ACSD Regular School Board meeting 7-9-2025

001Thank you. She told me she doesn't think and so she said, "Oh, I just didn't know if she was like Uh, I'm going to call this meeting to order. This is the s the city of Atlantic. See, I did it first time I did that. It's the Atlantic Community School Board. Uh, and this is our regular meeting for July 9th, 2025. Uh, can we have the roll call, please? Yes. Jody Gri, yes. Jenny Jordan, yes. Josh, yes. Uh, I will take a motion to approve the agenda. Second. Okay. Jenny. Hey, Jenny. Yes. Can you uh uh vote on approving the agenda? Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I can't hear I can hear. Okay. I can't hear of a lot. Okay. Gotcha. Josh. Yes. Laura? Yes. Josh? Yes. Great. Uh at this point in our meeting, we

002uh welcome visitors and any member of the public who wishes to address the board. Do we have anybody who does? No one signed in. No. Okay. All right. In that case, um Steve Anderson, who is our director of transportation, is going to talk to us about buses and such. Thank you very much. We got a big meeting, so I'll try as brief as possible, but still give you some good information. Um, a quick overview. Uh the last school year we operated eight regular AM and PM yellow bus routes uh and three preschool routes over the noon hour four times a week and four daily car SUV routes to council Omaha and Red Oak the students who have been transported out of town I think we're bringing them back this year but last year our yellows

003traveled 85,689 route miles and another 41,000 in activity miles. The fleet autos, SUVs, etc. went another 82,000 route miles and 47,000 activity miles for a total of 255,000 miles. Our fleet is consist of 14 buses. Each of those 65 passenger. Three of them are used primarily for activities. The rest are used for routes and activities. And we currently operate four diesel buses and 10 propane buses. We have 12 gasoline vehicles as well. And of those, there's four cars, a traverse, thanks to your approval last month, uh, five SUVs, which includes a 12 passenger trans. So, I did have two regular route drivers retired at the end of the school year, and then another left for full-time employment. So, we're currently looking to fill those vacancies, but I hope they will still use all three of

004them who were good drivers for us as substitutes. And our remaining route drivers, of course, are outstanding. Uh, each of them care a lot deeply about their students and the importance of their work. We have an experienced fleet mechanic. Monty does a great job of keeping the vehicle safe on the road and cost effectively. And I'd like to especially note my appreciation for Lori Ericson and overall value that she brings to the department um and and all of her problem solving that she does there. So later tonight we'll talk about a proposal that I'm requesting two buses for purchase. We haven't purchased any since uh 2023 which puts us a little behind. It was actually the 2022 year for the 2023 model. So we can talk about that later. I wanted to show you you

005improved some routing software uh for us last year and uh it's been great. I appreciate the time that I've been given to implement it, to be able to use it, become familiar with it. And what you're seeing right now is the outline is our district. Of course, I'm pulling up last year's routes because of course we won't know ours until we get um people registered. But if I go through and click the individual routes, um it'll show up on the map where we're go with each individual one. Some colors are easier to see than others. Some of them, of course, are in town routes. U but I just kind of wanted to give you a view of how it works. You can see we have kind of four quadrants and then one that kind of

006goes between the two. And uh the way that this route software works um we used to have to just look at the addresses figure it out ourselves. This is a little more efficient to be able to do so especially when they change every year. Um the next screen I want to show you is these are all the stops. Now we don't stop at every one of them every day. We do have about 300 stops throughout the district. And then the last thing I want to show you is where students are. And I'm sure you've seen bubble graphs like this, but on the map, you zoom in, you can go in as far as you like, and it will keep breaking the bolts down how many are in Atlantic City. it's proper. Then of course we

007do provide transportation, if it's part of their plan, but also if an elementary schooler lives two miles away or high school lives three miles away and that's from the school that they're at. So any questions on transactor or anything that I've Okay. And the other thing that I want to show you, and this is a is a web-based um program, but I went ahead and put it on my computer. So, for the parent portal, so the parents can see uh where the bus is and do some other things and make transportation requests andor changes. So, I went ahead and put it on the computer so you can kind of see what that looks like. and I added several students to my account and I picked them all on the same route just so just for

008the sake of of showing you. So if we look at uh JW here for example uh and we decide that let's see what his uh schedule is. We look at the bus schedule like JW rides the bus every single day. Of course not in July but we set it up for display purposes. But then there's somebody like, "Oh, we have him riding on Wednesdays, but we owe him now to go to church on Wednesday, so he's not going to ride." They can call me at the bus bar or call or say that or they can go in here and deselect Wednesday and then hit submit. That request will then come to us at the bus garage and we either approve it or not, if we have any questions. and once it's approved, it will impact

009that route right away and we'll take JW off the route for that. So, that's a that's a really handy thing. Um, another good thing about this is if you really want to know what where uh when your kid gets if your student gets picked up and or dropped off, we'll look at AJ under notifications. There's not much because these are just practice routes, but it might be too small, but I'll tell you what it says is that it has a notification that AJ was picked up at 11:36 a.m. and she was dropped off at school at 1:23 p.m. because me, the practice driver, might have stopped for lunch in between. But anyhow, that's for for practice purposes. And then if we go back to um the thing that I think will be helpful so we're

010not waiting for kids to come out and they're ready when the bus comes up. We go to bus tracker and we pick on for example CS here. It shows where CS lives and uh it has a circle around it. This one is a it's a half mile around. It lives south of the interstate but you see it maybe doesn't quite catch Highway 71. So that that half mile just isn't quite enough. So what they can do is they can expand that up to a mile and we would be coming to CS's house from the north and now you'll see he'll get a notification when his vehicle comes when the bus comes in to that. The reason that it's a notification zone is we don't really want any uh bus stalkers out there to be able

011to see where the buses are all the time other than us, but they need to know when the bus is close and u the parents can notify that or you can put grandparents on the um account as well or daycare whatever is used. So when you say they are you saying the parents have this? This is what the parents will see. Mhm. They they'll see the map just like this, but the map will be empty until the bus comes into the circle and then there'll be a blip where the bus is. And if you're there not actively watching the map, you know, you can set any app to allow notifications to come through on your phone. You would get that notification. Bus has entered the zone. Bus has entered the zone. Person has picked up.

012Person has been dropped off. questions that I can answer about that or anything that I didn't cover. Thank you. Oh, well in that case, do you how how has the response been from parents? Well, they haven't they don't have this down yet. Yeah, we were late getting into it last year and I really wanted to establish the use of the routes and doing that kind of stuff before we invited parents in. And since the time that we've done that, they've already upgraded the parent portal. So, I'm glad I mean we'll probably still get more updates, but I'm glad that we're using this app instead of the one that initially came as part of our purchase. Okay. Okay. And so you're you have a plan to roll this out over the summer so your drivers are

013getting used to it and because it is going to be initially especially for a route driver who knows all of their students and exactly where they live and how everything works. It's going to be an extra step to to click them in or to scan them in. We just we have tablets that are mounted. You can use the camera on the mount to scan a QR code or you can actively like when I was out doing the practice drop just actively click the child on or off it. So initially that the first times that they're using it it's going to take a little bit longer. Where we've seen the biggest benefit so far in using it is for substitute bus drivers because they can with confidence grab a tablet and go out and it will

014guide them turn by turn where to go and who's there and uh go from there. Great. We need route substitute drivers. I need them to be comfortable because a lot of our regular route drivers they also do activities. So when they do activities we have to back fill and u filling back filling routes is a tricky thing. Touts have really helped with that. Thank you. And thank the principles have a presentation. I just want to say I think the bus drivers have like one of the most difficult jobs in the district. So I applaud anything and everything that you do to help them make it easier because that is not an easy job. While we're while we're pulling up our presentation, um I can I guess I can ask questions if there was any I'm

015I'm going to be sharing James's information since he's gone tonight. Um but did anybody have any questions at all about any of the information I shared on my report? Is there anything any questions about it? My information it's we're going to be going over data now, but did you see that? Well, Stacy, I had noticed that you were gonna you're planning para training for the next school year. Is that stuff you're going to do in the summer before school starts or is that like ongoing throughout the year? It's going to be ongoing throughout the year. We're going to try to do similar format that we did last year where we offer um the training as credit renewal for those uh pairs that are certified so they can get their renewal credits um to keep their

016certification up. How many do they need per year to They need three for renewal. Um, and so last year we were able to offer two. Um, and so what I've been kind of guiding them and coaching them to do is to get those credits taken care of as soon as possible. So even if they did just renew their credits that we're going to be offering this next year, which again I want at least two, um, will they will be able to get that and then get just have their credits ready to go next time they have to renew. So hopefully this is something that's um, beneficial to them. Um, some of the information we're looking at is going to be behavior management. Um, I'm also looking at a very specific training on autism. Um, and

017and um hopefully that I took a survey at midway through the year last year on what specifically they were looking for. So, I'm trying to take that into consideration as I plan the upcoming trainings. Great. Okay. So, uh you guys have had a copy of this in your packet. So, we'll hit the highlights. We aren't going to bore you and read everything to you again. But if you have questions, just just ask and we are happy to answer them unless you ask specific ones about Schuler that we may not be able to answer. But James has enjoyed some time away Canada. So we'll do our best. Um, all right. So third grade ISAS data third grade is the first year that kids take the what we used to call ITPS or its Iowa assessments name.

018So this year uh 82% of third graders were proficient in math and 68 were prevent 68% of them were proficient in ELA this spring. So those who are watching ELA stands for English language arts. So and it's it's not broken out as it used to. So it's all compressed. So that's the writing portion and the reading comprehension part all put together. Our fast data for the spring hit finished the year at 72% of them hitting that benchmark. First grade 77% sec second grade was 73 and third grade was 70%. um when we look at our one year's growth and I triangulated with fast our TNT and then our instructional reading levels for um the classroom teachers and we had 97% of kindergarters make a year growth 98 of first grade 97 of second and 98

019of third I wanted it to be 100 is pretty darn close um and those ones that didn't it's like you know um and while we're talking about one year's growth another um indicator of success for some of our kids were our ELLL kiddos and looking at all the different things that they have to do as well helps contribute to that because their academic is one piece but really growing that vocabulary what they learn in a year is so much more than what most other kids do because they're literally learning everything in another language. So hang on. So when you talk about kindergarteners showing one year's growth, what is that from the beginning of the year to the end of the year or did you have Okay. And so is that true for everyone? Yes, it's

020beginning. Okay. And so those beginning of the year tests, how soon are those done? Right off the bat, we start like welcome to school kids. Here's a test. We start Monday this year. We'll start testing on Tuesday, Wednesday. Okay. We don't have a much time. And then their end of the year tests are done very beginning of May. Like I think the window opens May. or something like that. So I think we didn't do it the first week of May, we did it the second week of May because the first week of May is kindergarten connection. So we start the second week of May. So it's almost the entire school year. It's good to hear you guys figured out ways to measure it because I remember last year we were talking about it and how

021you guys could do it. So that's great. It was Yeah, it was an it was an interesting way to look at all the data points and kind of figure it out. Yeah. So then that this button will take you to the next. All right. So we get to the fourth grade. Um, as you can see here, James reports that we have 100 kids that were tested in the fourth grade. Um, and he's got this broken down in a couple different ways. Um, when you look at that year's growth, which again, this is going to be that first year that you're looking from last year's ISAPS to this year's ISAS because this is the first time you're going to have kids that have that testing. Um, we might have some kids that have never been tested

022before because they're coming in from out of state. So, we don't have that data. So that could be where some of those skewed numbers come in. Um but you can see here that 35% were not yet proficient, 60 were proficient, and five are in the advanced category. Now that advanced category, um you know, we should still be able to see that year's growth with those students as well. And you can see that down here when you get down to that fourth bullet, you have 33 that did not achieve a year's growth according to the ISAs scoring. Okay, this is all from the data they get from that. um one of those 33 was in that advanced category. So you're talking about an advanced student already, but when we start looking at that year's growth, one

023of those kids did not show that. Um and then it did show that 62 of the 100 were uh did achieve that year's growth and four of them were in the advanced category right here. All right. Um as far as math goes, same thing. Um you can see those similar numbers on the top. Um 74 which ends up being 74% with that 100 testing number. Um did show that prof that proficiency in that advanced area. Um which brings us down to 52 did not achieve a year's growth. Um compared to 48 that did achieve a year's growth. And in that category 11 of them were advanced. 11 up to 48 for that upper level achievement. Fifth grade, same thing. Similar numbers here. We got about we're just shy of 100 tests at 96. Um, and

024you can see those numbers. It breaks down. We got 36 not yet proficient. 60 were proficient. And then you go down. So 52 did not achieve a year's growth. 41 did. And of those three were in the advanced category. Then we're going to do the same thing for fifth grade math. 99 were tested. Um and let's see here. So 25 showed that they were not yet proficient. Um 62 were proficient and we had 12 in the advanced category. Um 74 of the 99 were proficient advanced. And then we go all the way down those um the year's growth which is what our goal was for the year. 42 did not achieve that. Uh, and of those 42, two were in the advanced category, 57 did, and of those 57, 10 were in the advanced category.

025Do you guys do you know what used as the issue? Yeah, I can't because it's a the first time they ever think and the ISAs determines what that Yeah, I was gonna I was going to mention that. Uh you can see at the bottom um the high is gives you a growth number. So for like sixth grade ELA he gives a growth number. Um at each grade level the number changes. So the growth number is the expected growth this sixth grade group was supposed to make from fifth grade. So in other words, it's about as close to determining a year's worth of growth based on this test that we could come up with. So regardless of where they are coming in, it it determines where those kids should be and that's how it tells you

026this, right? Yeah. So like it might have been 24. So wherever they were as fifth graders, if they grew by 24 points, that was the expected growth number. So it does a little different than the proficiency, but um as long as they show that growth, that's why we had felt like we needed to break it down a little bit further. Um, so it's pretty much set up the same way. So you can just see the same information. I know at the middle school uh we were really excited about um about our data. Um proficiency. I know that wasn't our goal necessarily, but anytime we can be 80 or above, that's that's kind of a big deal. And we hit it um in a lot of different places. Um, and so, uh, the one other thing

027that I thought was, um, worth noting is of those who weren't proficient, how many still hit that growth number. Um, and I I totaled it up this afternoon. It's not as high as I would have liked to, but, um, we had just math and ELA, all grade levels, 124 students not proficient, and 51 of those still achieved the growth number of the year's growth. That's 41% of our nonproficient students still achieve what that year's growth would be. Um, so I'll keep keep digging into that um to see get a little more information. This is the ELA number for six. Hang on. I'm sorry. I need you to do it again. How did you how did you figure that they had achieved a year's growth if it was counter to what the test showed? It's not

028counter. Um, so so you get a expected growth number. Okay. you might hit the expected growth number but still not necessarily be proficient. Okay, depending on what your score was. So that's the nice thing about the expected growth and kind of falls into what we're talking about every student achieving a year's growth. So um I was interested to know how many of these still showed significant growth and overall 41% of our students. Yeah. Oh, sorry. That's Yeah. Yeah. You jumped. It's okay. Yeah. Okay. I I saw what you're saying. Okay. Sorry. I thought you were laughing because you're impressed with my data explanation laughing at me because I'm hitting the button. Um yeah. So anyhow, I was interested to know you know how many of those are still making. So sixth grade math again. Our

029our sixth grade math and numbers were identical. It's kind of crazy. 80% same breakdown in the two which was I even did a double take to make sure I was getting tapped right because the numbers were nearly identical. Um 7th grade ELA 83% proficient. Um so of the 16 um 12 of them met the year growth and then seventh grade math 82% proficient. We got to eighth grade ELA, 76 proficient. And of the 26 that were not, we had seven that achieved the year's growth. Um, and then I had to dig a little further. So 49 that did not achieve the year's growth, four of those 49 were advanced already, but they actually were advanced and they went backwards a little bit, which I don't really like to see that. Um, but it's okay. But

030being that they're already at that advanced level, they stayed advanced. They just maybe went backwards up. But we have said before, you know, that's that's the that's the most challenging student to get to to continue to grow because they're already growing at such a fast rate. Um, and then our eighth grade math, 83% proficient. And then I think I have my science slide up here because eighth grade takes science. Um, and you had 76%. So, well, in high school, we've been living in tables. Okay. So, um, that's why ours looks different. And so we had 40 students and this is from our raw data. So uh we had 66% of the class of 28 which are our freshman from this last school year who were proficient. um we did have 30 students who had a

031year or more growth and um 30% of that 101 uh we had for both data sets for so for the both math and ELA so I see what you're saying so uh for their ELA we had 36 who showed with more growth uh on their ELA, but we did have a decrease in the proficient proficiency and advanced groups. Um so not the kind of data trend that we want by any means. Okay, now it's not working. Okay, so now we're at sophomores. um 39 students did. And here for math, our sophomores did grow from 65% to 69%. And um our advance made up 12% of that grade where last year the advanced were 13%. So very similar. That's that hard group to keep pushing up. Um, but you know, in looking at Yeah, I'll get

032to that here. Sorry, I'll wait. Um, ELA sophomores, slight decrease in the proficiency and the advanced, but an increase in the advanced going from seven to nine. Uh, and our non-proficient pretty well stayed the same, which I found interesting. So, our junior class, um, and our junior class, especially on math, they were really pretty consistent, which I was surprised by because on one of their NWA tests, if you remember, it was like we could really tell there was a lot of rapid guessing and things not taken very seriously. So, I really did not have a clue how ISASS would turn out for them. um advanced grew from 11 to 17 and um which explains why the 62 went to a 56 because more of them bumped up into that advanced area while sadly the non-proficients

033stayed about the same and on their ELA decrease from 74% to 67 overall also a decrease in um both the proficient range as well as the advanced range and yet an increase in the non-proficient attendance. So at Washington we had 56 kids on our um targeted attendance list and every not everyone uh 50 of those kids improved their attendance this year. So that was um that was really great. happy about that. So at Schuler, you have 24 kids that were identified for the 2425 school year and all four 24 of those students improved their attendance. Uh middle school, we had um 42 um 26 out of 42 improved uh and nine out of the 42 actually regressed. Um so we were identified for 54 students from the previous year but some of those didn't come

034back or um we're in a different placement or what have you. So at the high school we identified 78 students to monitor for attendance. Four of them moved away. So actually was only 74 of those 74 53 improved their attendance. So about 72%. There was a lot of work put into that. Can you tell me a little bit about that? About a lot of the work that went into that. A lot of meetings with parents, county attorney, phenomenal support, lot of communication, a lot of home visits. So, a kid hits the trigger. In terms of absences, you call the parents immediately. We pro we probably had 40 to 50 parent meetings last year, I guess. A lot. Yeah. And Mrs. So, our attendance secretary was so great at keeping like we would review regularly, all

035right, here's where these kids are at. Um, we're at the 90. So, and also the way we set things up in JMC, it helped flag. And so, we got um what's that report called? The early warning sign. Yeah. So, we set up so we would get a daily report to look for those areas as well. Yeah. Which we hadn't had before. So you guys think the main reason for the improvement, this is for everybody, was just the uh increased focus and discussions with parents like realizing it was important or was there some other strategy that you felt like made the difference? Yeah. Just communicating how important it is that you have at school and the legislation as well. Yeah. The only thing I would add to that too, um, because by the time they get

036to like middle school, kid knows, um, but I don't, so we had parent meetings, we also know other buildings too, we had student meetings as well. So with the list, you know, that we had from last year before, you know, first two weeks of school, we we met with all those kids that attendance goals. Um, and I felt like it just kind of created a better habit to start the year. And by the time they get to middle school, like like most of them get most get to school on their own um in some fashion. And I think a lot of them didn't even realize they had missed that much the previous year. Like I would have them guess how many days they missed. They were never close. Yeah. So I think just bringing it

037to their attention by the time they get to be young adults kind of helps a little bit. And thank you for the reminder on that because I remember meeting with a female junior student at the be and then and they were on an attendance contract last year and then at the end of the year when I met with her I I was like if I could do back flips I totally two absences for the whole year where we were in significant double digits the year prior. So I discovered the power in Tina Maps. No, I literally didn't even like tried that. That's what I was telling my kids. Come, we're gonna have bad tried that before and it didn't work for us. So, yeah. And I do think, you know, just in general, parents understanding

038that it is a big deal just, you know, pull the kid out or something's going on or we have a doctor's appointment. Let's have go to the doctor's appointment, go back to school, not keep the kid out the whole day. I think just that awareness and the diligence by the team the the data speaks volumes for that. I think just because it's I I just think some parents just realize what the significance was and what the policy currently was for even the younger kids and bad habits. Absolutely. I would say on all aspects too and that was the purpose of the legislation too. The purpose of the legislation wasn't for people that have chronic illnesses that school like like blew up when this all first started. This was what the reason this is why they

039did what they did. Exactly. Okay. Now this graph, what is so fantastic about this graph is you want to be on the left hand side of that zero. And now your prek3 and prek4, your littles, like this is all brand new to them. And so Stacy can speak to that. Preschool preschool and kindergarten traditionally have like their attendance. They're just learning how to go to school every single day. So kindergarten turned it around, but literally I mean if you look at every grade definitely on the side of a Perhaps you want to be I know that's not the right term, but so overall when we look through so 21.5% as a district fewer days missed. That's great. Yeah. Um, and one of the things too I think that was so important is while we were

040working on all this data, everyone still kept that student at the core. Um, which I think also maybe made some of that significant difference too. Awesome. Thank you guys. before we could go. Yeah, I'm not at my computer. So, I want to do financial. Um, so we completed the fiscal year 2425. So, if you'll look at the very first page of the financials, so in June, we have three payrolls that affect June. So, um, we do our June, July, and August payrolls for our certified staff because they're paid over the summer. And, um, so we always want to end June with a positive number. We are at 3%. I don't know about you, but that's above zero. So, um, what happens is you want to be between 95 and 100%. That's what the state requires

041of you to be for your expenses. We are at 97. I think that's pretty awesome. which means what we budgeted for the prior year and what we ended up spending was spoton. Now we knew our um salaries were going to be higher. We knew benefits were going to be higher. Those were planned and so um to make adjustments then we had to be a little more frugal in a few other areas of which we were. Now our revenues are slightly down. Part of that is because we haven't we just received our third quarter uh reimbursement dollars. We haven't even started our fourth quarter reimbursements, which is our largest reimbursements because that's when you get the rest of your title funds and all those federal and state grants. Um, they've actually pushed that deadline. It's always

042been July 15th is everything due, but because of some changes with the federal government, it's now not due until August 1st. And so that means even our revenues are going to be that much farther behind. So it could be first of September before we even receive these revenues. So we're kind of holding in place. We do have a few expenses that we've had to charge back to the prior year, but overall most of our expenses um are where they should be. So, they give you the months of June, July, and August to kind of close out your books and to make sure everything balances and everything is spent the way it was supposed to. And um and so then September 15th is when our final report is due to the state on how we did

043for 2425. So even though everyone else is already working toward a new year, I'm still in the old year and will be until September and then I'll change the go around the corner and catch up with everyone else for 2526. So um as I as I looked at everything um I mean we we came in um right on where we wanted to which meant we made good choices throughout the year and as well as what we set up as a budget. Now, we've already set our budget for 2526 and you have to set your budget before this year is even over. So, again, then you're you're working in two years and you're making best decisions with what you know. Um, and and there were a lot of unknown factors. We didn't know what some of

044those state aids and how much we were even going to receive from the state when we were setting our budget. So, we you you play a lot of shake the magic ball um eightball game. Um, so if you have any questions, definitely I will I will take those. But right now, we're just in a process of cleaning up and making sure all of our expense accounts are fine and all the revenues and we've captured everything. Um, and with federal and state grants, they there's just a process that that takes. So, I feel really good about it. I was excited to run June's reports to see where we land because now all those payrolls are encumbered back. So even though they haven't received a paycheck, we've already our system thinks it's already spent the money and

045so that way I can run budget reports for the year. Great. Congratulations. It's good stuff. Um, does anyone have anything for board? Jenny, I don't want to forget you. Do you have anything for board? No, no, not this month. All right. Go ahead, Dr. Ter. So on on my uh reflect to the board just letting the board know that next week we need to approve the financials first. Oh you want to do that? I move we approve the financials. Thanks Josh. Second I'll second. You kind of have to Josh. Yes. Laura. Yes. Jody. Yes. Jenny. I'm sorry. What am I voting on? The financial report. Oh, yes. Oh, sorry. Okay. So on on my report to the board, just kind of updating the board that next week we'll do we're doing a three-day administrators retreat

046uh where all the principles and directors um well curriculum director and then special ed director student services. Um we're having three full days of PD training uh with Albert Dupont. Uh he's worked with the board before that first year I was here. remember that we did that disc and some of that stuff. So, he's he's going to bring some stuff for us to work on as administrators. Our area of focus will be on some leadership standards in in three main areas. Um just mission, vision, core, and then values as one. Curriculum, instruction, assessment is the second one. And then the third one is school improvement. I know uh Laura had mentioned that we need to do some more on school improvement. And this is going to help us develop those action appointments for what our

047first steps, next steps, and so and so on would be. The next thing I have on my agenda is to talk about the board's retreat. Normally, we have it done in July. Um I sent a tenative um outline maybe to Laura, not to everybody else. I wanted her to look at it and see if she was good with it. But again, lots of things to do for the board to review. But you did share it in your report today. So every um I am going to be gone the week of July 20th. We have a board work session on that Wednesday. Now I will drive back for the board work session. Um but I don't know if I can prepare to have the retreat on the 24th. So we go the next week that vacations.

048So, I think that's dead week. So, we're all gone. Oh, yes. 26th through the or that. Yeah. Well, 28th through the first is dead week. So, I'm guessing about everybody's on vacation. First week of August would be the week of August board. It's it's up to you. I think most of the stuff you kind of know what we're going to be doing. Reviewing, resetting board goals, looking at strategic priorities, that type of thing. I want I want the the board retreat to be after our administrator's retreat because we want to bring some things to you that I think will help you know what we're planning on for next year. Uh and then you guys can kind of redirect on any of that information. So I want to try to have it after. Okay. Well, somebody

049can send out a calendar coordination for that week of August 4th because you're just sitting for like a three-hour evening thing. We'll find over Hawkeye 10 conference. Maybe you've seen a little bit of media uh information on the Hawkeye 10. We're hearing that Shannidoa and Reto are looking potentially to get out of the Hawkeye 10. They've been invited by the wick possibly to join them. Um there has been discussion with dividing the puck I tended to a large group schools and a small group schools and make it a larger conference. Um in my opinion that's not going to happen for years. Uh just because the width schools have to agree to it. Um they're probably pretty comfortable the way they are. We're just losing a district. Well, possibly two even though we didn't send an

050invite out to public school and trainer. So, that's all I know. It's it's being talked about. I think the concern of the superintendent is try to keep our conference very strong and competitive with the number of schools. So instead of just letting things kind of just, you know, happen, they're they're trying to be kind of proactive to see what can we do to keep our conference very strong. Okay. Um, next little section is all about our our bond referendum. Just wanted to keep the board updated. Uh again with the Donovan group they have a communication roadmap that you know weekly or monthly these are the plans that they're uh wanting to do with just sending out information to the public to the patrons social media whatever it is. They also put together a survey that

051they sent out. It's due back July 13th. I think you guys have seen it. Um and then I also included the letter that was sent out to patrons on June 30th and July 3rd. Then I also included the list of the steering committee, you know, the focus group or the steering committee, whatever we call it. Those are the people that uh the Donovan group is working with to get input. They're also going to look at the survey. They really wanted to have a survey sent out. So, anything on that? And then the last thing on there, uh, we did get notified, uh, by the, um, finance management department, state department, just letting us know that our, uh, PEL levy is is going to end um, in 2027. And so a as a board we can

052vote on it this fall or I think we could also wait until 206 fall but in the next year we need to bring it on the levy. So it's it's so you've got information um when when you guys decide that whenever you want to do that vote uh we'll work with the um SAI on it or IB they'll help us work through on it so it's not going to be as painful on our part for it and 2027 is too late right so we'll do it either this fall or next and and I can visit with Laura. I can send an email out. Whatever whatever uh election year you want to do it, you know, the the November elections is when they do it. How often does that have to get relevant? Oh, five or

05310 years. Lisa, what do you know? One year that I got elected. So, it's been kind of probably I'm not sure. Yeah, that's kind of do. What do you think the re-election we did it at school board election time? So back when school board elections were September, whatever then. Is that what you're saying? Well, well, I guess that opposite was Oh, 10 years. I feel like it's 10, but that's I was trying to findation on it. No, that's not it. Okay, any questions? Thank you. Quite a bit there. Uh, okay. We're going to move on to our consent agenda. Um, does anyone have any questions from any of that or anything you wanted to talk about or both? Okay. If not, I will take a motion. Was that her motion? My motion? Yeah, let's keep

054it verbal for the sake of Jenny. If she Jenny Jenny, ask her if she'll second a motion. Jenny, would you second a motion? I would second it. I'm sorry. I was having trouble hearing that. Sorry, I know we're on the consent items. Okay, good. That's because Lisa and I talk with her eyes. Hey, board member Goodriidge made a motion. And we're voting yes. Yes. Jenny, what's your vote? Yes. Josh, I'd abstain. Okay. All right. Okay. Um, next up is our discussion items. We have five discussion items tonight. Uh, the first one is to talk about the IASB legislative priorities. Spend so much time on this. Yes. And then this year we got like another one for too of like SIP. Yeah. I have so many tabs open. I can't. So, I shared with you uh

055what all the different legislative priorities and I it was long and so I condensed it down to one page, two pages so you can look at it. Um this just tells the state what we think our priorities are when it comes to legislative things. So, um I included lots of links, but I also just shared kind of a one sheet. Um, Jenny did share with us what hers were. Um, we do not have to make a decision tonight. They just need to be presented tonight. They just have to be approved at the August meeting. No, I have to submit them. I think August 10th is when they're due. 15th. August 15th. Um, I I think it's it's good for us to go through this. I think, you know, this board we haven't been incredibly active

056in advocacy, but every year we have at least somebody who goes to the capital and we do try to stay engaged with our local um representatives and um so I think it's it's worthwhile for us to talk about what we think priorities are. Um I have not really had time to spend looking at this. Jenny gets uh three or four gold stars because she did and made recommendations already. Um but the rest of us maybe we can we can have an opportunity to talk about this a little bit more at depending on what we do at our later July meeting. So you we look it over think about if we have any thoughts on that. Um our second discussion item is to talk about the fee proposal from SVPA. Okay. So uh when the board

057hired SVPA to do the master plan and we know that they completed that task and they submitted that plan to you. So any work that is done at this point moving forward by SBPA any more design and they had a list of things um that they would do there is a a a fee chart on there so you guys can see we just uh need to have a board approval to agree to those u hourly rates if we want to continue to have SBP SPA to work on our our project. There's probably not a lot of negotiating left, is there? It's their fees. Yeah. Yeah. What's your uh what's your thought about like how much we might need them for? So, so far. Okay. So, this week, tomorrow, uh we're meeting with all coaching staff,

058any youth coach through junior high, high school, any coach that wants to come, sponsors to gain information and input on you know, the fieldhouse, what they think our needs are now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now. So, whatever we have for kind of a big picture schematic idea for that fieldhouse as we present it to the public, it makes more sense. Uh, we also know that our coaches um, they want to get input. Not all that's going to get accepted in our use, but we just need to to understand what what what they think is very very important for a fieldhouse. Well, SBPA is going to be involved with that. Which capacity? They're coming. They're come to the meeting. Expensive catching ideas. Ask their cheapest staff to come. Can we have the architectural

059technician? I I think they're pretty good. you know, when when they get to the point where the board wants more u redesign, you know, from the survey, maybe the survey is going to kind of turn the corner on some things. We don't know. I I will say that the last couple of weeks there's been a lot of emails going back and forth with uh Jerry Gallagher, our communications team, and Vitus has been included on those, and his input has has been worthwhile, I would say. like many times he has, you know, he's inserted and been like, well, you know, I think you'd want to mention this or crafted this way and it it's been good. So, I like I don't I don't object to having them continue to be involved. I just I think we

060just want to be Yeah. How much that is. Do people have any other questions about that? All right. Um discussion item C is our bond election engagement letter from ers and yeah allers this is their proposal of an agreement for the work that they will do on just writing a bond referendum for the geo bond. So, they'll do that and then the next one um is on that sales tax bond. We're we're going to be doing two different bonds and whatever work that they do. And they won't they won't charge fees until uh work is completed. So, that might be after the the bond election votes. There's a lot of preliminary work that he'll do beforehand, too. So when you say a lot of the language, they'll they're drafting up the petition language in an

061hourly sense. Oh yeah. Yeah. Should be fairly tough to pay to fill out a thing. No, we're not filing different things, the state department and so on. We definitely Well, you have to have somebody legal counsel on it. And it looks like it's same charges for both of those. Yeah. And so the fact that they're working on them simultaneously maybe will help us a little bit and keeps that whole process in a timeline so we're not getting behind on anything. [Music] Yeah. Um, I do, if you guys have any questions on any part of these bonds, I do have Travis Squire sitting on a Zoom. If you want to ask him any questions on any part of it, I can open the Zoom up and you guys can ask me questions. I zoomed with him

062the other day with Laura. We got some good information back. I shared some of that with you. Yeah, let me just jump. I had wanted to be part of uh because Beth had some questions uh for Travis to just make sure that we were uh we had the correct amounts that we were looking at for bonding and and moving forward because once that language is uh written down and that's that's it, you know, we can't change it anymore. And um and so she just wanted to walk through it and I had looked at it and I was confused um about what it was that exactly we were trying to do here and how we were going to fund this project. So, it was really helpful to be able to be part of that, be able

063to get questions answered. It's really important to me that the whole board, and I should say not just me, you're not like doing me a favor, but based on my talking to Jared Gallagher and um and others about this whole process, is that the whole board acts as um you know, we we all need to to know what's going on. I mean, there's just it's going to be decisions after decisions, you know, from now forward. And so we need to understand and be pretty well verssed as far as what we're what we're talking about because we have constituents who are going to ask us questions. And so this is uh an opportunity for you guys to uh if you have questions at this early middle stage um about spec and this is specifically he's talking

064to us about the two different bonds right the one bond which is going before the voters this November and then the sales tax bond I don't know what's the right way yes I I'm thinking there going to be two votes one is on the go and one's on the sales sales tax bond. The difference between the two, and I'm glad I I spent some time talking to him, uh the geo bond is what our patrons in our community will be taxed on, and we're going to try to keep it tax neutral, right? So, we're not going to try to increase that levy. We're going to try to keep it as is. And and that would be the the tax or the levy that would affect just all of us that live in the land. The

065sales tax goes all across the state. So, as uh Travis said, you know, the people in De Moine are are help paying, you know, that one cent sales tax that we get for our school. So, it's kind of being spread out throughout the state and we'll we'll use that money as part of that 40,000 for school and after understanding that, you know, the 40,000 30 40 million doesn't look that big, right? Like, oh, okay, now it's paired down. the vote is really on 28 that affects us personally as taxpayers, you know, and the rest of it just comes statewide that we're going to receive anyway. And it really is kind of uh contingent upon student enrollment. So if our enrollment goes up, we're going to get more. Great. So what this is you want through

066all this that doesn't mean I'm an expert by any means and do you want me to open it up the zoom on Travis anyways I'll say it's good confuses me a lot of times through it several times you read through it and I've read through it several times just a lot to get the bond petition language is going to be out soon and then we'll have to start circulating that. I we have to talk to the county auditors, county assessors, maybe assessors on how many total votes we have to get or that's the Yeah, they're the ones who oversee elections. Yes. Can you see Jenny one? Jenny, do you have any questions on any of that? She wants when is this or when or what are you talking it's on Zoom right now? Well, he's

067in the waiting room. I don't have him on. So, we could have him hop on and he could just give a verbal explanation. Be helpful. Can he send us an email in real layman's terms? Um, probably not. I don't know. Oh, just have have on and just give give us just an overview. Okay. We can't hear too often. Hi Travis, it's Beth Johnson. Can you hear me about this? Yeah, I I I I can. And if you can speak up just a little bit louder, I'm fine having you zoom through my computer. And we're at a board meeting. Um the board doesn't necessarily have any questions, but can you give like a 10,000 foot view in about two minutes of time kind of explaining? You can have you can have four minutes. Four minutes. Um

068explaining how how were we paying for this project. Yeah, we'll take it from 40 down to four or three and a half. I'll try to shoot for the under here. Um so in in general, school districts have three different options for funding projects. Uh they can do a voted bond or a voted geo bond that's paid for property taxes. Uh the districts can leverage their voter approved physical plants and equipment levies and districts can anticipate the future collection of sales tax revenues um from the statewide penny which is paid across the entire state and then divvied up uh to districts based on their residential enrollment. So, the financing plan put forth thus far uh combines the first and third of those. Uh so, you've obviously seen um and seen in front of you potential language

069on what a bond election petition could look like. Um that is related to a voted general obligation bond and a property tax uh levy for bonds. Um this is very similar to the last round of projects where the district borrowed back in 2019 uh for projects. The district uh then used a levy to pay off that debt more quickly. Uh which is why, you know, as we move into this current financing plan, um you're actually at a lower level of debt service uh levy than you were back on the 2019 bond. So that's one of the things that was looked at here. this being a essentially a 20-year obligation paid u somewhere around 28.1 28.15 million of voted bonds and that's all designed to fit within a debt service levy um that's for for the

070district um will be essentially on par with where it' been over the last five years but been lower than the initial levy. the the levy has has bounced around a little bit um on on the debt service component. Uh so right now looking at $310 per thousand as the the levy rate on the debt um which uh coincides with the last with the average 2020 to 2025. So that's one component. The second component is then is taking revenues from the statewide sales tax. And you know, currently uh the district is paying for a debt obligation uh from the sales tax at approximately $520,000 per year. Uh the district receives just shy of $2 million. Uh so you're we're using about 25 to 28%. Uh the proposition now would be to take that up to using

071about 50% of those revenues um through the life of the sales tax out through 2050 and and that would be roughly $980,000 per year of an annual payment. So an increase of about $470,000. So the first component the district has to vote. They have to take to the patrons and get 60% approval in November. Uh the second component, the sales tax bonds, uh the district has to hold a public hearing for. Uh it's currently proposed that that public hearing be somewhere in the neighborhood of 13.5 million. Uh putting a little bit of contingency into that. Uh but ultimately, you'll only borrow what you need based on where the project bids come in. Uh so hopefully that's a good enough summary and I can kind of flip it over if there's any questions or desire for

072any clarity on any of those items. Certainly happy to uh take those questions on. So So the statewide penny one you said it only has to be a board hearing. I think it was two votes. So it's it's not two votes then, right? It's just a a public hearing. just a public hearing and then it's yeah there's a there's a public hearing required you have to take uh two meetings to get it done essentially you'll have a meeting where you set the date for the public hearing need to publish notice in the paper with a 10 and 20 day notice so not less than 10 nor more than 20 you'll hold the public hearing and then with that public hearing um there is uh subject to petition If enough patrons uh don't want that to

073be part of your uh process, there can be a petition that forces it to an election. So there could be an election, but it's not an outright election. This is very similar to how the cities uh gain authority for some of their projects as well. Um, cities sometimes hold public hearings uh that are uh subject to petition and referendum and some public hearings that cities hold um they're just able to do because they're an essential purpose project like a water sewer improvement. So there is a process in place for petition. Um but ultimately we've only seen maybe three out of a 100 plus hearings um have a petition. uh most most do not have a petition given that it's not impacting property taxes. Um that this uh petition or hearing process was put in place

074back in 2019 when the sales tax was extended um to give the citizens a little bit more input if they want to give it on the sales tax project where previously bor just move forward uh without any uh feedback. So, the public hearing process introduces that feedback. And the reason that it needs to be a public hearing, what triggers the public hearing is the fact that it's it's a bond rather than that you're you're borrowing money. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. You if if you decide with your sales tax that you want to go buy a bus. Yeah. That doesn't require public hearing. if only if you're borrowing money or you're using uh sales tax cash on hand to complete an athletic complex improvement not attached to an attendance center our school attorneys they will guide

075and lead us through the hearing you know timeline correct yeah we we can help with that as well okay really comes down to you know When when do you want to hold the hearing? And then you back up from there. Can you get 10 days notice in your paper from that date? Um, does the board need to hold a special special meeting uh in order to set the date for a hearing? Uh, that's usually the um I guess I'll say the preference of the attorney. But given everything that you're going over tonight, if you're setting your budget and setting the amount and the types of projects that you want to move forward with as part of the financing plan, you may not have to have that first what I'll call, if it's called a set

076date for hearing meeting. Um, you may just be able to move forward given uh the actions and discussion that take place surrounding your overall financing plan. report. Any other questions? So, the number that we're going to have the community vote on roughly is the 28, correct? Yeah. Can you give us what are the numbers for each of those portions? Yeah. So, you know, the funny thing about the numbers is they're they're based on, you know, capacity um and what sits within a levy limit. Um, so you've got some ability to round off those numbers. So the financing scenario we had run previously was around 28.13 million on the voted geo bond. So if you rounded it off 21.15 or 21 or sorry um 28.15 or 28.2 2 or 28.1 million. You know, we're going to

077be able to accomplish the goals um on that. Um with the the sales tax bond, the financing plan currently calls for about a 12.5 million borrowing. um that $12.5 million borrowing uh produces proceeds u that are a little bit less than that because you do have to uh go through the process of setting up a debt reserve fund um on on your bond. So with with that in mind, you know, the 11.5 million of proceeds you need to complete the project, you need about a $12.5 million borrowing. Um, now not to get too much into the weeds and the minutiae, but you know, we do anticipate some investment income in the overall financing plan. Whether or not that comes to fruition, you know, that's, you know, we we think it will, but in in terms

078of just getting authority to make certain that you have enough to complete the project, uh, we typically advise clients to not include the investment income when you're calculating the hearing amounts on the sales tax. So, we'd probably encourage you to think about adding a little bit of contingency, whether that's a $13 million hearing or $13.5 million hearing. You know, I think either one of those is sufficient. Um, but just understand these do then become the what I'll call the limits on what you can borrow. given your cash position and the sales tax and ple it's not that you have don't have any reserves on hand but you're not sitting on five to six million of reserves on hand so you don't have a lot of extra so to speak if you know there was a

079change order that came up or something in the project design process meant that you wanted to add a little bit to you know make something have better longevity than the original product. We We want districts to be able to have the flexibility to make a $200,000 decision here and there, especially when you're talking on the scope of 40 million. It's just not that much contingency to have, you know, effectively a million dollar cushion on your sales tax borrowing. But that's all up to the district. You can do what you want there. I'm just given a few tips from the the road. Sounds good. Sorry, Christie. You came into Jenny. Jenny, you have any questions? No. No, I'm good. Okay. Thanks, Travis. Thanks, Travis. Yeah. If uh anything else comes up, we can always follow up

080with more communication. But um do you want me to stick out for a while or are you ready to wrap up the conversation? I think we're done. We don't want to use any more of your time. Oh, it's no no problem at all. Thank you. Thank you though. Thanks, Travis. Have a good night. Great. Thank you. That was good. He was doing pretty clear. Pretty good, Josh. Understood. We understood what he was talking about. Okay. Um, school bus bids. Is that Are we ready to go to that? Yeah, we are. Want me to do it from here? Are we okay? You're okay. All right. So, um, we're a little behind on getting buses. Um, I just wanted to kind of get a grasp of what we had. And is that because your expectation would be

081we'd be buying one about every year. Yeah. Yeah. But that that's on me for not coming to the board with it, but I wanted to see exactly what we had. So, what it So, I was bidding buses. Um, I bid 65 passenger diesel and propane. That's a standard size bus. and also an 84 passenger because I'm looking at what we have and what we've lost that didn't pass inspection and what are not probably going to pass inspection. They're both 65 or 65 passenger or from 2009. We have two of them 2009 that we're still running all the time. Monty keeps them going. We keep running them and they keep passing. Starting to get some rust issues that probably will allow them not to pass, but Monty keeps them going. And uh so I got bids

082on the 65 and the 84. The 65 passengers, the oldest ones from 2009 are a priority. Our two 85 passenger uh rear engine diesels are from 2013 and 2014. So they're a close second, but in this I defer to Monty and his expertise on which ones that he can keep running and going the longest. So after I got the bids, I listened to Monty and he thought that the best way to go, the biggest need now is two of the 65,000. And the low bid for that, not by much, but just by a little, was from school bus sales. And I think if you were to ask Monty outside the seat, also per say he prefers Bluebird because we could have more buses the same or interchangeable parts. And the one thing that we've done

083different than buses that we've bought in the past for at least I've I've been only been here two years but our last activity bus we made propane. It has a bigger tank on it but we are still sometimes limited by range on propane because since we started buying propane it hasn't taken off that you can just like go someplace and fill up. So you have to pretty much have a full tank or you know I mean you have to pretty much go only as far as your full tank on a propane bus will allow. Some other schools have propane and we can stop there and fill up. That's been done before. But since these two buses that we'd like to order now will be both activity and backup for route, which is another big concern,

084we're going to go with diesel because it gives us more flexibility to do more things with them and to be able to cover uh more ground and and do things. Uh I I like propane. I like it the way that bird's clean and that type of thing, but again, I I defer to Monty and what he thinks is probably the best way to go as far as vehicles. So, I'm fine with that and that's what I'm and I I don't know if that's why he's here or not, but you can always ask him. You're probably making him give a speech. No, no, that anyhow. So, the low bid for the 60 just to get right to the point, the low bid for the 65 was from school bus sales. We're looking at six to seven

085month delivery. So, we still got to keep the ones we have going going, but having these arrive will buy us some uh some breathing room, we hope. And I'll be back for more at another time. But this this will get us this will just us hopefully get some things covered now. Any questions for me? Are you wanting to get two now? I would like to get two 65 passenger buses now. the three options. I was like, "Okay, what we really need is two. Okay. Uh, and we'd like them to be 65." Option two was, "Okay, well, do we get a 65 and an 84?" And option three was, "Okay, well, we can't do it. We only can get one." Well, that's better than nothing, but we really need two. I mean, ideally, we get three,

086but two is what we need, and I think that's what we can do for the budget. So, that's what we're proposing. Court, have any questions? Okay. Thanks, Steve. Good. All right. Okay. At this point, we're gonna move into the action items. You might move that last bit up. They're probably staying for that purpose. Do that if you want to. Okay. Just um I'm going to move action item G up to the beginning just so you guys can get out of here, which is the uh the vote on the bus bids if that's okay with the board. So, I'll take a motion on bus bids. I move to approve two 65 passenger diesel buses from Bluebird. Is that what I heard? School bus sales bus sales $278,484. Second. I'll second. Okay. Jody. Jenny? Yes. Josh? Yes.

087Laura? Yes. Christie? Yes. Great. Thank you guys. Thank you for your work tonight talking to us, Steve, and bringing that Monty. Thank you for your work every day. Keeping the buses running. Uh, okay. So then, uh, action item A is going to be next, which is to approve repair bids to Washington. Can you tell us a little more about the work that's going to be done there? Again, it's it's repair of that elevator. Uh gosh, if you look at the recommendation from Russell Pack, he's uh he's kind of looked at the two different bids from TKE and COB. He is recommending that we go with comb lower price considerably. Not sure. So is that elevator? It's completely not working right now. We can't use it. Got it. He can't use it. And how long's that

088been Drupal? Student has to have access to it. That's so I was just going to ask, so what have you done? Uh, no. Going to third grade. Got to have it to be able to access third grade. We made do this last year, but we can't make do. Okay. Good. Have to get a little louder so J. Yeah. Sorry, Jenny. We got to have it. I would move we approve the Washington Elementary repair bid to cone. Is that how you say it? Cone for 130,000. Okay. Christie, yes. Joy, yes. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Flora, yes. Okay. Um, action item B is a resolution to authorize bids for the high school roof. So, what we're saying is we're going to accept bids. We We're going to make a make it's kind of a legal formality this

089resolution. Uh, Snider's already got the bid package that they're sending out sometime this week. They gave copies. I've got a few in my office. Very thorough. They're going to be sending u proposals out. And then you could see by just the resolution that they um they're going to have bids due um August 12th and then um they'll read the actions um on the 13th of August. Just the motion for that resolution. I move we approve the resolution authorizing bids for the high school rough phase one. Jody, yes. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Uh, okay. We I I punted on the ISB priority, so we're going to skip action item C for tonight. Uh, action item D is SVPA pre-bond referendum services fee proposal. So, that was the letters that we had the

090letter from SVPA that we talked about there. those which is basically just the board approving that we will have to pay them more money if they do more work for us. Right. I move to approve the fee schedule. I move to approve the fee schedule given by SVPA services. Okay. Second. Okay. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christine, yes. Jody, yes. Jenny, yes. Uh, looks like we're going to have two separate motions. Also that way because they're lawyers like that. So uh the first one is to approve um engaging allergen to help us navigate the legal aspects of our geob box this fall. Thank you. Second. I Laura Stricklin, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Okay. Action item F is the same thing, but it's for Alen Cooney to help us with the sales

091tax bot. Okay. Need a second. Okay. Okay. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Lauren, yes. Okay. Action item H is approving employment contracts for 25 and 26. Uh, Lisa, where are we at with all those many different groups? So, I shared with you all an email. Speak up. I shared with you all an email of the uh overall total cost of all the 2526 contracts. We had already approved the certified contracts. We just settled last night with the classified union and so we have set those rates and then our other positions are not under a union. So they are just at the re recommendation of the superintendent that information um was shared and then I also shared a breakdown of a a comprehension view of what all that entails between what the certified

092the classified each uh position role would get and then shared what that dollar cost would be overall to the district. It's a little over 400,000 and cost to the district to for all contracts. We do roughly about 580 contracts using 21 different types of forms because we have such specific type positions that just not one contract fits all. And so each of those contracts um have been created. We're just waiting for board approval. Then those can go out. the teachers have received their contracts and the hopefully tomorrow we can get out the contracts after your approval for everything else. And you said the increased cost in total is around 400,000 roughly. I had to look back at my sheet, but it's like 418,000 roughly. And is that just wages or does that include the increase?

093That that includes FICA and uh the actual salary. Yes. But not insurance increases does not include insurance. Just for my memory, what was our new money? Less than that, but let me I don't know it off the top of my head. Sorry. So, that one I'll have to look up. Give me a second. I wanted to say 300 something. That's I wanted to say 300 something, too, but doesn't help a lot. So, yeah. something doesn't always. Okay. Uh $39,800. And so the rest of it is coming from your just your bottom line, your fund to balance. But do we know what that the total cost of the insurance increase is to us as well? Um I have that I did not bring it. Let me give me a second and let me see if I

094can pull that up. Jenny Christie just asked about the total cost of the insurance increase. Okay. Thank you. Lisa is looking it up. And so if we' have stayed with United Healthcare, it was going to be $100,000 more than what we're paying now. Our rates went up about 34% and our um your cost is determined by claims. We went about 10 years where we had no more than a maybe a one a 4% increase. The district did not pass that cost on to employees. They just I want to say ate that cost. And so our fund where we pay is called fund 71 that we pay our insurance out of. And that was slowly dwindling. So, we knew we were at a point before we even worked at another uh that we were going to

095have to increase rates just because those little uh amounts had been dragging that down a little bit. When we met with Walmart and United Healthcare, they both gave us plans. United Healthcare saw us a little bit higher risk because we went from like 4% to over a 34% increase. Um, so they were going to charge us more. Um, and then we went to Walmart who had the same plan, $1,500 deductible, uh, willing to work with us. They only do a one-year look back where United Healthcare was three-year look back. Um, but our claims do drive cost. So, if our claims continue to climb, rates will continue to climb. Um, the district has been very committed to allowing to pay for a single policy for employees that qualify for benefits and that's at about $923 per

096person per month that we pay for that. And then anything above that, the employee uh contributes if there's a difference. If they want like an employee plus spouse plan or employee plus child, then they contribute the difference. Um, so I think this district does a really nice job of providing that benefit. Um, but it does come at a cost. We have set up a icejet account so which uh currently is earning about 4% that we will put those funds in and then as needed uh we will draw those down which is our bank is about 1.7% interest and so this is an opportunity that maybe we can help our money make money um be because we've got to figure out how to keep that cost under control. Let me see if I can find you

097a number. I probably can't quickly. Sorry, I could have had that number for you. Sorry. page. So, uh, write this number down because it's a large number. So, if we would have stayed with United Healthcare, um, we would have spent 1,491,664. We're going to be spending 1,895738. If we would have stayed with United Healthcare, it was at 2 million. So, we know we're saving already a h 100,000 by not by changing insurance companies, but we're seeing a a $400,000 increase just our overall cost. We we we've essentially got 500,000 half a million in additional employee salary related expenses above money. That's all that's all I wanted to that's just going to be hopefully that the big chunk that we absorbed was this year in terms of you know like you mentioned if claims continue we

098could see increases next year. I'm just trying to think about what's sustainable because we can Yeah. We can work off of our fund balances, but that if you do don't do anything to adjust staff that turns on you really really quickly. We Yeah, because you are driving a Titanic. Nothing moves fast in I mean everything we do is a year projection. So it's not like your own monthly budget where you're like, "Oh, I just won't buy as many groceries next month." It doesn't work that way with school finance. You are driving a Titanic. It is slow. It is cumbersome. every decision you make is is affects a whole year's worth. So with with our insurance, we feel like one we we're noticing that more people went to the high deductible option and which is a

099little bit cheaper for the district, the portion that we contribute and cheaper for the uh employee. We feel like um we did a good job. I should say I think we did a good job. I haven't actually asked anybody if we did a good job. I think we did a good job as far as marketing and getting information out to people and communicating. Um, we had very good turnout for filling out forms and getting information back to us quickly. And so I felt like we did a good job. That's not me by any means did I do that, but I felt like um our brokers that work with us, you know, Murphy did a really nice job. They put together good information. We are going to have to look at this and say is this

100something sustainable? Do we need to change our deductible and make it higher? Do we need to maybe maybe employees contribute more than what they have contributed? Maybe the district reaches a point we say this is our top and we can't contribute more. So I think it's worth talking about. We'll know more in a year because United Healthcare still had to cover um everything because of the their plans like an 18-month plan. So June and July and August are still kind of covered under United Healthcare and then we start with Walmart. So we aren't going to see really any claims until probably September. And so this first year is going to look great because right we're only running September to June. Um we're so we'll all be like wow this is why didn't we do this

101sooner? Um but it'll be next year where we have the full year that I think we'll see. Now we do have a cap. So that is nice that if we reach a certain point uh United or Walmart does say okay that's you are capped out. So we already know what our maximum is going to be. So we are preparing for that um maximum right now with the idea that we don't have to hit it but we know if we don't hit it this year maybe we might hit it next year. I appreciate by the way all the summary information that you provided for us. So it was really really helpful. Do you have a off the top of your head or this could be for later date a sense of um salary and benefits? What

102do we run percentage of general fund is are we near that 85%. Are we higher than 85%? We are we are about right on. We're about right on. We were a little bit low. We are about 83 before. We're hitting about 85 86%. We're right where we should be. Um based on the number of staff that we have right now. um you know that fluctuates as bigger class sizes come in you have to hire someone leaves you don't replace them I mean there's a little bit of eb and flow there but we're right now where we should be so now we're at the point of okay now we need to maintain this number of employees we have we need to maintain number of students we have we need to maintain we need to make them

103all happy yeah I'd be interested at some point a little I will check balance sheet of yeah who we didn't replace and how that checks out so we've got we know we got a 500 $,000 increase. But where where did we save a little bit? Yeah. Yeah. I was actually just briefly going to Are we still How many employees are we still hoping to hire over the summer from last year's staff? I think we still have three Spence staff that we haven't replaced. Uh local music and industrial arts or a certified staff and an instructional instructional coach. instructional coach an instructional coach and the mental health professional professional and you're going to try and replace all of those at this point it's it's like highly impossible. Okay. We've been advertising. We haven't seen any. We

104haven't seen any kind of application middle of July. Yeah. The principles I just don't know if any of those were ones that you determined by. Yeah. The principles and I were working out plans. What do we do? Because we're realizing we're not going to be able to place those positions, you know, with a a person. What's our plan now? because our students still have needs and we need to make sure that everybody's taking care of it. We're writing more comprehensive as we go. As I was telling you before you got here, we're closing out the books for the 2425 year. So June, July, and August is when we're allowed to close those books and then September 15th is when the official date is that we have to have those books closed. So um I will

105as I we get closer to that, I'll be able to provide you better data. Right now it's real raw because we're closing out. We're still charging things to the past year. We've got things coming in for the new year. So, um, my numbers I'm I'm afraid they'd be skewed enough that I just keep coming back and giving you different numbers. So, a little bit of time. I'll have that for you. So, uh, if we're ready, um, someone could move to approve the employment contracts for next year. And we can do this with one vote or we could do every single contract individually it looks like. Sure. Yeah. Jenny, you can also make a motion if you want to. Okay. Um, I move we approve the invoy contract. Second. A second. Okay. To vote. Jody, yes.

106Jenny, yes. Josh, would say yes, but I'll abstain, please. Laura, yes. Chrissy, yes. You okay for policy review? So, we it looks like some of our policy review got away from us and three of them are currently expired. So, we need to approve those. uh as quickly as possible. Uh normally with all of our board policies, we read them twice. So we read them, review them, we vote on them once and then they come back to us again so that we have time to think about them and maybe receive feedback and stuff, but we always have the option to make the motion to um approve the first reading and wave the second reading, which means we're just saying we know we're not going to make any changes to this. And so that's recommended it sounds

107like uh for these ones and hopefully you all had a chance to look at them. I don't think there's anything there especially uh controversial or unusual or likely to change. And we're do we need three separate votes on those? Yeah. Okay. We could do them all together or the board could do them separately. I move the board approves the three listed policies as their first reading and waves the second reading. Do you need them listed though? Six. List all listed. Okay. Could you just do that because I just realized there's people who are uh board policy 606.05 406.01 507.03 D3 and those are on student field trips employee compensation and communicable diseases. I will think having our new assembly software makes that extremely helpful to be able to see that you can I was going

108to ask you about that. Yeah, you can sort all policies by not it yet or are you just not ready to go? No. Oh, you're talking about for board meetings. Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. Still getting everyone set up for that. But for the board policies, you can search, but you can also search them by dates. And so I was able to do that and I found that we had some expired policies and it was like gosh, this is a great time to bring this to the board. Then had we done our old way, I would have never. So, I'm really glad that we purchased that assembly software to man. I do. Sorry. I do need a second. I apologize. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. Yes. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. Sorry

109about that, Jody. Okay. So then there's a a longer list of policies that are supposed to be reviewed by the board annually. Um we can either again we can choose to wave uh or we could go ahead and just approve the first reading and then they would be brought up to us at our August meeting uh for a second reading which I don't know I would recommend just because we haven't assuming we haven't had that much time to look at them yet. But these are um all of these are they related to each other, Lisa? Are these all kind of like normal ones that So these are ones that you annually usually have to have on your website like the wellness policy and things like that and so just every year you approve them. Um

110so usually there's not a lot of changes and if there is IASB lets us know. I really didn't see anything when I read through them that was like I need to bring this to the board's attention. most of them are they just want to know that the board reviewed them before they go on your website and because it is you know they become law when they're on there and so I if you want to if you want to do a second reading in August we definitely can we are not they are not late there's no expiration on these it's just they need to be done annually thank you but if there was a recommendation from IASB for a change we probably would have told about it if there's an even even If you approve them

111tonight and next month they change something, I'll bring it back to you for that change. Recommend if you have not had a chance to read through them, just do the first reading. and then we'll have a chance to read it. I'll move to We can do all these at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Approve first reading and wait the second and final reading. Hang on, Jenny. Jenny, hang on. Jody just moved that we approve them and wave the second. Okay. Do you Do you want to second that? I was going to have a different motion. So, okay. Okay. Sento, you don't you don't need to second it. Well, did everybody read them all? I mean, I didn't find anything objectionable, but I also don't think we should just approve them without reading. That's why we're

112just approving the first one and doing it again in August. Oh, you want Do you want to do I thought you said you were going to wave the You said wave right second. Oh, I thought we were Okay. Okay. That's okay. You want to do a first reading and only and we can do final and Okay. Now, Jenny, does she want to Okay. So, tell me what you just said. I didn't She's She's only moving that we approve the first reading and it'll come back to us in August. Okay. I'll second that. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. Jenny, yes. Thanks you guys. Okay, upcoming dates. Uh there will be a board work session on July 23rd at 6:30 at the fitness center. Well, we just Sorry, we're not

113doing that. Didn't you say we're not doing the session? We will. I will be gone. Okay. I thought we were doing the board retreat instead. I apologize. Okay. She's gone, but she'll come back. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, but then the first week of August is when we'll do the retreat. Jeez. Um, so just as an FYI for anybody, school board candidate filing period begins Monday, August 25th and ends Thursday, September 18th at 5:00 p.m. Min minimum signature requirements for uh a board election is at least 50 eligible electors within the school district. And there are two seats that will be up this year. Um the city and the school election will be held on Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. And then we uh Christie, just for your sake, we talked about doing a a board retreat that

114would just be like an evening thing the first week of August. And so some calendar in I was just looking at the dates when I heard that I was like, yeah, yeah, we don't we did not we weren't able to finalize a date. So um Lisa is going to send us out something and we'll try to find a mutual date. We can all do like the fourth through the eth. Exactly. Yeah. I think we can do the first. Yeah, we can trans. It sounds good. Okay. Um I'm ready to adjourn. Take a motion to adjourn. I move. Thanks, Josh. All in favor? I. Thank you. Yeah. Every day every time. Okay. Bye bye, Jenny. Thanks, Jenny. Have a good rest of your trip. Have fun. Yeah, that's true. I'm probably still going to go out

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