December 15, 2025 School Board Meeting

001[music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [music] >> [music] [music] >> We will go ahead and call this board meeting to order. Take a roll call, please. >> Mr. Atkins here. Mr. Bach >> here. >> Mrs. Peterson, Mrs. Sandow here, >> Mr. Sorenson >> here, >> Mr. Sturm >> here, >> Mr. Right >> here. Approval of the December 15th, 2025 agenda. Can we get a motion to approve, please? >> So, move to approve. >> Second. >> I'll just do them all. >> Sorry. >> Vote, please. >> Miss Atkins. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bach. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Peterson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Sandow. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sorenson. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sturm. >> Yes. >> Mr. Wright. >> Yes. Commendations. Good news. Um, so this is the second meeting of the month. We started doing uh big

002kind of big presentations first meeting of the month. So uh the second meeting of the month is going to be our kind of our self-reports. So you'll hear from Dr. Hartman. you'll hear from uh Mrs. Rays regarding uh finance and kind of curriculum instruction um items. So then kind of the first of the months when I'll have visitors just kind of looking at you two cuz you two are the new ones here. So first of months we'll have visitors or um kind of big presentations and then the second second meeting of the month will be more uh internal presentations. So um basically everything else is going really well though. I mean as far as um our boys basketball team is off to a fantastic start. Wrestling's off to a great start. Uh, girls basketball, we're

003we're pretty young. Um, but I mean, they're battling. They're they're working hard in there. Um, we have several concerts, once tonight, actually, the the middle school band concert's going on tonight. So, I got to watch the rehe rehearsal today. Um, so it's just amazing how, you know, sixth graders who, you know, four months ago or three months, was it four months now? four months ago like couldn't even make a a a toot out of their horn and then to hear what they have going on now is is pretty amazing. So, uh pretty pretty impressive there. Um we I do know I just talked with um Mr. Strait that he they're not ready to officially announce yet, but they're going to switch up the the musical and they're going to go with a new musical in

004the spring and he's super excited about it. So, uh they will start casting here in January. Um and then we have um show choirs off and running. They don't their first their competitions aren't until um >> first competitions like this second week in January. Our opener where friends and family can come is I want to say January 7th. U January 7th. Um fifth or sixth. >> Fifth or sixth. Okay. >> It's right in there. Next January 12th is why you're open. Yeah. Well, there we go. And then the kids camp is >> the 9th. Yeah. >> My girls are excited for the kids camp and I forgot to sign them up. So, I'm sorry, Jenna, you're watching. I will do that tonight. Get them signed up right away. So, um yeah. So, that's about it.

005Just I mean, just busy busy trying to get through the the end of, you know, first semester even though we have another week of semester when we come back. you know, teachers at this point, they're they're excited to they're as excited to get to uh winter break as as the kids are. So, um we're just marching right along. Friday can't come here soon enough. So, >> any other commendations? Good news. Okay, then we will move to the public hearing. So at this time I will open the public hearing for the 202627 district school calendar. >> Um so the calendar I shared with you guys before really nothing has changed since we've talked about the calendar. Um you know we're out um fairly early that year. The biggest thing that you guys um if you can

006remember we moved graduation to uh I think it's the 16th. Um, sorry I should have shared with you, re-shared the calendar with you. But, uh, the official start date will still be will be on the 24th. Remember, we can't start before the 23rd. And then the official end date is March or May, sorry, May 21st. So then we have a full week actually before we have Memorial Day, which is nice because that we can use that for snow makeup if we have to. And then graduation, the recommendations to do that on the 16th. I think it'll cost us $800 more dollars. They originally were going to charge us anything additional, but they assumed we're going to have uh concessions, and we don't have concessions at our graduation. I I think it's a little tacky to

007be smacking on popcorn when uh graduation's going on. So, I understand other schools do that. That's totally fine. We just That's not something that we do, nor would I like to promote. So, um, concession free, uh, graduation, uh, on the 16th. It'll cost us a little bit more money, but it's not, uh, it's not not doable. So, do you guys have any concerns about that? >> Nope. >> Okay. >> Right. >> Okay. >> No concerns about calendar breaks, nothing. Okay. >> Awesome. Love to hear that. As part of the public meeting, we also leave the floor open to comment. Do we have anybody online? >> We have three people online. No comments as right now. >> Okay. [snorts] Well, we're we're going to move into comments and suggestions next anyway. But we'll go ahead and

008close out the public meeting or public hearing uh on the district school calendar and we will move to comments and suggestions. So, this is the first portion of our meeting where we open the floor to uh the public that may be here or may be watching online for any issues that they would like to uh share with the board. We'll give it a couple minutes here. Okay, then we will move forward to the consent agenda. Do we have a that looks like an updated personnel sheet? >> Yes, we have an updated personnel sheet with some ads. Um, also I want to just make a note that the two uh license resignations um are also early notification incentives. Um, and then also at your seat you have uh two additional fundraiser request forms as well. Okay.

009Do we have a motion to approve the consent? >> Vote, please. >> Mr. Bach, >> yes. >> Mrs. Peterson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Sando, >> yes. Mr. Sornson, >> yes. >> Mr. Sturm, >> yes. >> Miss Atkins, >> yes. >> Mr. Correct. >> Yes. Reports 7.01 curriculum instruction and assessment report with Dr. Hartman. >> Okay. So, I'm going to do a little bit about the Danielson instructional frameworks and the Danielson framework as we go. Um, so as many of you will recall, um, our district-wide PD focus this year was around the Danielson instructional framework. Um, since we've started the year, we've integrated Danielson with our walkthroughs and then we've got a couple new board members. So, I thought this would be a good time to just give you guys an update on our Danielson work.

010Um, so a little bit of a review of how we got here. Um, before I even came here, and this is year four for me, um, there was a committee who was looking at different instructional frameworks. And so, they took a lot of time and landed on Danielson. Uh, one of the things that I kind of like that they did was they created this like kind of list of criteria. So, they were looking at this what they call the system of instructional excellence. So, these are kind of some of the parameters they were they were looking at when they were looking for an instructional framework. And I think it's kind of neat to look back on this because I can see the things that they were looking for. I can see it showing up now.

011Um, and I like that second bullet point I really like and you're going to see us come back to that, but just growth and practice was a really important thing for the group and looking for um, an instructional framework. So, this kind had that going on. Lambdon Danielson. I think another neat thing in our district was again even prior to my arrival when they were onboarding new teachers, they were using the Danielson framework, but some of the feedback was so our new teachers get Danielson, but then we don't ever do anything with that again. So it's kind of like thanks for sharing that with us but what are we doing with it? So it kind of almost like closed a gap when we were able to do more things with the past new teacher on

012boarding. Um one of the things when I came in with when the committee had selected it, it was kind of like now what what are we going to do? So one of their big things was we want admin to learn about it first because they really believe that if admin didn't take time to learn it, know it, use it, it would fall apart. So we took like two years to do some learning with our admin team. Um our instructional coaches are usually like our first learners also. Um that way they can grow their knowledge and understanding so that they can lead teachers. So um they spent some time learning kind of unpacking some things and then even our teacher quality committee. So our TQ committee oversees professional learning and they need to sign off on

013any professional learning. Our TQ committee is is also um membership is the association. you have to be in the association to be on TQ. So, it was good to get their feedback, too. Um, and then on the right, I put some key points. This is what I'm really proud of. I'm proud of every time we do something like this as a district where if it's something big that's going to be part of our system, I don't want it to be rushed. And so, like, this took years to to make and decide and to train people on. So, it very much wasn't a rushed process. It took us a long time to get get here. Um, also the fact that it wasn't like top down. Again, this all started from this committee that had teachers and

014principles on it. And it and I'm very proud of Lewis Central that we do things a lot that's very collaborative with admin and teachers. Um, so not a top- down approach to this instructional framework. Um, that it wasn't chosen in isolation. Again, like thinking about the new teacher process, like it's very much part of a system. Um, honors the expertise of different people in different positions. Um, and then I also really like that last part like it wasn't just like picking a framework but just building readiness for this framework over multiple years. So very thoughtful approach to uh not only where we were but where we're going to go. So this is what it looked like. I just talked through that but just to see it as a visual um you know we had some

015admin learning. We did some PD rollouts. Last year was kind of a practice year. So last year admin did some walkthroughs. We really kind of calibrated like our conversation. We'd go into classrooms, we'd look for some things, we'd score some things on the rubric, and then it was kind of fun to just step back and talk about it. Like, were we on the same page? Were we scoring the same? Was it wildly different? Um, we just kind of used it to have our own conversations and to talk about scoring. We didn't feel like it was fair to give feedback back to teachers on that rubric because we were still trying to figure out like how are we scoring? Um, so then this year is our first year of full [snorts] implementation using the Danielson framework.

016So if teachers are on evaluation um we are connecting this back to um their teaching standards which I'll talk to about here in a little bit. Um and then admin team and then admin individually are also going through and providing feedback based on the Danielson framework. So you might be asking like what what is an instructional framework and why does this matter? Um a big part of it is just strengthening that tier one instruction. We want to make sure all kids have access to quality instruction. So whether that's students with IEPs, our EEL kids, just making sure we have some of that language to be able to talk to talk about what is strong tier one instruction. Um I you guys can read so I won't read all of that to you, but I think

017a big piece for us is just that like shared understanding and a shared language when it comes to quality instruction. So for example, I could go into a classroom, Dr. Reynolds could go into a classroom, but we could both walk out with like seeing and observing very different things and giving different feedback. So, this gives us some very concise shared language to talk about what is uh quality instruction. Um, these are just a few quotes from a couple different places, but you can see again like an instructional framework gives us that shared understanding. Um, helps us guide what strong instruction is. um looking at very proven components when it comes to instruction, but keeping things adaptable that um keeps in mind different teaching styles, content areas. Um so the aim, that very last line there,

018the aim of it is to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning. Um so in front of you, you have the Iowa teaching standards. So, if you're kind of new to this, um, every teacher who's on cycle, their evaluator will tell them at the end of the year, you either meet expectations on those Iowa teaching standards or you don't meet. So, the role of the principal is really to be able to collect evidence throughout the year that, hey, this teacher does meet or doesn't meet evidence of the teaching standards. Uh, one of the issues with the Iowa teaching standards is, as you can tell in like that bold black line, it's just not very meaty. like it's a pretty bland statement and so it's like what does that mean? Um this is kind of neat.

019This was 2010 that the state of Iowa's association so the ISEA actually adopted this framework and so Charlotte Danielson who created this framework she kind of wrote this like forward in the book about the Iowa teaching standards and about um how her framework kind of fits into the Iowa teaching standards. Um and I think I've got a Here it is. This is what she said. I pulled this up. She just talked about how she was honored that the Iowa State Education Association like chose her framework. Um, and then she goes on to talk about how like the Iowa Teaching Standards, while they capture what's important about teaching, um, it's just at a very general level so that this framework is structured around those standards, but it offers us more specificity within those standards. So, we

020can just get a little bit deeper about talking about like what is great instruction. Um, so kind of talk through that. Um, this is what I feel like it it really kind of offers us like teaching is complicated. Um, and encompassing everything that a teacher does or trying to define it is really impossible. Uh, but with having a framework again, we've got some more clear descriptors to use language to talk about effective teaching instead of it being kind of this biased thing. Um the other thing that the framework does is it provides this uh improvement continuum. So um the other document that you guys have the the Danielson framework has like 22 different components which is a lot. So we decided to pick 10 that we wanted to focus on. So you'll see in front

021of you the 10 uh Danielson components that we selected. And then you can see how on the far end um it's unsatisfactory but then you can see how it's this like growth continuum. how on the far end is this continuum within each of them to get to a point where it's distinguished. But I think a really important part here is like what we want to focus on is growth. And in fact, our teachers career development plans at the beginning of the year allowed them to pick one area, not all of this, just one place where they wanted to grow. Um so the goal is not for teachers to be distinguished like on the far side of this in all of the components. The goal is really find a spot where you want to grow and

022let's it's a continuum like this and like my goal would not be to be high on all of it because it'd just be physically impossible. The goal is just to find a play in particular. This is 2D. It's supporting positive student behavior. This was one of the areas that the board identified as a focus area. Um and it's one of the areas that district leadership team is working on putting some um action steps around. So we are looking for some of these things when it comes to supporting positive student behavior. What does this look like in our classrooms? Um so so far this year the admin team has done 120 classroom walkthroughs and that's us as a whole team and I that's another thing that I'm really proud of. Um that we've been able to

023commit to getting the whole admin team together a couple times during the year to do this work. Um and so here you can see the data that we've collected. Um 68% of our classrooms have demonstrated proficient levels on that rubric. Uh 20% were basic, 11% showed distinguished level, and then only less than 1% were unsatisfactory. So, uh we're really happy with those trends and what that looks like. Again, this was just kind of some baseline data for us to figure out like where might we want to go with um student behavior. And what we're seeing is we've got some teachers really doing some strong things with routines and positive learning. um a lot of consistency in their classrooms. Um so we've been uh very happy with what we're seeing when we're in classrooms. Um so

024then lastly, this this transition again just it reflects a lot of years of us learning together, collaborating and preparing for this. Um and we're seeing this and the hope is this continues that this framework is the tool that will give us some clarity and consistency to be able to talk about instruction and excellent instruction. Um, so then our goal is just to be able to support our kids and ultimately um improve outcomes for our kids. What questions do you guys have about Danielson framework or where we're using this or how this is going? >> How receptive are the teachers this year since this is the first year of the roll out? >> Yeah. Um, I think it's been mixed. I mean, I think sometimes getting used to seeing a score, there's been some feedback on

025that that people I don't think are thrilled sometimes to see basics. So, we're having some conversations about what that looks like. Um, in in this where Danielson kind of supported the the Iowa teaching standards, she actually keeps the unsatisfactory category and then it's just like a growth arrow. So, they took out some of the other headings. So, that's been a conversation that we're having. But the first year we went through as an admin team when we didn't give feedback, the feedback was we want feedback. Like please give us some feedback when you're coming into our classroom. So I think a lot of them have appreciated the feedback. Again, it's like more concrete feedback than just like hey good job like thanks for letting us stop in your classroom. Um, but then on the other hand,

026yeah, it's the the labels that I think we've got to work through because we ultimately we want teachers to be able to look at the feedback and think through the feedback and not be distracted or, you know, have feelings about what a label is. >> Yeah. >> So, you said how frequently do teachers actually get the feedback on the rubric, the scoring, >> and then what's the plan structure after that for them to improve? >> Yeah. So this year the goal as a whole admin team has been to get in all of the buildings four times throughout the year. >> Okay. >> Um and then in buildings it's looked a little bit different. Um I know some principles have plans of trying to get in the classrooms every single day. Now that might not be

027I'm in the classroom with a with a walkthrough form like Danielson. It might be we're just trying to get in be seen you know. So it looks a little bit different in different buildings as far as how much they're just going back through and looking at it. Um so we've got plans to go through two more times um this year and then what what we're doing as an admin team is we'll look at the data collectively to see like are there student engagement um so then we'll kind of talk through what do we want to look at for the following year maybe it's the same maybe it'll be something different >> because I'm thinking about the the robust amount that the teachers have to focus on >> yes >> and right now I think you

028had mentioned they're focused on one goal >> really for themselves for the year. >> And you mentioned overall there's what 20? >> Yeah, there's like 22. So, we've whittleled it down to 10. Okay. >> Um and then the other thing too that I that I think is nice is so what the the association did a while ago is they linked these to the Iowa teaching standards. So if it here was the feedback that I gave, okay, I see that 2D connects I was teaching standard let's say six. So now I've got evidence for six. So I think it does help principles and teachers have just more meat to the conversation when it comes to their evaluation instead of just like yep you met standard six you know but yes you're right like it's a lot

029you know and teachers are managing and doing as a principal if this is where they want to grow what kind of feedback do I need to give that's specific to them >> and even so I mean looking at the standpoint from a principal communicating with the teacher it could be this is where they wanted to grow but this is where we actually see that you maybe need to look at growing. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, >> thank you, Dr. Hartman. >> Thank you. >> We'll move to 7.02 finance report with Mrs. Rice. >> Yes. So, uh Lisa, if you want to go to the second one, we have our monthly year-to- date up on the board. Um everything is that I will note uh is that in the debt service fund uh when you

030see the debt service fund just because it's the first time that we've had it on there for in quite a while um that is the only part that comes out of there is our actual debt payment. So anything that we are doing building wise is actually in the capital projects funds. So the debt service is only the money coming in service fund. Um just wanted to bring that up since that was new for this year um with having that as part of the geo bond. And then Lisa, if you'll go to the next page. And then everyone at their seats, they also have the really fun, uh, revenue sources and allowed expenditures spaghett. So, um, and he really enjoys it. So, um, but I figured with having new board members, um, and just a refresher

031for, um, all of the other board members that we could go through this. And this all links back to the chart that we were just looking at. Um so it has all of the funds on it and those are in the middle uh for expenditures. So starting with the general fund um there's a lot of different sources for the general fund. Obviously it's our largest uh fund. Uh we spend between 40 to $45 million out of that fund annually. Um, and it's made up of state aid, uh, income sir tax, uh, property tax, federal funds. Uh, that fund also contains our instructional support levy in there. Um, and then also some other restricted funds such as, uh, preschool. Um, and that's funded through state aid. Um, but there's also in the expenditures column some other

032categorical funds listed up there such as special education, uh, teacher salary supplement, professional develop, and benefits. Uh, the rest of the fund then is spent for curriculum programs, textbook supplies, those materials, uh, transportation, uh, diesel fuel, um, not our actual purchase of our buses. We'll get to those later. Um but then also utilities um you know electricity, water, gas. Um and then it also uh mentions our flexibility account and that is um the account that allows for certain categoricals to be moved um into that account and then the board can pass that via resolution on what those funds could be spent on. Um, and then like I said, the preschool fund is also in there and that is all state aid driven. And then moving to our next fund would be our PPE fund. Uh,

033Pebble do we do have a voted PPE and a board approved PPE. So we have the $1 voted and a 33 cent board approved PELE. Ours is fully funded by property tax. We do not fund any of our peple with income sir tax and that can be used for anything from buying buses to buildings and grounds improvements. Um we use it for our technology um non-instructional software or um any leases that we might have such as copers. Um and then we have our management fund um which uh this year we had a pretty significant using our carryover um balance for that fund but that is a fully property taxdriven fund and what could that can be used for I feel like the management fund is slightly misleading in its name but it is for property

034and casualty insurance workers [clears throat] compensation early retirement incentives which we don't actually have any of those uh the local government risk pools um such as the um natural gas um risk pool that we are part of um unemployment and then if we have any u mediation or litigation that is what the management fund is used for promises is not used to pay any management salaries or anything of that nature. no salaries, all property tax uh driven um for your general obligation bonds which are voted bonds. Um so the principal and interest of those bonds are paid through this fund. Um and those geo bonds are used um for buildings uh and everything that we are doing currently for our geo bond as well. Then there is the uh pearl fund which is the public

035education and recreation levy which you can no longer pass one of those so we will never have one at Lewis central. Then there is the save um that used to be known as the statewide penny um and this is the sales tax um driven fund that can be used for the same thingable for the most part but one is property tax pack property tax driven and the other one is sales tax driven and then we have our student activities fund. uh that fund. Um all the funds that come from that are gates and admissions, any fundraising that is done or any uh fees um that the uh students have. Um and all that is used to support athletic clubs and co-curricular activities, their own individual fund inside of their um positive. And then the last

036one is the food and nutrition fund. Um and this one is very similar to be run like its own business. So the student and nutrition fund uh purchase of the food items. So and this fully has to support um all of the nutrition staff salary benefits all of the food and equipment as long as it as it is specific to the food and nutrition program itself. they cannot be paid out of the nutrition fund. So, it has to be specifically for um the nutrition fund program that those are allowed to be used for. So, I know this is a whole lot, but I feel like this um gives a very good overview of kind of where the funds are at. It aligns to all of the categories that we have on our year-to- date. Uh

037leads you in that right direction. Um, and then you also know um where those funds come from to begin with. So whether it's, you know, property tax or sales tax or um state aid. So um I really think this is a fun chart, too. >> Um does anyone have any questions about anything on this? And you um so everyone can keep theirs. If you don't want them because you have multiples already, [laughter] you can leave them and I will use them again. >> I feel like I'm being shamed here. >> You are [laughter] not. >> I just told you this is my favorite one. There's actually another one out there and I did not share that one. >> Nice. >> I like this one better than the other one. Well, I like this one because

038it it's you know, we talk about different buckets >> that we're able to use for funding for Lewis Central and this is a great visual representation of what those buckets >> and benefits. >> Correct. >> So, that leaves about 9 million. >> Yes. >> Roughly. >> Yep. That we use for all of the other items. You know, there's uh curriculum uh that also open enrollment in is revenue in. So, we also have the open enrollment out on the other side, right? Um, so we have that obviously like I talked about the utilities and all of those other things is what falls into that 90 million. >> That's pretty typical. You'll see 80%'s kind of average. So you'll see 78 to 83%. If you start getting beyond 83 84% then it becomes hard to pay your

039bills. You know that's where all the bills get paid out of. So, any other questions for Mrs. Rice? >> Okay, then we will move to 7.03 superintendent report with Dr. Hazing. >> Okay. And I did send you an email to share. >> All right. So, for my legisl or for my report, it's we're getting to legislative time. So, I just want to make sure we had a we have a a monthly superintendent meeting uh with Green Hills Aea and then so we invite different people to come and actually the December meeting was actually our actual legislators show up and they talk about kind of what they're hearing, what they're um proposing, what they're what the process will look like, etc. And so one of the things that then accompanies them is is we have different

040organizations uh like this one for instance uh ISF the Iowa school finance information services they came in they presented as far as like this is what they're hearing this is how you can legislate you know they're they're 100% just looking after schools. So that's what they come in and they're like you know hey we'll tell you kind of both sides what both sides are asking. We'll tell you kind of how to uh navigate it and how to have those conversations. So, it's a lot of really good information. One of the things that and I thought this was a perfect leeway is uh Andrea talked about property tax issue or how our how our budget is made up of primarily property taxes. And so, if you go to the next one, um one of the biggest

041one of probably the number one goal of Governor Reynolds this year and a lot of our legislative uh legislators is to do something with our property tax rate. Okay. and um whether it's relief that they're looking for or simplicity, our property tax, how it's how it's uh calculated is is fairly complex. And those of us that went through the bond process the last couple years can kind of attest to that. like talking about roll backs, talking about uh property tax rates and how you know the the property tax rate that you're looking at like ours is like 1130 is not like 1130 of your actual value of your house. It's 1130 of the value of your house minus the 52% roll back minus the homestead minus the you know so and I so I I

042understand where the where the legislators are are coming from saying you know what we need to simplify this we need to make it easier. However, there's a lot of things in there that um like for instance, uh homeowners get taxed at a different rate. Like their roll back is much higher than the roll back for say businesses and the roll back for commercial property, the roll back for egg property is is different. So everything's kind of taxed at a different rate. And so if you start messing with all of those, what inevitably happens, especially if your goal is to cut property taxes, inevit you're going to impact uh your what your social services are. and and and we that's what we are. We are a a public service, right? And so if you talk about

043lowering property tax and you just heard that the vast majority of our income is property tax related, there's no way that we don't get affected in some way. And so, um that's why I kind of want to make sure that you guys are educated a little bit in this. Um, one of the things they want to do is they want to shift when we talk about our school supplemental aid. It's it's based on how property tax rich your district. It used to be everybody was kind of a flat rate and then the then the property rich districts which would include your uh metro areas, your um your uh commercial or your like uh recreation commercial areas. They would they would get a lot more money than everybody else. So they would be operating of these

044huge balances and everybody else would be like you know the the small rural communities would be operating with like no money. So the state came in and said okay based upon your you know whether you're property rich or property poor and we are property rich district that's going to determine how much of your money goes towards uh the property owners and how much the state's going to pay. So everybody's everybody's formula is just a little bit different. And so, um, what the state wants to do is they want to say, "Well, we're going to shift more of the funding, and they have done this, but shift more of the funding from, uh, from what you're paying from property tax into the state's budget." Okay? Now, that's great when the state's running a a surplus every

045year, okay, which they have been for a while. So, they're running these big surpluses, so to say, okay, we're going to take the surplus and we're going to spend that money on on your schools, and then you're not going to have to spend as much locally on your schools. However, that's not the case this year, and it wasn't the case last year because now that we've shifted to a 3.8 uh% income tax uh for everybody, and we've lowered property or income tax pretty significantly, um that means the state's not bringing enough money. And I'll and I'll kind of show that up here real soon. So, if you're going to say we're going to shift it to the state, and I'm just I'm just a I'm just a me. I'm just looking at this from like

046a business level aspect. And if you told me that my business was going to was going to lose money every year, but we still had a pretty pretty big positive and we're going to, you know, if I'm running the state and I'm like, "Okay, well, we're losing money every year. I can't continue to spend more money." like I can't continue to say, "Well, I'm going to pay for that for you because you can't afford to pay for that right now, which is going to save you money because eventually I'm just going to run out of money." Right? So, that's kind of what they're doing is they're saying, "Well, we're going to pay for more out of the state's budget. We're going to continue to run big deficits because we have a lot of money sitting

047in the bank, but what happens when that money runs out? And what happens when we've already shifted that burden?" Like, those are the things that I sit here and I and I try to figure out, okay, how can we make this sustainable? because I'm a property tax owner or I'm a property owner here and I pay taxes and I also pay income tax. Like I too would like to see my my taxes go down except for the fact that I also don't want to see the services that that we utilize on a daily basis go down either. Like I there's got to be a balance there, right? And so one of the things that that they talk about is shifting that SSA rate from um you know the the the taxpayers you know to the

048state. However, if the state doesn't have enough to fund SSA then it can shift it back to the taxpayers that the taxpayers are paying too little. Okay? Because what we get is a dollar amount flat dollar amount per per student. So let's say it's $8,000. Okay? And let's say this year the state says we're going to pay for the majority of that out of our out of our budget. We're going to pay $5,000 of the $8,000 out of our budget. This is all hypothetical. And this and the property tax owner is going to pay $3,000 whereas before they might have paid $3500. And now the tax taxpayer is going to pay 30 or $3,000 out of their out of their out of their local taxes, okay? Property taxes. Well, then what happens if in the

049next year the state can't cover it? Okay, we're still guaranteed to get $8,000 a student, even if they don't give us a raise. If they can't cover it, it's got to come right back onto onto uh the property tax owners, which is going to raise taxes, and they don't want to do that. So, what is the other way that you can do that if you can't if if the state can't cover it is they just cut funding to schools, right? Like, that's the only other way. Like, there's only so much money. And so, that's what I'm trying to figure out, like, how can we get us so we don't cut funding to schools? So, um, when you guys talk about, um, if you go go to the next one real quick, when you guys talk

050to them about there's also other areas in the property tax that they're also looking to cut. Okay? Like for instance, dropout prevention uh, varies from from district to district. Okay? This is amount of money that we get for at risk programs. So if they say, "Well, here's an easy," so as you guys are looking through and you'll see dropout prevention at risk programming on your thing. If you say, "Well, that's an easy tax that we can cut." Well, that probably cuts things like our ACE program, it cuts our mental health programs, it potentially cuts our counselors. So, so that's one of the things that our legislators need to know is that if they're going to cut something like they need to they need to look out for that. Um, another thing they might say is

051they might look at regulatory dates and say, "Well, in order to um keep property tax from going through the roof, we're going to really regulate how property tax can be increased." And they already kind of started this by saying instead of having a vote every 3 months, you can only have it on election day in November. Okay, which is um which is fine. Like it's fine if that they're dictating a day. The problem is is the election day in November then has everything. So, you're going to have all of your uh county, your city, your uh community college, your local school districts, everybody's going to be all on the same ballot. And then another thing that that's a that's a downside of that is then if we all pass it, there's only so many construction

052companies in our area. So now we're competing for the same construction companies, the same design firms, the same, and so our costs are going to inevitably go up because now they have multiple options to choose from. And so there's just some of those things that we're finding that when they started making those changes that were like, you know, this really isn't saving taxpayers money because what ends up happening is every time we run a bond, it costs us money to do so, right? Because we're advertising, we're we're trying to inform as much as possible. it costs us to put the the the vote on the on the ballot. And then when we're going up against all these other entities that also have needs and are also trying to get something passed where independently they we

053might the community might say, you know what, we could pass each one of these independently because it's easy to chew. [clears throat] But as a but as a whole, it's like, oh my goodness, I can't do it all. Right? So now we're seeing multiple elections take place. And then if we do pass, then we're seeing higher costs because everybody's passing bonds the exact same time versus allowing us an opportunity to say, "Okay, there's a spring date and a fall date, right?" So or if you miss the fall date and you still have to build something and you try again the next fall. We saw this. I mean, we saw a significant increase between the first fall that we ran our bond and the second fall we ran our bond. So if we could have gotten

054it the first bond, we would have saved the taxpayers a lot of money and or even if we could have ran it again 3 months later and because we were close the first time, if we would have changed our plan, ran it and got it 3 months later, we could have still saved taxpayers money. But instead they're they, you know, and and the legislators are doing what they think is best, but we need to we need to do a good job of informing them how their decisions have impacted what we're doing here. Uh save is another one we have up here. So save is the um that's our 1 cent sales tax and I'll and I'll talk about that a little more detail here, but 1 cent sales tax was actually voted in by the

055public for school infrastructure. That's why it was voted in. But once it's in, then the legislators can kind of do what they want with it. So since it was voted in, there's been pieces pulled away from it and it's been kind of divvied up and given to different entities like water mitigation and those types of things. water quality, which I don't disagree with water quality, but at the same but at the same time, like the voters voted it in for school infrastructure. So now legislators are saying, "No, we're going to take pieces away and we're going to put it other places," which again, I don't disagree with water quality. But then when you're taking these pieces away from school infrastructure, guaranteed money for school infrastructure, we still have infrastructure needs. So then where do we

056get the money for school infrastructure? >> Taxpayers, right? So instead of saying, you know, oh, we have this 1 cent sales tax that's designated for schools, you're going to be able to use this, which did in fact lower property taxes, now they're taking it away, which will increase property taxes because our needs haven't changed. It's like if the 1centent sales goes away, we still have needs. On the flip side, they're looking to that's one of the things that they've talked about as a way to to help their their budget is by taking more of the 1 cent sales tax away. So, that is a legitimate thing that they've talked about doing is saying, "Okay, well, instead of getting 80%, now maybe you guys get 50%." You're going to get 50%. And then guess what? We're

057probably going to have to raise property taxes because we still have infrastructure needs that are not going to be kept, that we're not going to be able to keep up. So, it's not that if they're really looking to lower property taxes, taking away our our 1 cent sales money is not a good way to do that. Um, another thing on here is management funds. They talked about restricting the use of management funders and they're actually restricting the way that we can raise money for management funds. The reason that a lot of schools have a pretty big balance in management funds because what what they're doing honestly is they're looking across the state and they're seeing that oh wait all of these schools have two and $3 million balances in their management fund. Well, if we

058have 300 districts across the state and every district has $3 million in their management fund, that's $900 million that's sitting out there when we're running a $500 million deficit that we they could potentially use for their school. But the problem is is that $3 million is sitting in his management fund is in case we get sued or in case we have catastrophic issues with our insurance insurance or things that are completely outside our control that we have that we have no no buffer for because if we don't have that money in our account then we get sued. That's where that money comes from. If that's not in our account it comes out of our general fund which then significantly impacts our students. Right? if we have a huge hail claim because now uh lot a

059lot of the companies and our company's included this and we're in a we you guys know this because you approved it but we're in like a kind of a separate policy for our hail claim policy but now if hail hits it's $100,000 out the door like right now and luckily for us that's all insurance money so that comes out of our management fund that doesn't have to come out of our other funds that we're trying to do work with that's just hail that's just this year if that doesn't work out a lot of the policies we're looking at could add a $500,000 or $700,000 policy that if we get hail, we're going to have to pay55 or $700,000 right now, which we don't have just sitting around in our operating fund, you know. So, anyway,

060so that's one of the things that they have to understand. They're also talking about restricting the amount of money that you're able to hold in your just in your accounts in general, in your general fund. Right? So, right now, you guys know, ever since ever since Andre has gotten here and ever since I've gotten here, we've worked really really hard to increase our fund balance and increase our our unspent authorized B budget. So, that way we have some capacity in case something happens, we lose enrollment, uh costs go through the roof, etc. that we're able to rebound and be able to stay steady instead of having to, you know, let go of a bunch of people because that's again, that's where 80 some% of our of our money is is tied up in people. So

061if you have to make big cuts, you make big cuts on people. I know this because I was a I was a I was a casualty of that when I was teaching in Missouri Valley. Luckily, again, they hired me as a principal, so I didn't they didn't hate me, so that was good. But anyway, but that I totally understand that and that's not a good feeling. And we have a lot of good people that I don't want that to happen to. So, but again, the state's looking at this and saying, "Well, wait a minute. [snorts] This school has $5 million. This school has $4 million. this school has. And they're like, there's there's a couple billion dollars that are sitting in accounts right now that schools could be using right now for education that we

062could just make them use. We can make them use it and then we can save the money and then we're done. Well, the problem is is if we use all the money that we've built up and something really bad happens, then we can't recover. There's nothing. And I don't know a single business class out there or even personal finance class out there. you know, these legislators are supposed to also be big on like personal finance and and teaching uh accounting and and those types of things. I don't know anybody out there that would look at you and say you should have no savings in your in your home account. You should have no savings in your business account. Like that's not that's not a good business practice and it's not a good home practice. So,

063we're trying to be responsible. Right now, we have about 5% of our of our budget sitting in an account. That's fine. We should be more like 8 to 10%. Now, so that's one of the things we wanted to make sure is they don't make us go backwards in that because right now we're just finally getting to the point where we can we can hold ourselves steady if something bad were to happen. Go to the next one. Uh so this kind of just gives you a quick overview. So I was only expected to take in about 8.5 billion in uh fiscal year 26. So that's the 3.8% 8% flat income tax that that actually started lowering our revenues which is you know depending on you look on it like we had huge uh we we have

064we have huge reserves. So yeah you're right we don't need to take in as much money because we have huge reserves. The problem is is when you're cutting taxes and then you're also increasing your state expenditure then you're going to go down at too fast of a rate and then somebody you know you can't sustain it. So if you look at this this year they're looking to use $463 million from the taxpayer fund relief. Uh so the fund balance goes from 4 billion to three.5 billion. Uh the state's budget surplus is also supposed to go from 2 billion to 1.6. Again this is these are large numbers. These we we can we can do this for several years. This is not but I'm a big if you guys know me by now like you know

065that I'm like 5 10 15 20 years down the road like where does this go? Like right now it works fine for the next couple years. Where does it go when we no longer have that surplus, right? That's what makes me nervous. So if you go to the next uh this is again this is just a quick and I sent this uh report to you guys too in your email so you can look it up. But again this is this is what saved you is used for. You know they they voted it in for the sole purposes of providing revenue to local school districts. Okay? like that's what it's supposed to be used for, for us to be able to use it on our facilities and for tax relief. So, if they start taking that

066away, then then there's no that restricts the amount of tax relief we're going to be able to have. Um, again, one of the things to know in here is this is still regulated by your voters. So, it's not like we have free reign to spend this money however we want. It's still regulated. We have to put out a revenue purpose statement. They have to approve these revenue purpose statements and basically it tells us what we can spend this money on. You know, for instance, just a real low or real real low level. It has to be over $500 and it has to be for an approved expense that's on a on a list which all includes infrastructures. I can't pay me. I can't pay Andrea. I can't. In fact, it's restricted to the point now

067where even if you wanted to use it like on athletic fields, like let's say you wanted to use save money on an athletic field that wasn't or let athletic purpose that wasn't attached to a building, you have to go and have an independent vote for that. Okay? So, that's that's how restrictive it is. And again, that's what this is the money that people are using to build schools, to do addition. This is the money we used to put up our auditorium, to put up the operations building, so we didn't have to raise taxes in order to do those things. Okay. So, that's if the save money goes away, that'll be a big deal. Um, if the save money goes away as well, another thing to consider is one of the restrictions that they're thinking about

068for property tax reform for schools is restricting the amount of money that we're able to bring in on a general obligation bond. Last year when this was being floated around, for instance, um, you know, we're going after 90 because we're going to be able to go above 270 if we got the second vote. If if they're they're talking about taking away anything above the 270 and then all you get was 270. Well, that's about $80 million. To build a let's say we want to build a middle school. We're like, that's the direction we want to go. To build a middle school right now is 90 plus. So, we do not it wouldn't even be enough. Even if you had a 100% of people in town say, "Yep, we want to build you a middle school."

069It's not enough to build the school that we would be that that we would need. It's not. If you wanted to build a new high school, let's say, uh, we got so big we had to build a new high school. To build a new high school is over $und00 million. You can we could not literally not there be no mechanism for we can't operate. We're going to be in big time trouble. you know, uh that's where the that's where the safe can step in and say, "Okay, well, we will bond out and borrow 30 million of save and then we will get the and then we'll also get the the bond." Okay. So, one of the things that I just want them to know is like right now we already have the capacity if the

070voters approved to go to 270 and to get that $80 million. Okay? If we wanted more, the community and the community wanted us to have more in order to build a new high school or build whatever, they could vote to allow us to exceed 270 and get what we need. That's a that's a total community decision. [clears throat] I'm not sure why the state wants to take away a community decision if we're really about local control because in my opinion local control means that people locally have to decisions to or have the power to make decisions in order to do what they they want to do within their community. And all that restricting us from going up above 270 would do is take away local control because the state this our our community still has

071a 100% authority over whether or not we we can exceed 270. So it it just really is not a like that's one of the things I would throw out to them too is like where's the local control in all of this because our our community puts in the board members who make the decisions on finances. Our community votes on pretty much anything that's that's additional revenue related, general obligation bonds, revenue purpose statements for save. Um if you know like all of that is community voted. So if they're going to start dictating at the state level how all this money is going to work, then they're taking it out of the hands of our local or local citizens. Um if you go down the next one, this is just more about save here. Go next one.

072So, here's some talking points. Go down. Transparency. You know, fix the property tax statements. So, if that's what people are wanting to know, I I'm 100% for that. I'm 100% for them figuring out a way to make it easier so that way if you run a bond, we don't get a whole we don't get a whole lot of questions about like, well, you're going to you're going to increase my taxes $2,500 on a on a $200,000 house. No, we're not. I don't even know where you get that number from. So, you know, that's that's but again, trying to explain the all of the different uh caveats that go into your tax bill is very it's it's difficult. Like, so if they want to change that, that's great. Um, if they want to do so, like

073right now they changed it, and you can ask Andrea her opinion on this, but so before we only had to have one meeting to to set a budget. Now, we have to have two meetings to set a budget. And the way that they're going about having us do that is very confusing. If you guys sat here last last April or last March when we had a bunch of people in this room and everybody wanted to talk about county or city taxes at our school board meeting, that was something that was very confusing because the way that the states making the counties publish the board meeting dates is school goes first and then the other two go. And so everybody thinks that all of those hearings then are at our school. That's why I had to

074answer questions about why the city took down trees on certain properties and and why we're not doing enough to fix the roads and other areas of of town, you know, like that. Like those types of things like make it difficult for us to operate because now all of a sudden apparently we're in charge of the roads here in town, you know, so it's it's difficult. If you go to the next one, um risking the unknown. So that's one of the things that we talked about with management fund and with being able to carry a positive balance of some sort. Like we don't we don't know like from year to year what's going to happen from month to month it's going to happen sometimes dayto day. So if you're going to take away all of our

075ability to react when something bad does happen then that that that's not good for for our students that's not good for our community. That's not good for our taxpayers. Um it's just not a good it's not good. uh they need to understand how the proposal will impact uh local government services. How it impacts D or uh taxpayers for different classes of property that's a commercial uh agriculture homeowners how this pro proposal impacts the state general fund over the long term. Another thing they talked about is making all of the tax rates kind of equal. So right now as you know we're in a very property rich district, commercially rich district like that's what we are. That's why our tax one of the reasons our tax rates so low is because we have a lot of

076commercial property which pays the majority of our taxes. So commercial property pays over 50% of our taxes here versus in a neighboring town residential pays 80% of their taxes. So residential in our area in our town, our school district only pays like 47% of the taxes. So if they make everything equal, who's going to end up paying more in taxes? Residents. Property owners. Okay. residential property is gonna end up paying more in taxes than your large corporations. And I don't know what's wrong, right, or indifferent, but I know that if that's what they want to do is take the burden off of uh homeowners, that's not going to take the burden off homers in our particular district. They'll get slammed. So taxpayers or the legislators just need to know that. If you go to the

077next one, um we talked about this already. They already have a lot of control. They have a budget appeal process. If they have a lot of concerns, they can talk to you [snorts] guys. They can get votes. they can they can do a lot of things that that control what it is that we do here. Go to the next one. Uh school property tax rates are already down. You know, the they've already kind of made um shifted some of the money to the state, which is made the property taxes come down, which is great. Um, but if we look at, and I'll show you the the the the tax uh tables here in a second, but when we look at it, you'll see that Lewis Central is one of the lowest taxes, you know, in

078the entire state, let alone the area. Um, if you guys, you know, invite legislators in if you guys have a opportunity to or talk with them. I'd love to talk to them about how our tax dollars here or even community members like, come in. I'll I'll take give you tours of the school. You can talk to our students. You can talk to our staff. find out about all the really good things we're doing here. Even if you don't come, even if you don't have kids that come to our school, you've never come to our school, like there's still a benefit for your community because we're turning out the next the next generation of workers. We're making sure that when people, you know, go to go to shop that they're getting their correct change counted back

079to them. You know, we're making sure that we're turning out welders and and uh electricians and plumbers and, you know, in the trades. That's we're have a high focus of that right now. And that's what people in our community need, but they also need doctors, they need lawyers, they need, you know, so you can say, "Well, I get no benefit from school." And and that's just not true. I'll look you right in the eye and say, "That's not true." Because I you use services in our town and a lot of the people that live in this town and that work in this town that own businesses or do practices in this town came from our local school districts. So you can't say you've received no benefit from it. Uh if you go to the next

080one. So here is you can see the lower left where we are uh obviously the darker the darker the color the more taxes that uh the higher your [snorts] tax rate. So if you look we're that really light shade of pink. So it's it goes white and then the light shade of pink. So we're in the second category as far as uh lowest tax rates in the state. Okay. And you can look around you can see some of the some of the white ones are really really small rural communities. If you look around the metropolitan areas, you won't see many tax rates as low as what we have. So if you go to the next one, so then here we are again. If you look here, we're actually in the white, you know, in this

081particular band. So they kind of broke it up a couple different ways. So in this one, we are in uh so next next thing. Well, you guys have any questions about legislative pro? like like I just thought that was important to at least talk about cuz that's what I'm hearing a lot of and right now I'm hearing that schools are being left off of the property tax conversation but I don't trust that so I mean fool me once shame on me or shame on you fool me twice shame on me so type of deal I've been told before that schools are not going to be touched on something and that didn't come to fruition so uh I would just be prepared so they won't they won't like last year they wrapped up legislative session in

082May so [snorts] They they will I mean voting can occur anywhere from basically March through end of end of the legislative session. They like to try to get out through probably uh beginning to mid-Marchch and then um and I'll just make sure that I forward you guys the ones that are going to potentially be impactful to us. Some of them are proposed every single year. They never get through and I don't have a lot of you know like they, you know, don't really scare me too much. like some that say you should have one school per county opposed every single year that just never pass. But then there's other ones that I just I get a little bit nervous about. Okay. Some of which are like restrict all non-classroom expenses to 6% of your total

083budget where our non-classroom expenses are low for the state. They're about 20%. But to restrict can't get kids to school and provide them a safe, clean atmosphere, they can't learn. So like there's some things like there that that are just I see them. I think about it for two seconds and I'm like, "Okay, well that's [snorts] never gonna happen because it's impossible." So, and I've told people that I've told legislators that like, "Listen, if if uh if you restricted to 6%, you don't have to worry about me cuz I will quit and then I will run for your seat." So, so outside of property tax and outside of legislative things, here's how we currently currently are trending um with our um bond stuff. So, you'll see there's a there's a couple things that that have

084been added um up there. You'll see that there's um sanitary sewer system repairs. It's like five down. That was one of the things they kind of broke that out from the middle school parking lot because it's going to be more on this side. They're going to hold that as a separate contract. That's really kind of looking into what's wrong with our sanitary sewers and we're finding out it's not necessarily underneath the there is issues underneath our current parking lot, but there's also issues on the other side. When they did the operations building for instance, somehow a manhole cover or manhole got covered up and was buried like six feet in the ground and that's that was supposed to be like where some of the lines were capped. They weren't capped. So we had water flowing

085in from different directions which then caused our backup and it was just a deal. So we had to go and take a back hole, cut it out, scoop it out. You know, I don't know how a whole manhole gets covered up, but I mean it's on the plants and everything, but it is what it is. We we fixed it. But there are some things like that, some incidentals that really didn't fall in any category. So, we made sure we put it up there. Um, the other major one we'll talk about tonight is uh a potential for for a new project and and athletic building um expansion um based on that's kind of a mixed that's doesn't have anything to do with the uh with the bond, but that'll be another project that we look at.

086Um, but outside if you look we're we're trending we're about 1.9 million um under budget and that's just that's just for this last summer. So, we're also trending to be about another million or so for next summer based upon their projections. So, we could potentially have $2 to $3 million uh to be able to continue to do some projects. And so, we're coming up right now with some um al some alternates that like were originally kind of left off the bid, which is like some additional um uh units on top of the high school primarily. Uh I don't even know which units he wants, but there are some units over the high school that need to be replaced. Um some more controls, some HBAC controls they want done at at CF. There's uh quite a

087few windows that need to be reccocked. And then the on the inside like the the sills and the and the little countertops on the inside are kind of rotting out because of the because of the condensation and moisture that's coming through. So things like that that we'll have on our list. So, it's not like the money won't be going, not like we're going to use it frivolously. It's all got very specific structural or mechanical issues that we can continue to to get that just weren't necessarily on the top of our list. So, um if you go to the next one. So, one of the cool things about doing projects is you get to see like some progress sometimes. So, today uh Dr. Dr. Reynolds just had a meeting with BCDM to kind of go over

088the very first initial like what are your thoughts and then the next the next thing we'll sit down with um the facility committee. We'll talk to them about kind of what the thoughts are and then we'll sit down with the board and say before we send this out as a bid package out to somebody to make sure the board understands and sees like yes here's here's kind of the vision for what we're looking at. Um one of the and this like I said none of these are set in stone. These are just total like here's some conceptual drawings finally that we can kind of take a look at. They had about six different options for the front of the building. Um, one of the reasons they recommended this one is because it kind of accomplishes

089a a couple things. One, it gives more visibility to our front entrance and what it's supposed to be. And you'll see it's s essentially taking the same structure that we have, but um uh covering the top with metal panels, putting a sign on it, and then either wrapping or painting the pillars that go up to just kind of give it a different make it stand out a little bit. And then you have the LC on the right side is is something that's new. That's just there's just wall right there right now. So that would be kind of something different there. This is a very this is their example of something that's very coste effective. It doesn't we didn't change any structure. We simply dressed it up. Uh we saved a ton. You know, this would

090be a way to dress it up and save a ton of money, right? There's also some other um options like on the like on the other side and and director Storm and I have talked a little bit about this kind of on the left side where it's kind of open. You could potentially put like a uh uh like a video panel or something up there as well if you wanted to do like another step. be like, "Oh, we like the front sign, but be nice if we had some kind of interactive display up there on the front left side that would give us, you know, some announcements or something like that." So, you can you can go you can make this as big or as small as you want, but this was just an option

091that they that we looked at. So, uh if we go to the next one, here's an option of the in of the of the middle school office. So, as you can see, it's got very much if you've been in the middle school office, got almost the exact same setup. Nothing's really changed. It just kind of shows you the color scheme, you know, doing some branding. Uh you'll see the carpets, you know, kind of ties in. Um they put some uh blue hues in the ceiling tiles. Um those types of things. But it just kind of lets you see like, okay, you can dress up this area, make it stand out from a more consistent branding view, but at the same time, it it uh it didn't cost a whole lot of money. You know, this

092wasn't tearing out walls and everything else. If you go to the next one, this is example of the commons area. So, if you walk in the middle school commons right now, you know, we have those kind of big pillars. One of the things I did talk about is those are too chunky. Uh, for me, it kind of takes away the line of sight. So, going as really as small as you could, but you can get the general gist here of like the color scheme is is even though we because even though we can't raise the ceilings, it's still supposed to be airy. It's supposed to be bright. Uh it's supposed to be um the LED lights are contrasting with the uh um with kind of the dark and ceiling tiles, that kind of stuff. So

093you can do this is just their examples of you can do a lot to dress up a place with not very much money because the majority of our money is going to go into to into the mechanical into the you know the physical structure of the building. But you can still even though we don't have a big budget for dressing stuff up, you can do a lot like this. If you took this picture next to what we currently have, it's it's significantly different. So, if you go to the next one, again, we there's so much so much there's only so much we can do with our library, but this is just uh the just redoing this reception area, adding some different colored ceiling tiles, uh redoing the carpet. You can kind of see it just

094kind of gives a whole different view to that building. So, or to that room. So, I guess thoughts on these. I mean, again, these are we're not making decisions. is just, you know, trying to see some consistency in the colors and that kind of stuff. >> Exciting. Director Peterson, >> it just feels dark, but maybe it's just because it's a picture. >> Well, part of it is is I took these pictures of these with my phone. These are these are lighter than what it is on my Yeah. >> So, but that's where they're going to. A lot of bright colors, airy, you know, etc. Even though the the area would be a contradiction word when you talk about that building, it's it's not area at all. So, okay. All right, that's it. Sorry, I took

095I had a long long one. So, any questions? Okay, we'll move into discussion items. 8.01, uh, the district school calendar. >> Do you guys have any questions, concerns about it? >> No. Great. >> No. All right. All right. Then we will go into 8.02 board policy review 400 series second reading. >> Did you guys have any additional comments or concerns about it? Nothing changed from last time when we talked. >> No. >> Okay. 8.03 Titan Hill Exterior Envelope Project Award. >> So, we did get five bids for this. Uh Seven Construction was the one that uh was being recommended. Um they came in at the lowest price. Uh but they're a good company. Um they had everything checked off the boxes. So, it's about $9,000 over budget. So, it' only be the second item that

096we've had come in out out of 20 items that has been over budget. So, it's not bad. You guys have any questions? No. >> Okay. Then we'll move on to 8.04, middle school CMR contractor approval. So we interviewed um and I actually I sent you a email with a letter of engagement. So the process was quite I mean quite a lot. We started with 11 uh different companies that had reached out to inquire about the project. We went down to six um group of the three board members here and and uh former board member uh shuffle and then um administrative team went we went down to six asked them to submit proposals. From there we went to three and then we interviewed three last week and settled on Miko Henny as the uh um as

097the CMR selected CMR. So I guess has anything changed from you guys in that process and since then? >> I know that we had some questions about the team that we were going to get because there was some confusion on there. Have we gotten clarification on that? They did clarify and they said that he the person the team that was there will be the team we work with. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Good. >> If [clears throat] it wasn't I probably would have had a conversation with you prior before. So dropping the bomb. >> Once again I just want to thank the the facilities committee and uh everyone that was a part of helping narrow down that decision. You found some very good candidates for us. So thank you. Yeah, it was not a easy

098decision at all. >> No, >> I'm excited. >> I am too. >> Yeah, >> I I mean overall I think it boiled down to they them doing their homework and uh showing the enthusiasm and stuff to do our project and >> I think they'll fit right in with our scope. Just so just so you guys are clear, we're just approving them as a [snorts] CMR. I'll sign the letter of engagement with them. It's not it's just a saying, "Yep, we want we want you to get started ASAP." So that way they have some, you know, they know it's not just me saying, "Go for it." The board says, "Yep." And then uh uh I will bring back in January when they actually have the contract developed. So you guys can uh review and approve the

099actual contract. [snorts] But the terms in the contract will be the same that they provided us in their in their proposal. So Okay. Any other questions? Okay, then we'll move to 8.05 resolution approving the acceptance of a gift of personal property. So, if you will go to that other presentation I sent you, Dr. Hartman. Um, Yep. So, just kind of go so just kind of quick process for people that are out there. So, every time we have like a concern in the district, you know, I kind of go on a on a on a problem solving hunt to [snorts] try to figure out is this something that's easily solvable. So, we have had um kind of several several issues that have been going on for a while. One of which is our current rock locker

100room space, our current athletic building is just decrepit. It's just really bad. Um it smells, it's it's, you know, it's it's just not sanitary. It's it's not very good. So, um, and if you don't believe me, you can come right on down and I'll walk you through it. So, one of the things we did when we when we ran for the bond was we put money in the bond in order to a million dollars in the bond in order to renovate the current athletic space. So, that was to uh replace our kids to be able to use. Um, another issues that we had is our visiting teams are using the middle school locker rooms, which has been done for forever. Uh, one of the downsides of that is we're about to put a large sum

101of money, taxpayer money into the middle school for renovation, which includes a locker room. And so when these teams come in, they aren't the nicest to our facilities. They they kind of beat them up a little bit. And so the downside of that is if they come in, like let's say there's there's a chance that our kids then have to come to school with blood smeared on the wall and those types of things. And it's not just not a great situation. The other thing that's not good is they change in our large gym because our locker room space in the middle school is not big enough. So they actually change in large in the large gym. So we have [cough] on the weekends we'll have, you know, men, college men changing in the large gym.

102And at the same time, I can't control that. And so one of the things I've always want to do is just get those teams out of the middle school. I want to get them out and get them into a space. That's hard cuz our current locker room setup, our current setup in the uh athletic building is not big enough to accommodate um additional an additional team. Another issue that we've had is we currently have a two mat been the fastest growing sport I think in the nation and especially here in Iowa and we are probably the largest single girls wrestling team in the state of Iowa. And I say that because we have about 40 girls up for wrestling. Almost most other large programs have multiple schools like the Raccoon River for instance that the

103that the number one team is we're just one school little less but we are the largest single school and so again great but we just don't have enough room to wrestle you get 50 boys and 40 girls and I mean 80 put 80 up there but 80 is a little light. Um, a new wrestling room is about four mats, but again, when I looked into it, clear back last spring, you know, it was going to be about $2 million to add onto our And then the other thing that we've always thought is, you know, our weight room's too small. Well, we did have we do we did a ton with replacing the weight equipment, so we have better lines of sight. We have better equipment in there. It's it's actually made for the space, which

104helped out a ton, but it's still small. So, still on the small side. So, one of the things I always do is I try to think, you know, how can I solve this? How can I solve this? And and really an idea came up this summer to solve some problems. You'd put an addition onto the athletic building. And and I he goes, "It's it's a metal building. So you put an metal building onto a mill building. It's like it's going to be it's going to be way less cost." And he goes, "You're going to solve more problems than you are, you know, just trying to put an addition onto the high school." And I said, "So we kind of talked through it and it really started here and then there was a little addition here,

105a little addition here, maybe another little addition here because we're trying to solve all these issues, right? and by providing wrestling space, by expanding the locker rooms, by getting, you know, so we can get the visiting team out there. Um, and then potentially having something that also adds to like the rest of our athletic or rest of our activities, right? We want something that's forever. So, everybody knows out there, the bond money cannot be used on an addition. It can only be used on the renovation. So, we knew we had the money for a renovation. We did not have the money for the for the addition. And so, that was going to have to come from somewhere else. And so um after a few conversations I I ended up having a conversation with Dr. John

106Marshall and if you go to the next one um and we talked about you know what a maximum solution could of seven mats to be able to use from the two that we have now or one and 3/4 we could use we can move both the visiting and the home teams out there. We could expand the weight room into the area that the current wrestling room is in. And then it also expands benefits for all of our activities instead of just wrestling. And then also for middle school PE. Um the the facility could be used by um all activities from, you know, March 1st until November over until the end of wrestling season, but everybody else could have access to it in the meantime. It would. And so in talking with coaches and everybody else,

107it was like, yes, this is a major win for the district. and talking with John Marshall. Um John Marshall has been a a terrific supporter of Iowa Western for many years. Um financial and just personal supporter of of of Iowa Western. All of his kids came here. We we do share the complex with Iowa West uh as as per our agreement. And then uh so when having a conversation about this, I knew that I could not hold Iowa Western to that 20%. But I but I knew that they would be willing to give something. You know, I knew that that Doc Marshall is was interested in donating something and I knew that we had to get the majority of this paid for. We do have some money set aside uh for from for instance the

108sale of the um of the old operation or the old operations building, the sale of the land. Like we have some cash set aside that we could do something. We just couldn't do anything to the extent that would really have a meaningful impact unless we got some additional uh money coming in. And so if you go to the next one, so $4 million just for the addition piece because we end up going with one large addition versus, you know, several small additions. So they and you can see there, that's just an example of of other things they've given to, you know, they that's the wellness center at at Iowa Western. Um, and I asked him tonight, he couldn't be here tonight because Iowa Western's actually playing in their championship game tonight and he's down there

109with them. So uh, but he's excited to be able to support. His kids came here, his grandkids currently come here. um he he's excited to be a part of it. Um but yeah, they've they've generously have agreed to donate $700,000, 50% of the overall project. Iowa Western will be somewhere in that $200,000 uh ballpark. Um and then we would have to come up about between $4 and $500,000 is what what we'd have to come up with, which is coincidentally, and I think this could be something that would be long-term a huge asset. Um, I do know that we are under budget in our other areas, which doesn't mean that we're going to use that money for this addition. What it does mean is we're going to be able to that $500,000 that we would otherwise

110use on, you know, future HBAC or that kind of stuff. We're going to have enough money left over in the bond through SA savings to be able to take care of those things. So, it's not like we're going to the overall amount paid for is is fantastic. So, um, the board according to your policy, you guys do have to accept it as as a donation. Um, and so I would I would make the recommendation that you guys strongly consider. If you go to the next one, I showed this last a general outline of what it could be. I just met with them today. We might rearrange some different things like the coach's office or the the meeting room and that kind of stuff. Um, but overall, this is kind of what it looks like. An

111expansion of the locker rooms to the left. And then you can see how the mats lay out, how the So really is a positive space. Um it's exciting. So >> it's very exciting. >> Yeah, >> desperately needed >> and again absolutely could not happen without the generosity and and >> I will say that we used the building this fall for to create signs for football. And I was a little concerned about having my little ones in there roaming around because it is a little dated and needs some love um to say the least. So I'm very happy >> you're being very kind about the current athletic [laughter] building. >> It's very dilapitated today. >> Yeah. Um I think once you know once it gets started I think most athletes will get uh use out of

112it [clears throat] and then I would be a believer that there will be even more activities that uh actually take place there >> once they kind they people kind of figure out what it's all about. Now, you may have mentioned this, but what would we utilize the space in the high school for then? Would we keep it? >> No. So, the so the current wrestling space in the high school, we would look to we'd have to put a header in, uh, but we would look to, uh, open that up and turn it into like a sports performance, uh, center, which for me means injury prevention. Like so right now um we have all that weight room in there but but a lot of a lot of our coach Camera to help lead that you know

113some different um activities as far as um based on the sport that students are in coming up with unique plans for them. Well, every sport's so different and every need's so different. every athlete so different that that some of them might need more um calisthenic or or stretching or that kind of work which there's not there's not a lot of space in the in the weight room to do that. So that's this would turn into uh you know it could they could be do sled work and um different different types of of um workouts that we can do. So it it would not be an extension of like a straight extension of the of the weight room. Coach Cameron already does a ton of this where he'll start a session um doing a lot of

114your your warm-ups, your calisthenics, that kind of thing, but he's fighting for gym space to do it. He would be able to do that in this space right here. Or like for instance, when they're um doing, you know, shuttle runs and that kind of stuff for he has to bring all of all 50 of his kids out in the gym, they all just stand around while somebody do a shuttle run because he can't watch somebody do a shuttle run and watch them lift at the same time. So, if we can open it up and they can be doing shuttle runs and he still has a view of the of the weights of the weight room, then we can he can monitor both at the same time. So, it just it'll be a game changer when

115it comes to that. Um, and that's the thing, too, is we focus a ton. I know Coach Cameron's always done this, but you know, on on uh, you know, injury prevention and making sure that we're, you know, doing things the right way so kids don't get hurt and they're, you know, still developing. So, >> outstanding. Well, I want to thank them personally, too. I think it's a very generous donation from the Marshalls and Iowa Western. So, like I know the kids and the coaches, everyone's going to be excited about it. >> A lot of us have been in that in there and it is something else. So, >> that that athletic building has served Lewis Central a long time. I remember wrestling in there and it looked about the same in 1988. >> I'm sure.

116>> Um >> we've been trying to renovate it for 25 years now. >> Yeah. But just >> 35 35 years. >> But just being able to revitalize that building and offer something additional for our community, that's a really big win for Lewis Central. So, thank you. >> Yes. >> All right. Anything else? >> Nope. >> All right. 8.06 Athletic Building Professional Services Agreement. >> So, now we go right into spending money on this. So, this is actually this agreement was already drawn up. This is for the um originally it was for just for the renovation. Um you know, there's quite a lot of design that goes into renovating an old building like that. And then as far as the the addition piece, it's essentially just it's just putting together the specs for a pre-engineered building.

117So that part's not as big as the renovation part, but it is just kind of one service agreement. I wouldn't have BCDM work on one part of it and get another design firm from another part. So I just asked him I said just you know give me the overall number for what it would be to kind of design the whole project. So so this is what it is. >> Is that fee higher? >> It's six 6.5% of the of the usually they were charging 7.5% but they took some of it off because the pre-engineered building doesn't take as much work. So So it' be 7.5% is what they typically charge for like the middle school renovation. And that's what they would have charged for the uh um for like just the renovation of the athletic

118building in general, but they took a percentage point off because the pre-engineered building doesn't take as much to do. So it's 6.5% of the overall project. >> Is that what it's at for the high school? Also, >> high school was 7.5%. Any other questions? >> Now remember this is 6.5% of the total project. So you had you know a million million two in the renovation and then you have a million four in the new building. So it's whereas the high school it would have been 7.5% of just the million two of just the high school. So that's why that fee was smaller than what you see here. This is probably double what that fee was >> because I was thinking double the building. Yeah, because the high school is what a million million two or

119million three for that. It's 7.5%. This is the million2 plus the million4. So this is 2.6. So >> combined. Yep. >> Does it include the injury prevention? Are we or is that a separate? >> No, that's that's we actually won't have we'll have a a small architects. All we have to do is get a header in there. So, we won't spend the design fee to be able to I mean, it's it's taking out the old mats, putting a header in, and putting turf down, and then we're good. >> Okay, we'll move on to the second portion of our meeting where we open the floor to the public for comments and suggestions. Do we have any online? >> We have to wait a few minutes. >> Okay, we'll give it a minute here. We can save

120on heat and lower the temperature in this room. >> Okay. It's from the projector. >> Uh two weeks ago it was freezing. >> Oh, I would take any >> We have some internet problems. So there's like a couple minute delay on the street. >> Oh, okay. Okay. >> 2026 27 district school calendar. >> Mr. President, >> yes. I'd like to make the motion to approve the calendar as presented for the 202627 school year. >> Second. >> Any further discussion? Vote, please. >> Mrs. Peterson, >> yes. >> Mrs. Sandow, >> yes. >> Mr. Sorenson, >> yes. >> Mr. 400 series, second reading. >> Mr. President like to make the motion to approve the second reading and corresponding updates to the board policy 400 series. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bach. >> Yes.

121>> Mrs. Peterson. >> Yes. >> Mr. Wright. >> Yes. >> 10.03 Titan Hill Exterior Envelope Project Award. >> Mr. President. >> Yes. like to make the motion to award the middle school renovation CMR contract to Miko Henny. That's my fault. >> The seven. >> There we go. Yep. >> Let me let me update that. >> I would like to m Mr. President make a motion to award the summer 2026 Titan Hill exterior envelope project to seven construction for $559,500. >> Second. >> Yes. >> Miss Atkins. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bach. >> Yes. >> Mrs. M Peterson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Sando. >> Yes. Mr. Wright. >> Yes. 10.04. Middle school CMR contractor approval. >> Let's try this again. >> Yes. >> Uh Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to award the middle school

122renovation CMR contract to Miko Henny. >> Second. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Peterson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Sando? >> Yes. Mr. Sornson? >> Yes. >> Mr. Wright? >> Yes. 10.05. Resolution approving the acceptance of a gift of personal property. >> Mr. President, >> yes. >> Like to make the motion to adopt the resolution approving the acceptance of a gift of personal property from Dr. John and Gene Marshall of stock in the amount of $700,000 to be used to construct a fieldhouse as an addition to the athletic building. >> Second. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Peterson. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Sandow. >> Yes, >> Mr. Sorenson. >> Yes, >> Mr. Storm. >> Yes, >> Mr. Wright. Yes. And thank you again. >> Thank you. >> 10.06 Athletic Building Professional Services Agreement, >> Mr. President. >> Yes. >> Like

123to make the motion to approve the professional services agreement with BCDBM for $171,25 for the design of the renovation and fieldhouse addition to the athletic building. >> Second. >> Any further discussion? Vote, please. >> Mr. Bach. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Peterson. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Sando. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sorenson. >> Yes. >> Mr. One on January 5th. >> Um we will be discussing we're getting close to the timeline that we need to start looking at um our next um uh bonding process. So for those of you that are new, you know, we the community awarded us $30 million in capacity to bond. We issued $20 million of bonding last year. We still have to issue the other $10 million this year. And so we have to start that process which takes several board meetings

124to do so. So and then once you have the money you have three years to spend it. So >> all right no other business on the agenda. Do we have emot?