001This one of us. Yeah. Jenny, you're good to go. All right. It is 6:00, so I would like to call to order the March 11th, 2026 school board meeting of the Atlanta School District. Please have a roll call. Yes. Jody Goodrich. Yes. Jenny Jordan. Yes. Chad Neiman. Yes. Chrissy Pellets. Yes. All right, I need a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Okay. Carol, Jenny. Oh, yes. It's okay. Uh Chad. Yes. Chrissy. Yes. Jody. Yes. All right, I'd like to welcome visitors and those of you watching from home. Uh we have uh special presentation from Cass Health today, so I will let you introduce yourselves and we'll get out of podium. Thank you. Stay up here so we can Thanks for having us. Uh my name's Megan Roberts. I'm a public health worker for
002Cass Health in Cass County. This is Grace Backus, our wellness coordinator. Um I'm going to apologize in advance, but when we're done, I'm going to buzz right out of here. My daughter's in the emergency room. She swallowed magnets tonight, so my husband is with her. Don't be I apologize for just ducking right out. She's fine. She's happy, but I just wanted to apologize for that in advance. Um we are here tonight to talk to you about a few things. We're just a spring update for wellness. We promised to give a couple of communications back and forth throughout the year to stay in the loop with what's going on. The last time you heard from us, we were here to talk about um our community health assessment. And so we brought a little bit of information
003on some of the follow-up to that this evening. For those of you who maybe need a refresher, our community health assessment gets done every 3 to 5 years in Cass County, and we both look at federal, state, and local data, as well as survey our communities to find out what's important to them when it comes to health and wellness, as well as have post focus groups to get community feedback on what topics we should be focused on. I gave out the handout this evening that's our full community health assessment analysis for you to look through. We're not going to spend a ton of time on it tonight, but we did want to bring up that the the three top priorities that came out of that were cancer for obvious reasons as we've been hearing in
004the news more and more. Cass County is actually the highest county in the state of Iowa for cancer incidence rates and the second highest state in the nation. So we are literally the hot spot for cancer incidence rate and so we're doing a lot of work in that area moving forward. Healthy eating active living. Part of the reason that this made the list as one of the top priorities is because between cancer, dementia, and a lot of other chronic illnesses, about 30 to 40% of the risk factors can reduce your percentage of having cancer, dementia, and those other things. And so we feel like it's super important to help people to shape really good healthy lifestyles and habits in a preventative way so that we don't have cancer continue to be at the high end
005of the list and dementia maybe doesn't creep up there at some point. So those are at the top of the list, but what we're here to speak most about tonight is the mental health priority. That has continued to be on our health assessment for the last several health cycles that we've gone through. It is still the number one priority for Cass County based on feedback and focus group conversations. It comes up in a lot of different worlds because of the consequences of having poor mental health state. There's a lot of information and a lot of data that was done through the health assessment. We will continue to roll some of those things out throughout the year if you'd like to dig into that more, but we wanted to focus on what we're doing in partnership
006with our school districts in Cass County tonight and so that's a perfect segue to Grace here to tell you a little bit more about what we've been doing with Hope Squad, which hopefully you've all at least heard of at this point. So Grace. Um so Hope Squad is a really exciting program that we have in all three Cass County school districts. Um back in November, we trained 20 advisors and staff in Hope Squad. Hope Squad is a peer-to-peer program. On your second page of this little packet, explains a little bit more about Hope Squad. Hope Squad is this the leading suicide prevention program in the nation. So much so that the state of South Dakota pays for all of their schools to have access to this program. And we're not there yet, but we do
007have some amazing funders that funded this for Cass County. Um it is a peer-to-peer program, meaning that students are put into these leadership roles and their job is to look out for one another. Their job is to notice whether a student is normally a happy-go-lucky person and they've just kind of been sitting by themselves. Or normally um John goes to practice every single day and he's been missing a lot. Um it's teaching those students how to look out for those warning signs, pulling them aside and just saying, "Hey, let's go talk to someone." Not the student being responsible for that student, but just recognizing the warning signs because we know students recognize each other and they get that information way faster than our our staff, our administration, our teachers. Um so the whole setup of
008Hope Squad is to have these advisors. Um and that is this beautiful picture is our advisors that were trained in November. Um they were trained on how to train the students um and how to be that that supportive adult for them. Um if you can look at these sta- statistics on here, um our emergency room uh attempts for suicide, our re-attempts for suicide, are very high compared to the rest of the state of Iowa. So it shows us that the students are struggling and not only they're struggling, but we're not getting them the help they need after an attempt. Um so we need something. We need something for these kiddos. Um So, we're really excited about this because it's not another thing for your teachers to do. It's something to put in their toolbox. It's
009not extra. There's a little bit extra meetings, but these teachers, your parents, your janitors are already having these hard conversations with the students, but they don't necessarily have the tools to look out for these students. So, um A little bit more about it is we love data at public health. Um, whenever a student comes to a teacher, there's an opportunity for that teacher to put a mental health referral in to the Hope Squad system. Um, and it just tracks how many times Hope Squad is being used. Another point of data is that um, at the beginning of the Hope Squad program, uh, students that are in Hope Squad are asked series of questions about um, how do you feel comfortable if a student comes to you with an issue. And then it re-surveys them at
010the end, um, and hopefully getting a little bit of data for our community health needs assessment, and then just seeing where we need those extra pieces of help. Um I'm going to jump in and just point this out. You can look at this later, but it is in your bigger packet with the blue cover. Um, this is one of the first work plans that we've worked up for the health improvement plan, and some of the things that we're measuring are because we know there's higher repeat attempts in the southwest corner of Iowa for suicide attempts for those under the age of 24, we're trying to find a way to track are we making referrals to mental health supports, and then are those referrals actually connecting to services? Are people attending? And so, um, one of
011the work plans we've come up with is starting to get a baseline for how many referrals get made either from a guidance counselor or from our community groups or from another counselor to higher level of service. So, this is not just in the schools, we're working throughout the community with all of our for health and behavioral health providers to try and get a handle on where we're referring to is the barrier that we have long wait times or is the barrier transportation or what is the reason that we're not getting those connections made where the actual where it's I deem that we have a problem but we're not getting the solutions in place so that we can try and fill in the gaps. So, just a little bit about the work we're doing and if
012there's anyone passionate about joining in on these work groups that actually try and collect the data and follow through with making the changes in the system to try and help improve it. That's other things that we'll be doing in addition to help swap programming and just how that little piece of it plays into the bigger project. Um, and we will do that for healthy eating active living, cancer initiatives, all the things in the health improvement plan but this is the area we started working in first. So. Just to close off Hope Squad, I just want to thank your administration for being so supportive. Um, it's hard for administration to think about another thing being added to their plate. Um, so thank your administration for letting us come in and bring this program to them. Um,
013they've been super supportive and we are very excited to continue this program. We have this funded for up to three years is our plan. Um, and then after three years we will re-evaluate, see if this is still the program that is great for our students. Um, or if there's something new and better that we can try and find. So, we are committed to this program for three years. We want to thank Iowa West Foundation, Cass County Foundation and Apex Wind Energy for funding this year's curriculum and training. It was about $30,000 to get all preschool districts brought up speed that we were able to raise privately so that it wasn't an expense on our schools. Next year the funding is coming from our opioid um, settlement funds for Cass County. Um, and then potentially a
014grant if we receive the grant we'll just give the opioid money back to the county to use for other projects and then year three will be the same either opioid funds or grants depending on what we're awarded. So. Sorry, I thought I was closing out but I do have one more thing. So, I heard a really cool story from your staff. Um, for Valentine's of they passed out little hearts that had inspirational sayings on them just to kind of introduce Hope Squad and one of them said you're the six to my seven which I thought was adorable but one of your your kind of two or so students had that heart on her computer case and we just never know is that did that heart make her day it could have not but it you
015know you never know what a student's going through so that's just a small thing that Hope Squad is trying to trying to accomplish. We'll move on to the Thrive Iowa. I know that I had the privilege of speaking with all the principals the other day about Thrive Iowa but we thought we'd fill this forward in as well. Some of you may have heard about this in the news as well. It started as a governor's initiative last year as a pilot program in several counties in the state of Iowa where the governor wanted to make sure we were connecting all of the state systems into one central hub for a family to access rather than having them have to go to multiple offices and deal with multiple case workers. We were awarded this just this past
016year the backbone organization for Cass County and then we will additionally add two additional counties shortly. And what that means is we have some staff basically that will help do some multi-disciplinary team coordination between DHS, law enforcement, mental health counselors, school districts, medical providers, anyone who's working with a family that's got the high risk that falls in those low income brackets will qualify for our programming and then those who don't have income qualifications we will be looking for partnering organizations to help service them in the same way through our staff. Our staff is regulated by grant funding where we have to meet some income guidelines but we can still use the tools that come with it for any family as long as there's kiddos involved. So this will be a huge one for our schools
017to be plugged into and when I say plugged in that can mean a lot of different things. We have a stakeholder level where we have a an alliance meeting once a month where we'll share all the data back. That data is also accessible to anyone in the district who wants to create an account to log in and see are we actually helping families go from crisis to stability and what does that look like? It will show you referrals that have been made, so you know what services are being accessed and maybe where some gaps are. And it'll give us as a community a way to align our vision on what areas we want to focus in. The next thing that the tools give us is communication. That same portal has communication. So, if one of
018your mental health provider sets up counseling outside of the district or meeting with a DHS staff member outside of the district, you want to follow up to make sure that that happened. You'll have access to a case management tool that is just for the care team working with that family to go in and see that it actually happened. Yeah, kiddo came in with parents, we had a meeting with the family. And it will say phone calls, email communications, and just overall communication in general, which we all know can be a big part of the breakdown a lot of times. And then we will have connection for the family advocates who will actually work with you on referrals. So, if there are students and families that need referred to a program like this that just need
019a little extra time and attention compared to what you're able to provide, um we ask for those referrals through the system so that we can assign them a case manager who will follow them. We will assess them every 30 days to see how they're progressing on that um gradient to get from crisis to stability. And then we will also help with things like we need a driver's license because we're not able to drive our kids to school or we need a job because our income isn't great right now and we don't have a job currently. Maybe it's substance use they're struggling with and it's making sure that we're getting them connected to those services. Um there's a lot of navigation services out there within the community to help people know where to go. There are
020not a lot of case managers that hold on to that family no matter what area they're working in. Usually, substance use folks work with them on substance use but not everything else. Or DHS will work with them on their case with DHS but nothing else. Our team will get to hold on to them and they'll just keep bouncing back so there'll be consistency for that family. Um we are super super excited about this program partially because the state is just giving us so much flexibility to shape it into what our community needs. If you want to do some more research, Thrive started in the state of Arkansas as a program called Restore Hope. It's been around there for about 10 years. And Friday last week, they flew their CEO out from Arkansas to come present
021to our community stakeholders. Unfortunately, I know everybody here was in meetings and had regular school day, so couldn't make it, but we did record it and we will get that recording posted within by the end of the week, so you can go go look at that and hear what he had to say. Um he did a really nice job, probably better than I could, at just summarizing the success that they've seen with it in Arkansas. They started with it trying to get kids out of foster care because they had a really high incarceration rate that led to high foster care rates. And they were seeing somewhat of like when they started with the program, families had a 40% chance of reuniting with their family after foster care, and once their program was implemented, they went
022to 85% success rate of being reunited with the family because they were able to make more progress on the outcomes they needed. So, we're hoping to see similar things here in the lanes that we need help with here. And that might be different than what their goals were, but similar type supports. I went through that really quick, but is there any questions on any of that Thrive Iowa initiative? Okay, lots more to come on that. Just wanted to give you a little taste this evening. Okay, I thought we'd end with a fun part of giving away some money. Um I hope you've seen this flyer what floating around, um but Healthy Cass got together with Volunteer Iowa a part coming from our community health needs assessment in our comment section. We had a lot of
023comments on volunteers are dwindling. We need more volunteers. Um so, the state of Iowa and Healthy Cass took that information back um and came up with this new program. Um the program is a volunteer capacity building program. What it is is 12 hours of training on how do I keep my really good volunteers without burning them out? How do I recruit more volunteers? How do I make posts on Facebook of getting more volunteers Um and some other things included and then at the end of that 12-hour training there's a day of service project that will be decided upon the people that get through the class and then after that after the 12 hours of training and the community service day each organization that goes through the training will get four grant to go back to
024the organization without any stipulations without any budget requirements and whenever you can spend it whenever you want. We are allowing budgeting up to 20 organizations to go through this. So if you think about it that's a lot of money going back to Cass County and if you also think about it that's a lot of money that the state of Iowa is giving to us to improve our organizations. This is another pilot program as we have had these so much. The state of Iowa thought that Cass County is really trying to get ahead of this problem before it gets huge. And so that's why they're giving us this huge opportunity. Applications are due April 1st at noon. Part of the application is just going through what am I struggling with in my organization? Am I not
025getting enough volunteers? Am I not able to ask the question hey will you volunteer for me? And then another part of the application is just when can we hold the class? Do weekdays work better? Do lunch and learns work better? Um you name it and then once we get all the applications in applicants will know if they made it into the cohort around April 10th is the date and then we'll start planning that class. So it's a really cool opportunity for our sports clubs our different organizations that are with your school that just need help with volunteers. I think the money is great but being able to train those small non-profit school agencies government agencies just how to work with volunteers is also really huge. So, who is eligible? So, if you want to send
026from the activities department or sponsors I know that they struggle to find staff and there's nothing that says you can't turn around and take some of that $4,000 and use it as a stipend because I know that would be above and beyond their normal salary expectations amount depending on when the training ends up being. It can be given to and used however you want a project or Yes, so um And then it's on our Facebook. If you need a link, let me know and I can totally send it to you. Um the state has been so flexible with this program. Um if you can only send one, which I understand small staff, we get it. Um it's just going to be three grand back to the organization. Um if someone can't make it for a
027class, just go ahead and send someone else that day and take really good notes. We have encouraged others to take their lead person for poop parties and volunteers, but also maybe reach out to someone who's someone nice to take under your wing maybe that's not part of normal staff or volunteerism that could maybe come along and learn something new. Honestly, the folks who recruit volunteers all the time are probably going to be the smartest about this in the first place. They've tried everything under the sun, right? But it might be an opportunity to grow another volunteer or another parent or another someone, whoever that might be, um to come along for that ride to just be a support to that lead staff that we have in other organizations because we know everybody's got a a
028limit on the capacity of everything, so. Thank you for so much time and thank you so much. Well, thank you. That was interesting. We wish you continued success. Hopefully next time we come back it'll be bringing some data back on folks flying in the grant program on how they're coming along. So, we'll be excited to show you how it's looking. Thank you. Thank you. All right, our next item of business are staff reports. Uh Stacy, you're you planning on giving a presentation? It's fine. Okay. Uh, so James, you'll be pretty you're pretty familiar with our board. Rounds up, too. The truth. Uh, evaluation. I'm down. Uh, I'll go pretty pretty quick, man. Some notes for myself so I don't forget. Um, so the science curriculum, I'm going to kind of peer this way cuz I'm
029going to have to move the TV. Uh, science curriculum a little bit this year uh, has been a review. So when we talk about curriculum review, uh, we review we have six different years of review. This year's going to be science or we have been talking about science and working on science. Um, so when we start talking about science, I just wanted to kind of show off some of those science scores that we have uh, in the district for the last couple years. These are off of the ISAT scores. Um, and I did note at the bottom our scores are very close to the state average, a little bit above, a little bit below. Um, but we're right we're we're humming right along at the at the state average uh, in fifth, eighth, and 10th
030grade. So you can kind of see where proficiency levels are and where our scores are on science. Like I said, right along there. Um, cool conversation I had with teachers. So part of our science Uh, so part of the review, I just wanted to make sure I put this on here because I feel like sometimes when we talk about review and what's it look like, I wanted to kind of make sure that I share with you guys. You get this like once a year ish. Some of you this is the first time you got it. So, um, just kind of what what do we do when what's it what's it entail? So, we get a committee ready. All of the three teacher or all all the middle school high school science teachers are involved and
031then we get a representative from each grade level in the elementary. We set this kind of meet in October. We discuss the scope of this of the process and then we really talk about must haves and wants in the program. So we create a rubric and you can kind of see we create a vision and a purpose but then we go into like building a rubric in November. That's these are the must haves that we have to have in a science program. The really cool part about your science teachers and you need to know this. The really cool part about it was they want inquiry based. We want kids to have materials in their hands. We don't want to be learning out of a book. We want stuff that they can do and we want
032to be doing projects all the time. So I think that was middle school high school that was like the coolest conversation cuz I had it with middle school one day and high school with another day and that's like we don't I think one of their words was was kind of a neat way to think about it when you're high school middle school. I don't want a book that's a reading book that teaches science. I want to teach science and get it in their hands and have them do and learn it. Learning the way they should be. So a lot of claims evidence reasoning things like that. But the process thing goes down so we finalize the rubric. We got some programs to take a look at and then we started building through the rubric. So
033one thing that I have them do is fill out the rubric. So there's a meet succeeds or doesn't meet on the rubric. So as we go into it they take the must haves and the wants and hopefully this works. You can see our rubric here. So we take the rubric and we do we just check off. Okay, based on so here's some of the programs that we took a look at. So based on that where do they meet, exceed, doesn't meet? Um and then we filled out we filled some out for some of the programs already so you can kind of see kind of how we do it and why does it meet, what does it meet, things like that. And this is, I believe connected to, well, I don't know if I connected it
034to the stuff that I shared with you, but I'll be connecting this to the stuff that you guys have. Um, don't know if they got as far as filling this out yet. But I know I know they were working on this. We just met with the rep earlier this week. So, as we go back, the generic rubric kind of shows you Yeah, that's some of the stuff that they must have. The critical thinking with the claims evidence reasoning, the inquiry based, the interactive labs on the computer for middle school and high school. One of the big things they said was, you know, if we do a lab one day and we have three kids gone, how we going to get that kid caught those three kids caught up because you know, some of those labs
035are in involved and it's hard to put up, you know, put together all those information, all that stuff again. So, they wanted the interactive labs on the computer, standards aligned, um, Google Classroom involved, especially middle school, high school because that's something that they all use, digital supplements, standards, uh, let's see. Like I said, not if reading writing based science program. We want kids involved in their learning, um, and things like that. So, you can kind of see some of the things on there, and I'll share this with you guys, as we finalize the process and everything. I might have shared it with you already, uh, in my notes, but um, as we go on, I'll go back to here. Uh, right? Yeah. So, as we go on, uh, and we talk about some of the
036stuff that they reviewed, middle school and high school are really liking, uh, Lab-Aids. Uh, high school is diving in and loving it, and they went and visited Harlan Middle School is going to be setting up a time to meet with Harlan here in the next couple weeks as well. Just talk about it. Harlan's been using Lab-Aids. Um, they really like it gives you all the stuff that they ask for. So, it was kind of a cool conversation when we talked about it. Uh we went through some different science programs, and I won't mention them because they're really good reps and they're good people, but it just felt more like the same book that you guys had a long time ago. So, I'll pass this around. This is like the last physical science book we used.
037And you guys can take a look. It's just like the books that you guys used when you were in school, I used when I was in school. It's heavy, heavy reading, heavy vocab, and then you got a couple labs that worked in when the teachers wanted to use the labs, things like that. Um instead of that, I'm going to just kind of pull out some of the materials. So, the lab aids, the cool part of lab aids is it's 66% hands-on. Kids are doing stuff. And so, three out of five days a week, four out of five days a week, they should be getting their hands on materials, doing stuff in the classroom. Um and like here's just some of the materials that they'll use in some like one of the earth science sample thing
038that they sent to us. Looks a lot different than the book and what we did when we grew up. And hopefully in some really good ways. Um and and what we've seen is some really good ways. Uh the cool part of this too is when we talk about it, it's I'm trying to not give my back to you as much as possible. Um when we talked about it, it's very well organized through lab aids. So, like their kits are based on your on per unit. So, there's like they come in a I want to say it's like a drawer. So, you take the drawer out, you bring the drawer, and everything you need for that unit or for that lab is in the drawer. And it's set for 32 kids, and I've checked with our
039middle school and high school, and we don't have 32 kids in a class. We're somewhere in the middle 20s, low 20s, so we should be good. Uh and which is great, so I'll have all the materials I need to do it. And so that for the teachers, where we looked at some of the science programs and it was very heavy teacher prep, teachers need to get this ready. It should be lower teacher prep with all the materials ready to go, but high inquiry, high high learning for the students. So, a lot of hands-on things they should be doing. Couple things that we that I'll note that are a little bit different when you talk about lab aids and when you're talking about a program like this, they're going to need a science notebook. Most of
040our Most of our teachers don't use a heavy science notebook the way that these guys are going to be needing to, but it's definitely more uh you know, prepping them for college, prepping them for that next level, prepping them for the next science class type of thing. So, middle school and high school wise, uh science notebook's going to be needed and that's going to be something new for our students and for our teachers. Um they do provide the the the labs online, so if a student does miss, they can watch a lab that somebody's done. And the funny part the rep was saying, and it totally makes sense, she's like, "This is a perfect resource for the students that missed, but it's also a great resource for the teacher who's about to teach it who
041hasn't taught this before." So that you know exactly what's going to happen, you know exactly how it should look, you know exactly how it should be set up. And it's kind of a good prep for you as you're going to go through it and get the kids ready to go. Um so those are some really positive things that uh we talked about as that goes. Um I'm trying to think. When we talk about standards, too, the lab aids piece is NGSS aligned, but the really neat part of it, good and bad part of it uh a little bit at the high school level, we're trying to piece some things together because they they're missing a few of the physical science pieces, but I don't want to say missing. I need to just I need to
042say that correctly. The way our courses are set, uh they don't have a physical science program, but they have physical science units that we can use to help piece together exactly what we're doing and what we need out of our students. Does that make sense? Makes sense. So, we have all the things that we need, uh but the cool part about it is like when we talk about middle school, they have 17 units. So, the Iowa standards Iowa science, you know, always to to mess things up a little bit or change things up a little bit. So, they take the NGSS and then they tweak it a little bit to make Iowa mean That makes any sense. So, the other programs are all built off NGSS. This is much more I can take this unit
043and I can put it in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. So, it really aligns better for what we need for Iowa, if that makes any sense. So, those are some really neat pieces, really getting our kids hands-on, active in science. Um and should be a lot of opportunities for some really positive things as we go. Uh elementary-wise Uh Washington uses uh we use Mystery Science K-4 right now. Um and and we're not asking for huge change at Washington. Change, yes. Huge change, no. Um we think Mystery Science hits the mark for what it needs to do. Uh but we did notice that uh the teachers kind of thought we need to boost it a little bit. We need to give it that little bit extra. It does get us some exploratory learning for our students,
044some good discussion for classes, but we really want some more like want to build in a few more inquiry pieces along the way uh that will get them even more prepped up and uh more on their own learning instead of heavily leaning on the stuff through Mystery Science. So, the cool part about it um and I'm looking at my administrators in back over here as well a little bit sometimes cuz I'm just like, "Yeah." Uh the cool part about it is we have uh two really good instructional coaches, uh Missy and Amber, and they are a great help and I'm going to say they've been a great great help through the whole process. Um Um, and if you talk to Missy, she would give Amber a lot of credit, too, because Amber's a former science
045teacher, so she like has been digging into this really hard. So, if you see Amber, she's been wonderful, and I just want to give a shout-out to both of them because they've been a lot, a lot, a lot of help uh through the process, and Amber, like I said, just loves this and is digging in really hard and got uh so, we want to take some units, and we talked to the Washington people, which is great, great. They're like, "We want to take some units that you might not love and make it more inquiry and boost it up a little bit to give a little bit more." And you know, one of the teachers said, "Well, this one, this one, and this one." And it was perfect because they're totally they they totally see and
046want to make sure our kids are getting a little bit more, uh but it doesn't have to change exactly everything that we're doing. Without Without changing everything, we can boost it a couple things, and those are some things that we talked about, making sure we do with Washington. Uh Schuler's kind of that stepping stone. So, that's been our conversation as we go. Uh we're trying out a couple different things. They're uh they're currently probably piloting a program um that might work as a good stepping stone from that lower elementary um mystery science, and that's stepping stone to the hands-on 66% of the time with a science notebook. So, that's the That's what we're looking at right now is what's that best next step uh from mystery science into that higher inquiry, a lot of hands-on
047stuff that they have in middle school and high school. So, there's a lot of neat things that we've talked about, a lot of things that we've done. Um I got some quotes uh that I put in there uh that in the the link that I sent you. I think there was a some quotes that you guys can take a look at. I know Jenny was getting in them today cuz I didn't share it with you, so she was requesting access. So, if you guys want to take a look at those, there's some quotes in there. Don't get too scared. Yeah. This is the preliminary. We're going to bring it down. We're going to get it all It's like, "Lisa, don't look yet. I got it. I'll I'll Yeah. We'll massage it. We'll get to Yeah.
048and I have talked to the lab aids person and and what comes with lab aids is a lot um One of the other cool parts about the lab aids is like the the rep that we have is a former science teacher that used lab aids and she said any of the people that are connected to me can come out and tell you like pref professional learning are people that have are currently using the program and they can say this is exactly how I do it and this is what we do. So, it's not a trained person that's sitting in the back that that's all they do is train. It's a teacher that teaches science and uses lab aids and is right hands-on with it every year. So, those are some really cool things that that's
049some opportunities we have. I will update that thing that I shared with you the the curriculum doc as I get some more quotes in, we finalize some other pieces. So, if you are curious as we are in the next couple weeks before April meeting happens, I'm going to be just uploading that or updating that as we go. So, you guys can see some of the updated quotes and things like that. So, is there supplemental textbooks with that or is any Yes. >> reading online or how does No, they there are so there what we would get is Yeah, I didn't bring that in I should have. There's a there's a textbook that goes along with it and there's also some student books that go along. We would get a class set for the student books
050and the textbooks. A lot of the textbooks for this for this would be real really more of a here's how we run the lab with some questions at the end of the lab so that they help and most of the stuff would then go those questions would be answered in their their notebook and it's more of just a how do we get through the lab piece than it is here's all this information. It also goes into a lot of the science vocabulary that we need cuz we this doesn't have vocabulary built in so we have to have those things just like you like you would think. So, we still have a a book that would go along with it. It's just it's more of like a lab manual that goes along with some of those
051things and helps with discussion as to where we're going. Yeah. Yes. So, you said Harland uses the lab aids? Yes. So, have they seen their scores jump in science and testing and stuff? >> They're They're beginners, too. They're beginners, so they haven't Yeah. Does the rep have information that uh you know, that she can that she shared with you that I mean, it does increase test scores or it has helped >> with that? Yeah, we haven't talked a lot about that. I'll be honest. I'm not going to Yeah, but I'll get stuff from her and and I'll ask about that. That's a great question. So, yeah. Is it comparable to the old school textbook? I haven't looked at them. Not. The the textbooks from here? Like an old school textbook to the old program. Like
052is it a big difference or not necessarily? So, it's going to cover all the same things. Okay. Um it's going to cover all the NGSS standards that we need it to. It's going to be just doing it in a way where the kids are involved with the the learning and hands-on with it. Um and Is cost comparable though for what we would normally spend in a science program with textbook and lab materials but this is all combined in one? I think it's not too far off. It's not It wouldn't be too far off at all because in this case we would get um uh very similar like when I compare to what we ordered for um the through like sci- uh ELA last year. The middle school high school quote is very similar to the
053middle school high school quote for the ELA last year based on where we are right now. So, yeah, I don't think it would be much difference. I'm going to prep everything, get a final kind of thing, uh final proposals to you guys for April. If you guys have questions before April and you're like, "Hey, what else is going on? What else you know, I you want to know more? Just let me know. I'm happy to meet with anybody and say, "Hey, this like this is kind of the process and I'll get some more information for you and I'll put it in the quote, too." Um but just The kids have tried it though like in Harland and stuff and they've gotten good feedback from them. Yes. Uh Harland was using a different program. So they
054they've been piloting a couple different programs um and they uh they use a different program they that the AEA has kind of pushed out a little bit and didn't like that one at all. Um so there's a lot a lot left on the teachers where this program is very teacher-friendly, but it's also very supportive and the teachers are really liking what they're saying. So. How long have you had the kit? Yeah. Yeah. I I didn't know how to share it. I was like, I don't know how to have the information. It's a lot of different Yeah, so it'd be an Earth and Space board. So like with all the Earth and Space um courses like the the other cool part I do like about Lab-Aids is they don't let you buy just their online piece
055and their textbooks. They said, "If you want to do our program, you're going to get all of our stuff. Like you have to buy all of our stuff to go along with it so you don't do it halfway. You're going to do it all." So there's some it's kind of a neat piece of it uh but they provide everything that the kids need or the teachers need all right there for the students to do. What grade is this one for? That's a high school Earth and Space course. And they're all designed so like I said, you could have 32 students or 16 pairs or however it goes. Um Well, the materials that we have to refill are fairly minimal um and we can do it either through the program or on our own. So those
056are some pieces we do and like I said, they need to be a lab book that goes with it that will go step-by-step exactly this is what we do. This is the next step. Is not everything in that kit is consumable? Not everything. They said about 70% is not like is not consumable. Yeah, so it was reusable um and most of the stuff that we would need at the middle school level most of stuff we could get at Walmart uh and then we could buy on our own. They said there's a on the back of the the whole kit there's a how much have you used, what do you need, how do you measure your fellows so you can you know, I used 22 of the whatever and we need to re-up and and redo
057that for our next kids. So. Yeah, it there's a lot and like we can always use a program to do it but they're just going to cost more because they got to ship it from New York to get it to us. So, you know, those are some questions that we have to figure out. Any other questions, thoughts? It's a little bit different look than what we went through but I think it'll it's exactly what our teachers were looking for like when we talked through it they checked boxes. You saw the rubric and it was like, yep, yep, yep. Uh so, it did a lot of good things for what we were looking for. Yeah, like I said, if you guys have any other questions along the way, let me know. I'd be happy to talk
058to anybody. Yep. Building principles to give them us all of our eighth grade course, did anybody have questions for our principles? Is anybody else planning on presenting at all? In a little bit on B-CAP. Okay. Um so, let's just go ahead and have you down in the notes. Give me the sent items. I would think actually no, no, excuse me. I'll I'm going to get set. Oh, you're down so now that I look at that. Okay. All right. Superintendent report, do you have one? Couple things that just brought attention to is a new Iowa Western program that they will be offering at Archway and starting this fall. We're really excited. It started with Rod Danner. He came and talked to the school and then he also talked to Iowa Western about Penny. And he was
059wanting to kind of see the West Arc program for Atlantic community and it was either ag based and or drones based. So, I said, "Well, you know, this is kind of an ag community. Let's focus on that. What's current needs for today and ag programs for two-year program for now and future." And he really got into ag technology. So, it's it's he he then talked to Dr. Kenny from Iowa Western. They started to do some brainstorming. Uh if you remember, Iowa Western had some bond funding to improve the campus here at Atlantic. And he's really focusing in on having Atlantic be kind of an ag hub. Offices. So, I think it's amazing that they are going to start kind of the the beginnings of a what he's calling um an ag technology program. That's what
060he titled it, precision agriculture. So, a lot of it has kind of a basis on classes that are very traditional, so you could the students would have kind of a foundation of intro to ag, crop science, precision farming, but then it gets into um spraying applications, drone and learning how to fly drones. Uh seems to be the the trend of the future. Uh so, because of Ron Broadwater and his donation from his family, it's a seed startup to develop an ag program right here at at Iowa Western campus. They're going to use their their bond funding to get in and change some of the the classroom structures within. We also talked to board supervisors to see what they could do um with with just thinking about if we did want to do some kind of
061ag-related program, we need farm ground for kids to practice skills on. So, uh our supervisors are trying to find pieces of ground um to be able to uh to so kids could get out and practice some of those farm skills. So, it it's a it feels like a a community effort. Transformed the beginning. So, just in that short amount of time, Iowa Western is putting on ag program, bringing classes. Um talking to Dr. Kenny, I said, "Gosh, we got to get this off the ground. We have to make sure that it's successful. We don't want anything to just have a a soft start." So, he said that they're going to do all kinds of perform uh promotional campaigns to really, you know, get a lot of kids involved from Atlantic and the surrounding communities. So,
062it's just not Atlantic kids. It's it's drawing kids from around the the um community. So, it it it kind of grows and becomes kind of an established program for ag-related uh programs. Kids that are interested in a 2-year program, and then maybe they go beyond there. So, super super excited to see that it's it's got to start. Any questions on that? Is it just funding for high school students, but offered at WCC, or is um Iowa Western students that are already enrolled and graduated able to do these classes, too. I think both. So, it'll be uh hopefully I I don't know if it'll be dual credit. But, our kids that are in high school can uh start picking up these classes um at the at our the campus here in in Old Landing, get those
063classes, possibly even, you know, by the time they're seniors and out, they could almost have the a whole 2-year program done. Um kids that are out of high school, they could come back, adults, anybody can come back and take these classes. For, you know, like uh one of the classes is pesticide application certification. That's the must-have requirement for farmers. They have have that certification to do any kind of chemical. Um and then I like the part where they've already thought through if you see the list of courses and internships. So, they're actually getting kids uh you know, paired up with whoever for an internship, so they almost have a pipeline for their job. Just I I'm just excited to see this um starting to get going. Uh anything else? The other thing is that you've
064got a paper copy of the um uh on March 24th, the interview schedule for the uh construction managers, the um and then you can also see the rubrics. Um the committee that reviewed the RFPs scored um scored those uh documents, and then you can see what the scores were. Josh McClaren said, "Let's just interview all four uh firms, construction companies, because the scores were pretty close." So, if you look at the schedule, you can see that starting at 5:00 on March 24th, if it works for everybody, um we've got half-hour um uh slots of time to interview each of the four with a little 15-minute break between each interview. So, if they're using the TV, they can break down and then the next group can come in and and set up. Kind of like when
065we did the architects uh interview. I talked to all of them and said, "Let's keep this at half an hour. It's more than half an hour. It becomes overwhelming, you know, for anybody that's sitting and then listening to a lot of information. They've got your booklets. Well, at least they did they get all the booklets? Cuz there's enough booklets for all board members. Um no, they just I think sent five was what they did. I You have an electronic version of each online version of the packet, so you can kind of get that information prior if you've got time to look at it. Otherwise, I think just listening to their interviews, you'll you'll get a good um feel for who they are and and what they're going to do for the building project. And then
066at the end of the last one, uh I think the plans are for the board to get together and talk about who they want to offer contractor. Because the next day, you got a board meeting. We would like to see the board give an approval of contract or tentative agreement to uh to make an offer to one of those inspection companies so we can keep things moving. Any questions on that? Does that sound like everybody could do it with one quorum? We uh Joshua Klein has also invited all three board candidates um to be part of that interview, too. So, they're welcome to come through and listen in and understand that whole process that's involved with just um construction manager at risk and who will follow the people that you're looking for. Anything else? for
067me to go over? All right. Uh board updates, anybody? I have one thing. Uh every now and again I go to a uh meeting called the conference board and the school board rep where the mayors, the supervisors, and a uh representative from each school district goes to this meeting and we oversee the assessor's office. And so we were just doing a budget. Um we got a report on if you had the people come from Vanguard that are doing the revaluation of tax assessing. Uh and they're now going into the rural areas. So I think most of most of us are rural. Maybe not you. Um but anyway, so it's interesting and that was the one meeting that I did. Anybody else? Okay, financial report. So I shared with you the monthly reports for February. That
068is the eighth month out of the 12 months for the fiscal year. Um expenditures are right where we anticipated them to be. Um we've spent about 56% of the budget and um we should be at about 66% spent. So we're about 10% ahead, which is always good. We spend roughly about 1.5 million each month. And that comes out to a just over $18 million a year that we spend. Um we budgeted for $21 million. So right now we're looking like we are ahead of where we anticipated, but we do that with the ideas things do come up and so we don't just set our budget for just what we know. We also set for the unknown as well. But um as of right now we're ahead of schedule. Revenues are coming in as they should
069be. We've completed um first and second quarters with all of our federal and state grants and we have now received those funds. We're completing some um I think our RPP money has come in, our CTE money has come in. We're getting ready to do our third quarter request, which will be in April. And so um those are our small funding sources, but they do make a a great difference. And then because we know kind of what how our uh property tax rates now that the governor has set the state aid, you know, we kind of know what we have to work with for next year as well. Any questions for Lisa? All right, can I have a motion to approve the financial report or financial report? I move to approve financial report. Second. Okay, Chet?
070Yes. Christie? Yes. Jody? Yes. Jay? Yes. All right, next item on the agenda is consent items. Uh are there any items that need to be removed and considered separately? All right, uh then we'll have a motion to approve of the consent items. I motion to approve the consent items. I'll second. Okay, Chet? Yes. Christie? Yes. Jody? Yes. Jenny? Yes. All right, and we are up to our discussion item and our first thing will be Heather giving us a report on D-CAP. Yes, so every year um members of our uh district career academic team meets and we review our plans. And I one of the biggest compliments we got or have gotten um from our partners at the AEA, who oversee CTE, is that our district this is a living plan. So, we are constantly reviewing
071it, constantly looking at ways to improve. Um And so, to me that was a real compliment to our team because I would definitely agree with that. We are constantly looking at ways to provide our students opportunities and um try and to learn from others and work together. So, what I'm going to be sharing with you, you're going to hear, you know, in the world of education, we have a lot of acronyms. So, you'll hear the DECAP. That's pretty much what you're going to hear just right here. But then, uh I'll be diving into the ICAP. And so, these are those individualized career and academic plans. So, um I'm going to talk through that, what our data is showing, what we use to drive our decisions for our plan, and really how we're helping students think
072more intentionally about their future and not just on like part of this unit. So, I think back to my classroom days, uh so, Chad, you might remember the Choices program? Like, you would do it once in a while. It wasn't like a part of Well, that's going to be what some of the biggest changes. And I bring up the Choices program because in my English 3 classes, junior level, that I'd spend like a week on what the Choices program was. And then, that's really all the kids got junior year. So, um I'm notorious for not turning this on. That's it. So, ultimately, when you look at a a DECAP district um plan, you're looking at ways to have it be a living plan. And something that the state has been moving toward is instead of
073it just being an eighth grade through 12th grade plan, it is now a fifth grade through 12th grade plan. It's not It's not included here, but the work that Alyssa Boldt and Angela C have been doing has really been also thinking down to fifth grade. Okay? And so I think Mr. Hartwick, did you guys have career day? Career day today. So, um it's Friday. Love it. Bottom line, how academic learning moves into their career exploration and then thinking about life after high school. As you review a plan as a team, as a district team, you've got to make sure that you look at the evaluation that you got from the prior year. And you look at suggestions that the scores give you on your rubric, where some strengths are and where some challenges are and
074some things to look into. So, we really use that as a guiding point and we're becoming more and more data driven. Just as a district as a whole, I would definitely say at the high school as a whole, that's one area we've really grown in and it's been again because of a lot of the strong team members that we have and those who are able to help educate us along the way. And then student and community impact because this is not just oh, just this team of counselors, administrators, and educators. It's beyond our walls. So, what I want to demonstrate for you here with this graphic is the center is really that individualized career academic plan for the student. But there are all types of systems in place to help support that. So, first and
075foremost, starting with our counseling programs. Then, from there, tying in our seminars and our advisors, and our multi-tiered systems of support through our career tech, through our community partners, workforce, and then again, data. Data really needs to be driving it. So, we also study uh data from the state as far as career pathways, uh opportunities, and where projections are. So, as working with students, all of that information comes into play. And it also is what helps drive us into looking for other opportunities we can provide students. So, for instance, when I was helping Mrs. Bolt uh meet with students to go over class selections for next year, there is one young man who is a freshman and very, very interested in engine work. Well, we have Luckily, we have small engines and we have home
076and auto repair. He wants more. So, I'm like, it's good thing you're a freshman, buddy, cuz that gives us some time to kind of work work on some of these paths. So, uh here in looking at again, because too many times, and this is something I've really been having as a goal this year is thinking outside these walls and thinking as a system. So, how can we embed it? And so, not only at Atlanta High School, but we have a district model so that is used all the way through. And it's through our program that some of you know as Xello. Um and it is phenomenal. The surveys that are included in there, the ways that students update their resumes, their um searches, their uh you know, just kind of looking for different post-secondary plans.
077Uh and then taking that even further because yeah, FAFSA, you need that for post-secondary education. But there's so many pathways to success that, you know, college is not for everyone. So then thinking beyond that, so what other post-secondary planning can we be looking at? And really looking at that vertical alignment of pathways. Every year our departments are looking at their coursework, you know, when we started 2 years ago with PLC, what are those essential standards? Um and then how do those fit into careers and life after high school? Something else that uh we have been complimented on and I believe I've shared with the board before, our work-based learning opportunities. And that's something that I feel like our district has been very supportive of um just over my 29 years here. Primarily it started with
078MO, so multi-occupations. Well, last year industry recognized credentials, it's it is an expectation from the state. And so about March last year it was like, "Hey, got to get these added into your student information system." And I was like, "Okay, great." So got some of those in and then this year like we're into almost half of our student body has some form of industry recognized credentials. Uh and then also looking at what opportunities can we provide for students? And so that's where those work-based learning is just I'm so excited about. We had a meeting today um three of us, myself, Mrs. Boltz, and uh Mary McLaren, who we contract with the AEA for work-based learning uh partnership. And so, she has been a great resource to help reach out to the community. We kind of
079talked to her about, "Hey, here are some things we're thinking of." But, then also thinking ahead. Okay. So, um through all of this work and all of the data that we have um been studying and thinking through other ways that we can reach where students needs are or wants are. Our tier two and tier three, we're also looking at ways that we can utilize their ICAPs to help support that. So, if it's a student who is at risk, um they need more systems of support. Uh working with ICAN, which is an organization that helps with the FAFSA completion. Uh and family engagement. Again, that course-to-career alignment. So, you know, when I I mean, Mrs. Bolt set me up great. It's like, "This is what the student wants to go into. Here are courses that they've
080identified in their plan." Then, I knew how to have that conversation uh with those students. And then, those that I didn't, I said, "We're going to pause cuz we need Mrs. Bolt." So, um and then again, those We are so blessed in this community, and I know you guys know it. But, our community partners are phenomenal. Like, they are willing to have students come in to shadow, to learn, to work. Um so, we could not do what we do without them. So, some big lessons that we learned um is that the ICAP cannot just be uh "Okay, you're going to do this in seminar for these 5 days, and then we're not going to talk about it again till next year when the next 5 days we're going to go over." It is embedded. So,
081uh there are multiple opportunities that uh Mrs. Bolt meets with small groups of students. She has AO, so our skinny period where she meets with about 25 kids each of those days to go over a number of items that are tied directly to their work in Zello and their ICAP. It was interesting this morning. I had gone back and one of our freshman and students I heard her say, "All right, did you get that Zello assignment done last night?" And it was a survey about resiliency. And he's like, "Yep, I got it done. I got lots of threes and fours." And it was just like, "Wow." I was so impressed by just that conversation. So, again, really something we are still working towards uh as a whole at the high school level in so many
082capacities is that family engagement because that strengthens everything for our students. And then again, making sure that we have vertical alignment through the grades. So, it's not fifth grade is only focused on this and then seventh grade is only focused on this. And oh, it No, it's got to be streamlined and each grade working to help towards the next. So, data sources that we use, and these are data sources that definitely fit with our strategic plan. So, looking at our NWEA data, so our math growth, our I-SATs, and EVAS, which is not something that you really know, but it's something that we use to help study year-to-year student by student. It's a great resource. You've heard us talk about Panorama before, but EVAS as far as testing data really helps us see the student in
083a different way. Then attendance, which is also one part of our goals for this year, credits that students earn, the FAFSA, that is also something that uh our our district is reviewed upon, uh what type of completion do we have there, and then of course, our Zello, and how much uh work there has increased. So, currently our data is showing trajectory that our students are becoming more college and career ready. And that's very exciting, and I hope that we continue that with through the end of the year, and then as we move into next year. Uh so, initially, and I I know that's kind of small, but first, you know, looking at that academic growth. We've shared the NWA data so far. Um hopefully, you know, ISAT go amazingly, and uh our students really knock
084it out of the park. Then So, for career and post-secondary planning the ICAP um completion by students has substantially increased. Um Also, with FAFSA, that has also increased. Looking at again, those alignment between courses, what are you wanting to do after high school, uh and really helping students have some clear goals as to what they want to do, and how do I get there. Uh So, then again, just kind of as the example of some student impact, uh looking at that four-year plus aligned uh work-based learning experiences, we are really opening the doors on that. That is part of our student performance profile, so our report card that we will get from the state. So, I'm excited for that one as well. Okay. So, again, uh just some key things to know that we have
085to make sure that we are utilizing that annual rubric that we get from the prior year's plan, and demonstrating that not only uh did we pay attention to it, but we took steps to improve upon it. And that everything is data-driven and tied towards the district's strategic plan and your building goals. So, what I appreciate about this plan is that it helps us keep our focus where our focus needs to be. Okay? So, uh it's always knowing where where the target is. Where are we wanting to take our students? So, keeping the focus as our primary um goal. So, we're really looking at what are the additional steps that we need to keep taking? Uh keeping a growth mindset, not just thinking that is oh, just right now, but really making sure that we have
086fidelity with our ICAP. So, students it's not just like, oh, well, that kid missed um our small group, so I'm not going to worry about them until next No, every student is going to be completing and trying to keep track um with that. So, really making sure that we are practicing that with fidelity. Um Oh, expanding concurrent enrollment and work-based learning opportunities. So, that is also something else, uh you know, we had a certain course that Iowa Western didn't offer for this semester and but I think it was DMACC. Yeah, DMACC did. So, we worked with our Iowa Western partners and said, "Hey, we've got a kiddo who's interested in this. Can we?" And so, they worked really well with us um to make that happen. So, again, constantly looking at not an automatic no,
087but how can we come from a place of yes? Because bottom line, we've got to be one system with one mission, but have lots of pathways to get there. And ultimately, it's about you know, that student success. We're looking at the portrait of a Trojan. How are we moving as a district to do better by our kids? So, members that make up the team, uh counselors, administrators. So, we have an MTSS team at the high school. So, our leadership team, our CTE, our career tech instructors, our seminar seminar advisors for special populations. They're also We have team members there. As I said, post-secondary, we work with um a lot of different avenues there. Our local community is amazing. Um and then community organizations as well. So, um we're we're really blessed to be to have
088so many people willing to share their insight, okay? So, thinking about the alignment and that vertical alignment. So, eighth grade, this is where in their careers class, they're all on that path for discovery. Then, freshman year, all right. Now, we've got some discovery. Let's start exploring, looking for what we can do. How do we get connected to it? All right. Now, how do I prepare for it? And ultimately, how do I launch into my plan? So, this is how we look at our recap. Because bottom line, it's not I mean, oh my gosh, I think of my own children and like what I want for their futures, etc. So, our students also have to be a part of the team and helping them learn how to own their future, um just as much as we
089want for them. And then we are seeing so much more of that. Um even if the kiddo is like, I I don't know. It's okay. You You don't have to know right now, but so let's let's start tapping into some areas of interest. And it really helps open the door for great conversations. And again, you know, hearing from other districts when in June, you know, we come together to evaluate D-CAP or plans of other districts, we are really blessed to have a community that partners so strongly with us. Not every district is as blessed as we are in that capacity. So, bottom line, because of the work that our community and our businesses and our industries do, it helps propel our students in all kinds of ways. So, bottom line, our commitment is every Trojan,
090every year, and it's their pathway. So, it's not the Heather McKay pathway. It's that student's pathway. How do we get them there? Any questions? I threw a lot at you, I know. Yes. So, with the community partners and all the collaborators, the one and maybe they're there, but the one group that I didn't see part is kind of that alumni network. And we've we've talked about like in the past how we after students graduate, how we get to them and find out Oh. >> all work for you? Yes. And what I'm wondering is, you know, and and sometimes we don't know that after 1 year or even 5 years. Mhm. But maybe 10 if there's some way to track them down 10 years out, what are you doing? So, >> you >> Yep, exactly. go
091to a technical school? Where did you go? And have a searchable database so that when you have a kid that comes in and says, "I'm interested in engines." You could go in and type in engines or you could type in Central College and see like, "Here's our alumni that have you know, that that we can involve them if they want to be involved. >> Yes, no, absolutely. And so one of the things that we have added to our senior exit survey that every senior has to do before they get their diploma is we have added in there like a person personal ways that we can contact you a year out. Um don't have for the 5 years or the 10 years yet, but we haven't given that survey yet. So that's definitely a way that
092we can add that in. But we did make that change to our survey for this starting with the class of 2026. So thank you for asking about that. Thinking even beyond. get to the class of 2016 and survey them and what they're having you know whether it's through class reunions or some way to say I think it's some of them. Yeah. Yeah, but you know I know, yeah. You know even if it's like a shareable online thing or something so you can start to build Yeah, some sort of network. >> my pen or your pen open? Mhm. Thank you. Absolutely. Uh And I think it has I just had a personal conversation with a graduate who you know told me like she was one of the only ones in her class that did not go
093to college, you know, but I'm looking at what she's doing and her pathway and it's like wow, that's really cool. And now it's much more acceptable to have that >> Absolutely. where when she graduated that was not the case. Right. And that's um and I appreciate that too because that's one of the reasons why I wanted to see become a school principal is because I look at me and my three siblings and all four of us had very we all had different pathways. Um one with no college education, one with an associates, one military, and then one with a master's degree. So yeah, I really appreciate that and thank you for that idea. Uh Class reunions, I hadn't thought about that. Cuz I'm sure there's some really cool things happening with our alumni that we
094just don't Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You go to that school, but you know Right. Right. Thank you. I appreciate that idea. For us being able to follow up and seeing like, "Hey, how's your freshman year going? Like, do you need help? You know." Um and I know our students in I-Jag, they do have that support system. Uh so I will take that back to the team and see but we just always spend a lot of time like getting them like, you know, we want you to jump up, we want you to be successful but we never really go back and evaluate How did you How did you do? Yeah. Do the counselors or do you guys help them apply to colleges if they want to go to colleges and The school counselors do for sure
095and Mrs. Honky. Um great, great resources on that. That is one thing I have not been asked to do. Did it for my own children but um yeah. Uh in fact, there was something that uh Mrs. Bolt asked me yesterday after school because a kiddo needed help with something and she was like, "Have you ever seen this before?" And I was like, "That one's new for me, too." So, she set up like what how she was going to help that kiddo today. So, yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. Ben, thank you. Ben, thank you. Uh next item on the agenda is the technology bids for this week, April 27th. Oh. I sent them to all. Uh good evening, folks. It's that time of year when you get to hear about the technology. Uh one of the good
096things about it this time is is I'm not asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars when it comes to summertime. Uh we got together with uh Lisa and Dr. Johnson uh here about a month, month and a half ago and they asked me what I had up my sleeve for the upcoming summer and the upcoming school year and we don't One, we don't have any big uh computer purchases or Chromebook purchases for this summer. We don't have any staff purchases for this summer or any of those large purchases like that, which usually encompasses pretty good dollar value. But the three projects I did identify was um uh throughout the year here which we did for me rate last year, I've added uh a different Wi-Fi system and started implementing in some of the buildings. And
097uh have come to the conclusion that that is the absolute only way to go. Uh system that I had before or still have is their system I've been happy with for years, but uh their pricing and end of life is coming with those, so the first project that I have up my sleeve is uh we're play we're going to replace all the Zeros access points in the school district, which comes to the first E-Rate uh proposal, which is uh I had seven bids. Uh And this was the lowest bid for the products that I wanted to get and uh um It come out to 29,000 something like that. Now, just for but especially for Chad, E-Rate is a comp or is a funding pros process that we get from the government for uh electronic devices,
098things like that for electronics and networking. That that money that you pay on your phone bill every month is kind of tacked onto the end from the FCC or something like that that's on your phone bill, that's what E-Rate that's where the money from E-Rate comes from. Okay. Long story short, uh based off of uh the school lunch program numbers, uh we're still at that uh we're still just above 50% as far as free and reduced lunch. Well, that translates to uh 80% funding from E-Rate. So, any projects that I put in and the and the hardware that I'm proposing, uh that's funded at 80%. So, of that $29,000, which you'll see on the on the sheet there, we are responsible for 20% or around $5,000. Okay? It's wonderful. Because otherwise, you're looking at all
099you know, pretty good dollar volume and and we have you know, over the next 5 years, somewhere in the neighborhood of about $350,000 that we can spend from E-Rate. But, it has to be E-Rate qualified. So, that's the first project uh is to replace those access points. The second one kind of reared its ugly head as we started because here 2 years ago, I got all new switches through the E-Rate program, and come to find out that the the fiber lines between Schuler and the middle school and the fiber lines between Schuler the middle school and Washington will not carry 10 gig traffic. Well, my switches are 10 gig. So, uh that may not mean a lot to you, but we go from 1 gig to 10 gig, that's 10 times. You know, when we
100went from 100 meg to 1 gig, that's 10 times. Things just increasing. Well, that not being able to do that is one drives me nuts. Now, 1 gig traffic is a lot. Trust me. But, I want the system to work the way it's supposed to. Uh I was kind of flabbergasted that the fiber line wouldn't, but Scott Bennett and I started doing some testing and we just could not get it to anywhere close. So, same as the fiber line that we have now that goes from the middle school to here, middle school to the preschool, middle school to the uh achievement center, which we've had in place for the better part of 11 years. Basically, this contract is going to be a supplement on that, and they are the company that I got The only
101company that came out and bid it was the same company that has our fiber line. They're going to run a fiber from middle school to Schuler, middle school to Washington, and if you can believe it, they actually go out to the street, run across the poles, and all the way around up to Washington, and then they'll bury it into Washington. What I like about Schuler is the Schuler fiber line is apparently run over the catwalk. Well, if we do something with the catwalk, then I don't want to do that again. I want to do it somewhere there. Nope, they're going to run it out to the street and then come back in where it needs to be. So, that project, there's no money up front. It's uh I believe I've got it on there 1090
102or 1190 uh a month. That is category one E-rate eligible, and we are funded at 80% on that. So, our bill will technically, our bill will add $200 a month to that every month. And what I put on there, it will then be concurrent with our current contract with that company and end in 2033. And when I say end, that's when you got to go out and do the E-rate thing, and but obviously nobody's going to bid it cuz it's already there. So, uh that that'll be probably after I'm gone. So. But uh that that ensures that we have capability on our fiber line not only for 10 gig traffic, but with what's currently there, you know, 15, 20 years down the road, it might come quicker than that, we're at 100 gig. And you
103know, there is eventually there might be terabyte traffic. So, just one of those things. Um So, that's the two projects that The reason I had to get in front of the board is because I got to get the paperwork filled out for E-rate by the end of the month. So, those are the two I Those two projects is what I'm proposing now and put on the docket. The third project I don't have to do anything with now, but is I've been working on it is the high school camera project is what I call it. Basically, all the cameras in the in the high school Well, let me give you a little background. Over the last 2 years, I've been able to purchase the the guts of the system. Meaning, the DVRs that take care of
104all the storage and all that kind of stuff, the the brains of the system, I've got in place. Now, that was a big chunk. And now I can take every camera in the district and put it on one system. Even our old Avigilon cameras can be pulled into this system. So, when you log into it, you're logging into one system. Right now, we currently have two. Okay? But, one just like anything else, the cameras have gotten better. Uh The beauty of the company that I use, which is Ubiquiti, which is I've gone to everything, uh the pricing is phenomenal. When I say that, uh every camera that we put up 12 years ago when I started this, I just put tag on it 1,000 bucks. Cuz the camera was going to cost 500 and the
105licensing was was going to cost another 500. Now, I buy a camera that I a dome camera that I can put in the hallway for 160 bucks. Much better, and that's it. It hooks into the system and we're done paying for it. So, they don't come around again and get you up for more licensing. Okay, that was part of the problem with the Xerox system in the network. They're trying to create a cash flow, and no, that's not the way it needs to work. So, probably at least by May, if not by April, I'll that project which I'm just kind of to replace all the cameras will be a $30,000 project, which is kind of drop in the bucket, considering it's about 65 cameras. So, uh it it just plays into the system really, really
106well. Now, in contrary, all the cameras that are here at the they're still usable. We'll just find other places for them in some of the places that need it more more coverage, you know, so that's the it's not like they're not going to be usable. That'll be just a the plan. Those are the three projects other than uh you know, the some of the updates and all that kind of stuff over the summertime, so uh hopefully that plays into the the next budget process and stuff like that that uh because not this summer, but the following summer is when we need to look at the uh 1.5 rollover Chromebooks. So, they'll be at that point in time. So, any questions for me? So, I like E-rate, but it is a pain. Boy, do they It's
107been hundreds of thousands of dollars for us, let's put it that way. Thank you, Rod. Does it make sense Can I move an action item out of order and just go ahead and vote on Rod's proposals right now, while we're thinking about it? Okay. Um so, let's move to item C on the action items and we can either have one motion and approve it all at the same time or we can separate it into two motions. Anybody have a preference? Good, Kelly. Kelly. Just kind of state what you want and I'll make sure I write that correctly. Okay. I move to approve the recommendations for Let's see. Um $29,004.67 for new ubiquity access points. And $238 The $238 a month for fiber lines That's correct. Shoot. Uh to install fiber optic connections between AMS to
108Show our elementary in Washington. I'll second. Okay. Okay, try again. Yeah. Uh Christy Yes. Jody. Yes. Jenny. Yes. Chet. Yes. Okay, motion passed. Uh we'll move back to item A, action items for out of state travel requests. I move to approve track travel to during cross country service student for Maryville on March 5th and 6th. I'll second. Okay. Jenny. We want the other ones in there, too, right? There's the Nebraska and Oh, I almost messed that one Yeah. Oh, sorry. Um as well as softball to Lincoln, Nebraska to watch UCLA versus Nebraska softball and high school boys girls cross country at Plattsmouth, Nebraska. Hackett in September. I'll second. Yeah. Uh Jenny? Yes. Chad? Yes. Chrissy? Yes. Jody? Yes. All right, our next item of business is the cooperative purchasing uh for our nutrition nutrition department.
109And this is a standard agreement, I believe, that comes up every year and saves us considerable amount of money. A lot of money. And we're able to uh uh decide to take advantage of some of those purchases. It's done through the uh cooperative times. Not necessarily our district purchases through that whole AEA, but it's it's a good option. I'm going to uh agree with that cooperative purchasing nutrition agreement. I'll second. Okay. Jody? Yes. Jenny? Yes. Chad? Yes. Chrissy? Yes. Our next item of business is approving the Green Hills memorandum of understanding uh between well, Austin Green Hills. Uh this is the funding that gives us Miss D and Mary McLaren. Jim, did you have anything to add on that uh Do you remember um a couple years ago the uh the governor passed a law
110that um they were going to start to reduce the amount of money that goes directly to the AEAs. This upcoming year, we as a district received 100% of that funding, and then the district decides how they're going to use that money. Instead, all 100% goes to AEA, and then, you know, we just spend kind of the extra money as we choose, choices that we want. So, um you can see what the cost is for those services. Some of the things that we have not uh have agreed to do is is uh programs I thought right you're right. It's it's now before you. It's a $10,000 online program and I said, "Are we using it?" And he goes, "No, we haven't used it for years." So, it is just an example of certain things that we're
111just not using anymore. Some of them have become antiquated. Um, it's a way that we're we're trying to kind of trim up some of our budget um so that next year it's very sustainable. Uh we'll see how it goes. So, this is just the MOU for the media services. Uh they will send another one for sped services, any of our sped programs um like our school psych, OT, PT, uh SLP. Oh gosh, I can't think of all the other special ed services that are paid as a sped fund. That will come eventually. But the district now receives a 90% of that funding. The AEA gets 10%. So, now we we we again start to have a little bit more control on how um state aid funding uh how already it's going to be used. So,
112it's another way for us to just to really have um decisions made on what what services and programs we really really need. And that'll come soon. But this is just the media services. services Um, wrestle olds, they will probably nod their head to say, "Yes." So, base interventionist that's mostly and uh work based learning coordinator Mary and Byron, highly awesome. We want to bring those folks back. They did really they did a difference for the part of the needs of our students. I I to approve the of understanding of the principals. I'll second. Okay, Chet? Yes. Kristi? Yes. Jody? Yes. Jenny? Jenny, yes. All right, our next item of business was to approve policy updates from the Iowa Association of School Boards. None of those policy updates could be opened, so none of us have
113read them. So, we've agreed that I am we're going to move that on to a different meeting in either April or May. Um our budget guarantee resolution, that will be Lisa. We'll explain that, please. So, we talked about this at our February 25th board meeting talking about what a budget guarantee does. And so, the board before uh they submit the budget in April 30th, really need to do uh board approval of that budget guarantee. Um the amount is $511,852. Um it will be figured into our state aid and property taxes and things like that. Uh but that allows us then to because we qualify for that, there are 199 schools in the state of Iowa that qualify for that, means they took a loss in enrollment. And so, because we did, they the the state
114gives you some money to make budget adjustments over a two-year period instead of turning around and having to make all those adjustments within the first year. So, we know we lost about $395,000 um with 77 students uh leaving. And so, they're giving us kind of one-time money to make adjustments over a two-year period, so that in two years we can write where we're down in in finances. So, they do that with the idea that you're staying steady the next year in your student enrollment. Now, when our spring SRI, when we start working on that and that's coming up soon, that should give us an indication of what our count looks like possibly going into next year without knowing new people moving in, of course. And so, we hope to know that will determine if there
115will be more or less adjustments that need to be made, but gives us 2 years to make adjustments instead of turning around having to make all of those adjustments in 1 year. And we kind of talked about that at the at the work session saying we're going to do this over a it's a 4-year program um to try to make those adjustments so we don't feel everything in 1 year, but they are decisions that will be made um that will be a continuous um expense cut. Any other questions? So, otherwise I'm going to need a motion to move that. To approve that budget guarantee resolution. I can second. Okay. Christy? Yes. Jody? Yes. Jenny? Chet? Yes. All right, next item of business we need to set the public hearing date for the FY 27 budget
116hearing. Number two, is there Yeah, two public hearings. Uh the first one we will have March 25th. Um everyone will receive their property tax statement most likely March 15th. And gosh, that's that's coming up, isn't it? That's Sunday. Um so, we have to have a second public hearing and we have to have it between April 1st and April 25th. And since we have a board meeting the 8th, it seemed logical to do it at the same night that we had already a board meeting. It does have to have be a completely separate agenda, separate meeting. It can take place before your regular meeting, but it can't be during your regular meeting for both of your public hearings for budgets. So, we need a motion to Set a date for the public hearing number two. Yeah,
117okay. I motion to set it for the 8th the public hearing date. Okay. Second. What time is that going to be? It'll be at 6:00. And then we'll just adjourn and go into the regular meeting. Uh Jody? Yes. Jenny? Yes. Chad? Yes. Christy? Yes. All right, upcoming dates we have board meeting including the public hearing for the 2026-2027 school master calendar and budget hearing number hearing number one on March 25th, 2026 at 6:00 right here in the media center. And we need a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. That's it. That's it. Did a great job, Jenny. Face of the scene and uh Peace ambassador. Yeah, peace ambassador.