001[Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Okay, we will go ahead and call the April 21st, 2025 uh board meeting to order. May we get roll call, please? Miss Atkins, here. Mrs. McDaniel, here. Mrs. Peterson. Mrs. Sheffle here. Mr. Sorenson here. Mr. Sturm here. Mr. Wright here. Approval of the April 21st agenda. May I get a motion to approve, please? Motion to approve. Second. Vote, please. Miss Atkins, yes. Mrs. McDaniel, yes. Mrs. Sheffle, yes. Mr. Sorenson, yes. Mr. Sturm, yes. Mr. hearing. Yes. Okay. At this time, I would like to open the public hearing for the 2025 budget. We switch to the PowerPoint, please. So, the notice for this public hearing was published in the council snapperel on April 10th. Uh to start off, uh this is the
002tax rate comparison for FY25, which is our current year. So this current year, Lewis Central is at $1029, uh well below majority of our neighboring districts and some districts similar in size to us. um from the Hawk 10. The This is a copy of the published proposed school budget summary. I know it is very small up there. Um but board members, all have this in your packet. Uh the proposed property tax rate per $1,000 taxable valuation for fiscal year 26 is going to be $1129. How we get to this number is the formula taxes make up 64% of this and this is our straight stated driven formula that uh includes um state aid and uh the other part of the taxes that are set with the state. We are not levying any cash reserve this
003year. Uh the instructional support levy, which is a voter approved levy, is making up 4% of the general fund uh levy being $7.71. For FY26, we are proposing not to manage any not to levy any management funds this year. that is a board decision. And then for the regular ple uh that is set at 33 cents by the board. The voted ple is set at $1. And the debt service which is the geo bond that was voted on in November is set at $2.25. the total levy becoming the $1129 and it is just slightly over the $1 increase um from last year and majority of that comes from the rounding part of that. Go to the next slide. So who controls all of these levies? The state controls 64% of our levy and that is
004through the formula. The voters approve the 33 cents of the levy of the levy which is the instructional support the voter ple and the debt service. The board then is controlling 3% of the budget this year which is the management the regular ple and the cash reserve levies. I'll just go back real quick. The reason that I asked uh this race to show this one particular is I think people assume that we have a lot of control over the levy that ends up going out to the public. Okay. As you can see, what the board actually has a control over is 3% of the levy. That's the board controls. The state and the voters control the other 97% of the levy. And so really you guys 3% is really what you guys have authority over.
005So people say, you know, what what why did you raise the levy? Those sorts of things. Well, 3% is not going to raise the levy a whole lot. And it's very very consistent 3%. So that's that's just one of the things that that's one of the reasons I asked and that's always a misconception. So this next slide is the levy rate history for the district. So going back uh 10 years plus the uh current and future uh levy rate. Um, so as you can see, uh, we've had kind of a steady, uh, decrease in our levy rate when the original debt service, uh, fell off after FY18 and then, um, the $1 increase that we are seeing from FY25 to FY26 to cover the debt service that was voted on in November. The property tax
006valuations have also increased uh for the district. Um majority of that coming in the commercial and industrial uh portion of our taxable valuations. Uh and the tiff that we have is very minimal um compared to our taxable valuation. The other thing is is that tiff is not included uh when we talk about debt service levy. So, um, all tax payers do pay a portion of the debt service levy. looking at the budget time frame going forward. Uh we're at our second public hearing and this evening then we will also be adopting the budget and then it will be filed with the department of management and the county auditor by April 30th uh for it to be effective um July 1. Since this is a public hearing, we'll open the floor to any uh comments for
007anyone sitting in the in audience or anyone online. Can you stand up to the microphone so people online can and then can you state your name and your address for me? Camille K N E L I noticed there's no maintenance listed here on your I'm sorry there's no maintenance on all the items listed here. You got absolutely no maintenance and no amorization to start replacing things like what's the lifespan of the track? 10 years. There should be money set aside right now for 10 years be able to replace the track. Not when it breaks now we got to fix it. We got to go to Iowa Western. But maintenance and emerization are two critical parts. And I don't see either one of them listed. they that would fall under plant operation and maintenance and then
008also the facil facilities acquisition and construction would be the two places that a track replacement uh would fall under. How much do we have set aside for that for the track? How much is set aside? How much you got amorization over the you know you're just replacing the roof on the high school, right? You know what was that set aside at? Um, you know, probably the other schools are going to need it. I know you're putting new security and stuff like that in. Mhm. How what's the lifespan of it? What's the warranties of it? Are they going to go out in 5 years or some kid comes in with a baseball bat and takes it out? So, what's set aside, you know? Yep. We have about 2.5 or $3.5 million set aside for for at
009any given time. So, and that's sounds like a really large amount, but if we need to, you know, pivot and do anything, like for instance, replacing the track in general is about a $300,000, $350,000 deal. We don't have to replace the track. We just installed the track 10 years ago. Next summer, we'll do what's called a maintenance coding on it. The maintenance coding costs about $75,000, which we've set aside that money. So, we'll do a maintenance coding and then that'll be good for another 8 to 10 years. And where would that be under the maintenance and stuff? Yeah, that would be under the maintenance and operation. Okay, I'm just Yeah, but I can't and I get it. It's hard because what you read on our budget, those are those are um those are funds like
010the the state dictates what the fund number is and what the name is. And so when we make a budget, the the state gives us this form and says, "You have to fill out this form. You can't deter from what we're calling what we're naming the different funds." And so I get that. We had this conversation with the last hearing we had when we talked about the the management fund. The misconception about the management fund has nothing to do with management at all. Like nothing to do with administration, nothing to do with anything. Has to do with insurance. They ought to call it the insurance fund. But why they call it the management fund, I have no idea. So again, it's it kind of goes back to they they put these broad categories in and
011then under the categories, we have to go through and we have some idea of some item itemization that we have in there. you know, as far as can I tell you how much money we have set aside for, you know, pencils for the year? Now, I can I can tell you how much we estimate for for supplies, you know, and those types of things, but, you know, overall it's we have to stay within the boundaries that they provide us because it's all government accounting. Are you putting enough supplies in for the teachers so they don't have to buy their own? Yeah. Yeah. I mean cuz you every time you ever hear you hear on the news you always hear teachers having to go out and buy supplies art supplies or whatever set aside teachers don't
012only have to do that. Well I'll tell you this in my 13 years as administrator I've told teachers no less than five times and three of those were smelly markers cuz I don't think we ought to be teaching our kids to smell markers. So, I'll tell you it very very rarely have I ever told a teacher no is a teacher no we can't buy that from you. I might say that that seems like a pretty pricey thing. Can we look at it from a different perspective? Can we look at maybe doing it a different way? Can we buy less of them? Make it stretch. You know, we'll kind of do those types of things. In my experience, and and I'm not saying that this is the way all teachers think, but in my experience that
013the teachers cuz I mean I was a teacher, too. I would go out and buy a lot of my own stuff and it was mostly because of timing. Mostly because it was like it's easier for me to swing through Walmart and just buy the stuff and it cost me, you know, $15, $20 a shot than it is to go through the purchasing process at a school and wait to receive it. And so the key with that is you've got a record of the, you know, of having to buy it for the following year. Hey, we got, you know, you got all these receipts in place, be able to cover them for the future and and we and we do have the money set aside. It's just whether or not we can the teachers will wait
014to go through the process because the board does have and board policy sets a very stringent like and they should I mean that's that's a checks and balances thing approval process. Like if you want to if you want a if you want a packet of $3 stickers, you have to go to your principal. You have to get it approved. they have to submit a purchase order and then it's got to be ordered and then wores they can swing through and get the sticker. So sometimes it's strictly about a convenience thing. There are some other things that I you know we one time a year we'll have students bring supplies. We've even gone through the supply list and said one I think it's I hate the fact that we ask people for Kleenexes. So I send
015I send our maintenance guy to go buy pallets of Kleenexes now. So we don't ask kids to bring Kleenexes anymore. We can provide Kleenexes. We can provide pencils. Now, pencil boxes, I think if we provided gen generic pencil boxes, I think my girls would cry. They like their fancy pencil box, you know. So, that's one of the things that, you know, there there is some some individuality there. But, yeah, I would say for the most part, if a teacher comes to us with anything, we figure out a way to make it happen. You know, one other question. Does every student have a computer now? Every student. Yep. Okay. Because that goes back to other thing you and I talked about the other week about, you know, going online for stuff rather than just clearing clearing
016snow. When I went to school, they just declared an optional day. So you could count it, but you could get in, you could. If you couldn't, you couldn't. So yeah, we every student has access. I should say every student has assigned is assigned a Chromebook. When you hit sixth grade, you start taking your Chromebooks home. When you're in kindergarten through fifth grade, the Chromebooks stay in the classroom in carts and they they get charged and everything. That way, as much as we use them, we use them on a daily basis. We're not relying on a second grader to take their Chromebook home, bring it back, charge, ready to go the next day. You know, that's that's a lot of responsibility. And, you know, even though they're not crazy expensive devices, like they are I mean,
017they're they are a school asset. And so, we want to make sure that they're maintained. So yeah, every but every student is assigned a Chromebook from kindergarten on. So okay, thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Do we have any comments online? No. Okay. Any other comments in the general audience regarding the budget? Okay, then we will move to close the the public hearing on the 202526 budget public, excuse me, hearing and we will move into commendations. Good news. Um, so this is I do have Miss Jamie Jess and Mr. Neville. You guys want to pop up and give us your presentation. So again, this is just a learning opportunity for the board. Um, you guys you guys did this last year too, right? Yes. Yep. Um, so I'm Jamie Justice. I'm one of the assistant principles at
018the high school. This is Mr. Pat Neppell. He's our college and career readiness coordinator. And we're just going to give you an overview of our district career and academic plan, which is our framework for career development for students in 8th through 11th grade. As you guys might recall, this is Pat's second year in this role and that's being funded through a grant with the IOS Foundation. So, we greatly appreciate their support um of this program and we think it's made a huge impact on our students. So, um, this is kind of an overview of the different elements of our district career and academic plan, which is outlined by the state. And we're just going to go ahead and kind of hit the highlights for you of some of the different activities and learning experiences that
019we've had for students as it relates to their career development. So, the first thing is in 8th grade, um, we have students, um, prepare their four-year plan. Um, so Mr. Slaminsky is our eighth grade counselor. He's new to the district this year and has done a really great job of kind of expanding that career development at the eighth grade level. And um you guys at the high school have worked a lot with the middle school counselors as well on that transition piece. So we use a program called Zello to register kids for their classes each year. And in 8th grade, they're not only registering for their ninth grade classes, but they're also developing kind of a tenative plan for what their high school um academic career will look like. And then in subsequent years, we're
020constantly reviewing and revising that as students learn more about what their interests are, what their skills are, and the courses that will connect them um to help reach their future goals. Um so that's kind of what we have um going on at 8th grade. And I'm going to turn it over to Pat and let him talk about what he's done at the high school this year. Thank you for that. Uh just real quick, uh thanks to everyone for for having me here again this year. Uh thanks for uh to Jamie Justin for her leadership as always. Fantastic. Special thanks to Emma Schwaller. Also, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but she's awesome. Um, not only did she go along to all of these uh nearly all of these visits that we
021that we took this year, but then she she takes pictures, posts them on all of our uh social media sites and and helped with this presentation as well. So, um just quick update as to where we've where we've been and where we're going uh with those career exploration experiences. So the state has kind of defined um some things differently uh this year actually last year compared to what we've we've uh had in the past. So these are all career exploration experiences. It's a quick hit kind of um expose a student to a to a field. Um see if it sticks. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not, which is great. You know, the ultimately the goal would be to figure those things out before they leave high school so they have a little better idea. So
022um the two years before I started doing this um the amount of data that I could pull um was about 15 or 16% of students had some sort of career exploration experience and then u last year and this year roughly the same. I think the one thing that I've done this year um that I'm kind of proud of I know the number looks the same but I think the quality of of what we've done is a lot better this year than what we've done in the past. Last year, you know, I'd bring a speaker in to talk to some comp classes. Um, and and tell them how to use writing in the workforce. Um, well, the thing about it is every kid, you know, vast majority of kids need composition, especially if they're going to
023a four-year college. So, it didn't always hit. So, this year, um, if you would hit that for me. Um, not the slide I was expecting, but that's okay. Um, so this year, what I've done was I gathered all the information from students on what they were interested in, and I I specifically, you know, uh, put all of those in different categories. there was 25 or 30 different categories and then I just started making phone calls or talk uh talk to community members and things like that um and uh specific to the to what the student wanted to actually see and and I just started tackling that. Uh it's kind of a big task but again 53% of the students have had some sort of work uh workbased experience this year. Um mostly sophomores and juniors
024are the ones that I hit um for the most part. So that work-based learning then if you go back to that previous one I'm sorry the work-based learning experiences those are the ones that are difficult um those are the ones that have to have some deeper meaning some uh length of time it's not just a quick hit career exploration type thing so that's where our internships um have come into play so these are the internships that we were able to to find quick uh thank you to Cheryl Casey she does a f fantastic job but these are the tough ones um not only to sell students on on doing an internship for an entire trimester but to get to the uh the partner the business partner to agree to take them on. Um and you
025know obviously these guys have have agreed to take someone on and and they've all been fantastic for us as well. Um so this is just a a couple of the different slides on how I found um career interest for students. Um this is the career onetop site. If you guys have questions on any of these things uh make sure you let me know. Each class does does different things um and we kind of do them in large groups. um about a fourth of the class at a time. And so this is just an example of one of those. Lisa, if you would hit it again. Just another example. Same type thing. Um and one more, I believe. Okay. So, this is kind of what um after the kids kind of have some time to explore
026those careers, I have them fill out just a quick Google survey. Tell me what cluster career cluster you're interested in. Tell me some of the careers that that might fall in that. Um we do that two different times. and then maybe just a career that that you might have always been interested in and and they put it all on a on this Google doc and then I get this massive amount of information and I just start to categorize it. Um if you would hit again listen Lisa. So these are some of the trips that we took. Um this this is one that I'm super proud of. Um Agra Vision is just like right there. Um and I didn't know about it. Um shame on shame on us for maybe not knowing about it. Um, one
027of our students actually has a has a uh an opportunity for the next uh 12 months starting in August. He's got uh basically they're going to make him a field agent. Um they're going to put him out into the field and he's going to uh fix John Deere equipment. That's going to be his job. Um they're going to they're going to pay for him to go to school. They're going to pay for him to get training. He uh just talked to him today. He's getting set up um at Iowa Western for housing. They've got a partnership with Iowa Western. Um, they're going to give him two tool boxes. One massive one about this size. They're going to fill it full of tools. They're going to give him another set for the back of his truck
028and they're going to fill that as well. So, you're talking a huge opportunity for this young man. Super proud of this one here. Um, go ahead. Uh, another trip to the council fire department. Uh, Mr. Pettit's son actually showed us around. If you guys know Jim Pettit, Jordan's a great guy. Uh, good resource there. And then just kind of keep rolling through these. Just kind of giving you some of the experiences. Police department was fantastic. former student of mine showed us around council bless clinic. Got just hold some animals and see what that's all about. Heartland prop properties Jason James Kaglade another former uh student of mine show uh he works for the state government. He uh did a quick zoom for us. He was fantastic as well. We had someone come from the Houston
029uh uh zoo. Miss Stoop set us up with that one. Um someone from the Lego group. She works in overseas, Denmark, I believe. Um Melissa Hawkins uh talked to us about um therapy, just mental health and things like that. Just different careers in that. Miller Electric Group, we've taken several trips over there. Um big opportunities for apprenticeships for our kids there. They got to bend some pipe and see what that's all about. It's a cool experience there for those guys. uh went to the Omaha Water Treatment Plant with some of the meteorology kids to see how water got um treated there and some of the different careers in water treatment. Um some of those kids actually want to do that same trip again because it was so cool. Uh Rev Aviation, the the guy on
030the far left is my own son. He's uh we we took a trip to Rev Aviation, the Council Plus airport, and he's he's interested in being a pilot now. That's that's what he's interested in doing. Um, we actually checked out Arizona State about a a month or so ago. Tom Holm came in. He does its own uh plumbing apprenticeship. It's a cool opportunity for students there. Uh, Steuart Timley Law Firm. Um, had a cool experience um for Olivia at the Nature Hitchcock Center. It's pretty cool picture there. That's pretty neat. And this just Olivia's uh quote there. I'll let you guys read that. So pretty proud of the things that we've done this year. Um the over the last month or so the the transition is kind of moved from the career experiences to um
031talking to individual kids, registering for new courses, registering for the courses that they're going to be taking next year. Um and one of the cool you Jeff is fantastic. Um one of the guidance counselors, the junior senior guidance counselor. Um he's a a good uh good leader for me. Um, I follow his his lead in a lot of different areas, but you know, one of the cool things for for me and the guidance counselors is the kid sits down there and and uh, you know, the first thing they say is, uh, I don't know what else to take. And that's just it's a it's a great question for us because it can lead us in so many different directions. What are you interested in? Do you want to go to a four-year college? Are you
032interested in apprenticeships? Um, what do you like to do? Maybe you don't know what you want to do. And we can kind of get guide them down that path. and it's just a cool cool opportunity to talk to those students one-on-one. Um so that's where the focus has been over the last really almost since Christmas time. Uh but we do pick up some trips again. Um Em and I were just talking about that. We're taking another trip to um to Mutual of Omaha to visit their um marketing department on Thursday. If anyone wants to come along, you're more than welcome. um do uh um uh Turner Construction actually reached out to us and and wants students to come visit. So, we're going to go to construction site on uh on Monday. They've got another one
033set up the following week with this a cool opportunity. Uh HGM Engineering, uh they did all the illuminarium stuff down there. Um so Quinn Damgar is actually one of our our Lewis Central parents. He's going to show us around down there. Uh just cool opportunities for kids, get them out of the building, see what it's like. Um, and again, if they love it, great. If they they don't love it, you know, that's a that's a good thing as well. We had that co college fair on October 3rd. Uh, 56 different colleges represented there. So, it was a good opportunity for kids to see people there. Uh, I took this visit to College of St. Mary's with a a group of students. Iowa Western, we've we've been there countless times. Um, you know, we we might
034see the auto and construction program one time, but then we'll see culinary and psychology the next, HVAC, and we we've been to Iowa Western. You want to go to Iowa Western, it's pretty easy trip. They're easy to work with. Appreciate them. U taken several trips to Soho. Um, they actually took one of our students on as an intern as well this year. Soho is a really just a fun environment. If you've never had the chance to go to Soho, do you guys know where it's at? Um, it's hard to explain. over by the Casey's on uh South Expressway. It just kind of sits back behind there. There's a park back there, but Soho's it's just a great environment for kids that are interested in in hair and cosmetology and things like that, but it's right
035in our backyard. Um and they're always more more than welcoming um to us as well. Um took a trip to Metro um do looking at their uh electrical program. uh Iowa Western doesn't uh isn't real big on their electric electrician programs right now. So took them kids to to Metro for that. Visited Omaha School of Massage. They were super welcoming there. So this is again all postsecary exploration. Trade fair was a a huge success. Um minus the the cold that we had that day. I don't know if you guys remember that date or not. Um we had we were supposed to have a lot more area high schools to show up for that but they they were all uh canceled or a late start so they didn't get the opportunity. So we try again next
036year. It was great for our students though. Just some quick data and you guys can dissect this a little bit later if you want as well but percentage of students um who registered for that trade um exploration um by grade level there different plans on what they choose to do after high school. a little more data from the trade fair um after high school that the student intends to and then basically if it's a military or certification or whatever the case might be. Um and then the area of interest is the bottom one there. Sorry, it's a little hard to read. Plenty of college recruiters come through our building. It's kind of short. They're not as many as they used to be. Um, one of the cool things we did with this is I took
037that information from the college fair and all of the students, um, it's neat. They they register for the college fair, um, on their phones and then when they go talk to a, you know, in Northwest Missouri State, they just hold that that QR code out for the for the school. So instead of having to write down your information every time and then giving that to that college university, they just scan that. They've got the kids' information and they roll with it. So, what I did was I stole all that information um from from the Shrivec Scan is what it's called. Um and so now I know every student that that signed up to to talk to Clarkson College. So when Clarkson comes back into our building again, I target all those students and I say,
038"Hey, do you want to go visit Clarkson again?" Tell them yes or no. And it's just a great way of uh communicating with kids. The colleges, I've had great feedback from them. um you know in they have a lot of schools that they go to that they don't actually even speak to students because it's all about you know communicating with kids. Um so I get the information out to the kids. They tell us tell me whether or not they want to speak to that rep again and it's increased the number of kids talking to schools. It's it's uh it's worked out really well. I finally hit something that uh that worked when it comes to college recruiting. Yeah. I see you have the Harvard or the Midwest up there. Oh Wayne State College, you know.
039Yeah. Right. Well, UNO gave us the free shirt, so that was pretty cool. I know, but they're not known as the Harvard or the Midwest. So, um, a little more information on concurrent enrollment. Um, uh, the number of isle 9 classes, and I'm not going to take credit for all this, um, but Jeff Oik is is really good at at this type of stuff. You'd think he's been doing it his entire career, but this is year three. But the number of online and onampus enrollment um for our students has absolutely skyrocketed as I'm I'm sure you guys have maybe seen the bill. Um you know prior to three three four years ago the numbers were pretty small and now we've got a a huge percentage of our students taking classes at Iowa Western either online
040or on campus. Um we've got a lot of offerings in the building as well. Um right now um and it continues to grow every year. So you guys can see what we've done over the last, you know, two or three years. It's just really blown. We're pretty proud of that. This just breaks it down. Again, hard to read. Um breaks it down a little bit um further. Um it's always fun to see the the bars go up. So uh Mr. Vosik and I also had attended this uh this conference uh this concurrent enrollment conference in water on March 28th. Gained a lot of information there um from a lot of really smart people. Um it was fun to kind of collaborate you know we're always working with Iowa Western but it was fun to collaborate
041with schools like Hawkeye um and things like that different community colleges. It was fun talking to um different schools and at different high schools and how they deal with concurrent enrollment and we came back for some really good ideas and uh and and some things to work on there as well. Um just some of the things um workplace and college readiness that we've done there. I'm not going to read all of that. I don't want to take all you guys' night um but some things that you could read over. Here's my college and career readiness coordinate uh corridor. I don't know the name hasn't really stuck yet, but we continue to to put uh information for students up in that hallway. Although it seems they use the other hallway more than this one. I don't
042know, maybe they're avoiding my stuff. And then the college a percentage of collegebound students who took the ACT. Um so this is broken down by class. The top left is the class of 2022, top right is 23, and the bottom one is the class of 2024. and kind of broke it down. I was kind of curious to see how many students took the ACT, but then you know like like a school like Iowa Western doesn't necessarily uh require the ACT. Um so I was kind of curious with that information as well. And then um the last one um no ACT score but then attended somewhere else. And these numbers continue to to surprise me. Um I don't know. I mean we advertise the ACT pretty well. I think um our college work uh college readiness
043class advertises that as well. Um, but it's just an area of of improvement that I think we we need to work on as well. But you can also see that the students that aren't take like that that piece of yellow, which is if I can see from here, they didn't take the ACT, but they went to Iowa Western, right? Yeah. Right. So, I mean, that's the thing at the end of the day, you know, as Yeah. as more and more opportunities we're we're providing more and more opportunities that don't require the ACT, you probably aren't going to see as many kids take the ACT. Yeah. It's not the end all be all. And I I think, you know, we've also got some um some FAFSA information. I think some of that plays toward that as
044well. Um but the FAFSA, for whatever reason, is it's a challenge to get kids to to get their FAFSA filled out. Um I think it's easier now than it's ever been in the past. Um, we offer a a a FAFSA completion night and you know, we we we got, you know, 15 or so kids to fill it out, which is 15 more than we would have had otherwise. Um, but yeah, that's one of those things also that we're we're trying to work on. Again, Lisa, so percentage of students who have taken the ACT. Um, it's about 42% of the class of 25 have taken the ACT. It's pretty recent information right there. And then the percent of graduates with post-secary plan. So we gather this information at the end of the school year um with
045that senior survey that that students um fill out. So there's a class 2024 um and you know part of it is I I I think some of the kids are are downplaying um whether or not they actually have a post-secary plan. Only 90% of the class of 24 um claimed that they had some sort of post-secondary plan, but I have a feeling it was probably higher than that. But again, it's good information for us to continue to work on um when they walk out the door. That's the goal is that they have a plan in place and and they have a a means of getting there. Decision day is May 6th. It's a really cool day. If you guys get a chance to stop by, it's a lot of fun. It'll be going on all
046day. And here's that FAFSA information. Um this is as of uh 42, so beginning of the month. There's that FAFSA completion night. And then what's next? I already mentioned that top one. Um the next one down, next bullet point down is to increase the overall percentage of work-based learning experiences. So when I was actually at that conference in Waterl, I connected with someone at the state level and brought up the fact that these work-based learning experiences are really difficult um to to kind of achieve. it has to be some sort of uh internship or some sort of certification that that kids have learned if it's welding or or whatever the case is. So, um Hawkeye Community College actually offers a a class that students take and they get this this uh work-based learning opportunity. So,
047it's an extended uh amount of time over a over an entire semester. We just don't have that right now for kids. So, that's one of the big pushes that I'm going to try to continue to to work with people at the state level and figure out how we how we increase those number of work-based learning experiences for students. Um, same with the industry recognized credentials. It's it's something that um we just need to do better on. Um, and and so that, you know, going into next year, that'll be a big one of my my um one of my plans there. Support the FAFSA completion. And then actually uh um got an opportunity. I found this out a couple weeks ago. Um Omaha Chamber of Commerce is hoping to gain some information from this side of
048the the the river um with this opportunity expo that they're let me tell you about this um that they're trying to to get going. So I'm going to be a part of that uh committee there uh for the big uh opportunity expo. Um thanks to Stacy Goodman from from uh the Iowa Foundation for reaching out to me on that one. Um, so I think it's another big opportunity and it's just another cool way to get get our side of the state involved um or our side of the river involved and and our students uh more opportunities. I think that's it. Any questions? It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool job, you guys. I mean, I I I uh I haven't lowered my head one day walking into that building because it's it's a cool opportunity to
049work with kids. Um, it's fun taking them outside of the buildings, outside of the the school walls and getting them opportunities. It's fun to It's fun to I always tell the the people that I um that I work with if we bring someone to a law firm or whatever the case is that I wish they could hear those conversations in the van ride back to school because it might seem that they're really bored while they're sitting there in front and then we'll get in the van ride home and that it's just, you know, and it's it's a cool opportunity um for for cool uh for students and uh it uh it's a lot of fun. So, let me know if you guys ever want to come along on a trip. you're more than welcome to
050do that. Outside of that, if anyone has any questions, it's not a question, but a comment. Just everything that you've done and all the different opportunities. That's something we talk about is opportunities for students and you're providing a lot of different avenues for them to explore to kind of hit all kinds of different areas. That's great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Both of you for the presentation. To kind of echo what Jen said, we're very impressed with how much you've been able to do in just two short years. and we're very excited to see what what happens moving forward. Yeah. Cool. Very good. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Thanks you guys. Appreciate the time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] Do we have any additional commendations? Good news. I don't have
051anything. Um just kind of let them present and so Okay. We will have at the next meeting you guys will you guys will hear from our fine arts kids. So they're going to come and talk about their year. Awesome. Okay. We'll move from there to the first section of our meeting where we open up the floor to the public for comments and suggestions. Do we have anybody here online? Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to the consent agenda. I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Do we have an updated personnel sheet? No. Okay. Vote, please. Mrs. McDaniel, yes. Mrs. Shuffle, yes. Mr. Sorenson, yes. Mr. Sturm, yes. Mr. Atkins, yes. Mr. Right? reports 7.01 finance if you go to this you can just go to the second slide. Uh so
052this is our year-to- date expenditures based on the budget functions and the funds. Um so this is very similar uh to what was presented uh a little bit ago for the school budget summary. Um but this is for our current year and breaks it down into um not only the functions uh but the different funds. Um and then it shows our percent of budget. Uh we are still running right where uh we would expect to be at this point in time. uh about that 60% uh range is where I would like it to be at this point in the year with just um a few months left and then um our final um expense payroll uh being in there as well with um our last couple months of salaries that will be expensed. So everything
053is running right on track um for that. Um we are um a little bit uh lower in the capital projects, but I will s preface that with we knew that there was going to be some um we just didn't know for sure on uh the timing of when everything was actually going to happen uh with the capital projects. So um that's why that number is a little bit low. I'm not expecting that we will come anywhere near that number with the timing wise. So, majority of that will roll over into um FY26 as well. So, we'll have that in there. But are there any questions? I figured I'd keep it short since I also presented on the budget. So, didn't want to overwhelm anyone. Okay. Hearing no questions, we'll move into 7.02 curriculum instruction with
054Dr. Hartman. Okay. Um I'm going to show just some preliminary data from our initial ISAS results. So uh these are not complete. There's still a few tests trickling in, but um we can just get a little bit of a picture of where we're at. Um let's see here. Okay, so the first one um is math up at the top here. And then you can see on the left hand side is our grades. So you can see uh we're ranging from 66% to 88% of students being proficient. Um little bit of a gain overall from last year. Um over here you can see uh year-year difference. However, we often look at cohort data just because that's the same set of kids. Sometimes we get, you know, very different mixes of kids from grade to grade. uh
055English language arts. Um here we are ranging from 62% to 90% in eighth grade proficient. Um and science uh we were all very excited about science. There was a lot of growth um in each of the grade levels that was tested in science. And so um then on this page here we can see cohort data. We can see um the differences between this is the same group of kids. The first one is math and then here is language arts and they haven't done the science cohort data but obviously that would be deans as well. Um so again very preliminary data once the whole data rolls in we'll look at that through DT and I think it'll be um interesting to take a look at you know what we talked about earlier tonight. just starting to
056set some priorities and then bringing in some of this data and mixing that with some of our board priorities to just think through, you know, what's our baseline and where do we want to grow and what does that look like for us? Any questions on that data so far? I love seeing the upward trend and also it's nice to see that where we were in 19. I know there was kind of a COVID dip in 2021, but we look like we're above where we were back in 19 before that. We've made gains from the the that co gap year plus some, which is nice to see. That's what we looked at in years past like, okay, what did it look like back in 2019? You know, that's pre co are we back? And so I'm
057glad you pointed that out because it is kind of fun to look back and be like, okay, not only are we back to precoid, but in in lots of places were um you know, we're doing a lot better than precoid years. Were there any other questions, comments for Dr. Herman? Okay, then we will move on to the superintendent report. Dr. Dr. Hartman, I sent you an email which has a a file in there. It's the updated uh bond spreadsheet. Okay, if you can somehow zoom in on that. So, this is updated. So this continues to be it's just a working document continues to be filled out uh as they go. Um again you can see uh the the pink you got probable costs you got uh contract amount then you have the delta which is
058uh plus or minus um where we're sitting. If you go scroll down a little ways, you'll see that right now um well, if you don't count like soft soft cost and contingency because we're we're going to keep adding to that. Like that's that's our expenses as we move forward. Um but if you took that away, we're still sitting about $2 million and change uh under budget. So uh that's positive thing. Uh we're getting real close. The blue the blue highlighted are what we are anticipating for uh or that that's already been kind of approved for this year. The safety and technology you'll see we still have uh kind of a big deficit there, but we're looking to uh um still add in the the high school and middle school cameras potentially this year and and
059door contacts. So, that'll go up. Uh, and then the playgrounds, there's we'll actually have a hearing on the playgrounds uh, in May. And, um, just to give you guys a heads up right now, we did exceed that budget uh, a little bit because it came down to like accessibility, like being able to make sure the surfacing is what's the most expensive when it comes to playgrounds. And to make sure that we truly do have the accessibility, we're probably looking more like 1.2 two um versus one, but we're saving $2 million in other areas. So, um that that's a pretty justifiable expense in my opinion if we can make sure that kids can have access to to all the playground pieces. Uh and again, that's that's four playgrounds we're talking about, not not just like one
060playground. So, um but we'll bring that the next meeting um will be a budget hearing. We did the committee did uh choose to go with Crouch Recreation. Um and they're still on the timeline to be wrapped up and done. Even if you guys So if you guys can approve it on May 5th, uh they'll hit the ground running. Uh the equipment's eight about 8 weeks out. So the equipment come beginning of July, they'll start all the clearing of the current playground in June. Make sure all that's cleaned out. So, um, when when that new playground equipment comes, they can install, they can do floor, we can do they can do surfacing and and be out of there by I told them August 15th would be great. Um, given some time. So, so yeah. So, I
061mean, that's the plan. Uh, so it's pretty exciting. Some there's some very unique pieces. One of the reasons they went with Crouch Recreation was because some of the stuff was uh not what you would typically find. They did those big if you go look down at the talk about the luminarium. You go down the luminarium and you see the big orange balls like where you climb up and you go down the slide like it's a lot of that kind of stuff. A lot of like climbing a lot of you know making sure kids are active like that kind of thing. And and I like that because I think that's a deficiency we have right now is is really that the upper body strength that that and then the the hand eye coordination when it comes
062to climbing. The biggest thing is is, you know, our kids play a lot of video games. What can we do to get them off video games and get them out to play? So, um, so anyway, that's it's pretty exciting. Uh, but we'll have that for you um at the next meeting. Um, otherwise, if you go if you look up, you guys will have the next step for the for the middle school renovation is to get an architect selected. So, uh, we're kind of down to three architects that we've kind of vetted. Um well, I'm going to ask the facility committee um as far as the the board committee and then myself and Jim Edelman and Andrea to uh to interview the the finalists for the for the um uh for those architects and then we'll
063we'll kind of select an architect. It's not obviously the middle school edit or renovation is you know it's a big budget item for us. It's, you know, roughly $7 million, but um as in terms of scope, that's now considered like a like a small to medium scope. Like that's what's crazy about it. So, didn't really find I mean, there was a couple architects we reached out to to see if they were interested in in looking at it, but you know, they have a lot of other projects going on, so they just kind of pass. So, it's also a very unique project because you got to figure out how can we fix ADA accessibility and renovate a building with the but with what they consider a small to medium budget. So, you know, it's it'll be
064interesting to see what kind of ideas they have to to make it all happen. So, that'll be the next step with the middle school renovation will be to get an architect selected and then we'll turn around and um and hopefully get start that planning and then we can get that done by uh we can do that work next summer. Um, the high school exit lane, that's still on hold for now until we kind of get final word. We've talked briefly with the city about what they want to do, but we need to get kind of determine kind of final word we want to do there. Um, the high school middle school will get their LED lighting next summer. We talked about the high school monument sign. This is uh it's it's the display board. It's
065it's shot. So, trying to figure out a a reasonable way to get that done and replaced. Um, I hear a lot about it. I hear people say, you know, two things I hear about is uh three things. Why did we not purchase the the uh the storage unit when it was available? I I still hear about that. That's always an interesting one to me. Um number two is um the the lights on the side of the of the building to the high school don't shine up correctly up at the up of the lettering when you drive by at night. So, we're going to have to we're going to try to figure out how to address that. And then three is what about the message board? you know, people like driving by and seeing what was
066going on and, you know, with no message board. So, trying to figure out how to do that and make it I mean, you get some wild numbers out there when you start bringing people in. So, trying to find something that's reasonable. So, I'd rather take my time and save some money and do it right than just get somebody in to do it. Um, and then, uh, outside of that, you can see there's just a lot of projects going on. Like, it's going to be a very busy um, uh, Lisa or Dr. Dr. Hartman, can you What are the tabs at the bottom? I was going to show them one tab. Can't really see the tabs. There they are. Uh yeah, if you go to uh um cost, yeah, cost tracker. So, this is this is
067uh this is a new tab and I'll share this with you guys. you guys going through it in detail, but this will show you like what the project is, who the contractor is, whether or not they're under contract, whether or not they have their appropriate bonding done, um what the contract amount is, if we end up having to do any change orders, you know, what that looks like, what have we already been invoiced for, so what have we already spent balance or balance to finish. So, this is a this is something they just kind of added in this week's that. So, they're kind of waiting till we have some projects going. So, that'll be something we start sharing as well. So, how often is that going to be updated? Oh, weekly. Yep. I'm trying to
068get them to use Google Docs because then we can see them as they're added weekly, but they like Excel. So, then they got to share the whole doc the whole file. Any any uh question? You can see we got some safety stuff up there as well. So, Any questions? When are you having that? Um, well, I'll I'll coordinate with you. What's up? With the with the architect. What's that? I'm sorry. What? When are we having the what? Then the the next uh facilities meeting. So, we'll do that. We'll do that once everything once the playground's kind of approved and everything. We'll meet with the facility and we'll go through all of this with them. um talk about all the projects in detail and then we'll start talking with them about you know what's next for
0692026 you know so um but yeah that'll be coming up probably sometime in end of May beginning of June right when we get the project started that's all I yeah but we'll we'll also need to get the facilities you guys for you guys it was was it you two and Amy okay and so we'll have to get together and talk about architects So, I know Bubba loves architects. So, yeah. When when when we have the architects do the middle school, I know it's down down the road, but are they aware that we also want to add on to the middle school at some point in time? So, when they make their decisions, it's user friendly or it's accommodating for future build-ons or future. Yeah. Well, that's Yeah, that's there's it's kind of funny because that's
070one of the recommendations right now. all all the architects come through is they want to just put an an addition on to put an elevator in and I was like well you do that well then that shuts off. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, there's there's some things there we have to work through, but yeah, they're all well aware that space is an issue. And I think for architects like to go through a building like ours, as old as it is and as broken up as it is, and be able to try to think outside the box and and create usable space out of it, usable safe space, is harder than can we steer you towards just an addition. You know, that's fine, but you didn't renovate our building, which is what we wanted to do. So
071that's what we really have to kind of stay focused on is how do we renovate the building and then the addition would come down the line at some point. Yeah. Any of our priorities on projects changed with the whole tariff thing? Nothing with tariffs so far. Don't now everybody's putting in a clause that basically it's escalating costs. So that's why you know even though we're under budget like I'm not we're not allocating the budget. We're not spending the budget. I am going to use a little bit of it for playgrounds so we can finish those off and do them right. But outside of that, we're not adding any projects. We're not doing anything like that because I don't know what's going to happen with with the tariffs. So, any other comments, questions? That's it. Thank
072you. We'll move into discussion items. So 8.01 1 202526 budget and certified levy. So as I presented uh in the public hearing uh the proposed budget levy for FY26 is $1129. It is $11 more than our levy last year and that is what we had proposed. when we were passing the geo bond. So that does include the $2.25 for the debt service fund, the voted ple and regular ple uh totaling $1.33 and the general fund being at $7.71. Are there any questions from the board? Okay, then we will move on to 8.02 Green Hills Aea agreement. Um, so this is just the schoolbased interventionists are not you guys already approved the agreement to purchase all the services because the schoolbased interventionist is partially funded through the juvenile court system. That is a separate contract. So,
073uh, this is just the same contract we've had with them. This will provide um uh 5 day a week uh school-based interventions at the high school, 5 day a week at the middle school. Uh two days a week at Titan Hill and one day a week at at uh Craft. So, oh sorry, three days at Titan Hill, one day at Craft. I got that wrong. Used to be two and one and then we added today. So, the biggest thing with the school-based interventionists is they they do create connections for students who are at risk. So they can help connect them to counselors, help connect them to therapists. Um, but then they do all of our uh new attendance law stuff, which is quite a lot with the with the changes. So any questions, comments from
074the board. Okay, we'll move to 8.03 math curriculum approval. I'll let Dr. Hartman talk about this a little bit. Thanks for the reminder. Uh so this was kind of a cool process because uh the teachers at Titan Hill really took ownership of this and that's you know so much better than the curriculum director coming in and saying you should do this or we should do this. Um so they uh piloted a program last year. Uh we have been using illustrative math but it's been through a company called Kendall Hunt. Um and Kendall Hunt um thinks have been free resource. Um, and so there was just some things that they felt like they were missing with what they had access to or didn't have access to. So last year a group of teachers started piloting the
075same math program. It's just through this company called Imagine Learning. Um, and with that they have access to just a lot more tools. They have access to some digital centers, some digital manipulation things for kids. Um, also like our instructional coaches were spending a ton of time like organizing materials before. And so, um, this will alleviate some of that, too. So, uh, collected some feedback from teachers throughout the year last year. Very positive. Even the kids, I mean, I would step into Titan Hill and they'd be like, "You got to come in here. Like, come check this out." Like, the kids were loving it. The teachers were loving it. And so, that's always exciting to see teachers who are excited about the product that they have in their hands to be able to teach with.
076Um, so they've got a math lead team over there and they've helped kind of lead some of this. they've engaged in some professional learning with it. And so, uh, we would like to ask the board, uh, to be able to move forward with purching this curriculum for the next school year for all of the teachers at Titan Hill. Any questions, comments from the board? How big of a ramp up is it going to be to get all the other teachers or everyone on the same page with the new curriculum? Yeah, I don't think it'll be that much of a challenge just because the the lead team, it's been a good handful of teachers, probably about eight to nine of them. Um they've been super excited about it and they keep spreading the word and um
077we've already got lined up a couple different professional learning opportunities for teachers and again like it's the same I mean it's the same content. There's some little tweaks in the content so which is what I'm also happy about. Like it's not going to be this huge learning curve to shift. So I think it'll be a pretty smooth transition. Cool. Any other questions, comments for Dr. Herman? We will move to 8.04 employer requests for lead. We've evaluated the request as determined based on the review that it's necessary to hold close session under Iowa code section 21.51 section I. Close session is recommended to discuss this employee request for other paid or unpaid leave. for Iowa code 21.51 section A close session is appropriate view or discuss records which are required or authorized by state or federal
078law to be kept confidential or to be kept confidential as a condition for that governmental body's possession or continued receipt of federal funds. Can I get a motion to move to close session? So move second. Vote, please. Mrs. Shuffle, yes. Mr. Sorenson, yes. Mr. Storm, yes. Miss Atkins, yes. Mrs. McDaniel, yes. Mr. Wright, yes. [Music] Good. We'll move to the second time in our meeting where we offer the floor to anyone in the audience or anyone viewing the meeting online for comments and suggestions. Do we have any anyone online? No comments. Okay. Then we will move to action items. So 10.01 the 202526 budget and certified levy. Mr. President, yes. I move to approve the 2025 2026 budget and certify levy as presented. Second. Vote, please. Mr. Sorenson, yes. Mr. Sturm, yes. Miss Atkins, yes.
079Mrs. McDaniel, yes. Mrs. Sheffle, yes. Mr. Wright, yes. 10.02, Green Hills Ae.A agreement, school-based interventionists. Mr. President, yes. like to make the motion to approve the agreement with Green Hills Aea for school-based interventionist services for $128,618. Second. Vote, please. Mr. Sturm, yes. Miss Atkins, yes. Mrs. McDaniel, yes. Mrs. Sheff, yes. Mr. Senson, yes. Mr. Wright, yes. 10.03, Math curriculum approval. Mr. President, I move to approve the math program and purchase for imaging learning for $62,264. Second. Vote, please. Miss Atkins, yes. Mrs. McDaniel, yes. Mrs. Sheffle, yes. Mr. Senson, yes. Mr. Sturm, yes. Mr. Wright, yes. 10.04, Employee Request for leave. Mr. President, yes. I make a motion to approve the request for unpaid leave as presented for employee A in close session. Second. Vote, please. Mrs. McDaniel, yes. Mrs. Sheffle, yes. Mr. Sorenson, yes. Mr.
080Sturm, yes. Miss Atkins, yes. Mr. Wright, yes. Items of interest, future board meetings. Our next regularly scheduled board meeting is going to be May 5th at 6:30 p.m. Is there anything else on the schedule? Nope, that's it. Okay, then I uh I did want to toss out just a reminder, we do have graduation coming up. Okay. Um that is May 25th. So if you guys if anybody's interested in attending graduation, I know that I'll be there. Okay. I know that Mr. Shad I'll reach out to or one of his people will kind of get confirmation from you guys. So um just wanted to put that on your calendar. So I think at this point we're ready to adjourn the meeting for the evening. Can I get a a motion to Okay. Second. All those in
081favor say I. I. I. All those opposed. [Music]