001okay um it's 6:30 p.m. and so I would like to call this meeting of the Atlantic Community School District Board of Education to order we'll be having uh one of our regular meetings tonight um could we have the roll call J G yes Jimmy Jordan yes Josh mlar yes M yes yes could I have a motion to approve the agenda I move we approve the agenda Jenny yes Josh yes Laura yes Christie yes Jody yes um at this time we usually welcome visitors and invite public comment I'm just going to take a minute um I I do this uh you know once or twice a year which is just to our public comment procedure for anyone else who's interested is that you must notify the board secretary that's Lisa to the meeting um I will
002call on people to make comments I as the board president and petitions may be presented but they will not be acted upon during the meeting which is just to say that our normal habit is that we listen to whatever you have to say um but you we do not really like interact um because this is your time to be be able to talk during the board meeting and say what you want to say to us so um I think we have some people here to speak is that right okay so who would like to go first we have Megan Robert okay Megan great thank you for having us we will be briefed tonight we are just here on positive notes so this is Grace McAfee our Wellness coordinator for Cass County and I'm Megan Roberts
003Public Health director for Cass County thank you for allowing us to be here um we have just had such a really positive experience with Cass County schools and Atlantic school districts since we started in our roles Grace and I have both been in our roles for just around a year and so we wanted to share that we are appreciative of positive students and parents and teachers in the administrators and all the partners that have come together to help us with things like flu clinics and getting those into the schools working with your student health services team um we also are thankful for your um Food Service Partners who communicate with us and who we hope to communicate with on future priorities because Grace works a lot with heal and food access for the county um
004we've had a really positive uh experience with the administrative team and all of our building principles around school assemblies and getting into classrooms to talk about health priorities that matter taking their feedback and trying to find the right resources to connect them to that and we just want to keep that momentum going and try and continue to build on the good things that have been happening um so really that's all we came here for today we're getting ready to launch into our community health assessment process which takes place every three to five years for our County it's required by the state of Iowa and it helps us identify what those priorities are that we should be focusing on things that came out of the last Health Improvement plan had to do with housing child care
005um substance use disorder mental health was a huge priority Elder services so all those topics are kind of what Drive the work that we do in public health for our County and your participation in that process is super important because we want that feedback from our Educators they all interact with students and families on a much closer level than we do when we work in population Health we're working with the community as at large so we don't always get that face Toof face one-on-one interaction so that's all we wanted to share this evening I'm let Grace talk a a little bit about just what she does in her role for the wellness coordinator for the county because it's very unique not every County gets a Grace and so we're just really blessed here she probably
006has a couple of other things on school assemblies and things to share well thank you for letting us talk um and my job has to do with anything health and wellness initiatives in the county um so a lot of those come out of our communities assessment so I work a lot with food access mental health and then just overall healthy living in youas County um and so one of the projectss that I really work with is getting healthy foods to our community um so I work with your food directors about getting food coupons out to your kiddos that are in need um and just letting them know about our grow another roow stands you name it so anything that has to do with food access I'm your girls too um another project that I got
007to work with recently is one of your principls reached out and said we're really struggling with Online safety with our school um and that idea just kind of wasn't and then we took that and brought in Hope For Justice which is originally an online um human trafficking program but we turned it into an online safety for the young kiddos and then for the older kiddos really recognizing the risk factors of not being safe online um and so that was a beautiful thing that got brought by one of your principles and then we got to spread it across the county um and from that beautiful idea I just had a group will pre uh principal reach out to me asking for some more programming so um your schools are great to work with and I hope
008you guys know that you're very lucky to have some really um go-getter principles that want to keep your kids safe they want to keep your kids educated and then just well rabbit individuals so if you have any questions on anything health and wellness I'm your girl we just hope this continues we appreciate the time this evening reach out any topic is not out of line even if we're not the right resources we typically can get you to someone who is that's part of our job too so thank you thank you Peter and Aubrey molgard actually missa speak I'm sorry missa speak Nissa okay great so hi I'm n Mard I'm senior here at Atlantic high school and while you did mention Online safety there are two videos that actually come up in journalism recently in
009the past year that I'm here to talk on today today and why uh requesting an outside escort to just walk me across the stage to home first there was this video in our journalism class where two seniors were jokingly jerking off underneath the table in which they sent the video to me and I had to edit it and that's not something you want to see and so I gave it to our advisor and our advisor didn't do anything she deleted the video and no repercussions came to the voice so what happened later in the year when I got a video similar to it where there's four seniors now that are talking about giving underage class and then recording it and posting it as a senior prank all across the school I kind ofed and so
010because my adviser hadn't done anything I had asked I had given the SD card to another teacher to give to our principal and when our principal came up to came up and looked through the video she said it was disgusting and repulsive and deleted it yet nothing happened the boys continued on doing journalism they were moved and I had to still interact with them that just makes the situation worse because you're kind of like worried about the boundaries that are set when nothing's actually happening to the voice and so while yes they did Cor uate there's been other situations that have happened this year in journalism which have actually caused me to put the journalism program such as our advisor not being there and not stopping any situations from happening having an having these ethics
011that we're supposed to follow and then only one uh one part broadcast one part of the journalism team is actually supposed to be following It While others aren't and even allowing people who aren't a part of a certain program to take equipment from that program and use it during that period's time so I'm I was in broadcasting and we would have a newspaper person take the broadcasting camera during our one period of time in broadcasting so we can't really get stuff done and that reflects on our grade so if I'm supposed to get my stuff done but I don't have the resources to do it it actively reflects negative Vol which is why I put journalism and I'm here today to say please just let me have an outside escort to prom because journalism was
012the place where I socialize and now I don't have that place to socialize because I actively had to quit it to stop not having balares because right now I have two classes APO which has seven seniors and Foods class which I know one friend in but they in a relationship so it' be very awkward to to ask them to go to problem so I'm just here to ask if you'll let me walk across with someone I know thank you thank you now I'm go asy thank you for K help representing your side of the story but as parents you can see that we see a different s and as a student you see a different perspective I've been in your office in your office Heather more this year than I've ever cared to imagine to
013do I found it quite interesting when I found out that is there a term called hark did you Institute that correct is that you oh you can't speak that's right don't worry about that I'll speak for you because you've known about these issues for quite some time for all of you out there in the world St for honesty accountability respect and kindness which you have not shown to my child nor us we come to these meetings and you write on paper but there's nothing actionable that has happened I ask you and this board to start making things actionable holding yourself accountable giving your teachers peer support your your parents everyone's support there's more incidences that just happened last night that I talked to you at 1:00 when I was at the hospital with my young
014child and you at 5:00 when I emailed you the night before unacceptable Mrs B I would just remind you you're speaking to the board and if you could just address your I am don't worry they can hear me yeah I want to make sure that these two know that I'm not okay with this I hold people accountable and I have zero tolerance which I ask you as the board to do the same thing which means that I'm asking you for an outside escort to walk my daughter across foran March not to go to from but someone to show human kindness walk her across the stage so she can have an escort just across brand March that is it that's why we started this today and that's why we're finishing it today so I'd like to
015have an answer sometime before prom that's it thank you Mr mold are you okay um Dan or Christina are you guys here to speak okay great all right well thank you everyone very much um for your public comment you're welcome to stay for the rest of Mee you're welcome to go have great day okay Dr uh principles you want to do it right now oh so um I don't talk a lot during the data uh presentations just because I don't do a lot with attendants so I thought I would take one of the uh student services that I support and um we just recently and we're in we're finishing up our Alpha 21 testing for our El students so I just thought it would be interesting to for the board to get some of that
016information so in the state of Iowa this is a comparison of the state of Iowa see I'm not even touching it it's I'm going to stand over here so in the state of Iowa you can see that there are approximately 144 different languages spoken um in eel students and we actually have three we have Spanish Chinese and chis um and in our program Washington has approximately 50 Scher has 14 Middle School 18 and high school around 23 um we have three e teachers and three e Paras two of those Paras are used specifically for translation as needed by the district so our statistics as far as our Alpha 21 testing goes like I said the window is closing here very quickly uh Washington had 47 Alpha 21 tests can you explain what that means yeah
017so the Alpa 21 is is basically the the test that's provided by the state of Iowa to test what our English language Learners are actually learning and there are four domains that they are tested in Reading writing listening and speaking and from that they will receive a rating of one to five one is emerging and five is proficient um and in that four or five range uh we usually see uh a decrease in supports necessary for those kids because those four or five kids are proficient in those areas so they could be proficient in speaking but still need support in writing or reading because it's all four domains so they want to be proficient in all four so in in Washington there we had 47 students that were tested in the Alpa with two that
018were in the alt Alpha and what the alt Alpha is is um similar to the is sasps we have students that um are Al to sets which means they don't um take the same test because their cognitive levels are at a point where we cannot compare them directly to pierce so we compare them in an alternate testing situation and so Scher had 13 with one alt Alpha and uh AMS 18 and AHS 23 if you notice there was one missing from our Washington numbers the student left um not not left left went on a trip and just came back and so we're hoping to finish up her uh the testing with Miss coffee tomorrow so uh at tomorrow on Friday but so then you can see the domains there and our results um were the
019state tells us that by May 19 we should receive our results which is really close to the end of the school year um but we are very excited because um our our kids are showing Amazing growth in the other testing that is happening to the nwaas through the fast testing at Washington Jeweler um I know that our El teachers are very excited um because we do feel that there's going to be a great number of students showing intense grow so and if I could also give just some appreciation because the way that the El testing was organized this year thank you was better oh so much better yeah so thank you good awesome the last thing that I wanted to bring up is something that Lindsay uh Roberts our High School El teacher is um
020very passionate about we are learning more about it and is something called the seale of by literacy and basically what this is is it is a program that can be instituted where our students will actually graduate with with dual language as recognize with dual languages and why is that important um it can affect job placement it can affect um College placement those types of things and so we are learning more about it our AA representative um that supports us from Green Hills it's it's kind of this U elusive thing that's out there and there's not a lot of information so we are digging into it because uh like I said um Lindsay Roberts is very passionate about getting our kids to this point so when they graduate they will be recognized as dual uh language
021proficiency and that is that's just it's just a cool recognition to make for them um both of our uh other two par uh elel teachers our staff and our parents are also we're looking for ways to also recognize these students in other ways if we do have a student who becomes proficient Elementary School we're looking at what can we do to celebrate that student we're even looking at trying to maybe find something for graduation as some kind of a recognition when they graduate that they were part of the E program they're now proficient in language um with us here in Iowa and and Atlantic so there's lots of really good things happening is that something only for the English language Learners the seal ly you know that's a really good question and I'm not sure
022if our language Learners like our Spanish students or anything like that would be able to get it I'm not sure I'd have to check on that but once the school re are learning yeah once our School receives that like we would be certified to grant that certification kind of probably that's a great question to ask yeah yeah because not a lot of high schools have four years of Spanish right over unique that right great question and as we learn more about it I hope to have more information and so on the slide did it say we have Spanish ches and Chinese and Chinese you have modern Chinese for for written language how many Chinese speaking students do we have only two the rest of our stuff focus is on attended I didn't open the wrong
023one did I no okay one excuse me um it's fine uh so you guys know that tenant has been a big Focus this year so kind of went through and like are comparing where we're at this year versus where we were last year so uh currently 35 students have missed 10% of the school year approximately 12.5 days at Washington last year 98 students were in that boat was interesting looking through um looking through all the numbers and like tonsil tonsil about heart surgery like you could see so some of them are not but there's some very legitimate reasons why some of these kiddos were out too um and then we broke it down through the grade levels so this year there's 15 kindergarteners last year there were 34 uh first grade so what's interesting to
024me is this year Field Land four and these are those kids so that's a huge Improvement um when you're stepping it down second grade 10 and there were 19 last year and then third grade only six and 19 last year so big big big improvements from last year you can look down here this one was a little bit I thought this was a little bit weird 47 have missed five days of school whereas last year 33 had but when I looked at it like but 98 had missed up so many days so that five felt really small last year and then 19 last year versus 25 this year of kids that are at N9 days and was it true even before covid that um kindergarteners tended to have higher levels of absenteeism I was reading
025something about that this week yeah always they're always the ones that have it makes sense they're being exposed to a lot of new germs and stuff like that they have tend days teachers always so Sher data um still pretty good knock on wood I was I so we get emails we set it up so we get emails every time a student hit a benchmark uh AB some thing and so I had been without a lot of emails first semester but you know five days a lot of people hit five days second semester and that's just logical like you know just right like you know just illness so I started get a lot of emails I was like oh my gosh we're getting worse it's terrible I shouldn't I don't want to show her down it's
026still pretty good so I will say that it's still pretty good uh we have 15 students that missed 10% so 12 and a half days or more uh 27 students last year and that broke down into seven fourth graders and five eighth graders or eight fifth graders sorry not eight fifth graders um I think the the telling thing is the students that have Miss five days their school was almost 50 I mean 50 less it's that's a I think that's a great one um and students have missed more than nine days it's almost like not quite half so I think what the state has done what we're trying to do is working and successful and I would go with what like Mr SW said I feel like of the list of the 15 that have
027missed 10% of the days I can go down the list and uh and the the most like the first ones I talked to were health issue there's a health thing Health thing so they missed the majority of their days because of some sickness illness something like that I know that's 12 and a half days but at the same time like when I could see that most of it we had a note for or something I I felt a lot better looking at those 15 students at same yeah okay this this isn't this isn't terrible or anything bad uh Middle School you can see we have 50 students that have missed at least 10% of the school year we were 63 um so we're just a shade ahead of where we were last year um the
028grade levels um it was uh compared to last year was basically we're plus or minus three so we're about 14 18 and 27 um last year so it's been pretty evenly distributed on our improvement from grade level to grade level um 178 students have missed more than 5 days there isn't five days if you remember that's when the letter gets generated it goes out um last year at this point we were at 198 and uh then we have 90 students that have missed nine or more days again nine is when we try to set up that attendance meeting so think 90 attendance meetings um I would love to stand before you and honestly say I've met with all 90 um I've got a good portion of them but the cool thing now though is I
029think parents are aware of it enough that I actually have parents contact me to get the meeting over with when they get to 9ine or 10 they just call and want to have a conversation so that's been a good thing last year we were at 104 students um at this point in the year that had missed nine or more um and I just as I was going through my list um yeah you see the illness things but of our 50 at the top there that have missed 10% 11 of those 50 are no longer in a general educ a setting whether they went online or homeschool or um moved away um so like really most of those were in our top 15 like high absent students um have just chosen another form of Education or
030moved out of the district so um how many students total do you have in the middle school about 325 about a quarter have missed nine or more days of school so and do you guys all have access to your pre-co attendance mbers I haven't looked at it yeah would be interesting okay so yep at the high school level and we have just under 470 students in the high school for the four grades uh we have 88 students who have missed 10% of the school year the Freshman we have nine uh 19 sophomores 23 and 25 but at at just the five days it's 267 that's five days plus so it is quite a bit uh and in the figuring of this too we have this part of the formula so if they're gone for a
031school activity it does not count against them so these are absences that do count against them uh we have had more illness and it started super early in the High School this year we had kids that I've had two kids who had Mono so they were out quite a way quite a while uh but it started in November and so we've had kids who have missed like a week to seven days at a time because of illness doctor's notes sometimes come sometimes don't we have worked Amanda Bine reached out to all of us January yeah and so it has uh to fact those doctors know to help streamline some of that so for instance one of the parents um that I visited with two nights ago about attendance especially um her kid has had all
032these doctor's notes in his truck and I'm like okay you have just got just email him to me like I said and honestly just the hospital has our number to send them uh we have done a nice job of doing our attendance contract meetings I've sent more certified letters in fact I sent um four or five on Monday and there are three students in particular the County Attorney is probably on the third route with from the high school so she's been very receptive and there's one student I send her rep every week on so that yeah yeah that's thanks no one had any question uh okay I guess we'll do superintendent report yeah mine's just basic and catching the board up on some things that has been going on the last month uh remember our
033robotics team and we got of brand for it we just couldn't keep the team alive didn't have the kids show interest between uh Stacy Schmidt and Andy Mitchell our two coaches for this year they really did try to you know get kids interested in a even went into the Junior High um and we had some kids show interest at the junior high but then just getting to practice it gets hard transportation that kind of thing so we'll uh we'll get it going again next year we get to keep the grants we just can't reapply for that nassa Grant Master planning and you can see on a link there I've included that schedule uh SVA has done a great job of just um communicating and and working with uh different teams I think the principles and
034myself we've met with them twice I've met with the SBP a architect gr addition so every week we're talking and working with them uh the next board meeting or or work session March 26 is that right they are going to come and present to the board and they should have kind of a a big picture plan of what they think um would be something of Interest along with uh prices so they're they're now looking at the square footage for different types of programs they'll get that to IAT um and icat price it out so they'll be coming um at that work session and giving you a pretty good idea of what the cost is for some of their suggestions snow days uh we've had quite a few snow days whether it's a full day no
035school and or L starts or early dismisses and you can see that we have three and a half hours left on student attendance and then we're going to have to make up scho time we did some of that last year remember we went full days on Wednesdays we could do that so we we've kind of got a plan in place we doing that whole day on Wednesdays and probably till April May but we really do want to use that Wednesday PD time scheduled so we can work with our teachers keep things going I've included information on that cell phone policy the eye of the naal student met with uh Mrs MCC and uh they presented concern their interest or whatever on that s and they were wondering if the board would consider um um revising
036the policy and I said uh you know actually the governor and the legislation is really looking at uh making that a state law where you aren't able to have your cell phone um out in in during passing periods or even during launch male and I said more than likely we're hearing through legislation that's probably what's going to happen and if you watch the news um or on anything it it really is um picking up strength and and I just not I'm not surprised if it's going to be pass so right now we're just kind of in a holding pattern if the board would like me to bring that policy back or um discussion and in reviewing it revising it we definitely can do that just think we need to give it another link or two
037and see what the governor and the legislation is going to do on it I went to a today is flick conference it's a it's a school superintendent uh Finance type of two-day workshop and it was uh on on referendum so I got a of information got it caught up to speed on everything there is if we do as a board is if you do want to do a bond referendum I did get some material resources and that kind of thing so last thing I have on there Mike mcder who is a city council member had uh uh approached and presented um the idea of the city splitting a cost on renovating the tennis court at Washington and turn it into a pickle ball court he even brought um his ideas in a bid and I
038know we're looking at a master plan and I said well we might want to consider just putting a hold on that until the board has a chance to really review what do want to do it at campus at Washington and the board usually likes more than one bid so we I've asked him to go out and SE more bids on any type of pickle ball ten support renovation so uh do the board have any questions for so I out of curios on the cell phone policy are we operating now under our current policy have we changed our practices well look at the principles and then let you guys kind of summarize what we're doing on our buildings yeah affected the high school and uh no we aren't currently following it because I think there was
039so much I thought I explained when we were at the board meeting that what like we don't have it during instruction time so uh no it hasn't currently I shared that with Dr johnon that so the students are pushing back about something that hasn't happened maybe I'm not understanding the question well because they they as my understand it they would not be able to use it during lunch time or casting time and so they are yes yes right so students have met with you and are pushing back about something that has not changed yet that's they don't want it to change it's don't want it to change no but pushing back oh okay Define that for me I wouldn't say they're pushing back like nobody's been rude or disrespectful or we have not gone over
040it U with them when we met Mr M and I met with the eye of the needle all there three journalists and then um um this is great help they really were asking more clarification on the policy and they didn't say they really didn't want to have the policy um yeah I mean that is definely but they weren't rude they weren't disrespectful they didn't they didn't feel like a push back but they really did say very professional you know and maybe they only represent three out of the whole High School I don't know but they were maybe representing the high school well and I think there's a they strong representation of the high school for sure but I I think there's also this misperception that 475 kids when they walk through their Hall are all
041like this where that's not the case um yeah more for sure at lunch are having it um yeah when I walked away from that board meeting when it was discussed I not walk away with the same understanding either so I was also you want me to bring it back to a committee the sell policy or did we let it just what you need to enforce until we see what the governor says I guess clarification I need I assume it made it through fun no it's it really is I have a sense it's probably gonna go through modified maybe a little bit but there are so many other states that it's state law anytime dur instruction I feel like it's it's probably gonna pass I think we just wait there's no reason to have another conversation
042about it and then wait I mean if something's going to happen I mean it could bust out a de Mo in the next three days or it could be two weeks but if we plan it and talk about it then it might all change we wouldn't want to change our policy and then find out that from state level we have to change it again you know that it would be easier to let maybe maybe let it happen and then get clarification and then make sure we are starting off right or compliant or whatever you call good all right anything else board report um I will off with it's the envelope you gave me because you thought it was mine do you know what it is now that's Achievement Award for this board um under Christie's
043leadership Christie listed there as board president for um Team Achievement Award for that was all of us doing uh lots of education and learning and engagement and everybody gets a certificate certificate for Jenny okay sorry Jenny chrisy and I get certificates for individual achievement and I guess Jody and Josh you guys can share the clock and trade it off between your dining rooms maybe I don't know so um congratulations to the board for doing learning I know for sure that I am slacking off like crazy this year as I have I probably have like zero board points but so it's uh it's a good thing that this board has has tried to I would say that doing that kind of board learning with ISB one thing that it does is not just sort of oh
044teach us how to be good board members instead of giving us autonomy but it brings us into alignment with each other because we sort of know what best practices are and if all of us together are kind of learning together this is um these are you know sort of the the laws these are the policies these are the good ways to um to be an excellent board I know that's a goal for all of us so that's a great thing okay I would love to hear from other board members um observations or ideas or questions okay financial report please be so um share with you uh February's board um monthly reports um we are in our eighth month so we have four months left um but from a standpoint from our salaries as far as
045our teaching staff they've hit six months and so they are halfway through so when we re did a good budget review recently to look at all of our numbers to see where we're at because we know the rest of the district has got four months left we know teacher salaries are get six months left um also as I was working on property tax rates and things like that I'm working on setting up the budgets for next year and so I feel pretty good at what where we're at and what we have um our numbers are coming in good our revenues are up um the only place we're down a little bit is our nutrition uh revenues are down um going to meet with our nutrition director to see what our situation is um is she
046not getting uh money from adults to pay toward lunches but it was significantly lower uh this month than it had been in past months so just trying to make sure we stay on top of that because we know we're having struggles with that area anyway with a lot of negative lunch accounts and we definitely don't want to make it worse if anything so as far as the reports I didn't really see anything that stood out that I felt like I wanted to address it was more just because nutrition if you looked at that you might saw that that number was lower if you're kind of noticing that um otherwise uh revenues look good we're exactly where we should be at this at this point and then that also helps me to set like I said
047those next year budgets because what we do this year then is our starting point for next year would it be appropriate to just because you know we we kind of had that issue last year and then we got the update this year that things were kind of back to have that uh amount of negative on our rep nutrition report just so we could kind of see it monly where it's at yes so I I get the information from our uh food director for the nutrition and so I will ask her to include that as a kind of a running balance of where we're at we can kind of see yep that's great idea so can I ask you to explain to me you were saying how the teachers are in the six month so what
048does that mean for when I'm looking at these numbers so like next summer will the teachers be being paid off of which fiscal Year's budget so they are paid so when we do June's payroll we do a June July August payroll for our teachers and we uh do an encumbrance for that money and then we pay it out in July and we pay it out in August because they aren't like officially under a new contract until new school year right and that doesn't start till August so they are paid a September through August um format and so we we capture the money all in June um and pay that out but if you're looking perfect world if it was like you know 8% every month that was being spent right you would expect to see
049that so on that first page you kind of see where percent of budget remaining and then you see percent of year remaining you would think those would be equal right because that's how you would think but because their salaries in in a three-month increment come out all at once in June that throws kind of the numbers off now everyone else follows a July one to a June 30th so they follow the fiscal year so they are eight months paid with four months left our certified staff are not does that make sense it does yeah thank you does the board have any other questions about the financials for this will that um cutting of the USDA to Farmers affect our food Pro our food program we do get a few dollars from my local there's a
050small Grant very small um that we've received in the past if anything that might be the only thing that's affected it's kind of a local farmer so you can buy your tomatoes from your your local folks right you don't have to go through Commodities or go through a vendor and so we probably get about $10,000 every year to use toward buying local uh fruits vegetables things like that a lot of schools have went to a greenhouse concept where they're growing their own and then you know growing their own lettuce and then bringing it into the schools and things like that um this District I don't think really participates in that this local grant that we' received would be the only thing I could see that would affect the USDA anything else I move we approve
051the financial reports second okay Josh yes Laura yes Christie yes Jody yes Jenny yes okay our next item is to move on to our consent agenda hope the board has all had a chance to look over those items uh if there's anything someone wants to PLL speak now or forever hold your piecewise I'll take a motion G recommend the board to pull item um five here under recommendation to hire yeah oh I'm sorry under gosh all these yeah yeah under recommendations to hire um item v okay only because substitute bus driver no no this one oh it's it's number different on mine version okay only because I want it's there's an action item for the board to approve a higher special ed teacher okay we should approve that first yeah I want and the first
052the teacher who is possible for that is Bri Wilson yeah is that correct okay does that make sense to everybody I think we need to put the we can't we can't approve hiring her until we approve the position does that make sense yes even though we we advertised it on IA works for anticipated special ed position and we interviewed um the candidate for for like a Elementary and then special ed we felt it was a good fit but I I want to make sure got it that makes sense to everybody that makes sense so I'll take a motion motion hold on that motion for the consent agenda but without that one motion to approve the consent agenda minus F7 second yes Christie yes Jody yes Jenny yes Josh no Ming on to discussion items looks
053like we have two here the 25 and 26 school talend okay so I is a discussion item um I've got two different school calendars we know or we're being told that and it isn't even on the legislation docket to talk about the school start date remember they talk about it's we don't even see it show up anymore so we will we were told early that it's probably just going to be kept as is we're not even seeing it show up at all so it's not even the discussion it so that means it'll stay that August 23rd and if you look at a calendar August on a Saturday our first day that we can actually start school is 25th pretty late right but it we can deal with it there's two different calendars you can look
054at in just process and thing one of the calendar has a full week of spring break and Easter together if that's what you think families like um and another calendar splits it up where there's uh Good Friday no school and then two days um I think two or three weeks before that so we have um parent teacher conferences a couple days off and then a couple days spring break a couple weeks later and then again a couple weeks later and you've got Easter and then all of a sudden in Easter is late and then last day of school both calendars have the same start date the same last day of school there is a little bit of difference in the middle we had a commit yeah the principal just visited with um their BLTs their
055building leadership teams to kind of look at whatever they thought so we did get some feedback okay and they were like evenly split they're all over the place there's like different suggestions everybody hates it it's such a i they're gonna be unhappy with any calendar did they have preference on spring break though um one comment I had was you have a spring break like we don't have many people that take advantage of it anyway so if they the teachers I talked to from my building said if we had a boat they'd rather have more time Christmas and less time in have based on both calendars getting more time around holiday because even if we do have a week off we're not necessarily in alignment with other schools and so there's still activities and sports and
056stuff like that right correct in Iowa Western that was what my people said is they would prefer that our spring break lineup with iow Western so that that way fames kids aren't missing iow Western classes because we're on spring break here or ice Versa but we couldn't do it right yeah and we know that it's just a really different calendar year to look at you know starting at August 25th and trying to get done before Labor Day and then Christmas break and still trying to put a few more breaks second semester has has the board heard feedback from anybody about this I know when spring break was split last year that did not go yeah I mean I've heard kind of the same thing about they want the time at Christmas I've also heard like
057you know it's not even warm in May so it doesn't really matter if we're out before Memorial Day um so from I mean from an Educator's perspective it's better to have a couple of long weekends rather than have a whole Monday to Friday off isn't it or does it not make that much like in terms of the kids and like academically speaking I think it's ion thing I spr break and not necessarily over break what teach take a long weekend but it's not not many do over spring break so it's not having spr oh yeah no I was thinking in terms of like the kid learning things like isn't it you know just like over the summer there's learning loss over Christmas there's learning loss like wouldn't it be better for us to I don't
058know that's how I would like to make okay I'll take a motion okay just so you're starting to look at it do you have a graduation date in it all depends when the last day of school is because I not said that like seniors can only miss so many days prior to graduation so until I know what the calendar actually is my guess it be around May 17ish yeah I thought the last day school didn't change on their calendar depends on yeah yeah if we have snow days that could potentially like if she oh so what is it then why can't you set it what does it say says May 22nd is the last day both on both of them that may 1 suay before may as long as yeah so that's I also know
059just from experience of if we say we don't do a spring break and we power through and just have Easter break you're going to go all of January all of February well you're going to have a a day off in February 20th guante your prepared teacher conferences which you're going to go January February March and then finally just have family break in April I don't know it's just something to think about is that a long long Paul I mean that that's kind of why we went to that full break is just to give you know some a breather to re-energize yeah which sometimes we end up having lots of snow breaks and so then it feels like why are we on a break again but she just part of discussion yeah like reduce spring break
060like a year where we had a lot of days yeah there was one time where we had a date I think it was I think it was like um I was thinking maybe um Good Friday or something we tried to yeah never again because that got us in trouble with that kind of stuff so when we have a vacation day it's a vacation day when I'm going to take that away or we shouldn't because we learned from it right all right um second discussion item FY 26 property tax lby um in front of you you should have some handouts I was going to share these electronically but it's really small and it's a lot of stuff I thought it might be better if you just have hands on and touch it so we will have
061a public hearing at the March 26th before we have the work session we'll open up an opportunity for the public to come and address the school calendar as well as the property tax so last year actually the Year we're in 2425 our property tax rate was $12 517 for 1,000 is what it was so on this this front sheet is what so there's two um hearings that we do now and we talked a little bit about the last month but all of the community is going to get this sheet this first one this is what you're going to get in your mail uh should be by March 20th and it's also going to have on here like it'll have the city it'll have like Hospital rate it'll have like rural roads but the schools always
062posted first so of course we're usually the first ones people call when there's a question about their property tax statement saying why is my property tax this because we are listed first doesn't mean we're the highest but we're listed first so I gave you a copy of what they're going to see now most people I think this is crazy if you look at this this is a lot of numbers a lot happening and really the only number you want to look at is in the far right corner almost to the bottom that 1253 278 that's the rate the 1251 727 in that same column across was last year's rate then they put in this algorithm thing that's kind of made up numbers that says oh here's what you could do not what you should do
063but what you could do so you have what we did last year what we're proposing this year now because legislature has not set the SSA which is the state amount we get so currently we get $782 per student if they go to 2% gosh I did have it written down they go to 2% increase which is what's been talked about at the Senate it would be $156 52 more per per student uh the house presented 2.25% which would be $176 eight so we're talking about $20 per per kit but that makes a difference so based on since we don't know what state aid is we have to put the property tax rate at the highest level by law because once you set that rate you can never go up again you can only drop it
064and so they encourage you to shoot for the stars have it as high as you think you need with the idea that you might or might not stay at that rate you actually could drop it but you can't go up so once this is published we can't change it except to go down so right now based on what we know with state aid not knowing 1253 is what we're proposing if state aid comes out before the second meeting which is in April there is a chance we could drop it to 12526 so one is about a penny and a half and the other one is 0.008 since differ than so less than one penny compared to what we have now so the reason I show that first sheet so if you go to the second
065sheet again me and my spreadsheets you go to the second sheet the very first line across is the one I want you to look at so the very first line you look at that all the way over to the far right you see 7 million 06823 and if you looked at that first sheet that 7 million is in your far right corner so that's how much $122 53 per thousand generates for the district now that is only 26% of the revenues that we receive is from property tax 50% of our revenues come from State a it comes from the students that attend here whether they're through open enrollment or they live in the district so that's why that number is so vital that we get that soon because that and I can get you there
066if you go down to line 10 12,897 that's how much we get from state aid if they grant us 2.25% it will be less if they don't the 7 million is what is generated from property taxes so the reason I shared this with you is so you can see how property tax interacts with our revenues so the top half of this sheet and we don't have time to go with this nor do you want to but I love this stuff just so you know so if you want to talk about this feel free to come to my office but the top half of this is your revenues the bottom half is your expenses and so as you kind of looked you've got now when you get down to line gosh I'm going to need readers
067next when you get down to line 22 it says beginning fund balance what that means is however we do this year becomes our starting balance for next year so every time we save this year maybe we don't purchase something because we're really not sure we even need it anything we don't do gives us a higher starting balance for next year and it continues to roll like that so always want make sure we're doing good one year which is why I'm constantly working in two years because anytime I can increase revenues or decrease expenses in one year I know I'm actually benefiting the next year as well and so I do a five-year model so that we can stay on top of it so we're not caught unaware by oopsies we can't make payroll because we
068didn't budget right so I'm always looking at five years but definitely two years so the bottom half is what we anticipate now another thing is these are real numbers but these are inflated because whatever you set down here for your expenses is your maximum that you're allowed to spend so if you'll look in column where it says sales tax which we know is our local option sales tax down under line 33 I have $2 million and you're thinking what in the world we haven't even talked about what projects we want to do if we think we might need it I have to put it on here because even if we have the 2 million if we didn't say we're going to spend it we can't spend it even if we have so by having it
069on here if we need a new roof which we do in the high school and we have other projects we need but if we don't do them it's okay too but we said we needed the 2 million we didn't say we're going to spend it it just says we can use it so that's why when you see these numbers you think gosh those look a little bit big I have to inflate everything because I can't go up above these numbers so I look at what I spent this year I make some calculations on what I think I'm going to need next year and I I put those numbers down our hope is we always come in less than these but we know we can at least do these but our hope is and from your
070prior experience at least for the last two or three years we've been able to come in less than what these numbers are so when we have the public hearing we really are just going to see if anyone has questions about this first sheet if anything it's just because it's confusing if anybody comes to the meeting otherwise I don't think people will come even though it is an increase but for less than one cent per thousand I don't think that's going to generate the third sheet the only reason I C this this is our bond payment that we will make in now these are the numbers that have to go on the sheet I've showed you the Geo Bond then at the bottom I'm showing you we have a revenue sales tax Bond F those are
071the amounts that come out of our debt service Levy those are all proper generated through property tax mechanisms now our hope is we are going to pay off the bond this year years earlier than when we because you all were smart and did some prepayments and we did a prepayment this year so we hope to have we hope we'll be paying that off and so these numbers we might not need as much as we've listed here again I have to list highest numbers I've worked with Piper Sandler so I know that my numbers are correct here um but again everything our revenues I try to keep as close to real as possible but I do inflate our our expenses because they have to be at the maximum um things and then each of these are
072a category and we could go through that if you wanted to or if you have more questions feel free to reach out to me but there's about 39 pages of this type of stuff when I put together a budget that we get from the state department that I fill numbers in similar to this so this report came blank and then I fill everything in do you um have a worksheet that shows um how you know the percentage of dollars that is going in to build that Levy so um yes I guess we could probably figure out the ma and and and then what U what percentage are we um uh leving for instructional support L is that 10 4% 4% thank you and that is an increase from last year it's less uh um I
073I we needed it 4% 4% okay um I do have those numbers and I can share them with you so and I didn't give you this but on on a page within my worksheet here it breaks down uh the the general fund instructional support Levy the P the voted pble management and what those dollars represent how much that percent would be I'll get some copies and make that for you um the only thing our management we did have to increase after talking with our insurance agents they're looking at a 14% increase for our property and auto insurance they told us 14 last year and it ended up being 20% so what did I do I budgeted 22% because I just think the insurance company is you know they do best guess like the rest of
074us but 14% is what they've quoted me the last two years but um we're spending almost $500,000 a year just on auto property cyber security work comp I mean so that's that's a good amount now the nice thing is we have a special fund for that that management fund that's really the only thing it can be used for but it's still generated by property taxes so if you want to know why maybe we had to go up it's because we went from about $400,000 last year to almost 500,000 this year so I had to make the adjustment in the property taxes for that expense so you would point to that as one of the major yeah and and you'll notice it on the bottom and again this is what the people got at the bottom
075I had to put a statement as to why our rate went up and so at the bottom you can see I put uh the proposed property tax due to ongoing School operations help covering the rising cost in Staffing insurance and instructional resources as far we because we need long-term stability any questions I know that was probably more than you really wanted but that's a deep dive just so if someone asks you you at least can say hey we've talked about this come to the public hearing if you have more questions we'll have to do two public hearings this first one is because they received this statement and it might be confusing to people and then we'll do another another official one in April where we'll set the rate for sure because we should know SSA
076by then and then from there that will generate our budgets and when is the meeting where you explain to us how all the property tax reform at the state level is going to impact us down the road you know that's a that's a great one uh I don't think we'll be doing that but we you definitely stop by and we'll have some good discussion on what I think but I was hearing Lisa will expl alterate yes sadly I'll make a copy of this for you though I think this will help all right does anyone have any questions all right I'm ready to move on to our action items um action item a is the 2025 2026 Cooperative purchasing agreement for the Nutrition department it's just again an annual routine um agreement between the AA so
077then they can be our purchasing agent vendor for food where's um anything that deals with with our hot I'm we approved the 2526 sorry that's okay 2526 Cooperative purchasing agreement I'll second okay Christie yes Jody yes jeny yes yes Laura yes okay action item B is iwcc Matrix want an interesting piece on that so the the casa desk audit um every year they kind of add another piece into what you have to upload and include one of the pieces uh involved um um information that talked about just the courses that Eric hawford um du of credit for forces that are offered through I Western and I feel like we need to have board approval on that so then when I upload it and send this off to the Cofer report we've taken care of of
078that so so how often do we do this I don't remember voting on this well we didn't we did it in the past new pie desk audit is requiring us to verify that we are allowing um students um to take um college courses do we I guess I'd be curious do we know how this um corresponds with kind of our current enrollment in classes if that would um you know if our our students currently meet these guidelines yeah no and this was an agreement to um we worked with I Western on this and so as far as when you say do our students meet these gu like our current our students who are currently enrolled in Iowa Western Community College or classes if we looked at at that uh role list would they currently meet
079these requirements or would we have some kids that would not be able to take some would not and um next year those who are not proficient on the isas are an automatic no that's from the yeah and so Mr mccan has been going into several classes for the last month um and kind of explaining I mean it's really an incentive for our kids to work hard on those test yeah it is but what I dislike about it is my hardworking kids who don't take tests well and they get so much anxi like that's what I don't like because they're proving it in the classroom when they have time to prove it but when they have all the stress of like ah you know um but we so oh go this I think work on since
080November with the de and uh they said at the point because I shared board policy ideas that I thought we were going with um and they said it was a little thing whatever so we needed to take it to Iowa Western our primary partner and see what they agreed with and there was one thing that we took out I remember what it was but it wasn't a high States type thing but iow Western agreed to all of um what is in the Maj and anything they did we took out how um compared to historically do we still have do we have more kids that are taking Iowa Western classes fewer yeah especially because when they opened up so many offerings for online courses it's been an exponential increase and where do those kids do like
081online classes so if they're juniors they stay in the building if they have senors they may leave and then primarily it's in the media center do we have an idea of what those blow through dollars are I mean that's just my six figures each semester it used to be 60 to 70 right I that's what I kind of remember and then I remember hearing the six figure number and I just didn't know if we were like yeah 200,000 or we're not well for the year we'd be there but uh yeah I think I saw the last thing that Mrs had shared was over 100,000 and that's not provided at any reduced rate we pay that I mean that's the only reduced rate which isn't much is the ones that Miss hayen teaches so like the
082college stats the pre-cal calcus the calculus because she's our teacher teaching here motion we approve the I or college Matrix guide a second okay Jody yes Jenny yes Josh yes Laura yes chis yeah uh action item C is a memorandum of understanding with RSVP program yeah okay so it's another mou and U this C was generated with h Carolyn Brook and then James Northwick it is a volunteer organization that will help with just um I feel like more senior volunteers they help with the training and and um maybe background checks even though if they're a volunteer for the district they still have to go through you know the whole background check it's just a a nice way um for support training screening any type of thing like that James the only thing I would add
083to it really is like if you want to see that one of our huge positives from PLC they got talking about their PC stuff and they were like hey can we have somebody come visit talk to us um and so they thought this the counselors from every building thought this would be a great opportunity these people would look for the volunteers we could suggest people to go do it but they would volunteer to do a lot of the things be on the back sheet um so I think it's a positive try we can try something different um and somebody's there to help support the G volunteers so this group would actually kind of facilitate that or that my understanding that's the whole point so instead of us having to reach out to people like they
084would be reaching out having volunteers um and then we could contact them when we might need someone uh to to help and support us and anything is there a a point of contact person I noticed that you know there's notes jot down about um different groups to reach out I'm looking at it just because there's one I happen to belong to so if we wanted to have someone give us a presentation on that that would reach a certain grout if you let me know um or m r know to have contact person so we can find the contact way for sure yeah I think it's a to me it seemed like a win-win but when they talk me about it yeah I'm just thinking only it's only a win-win if they get into those local
085groups and find the people totally agree holy need a motion yeah so I move that we approve the RSVP me m than is there any other discussion all right go okay Jenny yes Josh yes Laura yes Christie yes J yes um thank you James let us know how it goes all right um action item D is to approve a new position as a special education teacher for 25 minut and it's always nice when you've already got somebody well we advertise it as knowing that's going keep your interview in EN in season are there any questions about that a motion approve the special education position second okay Josh yes Laura yes chrisy yes Jody yes Jenn yes fantastic um so at this point we'll loop back to what we pulled out of the consent agenda then
086um is there a motion to approve um fre Wilson hired for that position than second okay Laura yes chrisy yes Jody yes Jenny yes Josh yes okay upcoming dates um on March 26 we're going to have public hearing or those two separate public hearings Lisa is that how we do they can be together they just have to be a separate meeting from the work session okay they can be together okay so we'll have a public hearing that will cover the 2526 calendar so if anyone has strong feelings go look at it and let a board member know what you think and uh and you can show up and talk about it and we will also have a public hearing about about these these papers that everybody got mailed to them uh and then immediately after
087that we're going to be having our um SVA meeting uh where they're going to present to us so we're going to have that here instead of at the administrative building that's correct um and so that's that'll be our board work session for the March 26 okay um board meeting evaluation question to the board are we effectively addressing Community concerns and feedback thoughts questions seems to me it would always be a work in progress I feel like I've gotten a lot of emails lately and it's been harder for me to keep up with that than it used to be me no I think some of the hard part though is that it's hard to um times respond generally it's a Personnel issue or potentially a Personnel issue which I mean you and then sometimes it feels
088like when you make that response well then you feel like that guy like I can't tell you which really we can't talk about it you know sometimes you get that I guess I I would speak I received two this week Anonymous letters uh that I I don't like Anonymous letters because there's a couple questions actually I'd like to write that ask that person but I don't know who that was I I I understand that's what people want to do and and I've read it anybody else could read it I don't know if you guys got them to but as far as I mean to answer that question I'm actually glad that kind of came up it's it's hard to effectively address the community with concerns and feedback when there are a couple questions that I
089would have for this individual but I I don't that is so that's this point I'd rather you sign your name like said not because I'm gonna shame you or anything like that credibility and it allows us to follow up right right you know whether it's 100% some clarifications or say hey what you I don't even know what you're talking about sometimes or whatever but that's and really that's why we're elected is you know to be able to represent the voice of the constituents um you know to the school district and so we want to be able to engage in dialogue with you I mean when when people just whether it's Anonymous letter or some other means where it's just a one-way communication it's hard for us to fully understand what your concerns are to share
090information that we might have that you don't have um so um we're happy to do that which is what I usually try to I guess that's when I started out with talking about the emails is I usually do try to respond when when I get emails from people and say appreciate it you know let's hear some other information or tell me more about that I've sometimes I've met people for coffee or something just to have an opportunity to follow up more my schedule's more limited it's hard to do that now if working on it like Jenny told us too all right um at this point this board is going to go into a Clos session um I guess I need to have a motion for that is that right Lisa and uh when you make
091the Motion state the reason from the agenda of why we're going into a PO session I move to board go session for Iowa Code 21.5 one I um and that is uh to discuss superintendent evaluation and it's a close as requested by the superintendent second okay Jody yes Jenny yes Josh yes Laura yes Christie yes we will um we'll take a brief break before we get started just let everybody clear no that's a really great point it probably never has been cleaned gross well we we just have to have for the yeah would you be able to remember ask they week what do we use for Compu