as a whole. So, that's kind of on our radar as well. And then then just some general updates into classroom furnishings. Um, you know, some of the parking lot spaces, the lighting, and those kind of things were also kind of put into the radar. So, they put this into a really very nice presentation for the school board on July uh 10th. It took about 45 minutes. Nice question and answer between the board and that committee. Um, just in fairness and sharing, there's no action items in that board meeting. It was purelyformational. Um, but they did a great job and thank you for all their work and there'll be more work coming
006for them later on, but they've got a great start to this. Now, let's jump into uh the the meeting from this past Monday night. All right, July 21st early meeting at 4:30. Again, a work session. Now what we did this time was the school board along with our facility planning team we have we have with site logic spent about two hours going back through the community recommendations things that they've kind of thought about and we at least seen some initial costing on some of those components. Okay. So the board's got lots and lots of work ahead of them. you might see uh in advertising and uh we put out they've got a meeting every Monday night pretty much throughout the month of August and a lot of their time and effort is really going to
007be spent um working through looking at priorities for projects what's the cost of those projects what's the property tax impact of those projects what's our community going to support you know what's fiscally responsible and in the end really what's going to help best serve our our students our kids all right so you'll be seeing a lot of meetings meetings coming up in August. That's really going to be a focus of the board's work. Let's get into some of the regular items um from this past board meeting. Really just again some cleanup things as we get ready for the upcoming school year. So, revised things in the teacher handbook. Um just a reminder in Parkerburg Elementary, we also do house a Butler County Head Start program for three and four year olds. So, there's a memorandum
008of understanding that we work with them and that's that's an annual item as well. The board established some um legislative priorities that they share with the Iowa Association of School Boards. Okay. They have three of those that they kind of get to submit that they'll work through uh later on this fall. Uh the items they picked, state funding, supplemental state aid, but also we know property tax uh items were worked through last session. While they didn't pass or didn't get completed, we know that those will be coming back and how that could impact bonding. All right. So, that was an item they picked out. Number two was really working with preschools and how preschools are funded. These are great programs for our youngest learners. I can tell you I'm personally a major advocate. Um time
009and resources spent on those younger learners is very very important and very very valuable. So that was our second one. And then third was just high teacher quality um programming things with professional development and how we can maintain our current staff and how we can draw teachers to come in. Uh the next item was on here really activity transfers. This is really kind of balancing and finishing out the books for the year. It's an annual item, happens every year, but it takes board action to get that done. Uh flooring resurfacing. You might wonder what that is. Couple of items. One, we're going to redo the floor that actually is kind of in the multi-purpose room. It's the gym lunchroom at Parkersburg Elementary. Um so the board approved resurfacing the uh floor inside of there, making
010it just a lot cleaner, a lot easier to clean. um for that space. It'll serve kind of as a gym for part of the day, but it's also a lunchroom for that building. And then we're going to resurface um the locker room spaces here at the high school. The the four locker rooms that serve our students for PE class and also for athletics after school. Um you know, just over time those have just really needed to be updated. So that's what that item is. Next couple items on here really just cleanup items. Central Rivers agreement, you know, there's always kind of there's a transition here with the AAS. We know that this is just a memorandum of how we're going to take care of some of those services there. We did update some math curriculum
011uh pieces inside of this. And the policy upimer is really continuing of work as things that come out of the last legislative session. Some of those get sent to, you know, the department of ed to write some rules and then those go to legal authorities and then they kind of write the legal uh jargon, if you will, and then those get moved to the school. So, we've got those in place to start the school year and then we will be purchasing a new oven uh for our food service program here at the high school. All right, so those are the biggest action items on there. Couple of quick notes really out of the superintendence report. Um we were very very fortunate to have Iowa Senator Sandy Sammon visit us um on Monday. She spent about
012two hours in our school district walking through Parkerburg Elementary and walking through our building in Appton. Really just outlining some of the concerns that we have um and how we can try to fund those in the future and how those things potentially could be impacted by property tax reform. Um really thankful for her time and listening to us and sharing her insights. Um, so really a thank you uh to Iowa Senator Sandy Sammon uh for taking the time to come out and visit us here at Appington Park Schools. And then really the bulk of my report from there was really just about some of the implications in in bonding and the financing behind that. U so really that kind of wraps up our July meetings. Again, you're going to see lots of meetings coming up
013in August. Um we'll try to get these videos out to you the best we can as fast as we can as we kind of wrap things up from summer cleaning. our maintenance staff is just hitting the hitting out of the park this summer. Uh buildings are really coming together and looking really, really great. It's hard to believe we're really only about a month away from bringing all of our staff and students back. So, as always, any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Give me a give me a call here at the school. Love to visit with you about any questions, concerns, and things like that that you have. And as always, go Falcons. [Music]