ACSD Regular School Board Meeting 5-14-2025

001Um, good evening everybody and welcome to the May 14, 2025 meeting of the Atlantic Community School District School Board. If we could have the call to order to begin, sorry, yes. Jenny Jordan, yes. Josh McLaren, yes. Laura Mlan, yes. Christy Bell, yes. Uh, we have a pretty full agenda as we usually do in May. Um, I don't believe there's any changes available to it. So, we'll take a motion to approve. Second. Okay. Jenny, yes. Sean, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. All right. This is the part of the meeting where we uh welcome visitors and we take public comments. Um, is there anybody here who wants to speak? And is there we didn't get any public comments that we need to present. Um in which case we're going to move on to our special

002presentation from nutrition director Natalie Ritter. Welcome. Hello. Good evening members of the school board. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you tonight. I'm here to share some exciting news or about our recent nutrition um audit conducted in our district. April 16th through the 18th and how well our our team performed. Iowa's school nutrition programs are part of the national school lunch program and school breakfast program. Federally funded initiatives administrated by the Iowa Department of Education. These programs ensure that students re receive healthy balanced meals every school day which directly supports academic performance, behavior, and overall well-being. You may ask yourself, what is a nutrition audit? The nutrition audit led by the Iowa Department of Education is a detailed review of our food service program. It examines meal pattern compliance, portion sizes,

003menu documentation and production records, pre and reduced meal applications and processes, procurement procedures, and financial accountability or what we are spending our money on. This ensure this process ensures that we meet state and federal guidelines and serve our students well. Some of the audit results and highlights include 100% compliance with USDA meal patterns which mean students are receiving nutritious balance meals every day. Accurate and timely free and reduced applications and procedures. Clean, well doumented procurement practices, which means pro processes are efficient, transparent, and accountable. Excellent recordkeeping and financial oversight. The district is maxim maximizing federal reimbursement dollars responsibly, and a positive meal environment for the students and staff. Our staff is highly trained and dedicated to their jobs. this success thanks to the incredible dedication of our nutrition staff. Without them, I would be drowning

004and they really are the backbone to it all. Our administration in each building. We have the best and I could not do what I do without you guys. And you're always up to my crazy ideas or I'm always up to your crazy ideas. um support from the district and central office who keep this place running and of course the awesome families and students who participate in our program each and every day. Uh we're excited to build on this success and continue to excel in our department for years to come. So, thank you for your support of child nutrition programs in our school confirms what we already knew and that is our district is doing an excellent job feeding our kids. Um, one highlight that I will have to share with you, um, Brenda, our state

005gal, said before she left, she told me that in the eight years she has been working for the state, we are the second school district that she has not she has found no corrective actions or anything wrong in. It's an amazing accomplishment and I could not be more proud of my team and the dedication that they give every day. So, it absolutely should be something to celebrate. So, that's all I have. It's really short and sweet. I promise not even five minutes. We might have a couple questions. Yeah, absolutely. My only question just would they did they since they talked about the financials like do they have any concerns with you our nutrition fund is very very very healthy. Is that I mean so um I mean if you uh if you're on the naughty

006list you will get told that you're on the naughty list and we are not. So she's like you're good right got a lot of money in that account. Yep. But there's a lot of money in there and I thought I thought we might be, but she's like, "Nope, I checked the list the other day and you're not on it, so you're good to go." So, we're good there. At some point, we probably need to have a plan to spend some of it down. Um, just because we keep we're going to be on the naughty list. Yeah. Well, it's my understanding. I mean, you've been trying you look for equipment and stuff like that, but you're Yeah. Yeah. And right now we're um short staff more people um in the department. So um I'm hoping to

007hire that for next year which would then give us more there. And um going back to scratch cooking next year, trying some recipes out to the summer um summer kids. So um there's a lot of new things that will be coming next year. Would you talk about even a baker? What? A baker iron. see if we can find talking about going back to making our own dinner rolls. Um possibly our own hamburger buns. Um want to make our own mac and cheese. Like there's just a lot of things that I we're going to find this summer to see if they work with our 20 130 kids. Yeah. So how many staff will be working on the summer? Uh three to four. Uh normally it's four. I think I can get away with three this year.

008Not sure yet. Some of them are taking vacation. So that's where that fourth person comes into play. But you need to hire four for the fall that you're that you're Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. I'll be putting that out by probably first start in July or so. How many years have you been doing this? Uh so I have been here 12 years. Um, I've been in this position six. So, yes. Thank you. I think this is Well, nutrition audits, they used to be every three years. They moved to every five years. This is the third one I've been in. The first year I took this job was my first nutrition office. So, that's nice. I didn't know what I was doing then as a head head person, but yeah, we're doing okay now. Good. Well,

009thanks very much. Thank you guys. Good work. Okay, we're going to move on to the administrators. I just want to say today was the graduation clap out. It's one of my favorite things that we do as a district. And um we have a couple of kids that come from the high school every day that volunteer in some classrooms. And if you could have seen my little second grader spaces, they all had little signs for the girls that come to their room and they were chanting and cheering for them. It was it was so sweet. So, um, thank uh the high school for letting kids come and volunteer and it's really does make a huge difference for our kids. They think that those kids are just the coolest people in the world. So, it was a

010really fun day today. All right, so we're going to start off. Um, I was earlier this year, I was asked to do a therapeutic review. Um, you should have all received an email with specific numbers in the grades and where that all is. Um, so, okay, it's already there. Um, basically, um, so we do have three therapists on staff, full-time therapists. We have one at Washington, one at Schuler Middle, and then one who's kind of I put high school on here because um, the majority of the day is spent at the EOC and the link center out at the central or at the achievement center. Um, but that person also does some of the therapeutic work at Middle Schuler as well. Those are our three. Um, here's just kind of a really quick synopsis, really

011quick blueprint of what they shared with me and things that they do during the day and and throughout the year. So, they do weekly check-ins. Um, they do groups, they do lots of different things. Um, not everything that they're doing during their day is necessarily the like therapy, like actual what they would consider therapy, but they're doing social emotional work, therapeutic work in different ways. And then um it says the daily schedules of these therapists reflect a comprehensive approach to student well-being. Their daily schedules include individual counseling sessions, group therapy, classroom interventions, and collaboration with teachers, and parents. Um, such structured yet flexible schedules ensure that diverse needs of our students are being met promptly, effectively, fostering a supportive school environment. Um, they get called a lot of times to different things around the buildings.

012Um, and a significant initiative that I basically found in doing this activity of a review is that for the 25 to 26 school year, the school actually has to do a better job of identifying that in the recordkeeping that we do in our SIS. Um, we have to submit information to the state. And it came to my attention that when we ran those numbers, it only showed one student. So, for whatever reason, the recordkeeping that was being done was not being done correctly. And so, now that we're aware of that, we're hoping that we can make the changes appropriate. So, when we do submit that information to the state, we have the correct information provided where it needs to be. So, that's the big thing that I took from that. Um, and I am taking

013that on and working with Janet Nicholas on that, making sure that our JMC information is updated correctly and it it rolls and pulls the right information from JMC when we have to make those reports. And what is SIS? SIS is a student information system and our platform that we use here in the district is JMC. So that is the Yeah, that's the you know that it's the attendance record but it also has all the personal data and information of those students in there. There's many different tabs on the administration side of that and in one of those tabs is a place that we need to make sure that we have those therapeutic references made as well as if they are placed there's different coding that has to happen. Even if they go in and out

014every single time they change placement there has to be a a code taken care of. So we just have to make sure we have a process in place for that. How does the state utilize that information or what is that? That's a good question. It's one of the things that is required on one of the um actually I think it's they pull it twice a year. So I'm not sure if it's the death spot or if it's the beds report or it might even be the um what's the one we do that's the equity one. It breaks it down by all the groups. It breaks it down civil rights. Civil rights one. Yes. And so it's just one of the collection pieces that they take and use. And I think just for statewide data, they

015just pull that information. But there is not any type of Medicaid reimbursement or anything for that or not for this piece of it, but there is if those students are on an IEP and they are receiving services through behavior. So there's I wondered if Timberline would be some of that information. Well, they get it from us, but they don't necessarily get it off JFC. They get it I think the information they're able to get that information off a cheap, which is the online system used by um our special education department in recordkeeping of all the special education and that's being documented there. Yes. Yep. Yeah. Because they have to have a goal in that area for that to qualify for Medicaid. Yep. Any other questions? Okay, this slideshow and back to here. So, and figured

016attendance for this year for um all of our different staff um in our buildings in our buildings. So, um this is what it looked like at Washington. We've got non-certified, certified, and then our totals. And we broke it down to half day, quarter days, and full days. So, you can see uh there's big numbers up here. Uh I also put on the bottom here that we had three extended leads at Washington. So, I had three different people on staff who missed like six days. So that tends to tip our numbers a little bit in not a great direction. But um when I went through and dug in deep to the data um it's about an average of 12 absences per person when you look at it that way which is again it's skewed by those

017people that have those bigger amounts of absences. Washington second. Yeah, you guys can send this information to us, right? So that we don't have to try to write down probably uh Schuler, do you notice also that there's quite a few apps. Okay. PS, we have I have a way bigger staff than so that I actually was going to point that out. Yeah, maybe if you guys had done percentages or something. Yeah. No. Uh I think it's hard. Uh also, you know, like like she mentioned, she had she had um I've had four 105 days full days gone and I was like, "Oh man, that's a lot of days." But then when you start looking at the extended leaves and the reasons for those extended leaves um I have a young staff maternity leaves make up

018a huge chunk of those absences. So, I mean, it's it's hard to like if we're looking at I even kind of thought back to the year before and my leaves probably don't look different because it's very similar looking and as you know as Jenny's been in the the building quite a bit, there's quite a few people gone because they're young and they're helping our future Atlantic population. So, um so I don't know there's something to note there. Uh, but I was kind of at first alarmed and then when I started looking at those days and kept thinking them off, I was like, "Okay, this is a lot more realistic and kind of like Stacy said, you know, over half of them are major like major reasons to be gone." So, it puts it a lot

019more into a more reasonable number. So, I kind of just shared a little bit about my intent. Um, yeah, same data. Uh, don't put too much into the quarter and three/4er because I had to do some math on that. Um, and um, I did my best. I'm not the best at math, but um, but I just wanted to see like because we have some that, you know, miss especially, uh, I think I counted seven coaches in my building. Um, which I do think helps attendance because they don't want to miss because then they want to be at practice. They want to coach in the game. Um, but we that it's kind of why I thought, well, we have some times where they got to leave the last two periods of the day or or or

020what have you. So, that's why I broke broke it down the way I did. And I thought this meeting is last Wednesday, so I was the first one to to do this and I wasn't sure how we were going to do it at the time. Um, so, uh, and as James mentioned, um, you know, I we have some younger staff, too, but for whatever reason, um, there's something about moms that take care of sick children, and so I have a lot of dads in the building, and the other buildings have a lot of the moms. So, I feel like uh ours is probably uh um you know, we see 209 and a half total for certified um days uh that have been missed um as of you know, last week. So, a lot of times

021the dads go to work, mom stay home. So, but we do have a a staff that, you know, um so they they they're there a lot. Um, we did have 26 um, school business days that were part of the 209. Again, I was just interested because we've got, again, a lot of coaches, whether it's um, spring sports, a lot of those are all day things um, band choir, stuff like that. So, I was just interested to see how many of those days were like school business, but I didn't count that in there. So, yeah. And I did not count school business because they are still working. Um, so at the high school and it just dawned on me, we were talking about the hat and stuff. I was like, "Oh my god, I just totaled

022up the columns instead of actually doing Miss Hayden would be very disappointed in me. Instead of doing the quarter and the three quarter days to actually get how much that total would be for those Yeah. For that amount. Um I also have three extended leaves. Um two certified and one non-certified. And um so yeah, I have the second largest staff. And again, I did not include school business because that they were still working. They just were in a different capacity. Then we put ourselves in there. So, uh, days when we were out of the district with with students were in session collectively. We didn't have the other ones. They're not included in this. Those numbers are not part of what we Yeah, that's I think the last What questions do you guys have? Probably having

023to think at how that I appreciate you guys first of all compiling this data because it is it is helpful. Um, it would be helpful to have a way to have it interpreted to help be more meaningful. Um, and I'm not sure how that is if that's a scattergram or something by staff member, you know, so we see like is this like you've said three maternity leaves or a couple individuals that are skewing this for everyone or you know, it was helpful to hear 12 absences. um per employee. Um I would be interested in the absences that are without pay because obviously we do provide wellness, personal days, whatever that whatever we want to call it that we are um approving for them. So we expect that they will take those because that is a

024benefit that they have. But those days that they're taking beyond that without pay, that's a concern to this board member. Could just before you do that, could one of you just go over, so for a typical staff, how many sick days do they get? How many? They get 15 sick days per year. Per year. And then those are cumulative up to 120 days. And then they get two personal days that they can roll over personal day to have a total of three personal days. Seven family illness. Seven of their sick days can be used per year as family illness. I think there's two days that they can take at cost of sub and then beyond that would be unpaid time. There's also bereavement time that's not like really part of that the package but if

025you you're have five days there too. So what does that mean at cost of sub? So if for example um you want to go on a trip and you have two personal days and you have two days at cost a sub then you can be gone for four days and it'll cost you right whatever it is that we pay. So you get you still get paid for that day but you also pay you get paid for the two cost of sub days. You actually pay for those days. Okay. So you pay for the cost of the sub and then after that you don't have to pay for your sub anymore. It's then it's unpaid leave which is a straight deduction from your selfation. Uh that's for certified obviously for classified it's just a nonpay. Yeah.

026Okay. But they also have 17 sick two personal seven family. Yeah. That one I'm not as confident in. So Lisa, do you know that from the handbook? It's based on if you're full-time or not. So it's prorated. So if you're a a half h half-time employee then your your leaves are at half. Okay. And Dr. Johnson just said the seven family illness is part of the sick days, right? That sick days. So yeah, if you if you have you get 15 days a year if you're a brand new person, you get 15 days. Only seven of seven of them can be used for family illness. All right. Yeah. I think it'd be great to get the ones that and then you can have the dad show up, right? Yeah. Well, and what I was going

027to say is on unpaid days because I did start to look at that because I've had a handful of had some conversations with staff about unpaid days and and the unfortunate thing is most of the staff that have had to take unpaid days in my building, they have maybe 60ome sick days. They can only take seven, but they only get um you know two personal days. They've already burnt those and now my kid makes state golf and I want to go. Well, so now I'm going to take an unpaid day to go, you know. So, because I was interested in the same thing, but it doesn't it's not really telling. It's almost like those people were being honest because they weren't taking a sick day and saying, "I got a doctor's appointment, right?" You know,

028so um and and when I was looking at this, um I was talking to another principal in in a surrounding district that um because you can have 120 sick days on on the books, um which is a lot um and at that district they at the end of the year they can exchange 10 sick days for a personal thing. So if they have, you know, 15 and they only use four, then they could exchange those 10 for a personal day the next year. So I'm not saying that's a great I mean, I don't know if it's a great idea or not, but I think systemically there might be some things that we could do to not let people accumulate. I mean, that's an interesting concept as opposed to it's still cost something, but it's not

029necessarily there's been a lot of proposals to pay out, but cashwise and that's especially at like retirement cost prohibitive. Right. I think yeah, anything you guys can do with the data that helps us see some of the patterns, you know, even if it's a because I mean I would love for you guys to be able to tell me 37% of our staff missed zero days, you know, like I would like to, you know, hear those kind of things and sort of see wasn't even close to I was about to say that too. No, no, no. So, Lisa, like in frontline, because we don't pull reports very really ever, is that something that in uh like on the central office side, like there's easier ways to pull some of those reports that So, sorry to put

030you on the spot, but I'm like I go by employee and then Yeah. So frontline has was where we have clockins and clock outs and you have your absences and then at payroll time we export that into an accounting software that handles payroll and so then it tabulates all that same information. So if you took so much off in frontline then it tabulates it in the software. So it's kind of keeping track in two places. So I run reports through the accounting software where payroll runs their reports through Frontline. And so we kind of do a a check every once in a while to make sure information is being pulled the same because um uh certified staff get time off personally as in days. So an eight hour day equals one day where classified staff

031get it in hours. So one day for them might be four hours or might be six depending on what their assignment is. So you have to kind of manipulate the system to know if it's a classify it's in hours. If it's a certified, it's in days and so that takes a little bit of manipulation. There are some reports that you can run in frontline. So maybe we just do some work and and creating that especially to like dig a little deeper. That's a lot of like I know I wish I could tell you like that didn't take me a lot of time and then Ellie McLaren like sent me this amazing document pages. Listen, it was good. And so, but then like I was like, god dang it, I had already done a ton of

032this, you know. So, I was like, how'd she get that so quick? So, that's why I guess I was wondering. And I think to go to to Heather's point, like the report that I was able to run, I think Heather's talking about it's like you have to look at each person by themsel and you can only do so much up to 90 days. It was that's what I did too. I'll I'll show you guys how to do that because you can run it by building and so then and you can choose just certified, just cooks, just custodians, like individual groups within the building. You can pull it districtwide, you can pull it. So it may just be some training we need to do. Um because that's how I run the reports to see from my

033view uh perspective um to see what we're paying for subs and and time off and things like that. You know, another thing we might have looked at is for data purposes, my brain is saying I we should have looked at what what attendance was last year compared to this year to see if it's up or down because I know you did that on the student side saying here's where attendance were last year percentage-wise, here's where I think what we need to do is look at what did last year look like, what did this year, because those numbers look big, but if we compared to last year, they might be better, right? But we don't have we don't have anything to compare it to. And so you're seeing data for the first time and you're seeing

034really big numbers and it doesn't it doesn't have relevance. And so I think we need to do percentages um how much of our percentage of our staff are gone and then and then compare that to next year and that would also help balance out then like where you have the largest staff, I have the second largest staff, you know, so then those percentages then would make more sense. Okay. So yeah, we can get better. Yeah, we'll work on that. Okay. And I think that goes back to our, you know, clear back at the beginning when we had our retreat kind of planned for the year and we knew that we were going to be looking at attendance on the student side. We kind of said, you know, we have to as the district model ourselves

035what we're asking from our our parents and our families in terms of getting kids here. So it it would be helpful to kind of have data to get some trends or at least Yeah. Right. Are you guys as administrators happy with those numbers or disappointed in those numbers or surprised or shocked? It depends on the person. For me, so what I mean on that is like there are some people who I've like and Lee knows this because she's helped me with this. There are a couple employees that we put on attendance plans at the start of the year. And so we looked at their individual um data from years past and then and those individuals have like knocked it out of the park, you know what I mean? And then there's some people who sadly

036have just had some hardships this year they can't control. So then there's empathy and sympathy for them. And then there's others where it's like, okay, I think we need to be talking about a plan next year. So that's I guess what I mean by that, Josh. And I think knowing the situ like knowing the staff and the reasons they were gone Some people are gone more for me than I than have been in the past just because of the situation at hand and like what happened this year. So I would was I surprised that their number? No. But I wouldn't be surprised as you said if we go back their number is probably not what it was the last two years. It just happened to be like this year spiked a couple people that wouldn't

037typically spiked if that makes any like I had three unexpected surgeries like for people like there was just weird things that happened for people this year that haven't happened. What impacts happen in the school building when you have high uh staff absences? Yeah, a lot coverage is difficult. covered very we know when we spend a lot of money on subs and sometimes there aren't subs and in that case then what happens so I've subbed one of my school counselors who has a teaching degree has subbed we have Mr. subbed. Yeah, we all subbed. Um I luckily still have uh two paras in the building who are subcertified, so I pulled them out of their positions to cover classes. Otherwise, preps we do a lot. Yeah. So, what what work are you guys not being able

038to get done because you're subbing? Oh, it is a team effort. Me and Barry like we it's a jigsaw. Yeah. I was I was gonna say the same thing though. I mean, I think you know team effort. I I know there are some days where, okay, I have, you know, another teacher that might be able to pick up a little bit here because they can combine classes at this time. So, they're going to take two hours to start the day. I'm going to take these two hours and then I'll, you know, somebody else will finish the rest of the day. So, it's not always the smoothest, but we we try to get it what's best for the situation at hand. And you know sometimes to go on that I might have to pull my title

039teacher and the title teacher is going to have to cover class or you know and I think like you said like I what we lose but then what the kids lose if they do it's so it's kind of that balancing act of well it's the second day that we're losing title support well those kids need that too. But that's you know so it's just how do we like I've had to go it's okay so you missed the afternoon twice this week I'm going to take the afternoon because you can't you know you got to see your kids so sometimes always that happens we got to take and I would add too that I know everybody does but um especially at the middle school we have about six or seven subs that are going on and

040being there a lot of them former teachers um So every we all have our go-tos, right? But I think now's a good time to just give them a shout out because they are phenomenal. I just they're lifesavers. If you're listening, I just text about an hour ago. We need opening Friday. So yeah, we have wonderful subs and when they come, they come and they they great job. So yeah, the ones we have we are blessed to have. Yeah. Well, I I mean, I assume that you guys hear it, too, but it is one of the things I hear from parents is um they're cracking down on my kid not being at school, but my kid's teacher hasn't been at school for this many days. And that's that's a hard one to answer for a board

041member because I'm like, I don't know the specific situation like you're saying. I mean there there's always a specific situation, but um you know it's it's concerning to us not just because sort of a oh everybody should just do their job, you know, I mean it's really concerning because we're talking about the kids and we're talking about them getting the best education they can and we believe in our teachers but they can't impact the kids on the days that are not there. Well, and that um yeah, certainly I agree. We're trying to be solutionoriented care. So we're we're trying to understand that what we're doing is, you know, we know that it's a problem. We know we're trying to be empathetic. We don't want to continue to do this if there's a better practice that

042we can employ that that does what's best for kids. Um, so along those lines, you know, for tracking data, I'd be curious if you just see it self-reflect how many days, whether that's a week, a month, you spend in the classroom setting. And I realize once in a while that's probably a good thing that lets you see what is happening in the classroom. But at the same time, you know, it's maybe better being in there observing teachers, doing instructional leadership, doing those types of roles because um if we need more subs, there's probably other ways that we could financially do that better than having administrators subbing. I think I I mean I will say precoid very rarely was I needed to sub for those two three years around co if I didn't sub at least

043part of a day for once a week it was a shock and then in the last couple years it's been a lot better I mean I will I vastly better so I mean I I mean just to kind of give you that that idea um but yeah I would reflect yeah I'll have to reflect it's just an interesting thing to kind of stop and Think about that because yes, co did change how we all have addressed things and it's easy to have that just become part of your daily routine and not realize what what else could I be focusing. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Uh superintendent report. Okay. Uh today um we gathered our staff and we had a little celebration end of the year celebration and we recognized um from retirees

044and then uh gosh anybody that had the longevity of work from five year all the way up through 25 year um service to the district. Uh we're um gosh I want to make sure I say it right. We recognize four employees, two teachers, um a bus driver and a custodian. So Trace Peterson, John Peterson, uh Wade Johnson and Jeff Hetrick were our four honories. And uh it was fun just kind of uh and some of them weren't able to be there in their commitments that they weren't in the district coaching or or whatever it was, but it was kind of fun just recognizing you know everybody in their time that they do give to the district. So just a little bit of a celebration there. Next thing is um as we are are all aware

045that um the cell phone policy has been approved by the legislation. We I I would suggest uh to wait to see what it uh comes from the IASB on language and then work through that. But I suspect the language isn't going to change much to what it already looks like for her policy. Our SRO, Ben Sandy, um is doing a good job of getting himself embedded in the different buildings and kind of familiarizing uh setting up schedules, trying to figure out where he needs to be, you know, randomly, but kind of on a schedule basis. He's learning um it's probably a good idea to be up here at the high school when dismissal's happening and be out parking lot, that kind of thing. So, those things might be scheduled every day, be consistent. But otherwise,

046he is getting around. He's attending two different trainings in the last two weeks, last week, this week. uh that's been reached by CHO. Um a couple two three three days of mental health training and then uh he said some uh training for Alice that would be that active shooter training. Um I've also included recent legislation that's been signed into law. Again, we'll wait on that language that's coming through, but there's quite a few things that are totally connected to the school district. So, it's going to be interesting what that language looks like. Just celebrate again uh Natalie and her um kitchen staff for a great review like she said in the eight years that uh the person that came around to do their um inspection and review of their program um everything was in compliance

047and and they do a great job. I have included our master plan review. Um I think next board work session on the 28th that's when uh SBPA and IAT Estus is coming out to work directly with the board. But I've included some of their uh information and it's sitting on your desk so you've got a paper copy of it. You don't have to look at it, you know, on the computer and just kind of review that if you would. And I've also talked to the Donovan Donovan Group. They've given us different options of clients and then and again the Donovan Group is a um company that does all kinds of surveys and then different types of communication that would go out if the board chooses to move forward on on anything involving that master plan.

048And then just for fun, I included that old creek um project. Uh it was designed by the Iowa State University students. It was a variety of uh students in in kind of this team that came and just uh evaluated the whole bull. Again, if you want to see a real live plaster cast, go down to city hall. I don't know if has anybody seen it besides Laura. It's awesome. I want to try to get it up here. It's about four or five desks large. Yeah. And it's a top uh it would cover most of it space. Yeah. It's it's just so cool. Um and it just shows how the the creek runs through the the city here, how it affects um that area that's right in front of the middle school sheler. I call it

049their front yard. But that's kind of their large area where they're they're looking at renovating and and um creating a a space that is is going to be just phenomenal if they end up getting some kind of funding for it. It's it's kind of fun to see what the options will be with all the other all the other things that are going on in the city. So, were you there to I thought they talked about the the I can't remember what they call it, but the place where the water's trapped in front of the school would be seven times larger than it is like that like an area that would collect and then it drain off or an area that just collected. Yeah. Retain it like retain detention. I know, but they don't detention. I

050think they call it a detention. I don't remember what the difference is. Yeah, it it that would end up being very very any questions for the super we will move on to board. Any board members who have anything that they'd like to share? End of end of the year here. That's it. financial report. So I shared with you April's financials and that is month 10 out of 12 months. So we are things up. We should be perfect world 83% spent. Um and then salary should be around 70% because we do pay teachers over the summer. So, we um set aside the money in June and then paid out in July and August. So, they're not at 10 months paid um compared to everyone else, but we are right about where we should be. Um revenues

051are not as high as I would like them, but we've got some great every everything with grants come in quarterly cycles and so we've only received first and second quarter. So, we haven't received the funding from anything that happened from January, February, March. In my mind, I'm already done with third quarter, right? And we're moved into fourth quarter, but those funds always take about a month after. So, anytime now, we should be receiving third quarter revenues. And so, I should see my numbers then go back up by next month. But, it always makes me nervous when I look at that and I'm only seeing two quarters worth of of dollars and yet we've completed three quarters in the financial world. Um, there's not really anything on there that I thought was a standout. Um, we

052are working with the nutrition department to try to get something out to parents for those that have negative lunch accounts to say, you know, we really need these balances paid off by June 30th. Um, the board uh has in policy that those can be sent to collections if people don't make those payments by June 30th. But uh Natalie's willing to if they're willing to make payments, she's willing to extend that, but she needs to hear from them knowing, hey, yeah, I need to make a pay. I'll make payments, but it may need to go past June 30th. So, we're hoping to clear that up because we do have a large and even though we talk about how uh fiscally sound the nutrition program is, um those bills, those expenses are the parents responsibility. So, um,

053the nutrition program can't just provide free meals for everyone, even if they have the money. It is no different than if you went to McDonald's. You you can't eat on credit. You have to you have to pay your bill. And so, when those people um uh don't, we we do have to collect that. And so, um, we're working hard, but we are at $27,000 negative on parent collections. So, we are trying to work and that's multiple people. That's not any one family, but uh trying to work on that and then we'll see what we can do. But we'll hopefully have more information. But her her numbers are up this month. So, I'm hoping she was able to reach to some parents because I know she sent out a letter. But as far as the overall

054April finances, I think they look good. We are two months down and then we start the process of closing out the books and starting a new fiscal year. And those all happen within weeks of each other. And so we end about June 20th to close out all POS and purchase orders and things so that we have time to close the books and then we don't start or a couple of weeks into July that we start the new year. So we have about three weeks there that we're trying to close out things and that's going to be here before we know. Any questions or reason? Any plans for how we're going to not make this happen next year? I would love for it not to happen. Um the approach that we have is we have we

055have to offer the application but we cannot force it in anyone's hand. I had had we had seriously talked about putting it in a newsletter and sending it out to email. Um looking at what the state says um they they don't want you to force everyone to fill out the application. So, we um are going to have it available. I know Stacy and I have talked about having some type of on-site orientation where parents can come fill out applications, fill out paperwork, including the free and reduced, especially those that have a language barrier. Um we're going to try to work hard that on that. We're also we're hoping, you know, we they send out weekly uh announce, you know, notifications. I think if we did anymore, it'd almost feel like bullying, you know, if we

056were every day sending out some type of letter. Wonder what other districts do. I mean, I feel like our back to school night is sorely lacking and that would be a huge opportunity to collect things. Um half hour to get through all buildings is yeah, just seems crazy. But can you make an incentive? Me? Well, I think we just need to get our staff free meals. Well, no. No, but I mean Well, I know, but if you turn in your application, can you get a free popcorn at the football game? I mean, I'm just saying because it's cheaper for the school board to buy the popcorn for everybody. Yeah. Than to be $27,000. I mean, it seems crazy, but true. I mean, I just think there needs to be something in play already between staff

057back to school night to have table set up and things there. you know, we we we went the route and I know you all did this a few years ago, but you went the route to try to make everything paperless, right? And let's do it all online, but then we kind of lost something in that because if you aren't comfortable with technology, you're just like not for me. And so we all grew up in the days that you went to registration and back to school night and it was all face to face. And so we might actually have to go back and and think about model because we are, you know, our free and reduced percentage is much lower than what it should be based on our community. Where are we at this year? You

058remember Yeah, 57. And grants to receive a lot of grants, you got to be at 65%. Based on our community, we probably should about 65% but it's just not filling out. The nice thing about the application is if you fill it out, you get kind of an instantaneous result like yes, there's a chart Natalie goes to fills it out. Yep. You I know. Then we actually get reimbursed from the state at a higher level for those students. So the district makes more money um for those students who fill out that application and either receive free or reduced. And so it it kind of benefits everything. the family walks away with a cheaper meal or free and the district receives a higher per meal cost. So, we've just got to and I don't there's no shame

059in it. I I wish I could send it out to everyone and have everyone complete it, but they tell me I can't. Right. Well, I'm glad you guys are not working on it. We'll continue to work on it. Okay. U we're going to move on to our consent agenda. Did everybody have a chance to review that? Actually, I need to get an approval in the I was just I was just Sorry. Thank you. I'll second. Okay. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. All right. And um if you've all had a chance to review it, if anyone wants to um uh pull for discussion any particular item, you can. Otherwise, uh we can just make a motion to approve the whole thing. I move we approve the consent agenda. Second. Hey Josh,

060yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, Jenny, yes. All right. Uh only item here for discussion is school board recognition celebrating the hard work and volunteerism that uh all the members of the school board give and donate and you know I think there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that board members do and and the rest of us even the public have no idea the amount of hours and time and efforts and sometimes oh little heartache uh that goes along with being a school board member and anybody that has served as a school board in the past, they they know it and they understand a lot of the things that that do go on service that that's involved. So, lots of thanks and appreciation to each and every one of the schoolboard

061members. I do very much appreciate all of you. Thank you for everything that you put into this and you bring to it. All right, we'll move on to the action portion of our agenda. Um, action item A is the approving the 2526 school year calendar. If anyone wants to talk about it anymore, we featured it at multiple meetings. Or did you just go ahead and remind me did uh just vote on this? it it was taken to each of the buildings and they uh went through it on their with their BLT building leadership teams and kind of review things with them. It's a unique year next year because we can't start until August 25th and we want to be done by Memorial weekend and and then the way the weekend falls just yeah it's just

062an odd uh calendar for us to try to make sure that you know we want to get out by December what is it before Christmas before Christmas just all these tight things that went on and so it was I think my understanding is that every here. I mean, there's some teachers want one thing, some teachers want another thing. So, putting it up for a vote would actually be terrible because you'd end up with 35 to 40 to 25. We did get some good information. You know, some of the feedback was that they liked that uh kind of the parent teacher conferences were two days and they started at 2 o'clock and ended at six. There just different things that they liked. We did make some changes. Are we getting better engagement parents that are working?

063Yeah, that doesn't happen. Yeah, and we might ask the principal. How do you guys know? So, having the changing the hours for um student conferences makes zero effect on our attendance. That's because parents have jobs and if you don't put it during out of But he's saying we used to have it at the different hours. It didn't change our parents. We stayed exactly the same whe What about I would be more curious with the younger grades. So where they have one sole teacher ours was very similar numbers. There was no real difference between what we did when we had it later at night versus Did you guys used to say to like 8:00 p.m. Did that Yeah. Ours was honestly in fall it didn't make much of a difference. It was about the same. Our

064spring conferences were I want to say below six I had the number below 60 and like 60% of people for the first time ever like it was it was the worst conference attendance I pass the the spring it's not the fall was online with most falls spring was almost 10% you didn't have a change this year I really didn't I think I think now that you say that my spring was a little bit lower we didn't have school that It was a super super cold day and it Yeah, you're right. Yeah, now that you say that. Yeah, it wasn't too lower in this in the what we call spring conferences, but it still shocked me, but you're right. I forgot about the It was a It was really Yeah. And then we had no school

065for the students. One of the fun things is we we try to um this year's calendar and then next year's calendar for parent teacher conferences. We tried to tuck it up right uh next to Halloween trick-or-treating because we know kids are staying out late and they're eating a lot of candy and so, you know, by the time they come back the next day, they're they're exhausted and then sugar high and sugar low and they're just Anyhow, that worked out well this year. further discussion or I'll take a motion. I move we approve the 2526 school year calendar. Second. Okay, Laura. Yes, Christie. Yes, Jody. Jenny, yes, Josh. Yes. All right. Action item B is uh regarding a contract with the A.E.A. for a school-based interventionist. If you look at the attachment for a school-based interventionist,

066uh this person uh will spend a lot of their time assisting with um serving students. And it says even focused in on the the middle school, even though we want this person to work with middle school and high school kids. and it's really to kind of address a lot of the attendance issues and then also they can help with some behavior issues that are going on in any of the buildings. I think they're going to help even at the Schuler and Washington buildings with the attendance contracts and meeting with families and and so on. uh we we're going to use our AEA funds that we can kind of identify how to use um the school-based interventionist. It seemed to be what quite a few of the other districts are now moving towards and and again

067it was presented to the superintendent uh with the idea about helping out the attendance seems to take a lot of the principal's time during the day during the week where they're working with students even meeting with parents working on attendance contracts and and talking with parents and and kids it's what we talked about right guys I It's a one-year contract. Try it. You have those. Imagine some parents might want to talk to based interventionist contract. Christy, Jody, Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Thank you. Action item C is theou for next year for the Jack program. Not sure how many years we've done here. Community school district years. Um it's an annual four years. Okay. Four years. Don't mind. Don't don't sit behind us. Um, but it's a good program. It helps kids on uh

068developing skills, get uh get it practiced up on workbased learning experiences. I know that they do different types of things on career pathways and even preparing them to be job ready. We we how are the kids doing this? They're doing more than well, actually. had a lot of fun. Couple of spent a lot of time with that. They did really really well. I had to take them out to games a couple times and they behaved very very well. I was astonished with it actually did great was challenging the third semester but I was great. So I expect that the second year hopefully. What are the numbers like how many kids? Uh you can have up to it here. You can have 17 maximum and one class and you can have up to 40 40 to

06950 students. And how many do you have this year? Currently 11. Any other questions on that? I move we approve the J memorandum understanding for next year. Second Jody. Jenny. Yes. Josh. Yes. Laura. Yes. Christie. Yes. Action item D is a partnership social progress contract. It's out of home. Um, this is a situation where it involves a student. Uh, again, it's aou. It's an agreement with a a business, a company that's local that would um have a partnership agreement, like I said, to allow a a student to um attend their day program. kind of could tell you how many weeks or how long it's going to go until the student attends this program until they've completed the number of units or whatever that module is looking at Stacy like how else can I explain that

070so it's part of the four plus program utilized for the four plus program so this student has not met goals on their IEP and the goals necessary or the goals needed um can be met through this program. So the this will be the second student in this program. Um so this will be the addition of one student to that to that program. So it's gets beyond their senior year that four plus it because of the student hasn't fulfilled all the goals of an IP that they can attend school until they're 21 years of This is this is also one of the students that was supposed to be part of that Bodak that was set up for the year. They got that program dissolved by December. It was like old and just disappeared. So that student

071hadn't received um not going to say appropriate. I'm going to say real specific support needed for what was intended originally with that Bodak program. So, this is what they're utilizing to replace that. I believe she turns 21 next year. So, my guess is that this will be the last year she'll be. I I think I honestly don't remember. I know the other student that is in the program is has one writer. Okay. Um I think they they both are done next year. Any of you know take a motion? I move the partnership for progress funding agreement. I'll second. Okay. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christine, yes. Jody, yes. All right. Uh, the Strive Academy contract with DBA. Okay. Again, this is just a contract that sets it up for a student type of situation.

072It's a four plus program. It's an agreement between DMAC, the Strive Academy for students, a student who attend there. And we've had students go through this program in previous years. So, it's not necessarily the first time we've had a student do this. So, these programs usually every time a student enrolls in a specialty program, we have to have a new contract. because they're um on an IEP and they're in that four plus up to 21 years of age. By law, special ed law, we have to continue to provide educational services, meet their needs vocationally. What else? Excuse what else? Yeah. So, there's usually what we look at is there's two there's two kind there's two blocks usually. One is an agreement with the program itself and then one is usually a service agreement. Some programs

073put that all on one document. Some programs don't. Some programs you sign your and then there's a service agreement per student because what that student is going to receive is going to look completely different than another student. Whereas I think with this DMAC one, if I I found one that was from a couple years back with another student that did the same program, all of that person's information was all in the same agreement. So it's not like an ML and a service agreement. It's just all one contractor. Okay. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. Jade, yes. Action item F is uh a board policy review for policy 605.01R. 01R regarding uh curriculum selection. Yeah. And and so the board has looked at this policy in their recent past. We it's interesting. So we

074submit all these reports to the department of ed and um they actually read through every piece of a policy to make sure that we are in compliance. They have said in uh this policy 605.01 01 we cannot have students in the selection of materials for review. So we have to strike out the word student or students in this policy. I then send the updated policy um and it's part of our desk audit and then we are in compliance and we get approved. So they're just then they gave us a waiver until the board could approve this. So it's it's so interesting, but yeah, this from the state department of Yes, we just have to change the language on it. Glad they're using their time effectively. Take a motion for us to be in compliance with

075the Department of Ed. Move we approve board policy change to 60501 subsection. Second. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. We have a couple of quotes here. So, do you want to tell us what is it we're doing in the high school gym? Sure. This is the last of the um HVAC renovations that um Russell Pepin um and and Randy Watts have been working on to update the system here in this building. It's the last phase. Camel has submitted a bid. Randy, and you can see the bid. Randy Pek has been trying to get two more bids from other companies. They have just not come in. Wait, Russell P has been trying and he got it from Got it. Yeah. So, uh, he's not been able to get the bids in. The

076board may choose to table it until these bids come in for approvement with the current bid from him. How long's he been trying? Um, Lisa, help me out. Don't know. I don't know either. We We told him that he needed to get two more bids. He's contacted. Does anyone know like what our timing is like? Like is this sort of a like ah if we don't get somebody signed right now, it'll never happen or I think all the previous work has been done through training. I would guess I would. Yeah. ignore our systems. Yeah. I I don't quite honestly I don't think we want to accept anything outside of that. The date on this budget proposal is April 1st. So presumably he put it out in March. I guess get that. So that's probably why

077I mean I I'm all I appreciate getting the multiple bid and I appreciate should be making every effort to do that. The ability to understand how that current status. Okay. Christy, yes. Jody, yes. Jenny, yes. Josh, Laura, yes. Action item H is regarding the computer cases. Again, it's cost. It's a bid that's over 10,000. So, we have to have board approval. That's why it's said on the agenda. Roger Warren knew that he needed to get three bids. He tried to get three bids. And for the cases that they want for the computers, the new computers that are coming in, this is the only case and the only company that offers it. So there's even an affidavit from the company that says they are the only ones that offer uh the specific case that they want

078to use for the new student laptop. So he was unable to get three bids. I move to approve a third case bid. Second. Okay. Jody, yes. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Action item I is uh to approve sharing agreements for swimming swimming programs. Two. Okay, I get it. They're two separate ones because they're different schools. Why does it say 2324 school? Yeah, you got to know. I the memo on top, but going back in time there, Andy. I move we approve the shiny goodness for boys and girls swimming. Second. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. All right. Action item J is um Estie's construction IAT agreements. Okay. So, Lisa has included five different rough drafts. Thanks. Um and anytime that you do any kind of agreement on construction

079manager advisor, it's very uh heavy on the legal language. it has been approved and and uh it's it's been looked over by our attorneys and then approved for that contract language. So, it's very extensive. That's why you're seeing I'm thinking three rough drafts and then you're also seeing the um the service agreement. Yeah. So, what's the difference? Why why are there five of them? The first couple are like rough drafts. You can see that they've modified and altered. And then the the last one. Yeah, it's the number five. The uh Oh, got it. So, one of them is a uh general conditions for the contractor for construction. Get a free copy of it. And then the other one is the agreement standard form agreement between the owner and construction manager as advisor. And they have

080been reviewed by our hearing. I'm feeling pretty good about that. There is also one included in there that the service agreement. So, do all of these each of these need to be voted on separately? No. It's just a motion to approve. Um the agreements have any questions about this? This this is just engaging their services as a construction management firm for anything that we do maintenance wise. Yeah. Or just work that they've been doing advising them. cost. I mean, I will say board uh according to this memo from ST's construction, there's only three that they need to have approved at this point, which is the master contract, the general conditions, although then they say no action required. Um, and then the amendment O1, which is I think that's the number five. Uh, and then later

081on they're going to need they would need the other ones like we would need to vote them later anyway. So if there's a sense of discomfort, if you guys wanted to look at that more, but it does say all um has reviewed everything and and agrees that they're fine. It is. And I think somewhere buried in the the multiple pages they're they they show that they're bonded which is always important anytime that you're hiring in construction or any company that they're going to you know start work and then you know something might not go as planned. You definitely want somebody bonded and it looks like the the cost on that amendment charges 13,750. That's right. And then they'll send us the go. Is there anything else that we have? They've been pretty responsive to you.

082We've been pretty they're fine to move forward. Yeah, they have. and move we approve the sharing agreement or the agreement with ITA and past. Hey Josh, yes. Lauren, yes. Christie, yes. Joy, yes. Great. Thank you very much. All right. Um, we're going to move on to action item K, which involves ELA, English language arts, curriculum purchase. So, there you are. I'm here. Uh, as you guys already looked at the quotes, you're like, "Oo, so I better talk through and make sure that you know why we picked." That's kind of what I want to make sure that you guys understand that the process was and everything else. Um, so it looks better when you only look at the, you know, for each one cost. Yeah. No, it was funny because you guys were talking a little

083bit earlier. like I'm going to peek and see what math was because when Lisa asked me the cost what was going to be this was significantly higher than what we had ordered like because a math would be a big K12 that's a big expensive one this is still only like that was still only a fraction compared to what ELA is and that was across the board any program would do so it's not very yeah they're all similar spends a lot of you spend a lot of money in that so um and also this covers K through 12 right this does cover K12 K through 12 yes so uh timeline just so you guys are aware uh We did our PLC standards work right away and I think the essential standards that was a big part

084of you know hey we get the essential standards done that we make sure that the program whatever program we're going to get really aligns with those essential standards that we picked. So uh that was a big piece of what we did. That's why I want to make sure we put it in here. Uh we introduced and started talking about what the vision of this program or the process would be. um create checklist for the review and I had a simple uh I had included the checklist on the quote so you can see the actual checklist of like what we did for K5 versus K 12 the the needs of an elementary versus middle school high school program are different. So if you guys look at the K12 checklist the five K5 versus the 612 you

085do kind of see those things along the side and I put a sample in here later too. Uh those are the things that we felt were really important and why we picked uh things that we needed in the programs that we that we're looking at. Um so we could create the checklist for review in November. Uh start looking at programs for review and get samples December. January was probably more that uh get the samples test materials using the checklist that we had the rubric that we I call a checklist but it's like a rubric like hey did it meet not meet? Does it exceed the expectations that we need? Um, and then we talked about vision and contact using schools using the materials. Um, we got pushed back a little bit. If you guys don't

086I mean you guys those snow days hit on the wrong time for us quite a bit. So like the days that we were gone I can know Daisy had set up some visits and like was on the third or fourth visit set up because of just the weather and how it worked. We had uh curriculum people going to fly in to do a presentation on a day that we had snow day. So they I mean luckily they didn't get their flights because they saw this snow day coming and we were communicating and said hey that's not going to be good. But they did push us off. I was hoping to do this flat month but I just want to give you an idea of why you know make the decision March April. We made it

087more April you late April. So just an idea of why that turned out the way it was uh because that was a little bit different. So, just to go through the steps, uh, picking the essential standards was a big like that was the first step. We had to get those done so we could really know what we're looking for and is that pro those programs would fit the needs that we had. Create the rubric or checklist. So, you guys, we talked about what are the must haves and the wants for the ELA program. Like, what are the things that we got to have it or what are the things that may be really neat if we have it, but if we don't, it's not that big of a deal type thing. And then we looked

088at the reading league rubric uh at the elementary level because it really digs deep into the phic awareness, the phonics, all that stuff that um lower level teachers really need to know and like that rubric really does a nice job of working through um like how do you see if it has it not have it type of thing. Uh I put a sample rubric. Yay, it worked. Um so you can kind of see and like I said you have that on there too. So if you look at the K5 quotes you you can see does it meet exceed not meet um and we kind of put in um yeah so we put in some we usually put in some reasons why on that aspect. So just got to even give you an idea of the

089work that we did. It was a lot of time meeting with people so that we could come up with hey let's have this conversation what's what do we need here? What do we what do we really want um in a program? So who was So you would like have a meeting with teachers? Great. Quite Oh, I should have put that on there. I know. Thank you. So we had in the elementary I had two different groups elementary and then middle school, high school. Elementary wise we had one representative from each grade level and then we had titled teachers and we had special ed teachers so that we had a representation from everybody. Um, so when we got samples, typically I got samples, um, it all depends on the group at, uh, BLA because it cost

090so much money. They sent out a sample of everything to every grade level so that we could have a a look at every at all the different pieces, but yeah. And then middle school, high school wise, we had all the ELA uh, teachers in middle school and high school were invited to be a part of it. Um, some had things that kept them away more than they wanted to be, but I tried to keep them up to date. We also had instructional coaches all involved and the admin were in as many meetings as they could attend um that we had. So So all of them like read all of the materials appropriate to their grade level. Do they like try them out with kids or are they just sort of like them over? No. Uh

091quite a few tried out with kids, some try I mean some tried out with kids, some um just reviewed it. Uh quite a few talked to other schools. um just got opinions from different pieces um and yeah we'll kind of get to that here in just a second. So big get materials and review materials. So we got uh the big materials we got Savis Amplify HMH this used to be Pearson for those people like this back in the day we were in high school it was called Pearson without Savis and we got a few other ones too at the lower levels just to kind of look and see at some other options. Um, so when we reviewed materials, they did review on their own in each building. So like Washington pen took a day, they

092reviewed all the materials together, kind of looked at it. Schuler took a day and did it. Middle school, high school took some time to do those as well. Um, like I said, we had some snow things. We talked and visited to other educators. So um, throughout the state that were using some of those materials. So it was a lot of people doing that. Uh, and I'll just make a point to say, you know, as we reviewed materials, um, let's see, uh, like you said, did they did they teach some of the lessons? I had teacher at Schuler teach, um, one unit from a couple of the programs that that we were trying to get to use. And it was it was good to see it in action. It was good to see it as a

093sub. Like I ended up having to sub for half a day and I was reading. I'm like, "Okay, let's see how this works." Um and there were some good positives and negatives of it and it was really cool because she after the second program um and we kind of narrowed it down a little bit at that point after the second program she used I was in there uh and she asked the students so what did you think what like which program do you think was better and you never know you're going to get from students so I'm going to clarify this but it was really well thought hey the discussions were better with this one this one I liked because it I it felt like I was connecting with the the lit like the information

094better and I really understood it better because it did this part of it. So I thought actually like and I went back to the teacher I said I can't believe we got those right like really deep thoughtfelt answers. But I thought that was really good to hear too because that ended up being the the program that that was recommended as well. So it was just some had a had a good chance to be able to look at the materials and review it. some uh really dug in and bought a unit or a week just so that we could have a really good idea of what what it was. Um but all in all we did we heard from people across the state, we heard from reps from the four uh that were kind of finalized

095in the end. Um and so we ended up making decisions. So after we heard from the reps, we went back to the rubrics. We talked about the pros and the cons for each one of the programs. Um, and then we talked about how we thought they would benefit our students. Could we live with this one? Could we not live with this one? Is there one we don't think would meet the needs, you know, vice versa. So, we talked about those things. Um, and then you can kind of see the pros list. I mean, if you already looked at it, this is just a copy and paste with a little bit of a like short list a little bit so you can see it. Uh, but here's the pros list from the the HMH stuff which

096is going to be proposed to you. Um, and just the things that they really appreciated or liked about it. The next would be the pros list from the high school. Uh, something I want to point out here, uh, just the science of reading. As you hear about science of reading, it's hey, we want to make sure we're we're adopting something from the science of reading. Uh, the HMH stuff is also one of like the state didn't come out with an approved list. It's I don't even know how to describe it. It's the like, hey, we made like a I don't know. They reviewed different programs and this was one of the programs that they uh had partnered with. That's the best way to put it. It's not an approved list. I don't want to say

097that. It's a a list that they partnered with. So, this is one of the programs that they partnered with. Um, but it's founded in the science of reading uh whole group lessons. Uh, there was a lot of pieces that the teachers really liked. Uh, one thing about this program that I'm going to tell you straight out is the K5 stuff is not going to be completely finished until July. So, we're anxious to see some of the pieces. We're really excited about some of the pieces, but some of the pieces that we're excited about. We haven't seen all of it yet just because the online portions aren't completely finished. So, um, so just hey, I I like to be very transparent. So, like just you guys are aware of that. But, uh, high school same thing.

098they appreciated this uh the program very much. You can see, like I said, if you've read through the proposal, this is the the same pros list that you guys saw on there. One thing that I I was reviewing this that I noticed wasn't on there. Um and it's kind of in there with the amount of choices and options for tests and writing and projects and assessments, but there's a lot of the no new programs in middle school, high school are going away from here, let's read this whole book, we're going to read, you know, short stories or snippets of books. But then they also, this program does a nice job of having a long read that goes along paired with um the short stories for that unit. So there's and a lot of them did,

099but this one uh I know the teachers really appreciated some of those long readings that went along. So I even had a middle school teacher. We just kind of make sure that that's in there because then we can be teaching and we can be doing it and then we can extend with this long read along the way. So I think that's something that that the teachers were excited about. Um and and I got to be honest that especially like some of the teachers were just super very much into this and really ready to go. Um it was good to hear it was just one of those like one of those meetings where I'm like you guys didn't give me a number one but this was your number one. So that was like just you could

100hear it in in the way they talk. So I thought that was really nice in one of our conversations. Um so going into it you guys can see kind of the quote in the packet. Um it's a large number. Um, it's like I said, a lot larger than I expected. Are you afraid to say it? Is that Yeah. No. Like, it's over 500. Yeah. Yeah. When I called Lisa, it was like, "Oh, Lisa." Like, what? Yeah. Uh, so it's over $500,000 for the quote was 537 and change for the quote uh in the ELA. I can look it up for you. I know you guys have it though. So, you have that. Um along with that in that we also included some pieces that we definitely needed K1 as well. Uh the youth lively books

101obviously we look at that like the here here's in addition to the reason we had those addition two pieces were really to help make sure that we're covering all the things that we need to cover. And one thing that well I I think I can say for us combined we were disappointed in some of the more like those programs we really looked at still as we talked to other schools they're looking and as we looked at it we know we needed to supplement some of the core reading like core reading parts but like parts of reading how to read that science reading approach into any one of the programs. Um that was it was really disappointing. Like we got done talking I I still remember we got done talking like man why isn't it so

102like whoever does it is going to sell a lot of books. So when somebody does it, but uh unfortunately all the pro major programs were missing some of those really foundational skills that we needed and so we need to to supplement with the you fly materials that are in there with some of the other supplemental materials that you have on there which compared to the overall cost is very reasonable. But uh but that's why I want to make sure I talk through the quote with you guys and the other additions. That was a big addition that I wanted to make sure you talk about. I talked about so you guys understood the the supplemental materials will definitely help uh with those foundational skills. Uh one last thing I do want to talk to you about

103and something else that was on the list um the there was a on the on the next thing at the very bottom I believe on your quote was the information implementation support. Uh I'm part of the dyslexia board at the state of Iowa and was talking to some people on the board and one of those was the former associate director of the Iowa reading research center and she and I were talking about the different programs and she mentioned hey I'm doing um consulting and if you guys are looking for somebody to come in and help support you guys you as you like implement the reading I just give me a call let me know what I can do to help um So I reached out to her uh she's going through Sterling um as as

104a consultant program program and that was the number that I was giving for uh her to come out twice a month work with our teachers. The thought process would be let's have them go to like Washington one month, Schuler one month uh and then middle school one month, high school one month. So like two twice a month she'd be in the district, she'd be working with our teachers as we implement. If we're noticing a gap here, she could say, "Hey, here's some supplemental things that you could do to fill that gap." Uh, if we're having questions on how we're supplementing something else, it could just be a support for anything that we're looking for as a need as we get through that first year. Uh, that first year of implementation is always a huge year.

105So, it would be somebody to be working alongside us as we go through the program. So, she'd be here in August for a couple days and then two just to get us going um help support us and kind of find out what we're looking for and then two times a month and then one time in June as we wrap up the year so that we can kind of get that extra boost and support and you know as our teachers you know I can just think back to math a few years ago that struggle that that that struggle isn't then by yourself it's hey we're having this struggle we can talk to her she can come And um the idea would be she could come in, watch some classes, see how things are going and then

106support those teachers right away with here's some things that you could do that would support you or hey have you looked at this or or you know this is part of the program you use this to help supplement. So um it I think it'd be a great support. I know the dollar sign was a lot bigger than I I expected it. Um, I did talk to the rep there and said, "Do you have any wiggle room?" And she said, "Well, maybe." So, I said, "Well, I'm going to take to the board, see what they think, and if uh if they're wanting me to to wiggle room a little bit more, ask for a little bit more doubt, then I can give you a call and we can try to get that number to a a

107different number if we if possible." But she wasn't willing to give me the number that she was willing to come down to. So, I was like, "All right, well, I'm going to take it to board then and we're going to see." Um, but she she's very knowledgeable. highly I mean if you look up her name you can find out that she she knows what she's been a major speaker at many things. I know when they went to the research center um science for reading conference she was a major speaker and one of the people there. So I thought it was an opportunity that it's really hard to pass up on as we're implementing something brand new in our district. So that's why I wanted to make sure that we include I know Dr. Johnson and

108I have talked quite a bit about it. It'd be a it's a it's a dollar sign, but it's also both good support that you can have. So, is she is she a consultant for the company or she's just a private consultant that is expert at this? She is not she's moved into just private consulting. So, that would be able to help support us. So, she's very familiar with this curriculum in particular. Uh I don't know that this curriculum in particular. I think she's very familiar with a lot of the curriculum. So, I think it's one of those where like like when I talked through curriculums with her, she was she knew the different ones that I the four that I talked to her through and and could talk specifically about. So, yeah, I I feel

109very confident in the knowledge that she has to help support us in our in our process. I'm I'm not questioning her expertise or anything like that. I guess my question is if we're going to buy a curriculum from HM for $537,000, they don't have any type of consulting or things to help us. We do. So, yes, great question. I'm glad you asked it. So, we will get with that quote that we that you saw, we will have uh one full day of them coming in in person for mil elementary and and middle school, high school, and then two other days of online support so that we can do the same thing and ask them questions. This is just in addition to as we get going. Um I feel like yeah it's a it's a positive

110in addition to that would be that expert that might know more than just be on that program to support us. And how do they best do that? Do they do that beginning of the inception of the program or is it like two months into it when teachers have had a chance to delve into it and ask questions or what is their strategy for that? I think and I talked to the I talked to the different groups about the opportunity and they said they'd love just having that person alongside right like the whole way you know. So yeah, we we maybe we don't need somebody September. Maybe it is more of a hey let's let's add some days further on down the calendar. Um but they were very like the teachers were very yeah it' be

111great to have that alongside person. I can shoot an email too. I can do you know I can ask some questions. We can get some support back. So you're asking I'm just asking when do you use that? They would come on site for a day is what I say. So when does that happen? Does that happen at the start in our professional development prior to the school year starting or do you wait and let the teachers work with it for two months and then have them Yeah. So, this was for 11 days and like you said, it'd be two days a month is what we we kind of talked through. Um, but I also see what you're saying. You know, if we want to push a couple days to October instead of doing it September,

112August, this is just for 11 days. We would set the dates and and be able to the thought process would be 11 days they'll come 11 days I'm sorry I have a question if HMH will or no HM will do one day the consultant will do 11 days okay I'll jump in it's kind of a twofold PD yes on a new reading program K12 so Hton Mifflin Park will come in and do a full day training for all staff on the materials of how to use the materials the teachers and that's probably going to be one of the kickoff teacher work days. Yeah. And quite often like quite frankly like that day will be a lot of like here's our online like here's all our online stuff. Here's how we're going to walk through all

113that online stuff. It might not get to the heart of the teaching. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. And so then two more times um scattered throughout the year once the teachers get into using material they'll have questions and so then they can do the zooming uh to ask questions of the uh methan parkour uh company on the materials. Now the other side of this uh Nenah and the benefits of her she is a person that is not part of hardc court I mean hope nutland hardc court which is to our advantage um she's evaluating it as an outside resource of just is it doing what it's supposed to be doing is it uh helping the teachers teach standards u are the kids learning the m using that materials the assessments she is going to be evaluating uh

114our instruction and the materials and the learning. So, she's not representing uh hopefully that program to tell us is it doing a good job and what do we need to do better? So, she might do fidelity checks. Um she'll she'll get us trained up on what they look like, what she expects from us from visit to visit, what she's going to be looking for. Um, this is probably a great move on our part to find this person as an outside consultant to come in and and at least the first year help us um use materials and not necessarily quote me because they're going to tell us how great their material is. We want somebody to come in and really evaluate the materials, how we're using it, what we needed to add in or change or

115do better. And I think to go along with what you just said is she would help us, you know, maybe like you said, go over the data, find the gaps, like, okay, we might need to strengthen this piece. Things seem to be going well, but this would be a piece that we could strengthen and give us some ideas of how we could strengthen that piece. So whatever that might look like, middle school, high school or elementary first year in any kind of program, especially a reading program, um there's a lot of material there and uh teachers are encouraged or almost to the point like you need to use um all the materials that they suggest you to use. Um, and don't kind of pick and choose the first year because we want to see how

116the materials work and uh to to that fidelity um level to show what then the next year don't we want to use and supplement and add in and change. But the first year we really do want to use every piece of the material that that the program um with that greening company has suggested and then the next year we'll do some changes. Josh, you had a question. No, I I just I struggle with I I think we have the people. We have good educators and good administrators and I think we have the people that if we do start a new program that I I it just I know it's only 40,000 out of almost 580, but I I think we could self can we not evaluate it ourselves to see h how's this working? Are

117we getting what we want? Are we doing what we want instead? And I obviously I'm not an education person. I don't know who this person is and I'm not distrusting anything she says, but like I just it's hard for me to like just let's just pay this lady to come look at us and see how this program is doing when we have very well educated, very talented administrators, teachers, the people that are doing it every day. And then it's hard for me to say, "Well, let's just pay this lady to come in and say, well, Mr. North, why don't you do this?" I think Mr. Northwick and Miss Horning or or Mr. whoever can figure it out together, maybe. And if we have a question, I mean, then we could still fall back on the

118curriculum people, but I I could be completely wrong. I just It's very expensive for 11 days. Yes. Um, and is the first year the most appropriate time to bring somebody in when you haven't looked at it at all, like as ourselves, what I'm saying like, um, I don't it it seems like there's so much like, well, we need to hire this person to tell us what to do. we need to hire this person to show us how to teach. Like, isn't that part of administrators and teachers jobs to figure that out? Like, we're constantly bringing in other people. It's just Yeah. The other thing is we could look at anybody on the A.E.A. staff. Yes. To come in and and possibly they might have that skill set. That's another option. And again, we still have

119quite a bit of money on our Aea funds that we haven't used. We definitely have used those type of services in the past. Is there a way to make one of our staff an expert? You know what I mean? Like, you know, in the law enforcement world, some people are are instructors than this and this and this. Like like is there I'd much rather spend $40,000 to get Joe that works for us to do this. You know what I mean? To to look at the different gaps and that type stuff. done and I appreciate your earlier comment and I think we will do a good job of un like rolling it out. I think we have the people that will do a good job of it. This was an opportunity that I want to definitely

120present to you guys because I think the opportunity is a good one with somebody that would be uh like highly regarded across the state to be able to work with somebody like that on some of those different pieces where yeah they would I mean just have that that extra support as we roll out. So that that I mean I wanted to share with the opportunity because I felt like it's a really good opportunity for us and I think you know you know like our day in day out things it becomes a little bit hard to get through some of those pieces that this person would be necessarily focused on but like like Dr. Johnson said we have other opportunities we can go to the AEA we could probably look through some of those things this

121if you're going to ask me for hey let's get the best this is what I put in front of you. No. Yeah. I remember when we bought a math curriculum a few years ago. Um we paid to have a lot of teachers put in a lot of hours over the summer to learn how to do it. Didn't we? Do you guys remember that? And so this curriculum we we wouldn't need to like they're just going to it'll just be part of the PD. And for me that would be what kind of a trade-off. you know, in a way you would be doing that extra coaching piece during the year while they were working with it. I mean, yes. Yeah. Isn't that kind of one of those things when you get a new reading program as

122a teacher, you know, you spend a lot of time outside of school looking at your program and figuring out how you're going to teach it. I think the value of a consultant is a she's a reading expert and as individual teachers I don't know that I would be able to say well I think this is really accomplishing what I want to accomplish or the the science of reading it I don't know is there a person available at the ADA that's why I made no like we can check into it we just have to make sure we get signed up and and that person comes to us on a regular basis we really do need an outside evaluator that's an expert in that area, especially with our ELA. It's it's the most important area, you know,

123because we have our ISAPS testing, but again, kids have to know how to read and comprehend application and that feeds into all the other stuff. So you'd mostly want this person for the the data collection and analysis piece or is she more of like you like a coach like you know alongside but because I would think the coaching I shouldn't be really limited with 11 days or whatever you know to be able to spend all the time she would need with Jenny who needs a lot of help to learn how to use this new curriculum like how you know where every one of our teachers throughout the hate to say it but more like with Aea it probably is underutilized rather than I don't know. What do you mean what's under you? I mean those

12411 days, you know, that time like she'd be available for that. But probably they would ask. Yeah. Yeah. I had an outside consultant come in and and do this specific thing one year and it was invaluable. Um, it was hard for teachers, but then halfway through the year, this person became uh like the the go-to person to help them. What do I do now? And what's this data tell me? And how do I use the materials to, you know, make a difference if they're not if they're struggling with something with that? That was my question about frontloading everything. I feel like you have to have an opportunity to try some things and maybe fail a little bit to really then understand where I really don't think Mr. Northwick or Sardig or anybody, you're not the

125reading experts uh to know specifically on standards and what they need to do and what data they need to collect and how to set up interventions and what it looks like and even specific intervention programs. this person might and it might be an ADA person too. They may come in and say, "Okay, uh I recommend that you add in this intervention piece for kids on the tier 2." You say they might do that. I mean, are you going to have a list of recommendations? I mean, are you going to have a list of things you can tell them this is what Yes. want you to do? No, that's exactly. Yes, that's exactly what we will do. And that's why I would expect one of the the days or even half a day to sit down

126with her and say, "Hey, this is what we're going to plan out. This is how we're going to do this. this is what we're going to expect throughout the year. Have Mrs. Horny, Mr. Pelzer, um McC want to happen so that when we get going, this is what we're going to expect. Yeah. No, I I would expect that for sure. We can look into the ADA and see if they have anybody, but we want the same kind of person to come in. Staff gets used to them. Um they could do walk throughs um get a general feel of what goes on in the classroom, get feedback or improvement change instruction. Y that type of thing. Yeah. And like I said, when the when the opportunity came and we had somebody that was that good as

127a possibility, I wanted to make sure that I presented that person because I felt like, you know, sometimes we don't have those opportunities. So that was it was something that was kind of more than I expected there, but it comes with a price tag that is definitely there. I would agree. I don't have any. Yes, you you mentioned that there was maybe some room in quote. Um yes, my question is the shipping and handling stuff and Oh, in the in the HMAS code. Yes. Yes. And so I guess I guess there's room in the HMH quote or there's room in there's room in the in the Nina quote. Okay, never mind. The HMH code is fairly but the HMH quote like 200 by my calculation 260,000 of that is digital licenses for six years. Yeah.

128Yeah. So, um, that shipping and handling is a pretty high percentage of that entire when you look at it, it's like 10%, but yes, we could like hire a semi to go. I didn't think about that. I didn't even Yeah, I didn't even think about that. But, yeah. No, but it the thing about that too is so what they do is they ship that stuff. So, like the the materials that we're going to get, they ship every year. So, it's not like we're getting it all six years right away. It's going to be nice. We get one here at a time for the next six years. Nice. Okay. Yeah. So, to pay for curriculum, how I um I set aside dollars every year to be purchased for curriculum because we don't always know what's in

129rotation. So, I use um ISL dollars, which is your instructional support levy, because that's a lot of what that's supposed to be used for is to support instructional materials. So, um, I usually set aside 300,000 and only because when I do a five-year look back, that's roughly about what you've spent on average, but there is some flexibility where some years you did spend more and you've spent less. So, our ISL uh dollars this year for next year that we're going to get is about 516,000. And so, my thought was, okay, I'll set that amount aside because I know that's what we're getting for ISL. Um, so this is a little bit higher than that, which is why my shock and all when he gave me the amount, but we we can we can look to

130see if there's some other areas in categorical funding, make some reductions. I know I've got the ISL and that's what I usually set aside because usually it's about 300,000, but um that's how I plan on paying for it is through ISL dollars. So last sorry I said we don't have to approve both Nina's or this at the same time if you want us to. I'll take a motion for whatever. Yeah. No, I Yeah. No, you do not. I just wanted to make sure that I'm putting all of it on that same piece. No, I I appreciate that. I just I think it's an interesting concept because we do have dollars through Aea to look at if there is services that we're not utilizing there. One last thing about the quote too and I want to

131just point this out so you guys are aware. um in talking to the middle school, high school teachers, they all want that print copy in front of them for you can kind of see through the quote. There's a grammar piece and there's a journal piece. Um what I suggested we like elementary wise we want to have to have in front of the kids. That's what that's that was a mustave. Uh high school, middle school, they wanted it. They really want it. But what I suggested is we let them use it for a year. Say, "Okay, so what's, you know, like, "Let's use it for a year. See if you're really going to use it." Because the last thing I want is, you know, we didn't use it the first year very well and then we

132have five years of material just stacked up in a closet. So I did get the quote lower, but we only have one year. Like just to be very upfront again, we have one year of the printed materials for the students. Obviously the vehicles all six year and then next year if they're really going to do some of those then we re then we're going to rework it. Um but it's quite less and more affordable and I've already talked to Lisa about that so that we're on the same page. So, I just want you guys to know, Lisa and I have already talked through, hey, if that's an option that we needed, we'd much rather do it that way and then come back with a 30 $40,000 quote next year to face shop those materials than

133or a yearly quote, whatever that looks like, than put that on there now and then find out we're not going to use five years worth of journals and they're going to sit in a closet or I I I think that this way it hey, we're going to for sure use it type of thing. When's the last time we had a reading adoption? Yes. A long time. Yes. It's been a while. What's a long time? Six years. The copyright materials in middle school high school were 2013. Thank you, James. Yes. I would move that we approve the uh HMA curriculum purchase along with the uh additional intervention materials I guess as presented. I would uh No, I would I would then I would further I would I would like to at least check with the ADA

134as far as a consultant to see if that person exists. Um if that person doesn't exist, then begin revisit separately. Okay. Okay. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody Jane. Yes. Josh, yes. Thank you. Thank you for all your work, James, and everybody. I want to make sure I say a big thank you to all the That's a lot of time. Did a lot of it. All right. Um, action item L is the milks for 2025. I move we approve any from me all amongst the services area. Second Christie. Yes. Jody, yes. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. All right. And similarly is the bread bids. There were two different second. Jody, Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Action item N is the um setting of the 2526 nutrition meal crisis for the nutrition move

135to improve the nutrition. That's just for anyone who's listening doesn't have in front of them. We just have like a a nickel raise on most of the most of the prices at the I'll include those in the minutes. Okay. Jenny, yes. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. All right. Action item O is our final action item is to approve an outofstate trip for the speaker of 18th. Say congratulations to those individuals and I would move to approve Kansas City for them. Very little. Josh, yes. Laura, yes. Christie, yes. Jody, yes. Jane. Yes, good opportunity. All right, we have some upcoming dates. The senior's last day, it's today. Uh there was the employee recognition today. Balora is apparently finished. Uh commencement will be on Sunday, May 18th. And then the last day of school

136for everyone else is May 23rd. and this board will be meeting again for a work session on May 28th at 6:30m at the achievement center conference room and we will be uh continuing to go over our master plan and make some decisions about that. Um highly recommend that this board spend some time before then looking and thinking and have questions if they have them. Uh I'm going to note that that work session uh will not be on YouTube. Uh we're going to uh take advantage of that opportunity for the board to really focus on what the board wants to say to to each other about that. Still a public meeting. People are welcome to come and join us in that smaller the achievement center. All right. So board meeting evaluation question to the board. Was

137the meeting structured efficiently and productive for all attendees? Yes, good thing for us to think about sometimes. I feel like we did get through an awful lot. I appreciate everyone's patience. I know two hours of focus time can be difficult. So, thank you all of you. Uh and I will take a motion to I move. Second. All in favor? At this point, we're going to move into we do accept after exempt just like it's not and that's why I thought it had to be sort of in the meeting to get out. No, because once we adjourn, you can shut the camera, right? Too good to be true. Is here. Well, why don't you tell them about those, Beth?