001Time is 6:30 p.m. I call this public hearing of the Fairfield Community School Board of Directors to order. Roll call, please. >> Yep. Christy Kessle >> here. >> Dave East, >> here. >> Mark Porter, >> absent. >> Mark Thornton, >> here. >> Madal Robbins >> here. >> Terry Wells here. >> Cody Freeman >> here. Mark Porter >> here president. >> All right. Um this is the public hearing on the proposed fiscal year 2027 property tax levy. Um and um anyone wishing to speak may come forward, state your name and address the board. Comments are limited to 3 to five minutes. And we have a request, one request. Um Joe Ledger, would you like to come forward and speak? >> Am I the only one going to speak >> on this one? Thank Oh, okay. Okay.
002>> We had our tax Good morning or Good evening, everybody. I'll get with it eventually. We had our tax hearing this morning for the county and we was able to lower our levies a little bit and I got to looking at yours and I was quite shocked to see how much you're wanting to raise your levies and uh you're looking at me like, "Oh." So, uh, I just wanted to let you know that I was quite shocked about it and I'm sure it's already set in stone what you're going to do and stuff, but I just felt like I needed to say something because these people in this town are struggling the way it is and then for something like this to come about. And when they go in to pay their taxes at the
003courthouse, they pay them at the treasur's office and they come right around to the supervisor's office and they on to us about it. So, we're going to start sending them to the school down to the ACT building to talk to you guys about it. So, I just wanted you to know we're going to pass the buck on. So, I'm just I'm short. So, thank you. All right. Um, no additional comments. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. The hearing is adjourned. Uh, call >> 6:31 p.m. >> Uh, 6:32 p.m. 6:31 p.m. All right, moving along. Uh, I call to order public hearing of the Fairfield Community School Board of Directors. Roll call, please. >> Chrissy Kessle >> here. >> Dave Spurn >>
004here. >> Mark Porter >> here. >> Mark Thornton >> here. And Robins >> here. >> Terry Wells, >> here. >> Cody Freeman >> here. >> Right. This public hearing is on the proposed fiscal year 28 school calendar. >> Yeah. So that'd be the 2728. >> 2728. >> Yep. >> Do we have any comments? >> I receive none of anyone from the crowd. >> Okay. Seeing none. I uh may I have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Moved by Terry, seconded by Mark Thornton. All those in favor? >> I opposed. The hearing's adjourned. All right. I call this public hearing to order. Roll call, please. >> Christy Kessle, >> here. >> Dave Eastman, >> here. >> Mark Porter, >> here. >> Mark Thorin, >> here. And Robbins, >> here. >> Terry Wells, >>
005here. >> Cody F here. >> All right. This is the public hearing on the proposed issuance of approximately 23,500,000 in school infrastructure, sales, services, and use tax revenue bonds. Do we have any public comments on >> I receive none. >> All right. Seeing none, close the public hearing. May I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. Second. >> Moved by Dave, seconded by Cody Freeman. All those in favor? >> I opposed. And the hearing is adjourned at 6:34 p.m. All right. Need a second. >> Transition to the next agenda. Go for it. >> All right. I call to order our regular board meeting. The time is 6:35 p.m. The regular monthly meeting of the board of directors of the Fairfield Community School District is to be held at 6:30 p.m. on the third Monday
006of each month. The meeting is open to the public and the public is encouraged to attend. Time is provided in the meeting for public input. The mission of the Fairfield Community School Board of Directors is we empower all students to achieve their highest potential through strong relationships, collaboration, and accountability. The vision of the Fairfield Community School Board of Directors is a destination district where we all belong, learn, and grow. Roll. Roll call, please. >> Christy Kessle >> here. >> Dave Easturn, >> here. >> Mark Porter >> here. >> Mark Thornton here. >> Megan Robbins >> here. >> Terry Wells, >> here. Free >> here. All present. >> Great. Do we have any perfections to the agenda? >> I have none. >> None. >> Seeing none. Do I hear a motion to approve the agenda as
007presented? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Terry, seconded by Mark Thornton. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. And we'll move along into our focus on learning. Uh this evening we have John Grumwald here to give us a safety and security update. John. >> Yeah. Yeah, and this would connect directly to um district priority number two, belonging. >> Physical safety is just as important as emotional and all the other things. So, >> I agree. Um I think some of you probably have my outline that I was going to kind of run through tonight. Um, I just really want to catch you up on where we've been for the last year. Some of the things that we've done to help improve our safety and security for our students and our staff, make it
008feel safer for all of them, which goes right into the belonging, too. So, some of you may remember previous years we had a tech committee that we would meet here on Monday nights and it would bring people in from the community and things. It got to the point by the end of the year that we had done that that like two people would show up. It wasn't doing much good. So last year I changed that focus and I said, "Hey, let's do security committees in each of the buildings. That way if staff have concerns, they have somebody they can talk to right away. I try and go and meet with each of the buildings. When they have their security meetings, I get them any sort of resources they're looking for. I help them answer questions.
009I help them set up drills and things like that. It's really worked out well. We've got some new staff turnover, so some things are a little bit slower than maybe before in some aspects, but it's really worked out well. And uh Janice is on the team at the middle school, and I'm guessing you think it's fairly gone kind of nice. And it's nice to have that local person in that building that can hear things every day on a dayto-day and not have to wait to hear from me or catch me at a different time. So, I think that has gone really well. This year we've had uh two buildings complete lockdown drills and a couple years ago this was a really big fear for the board for the admin everything. But we have done uh
010lockdown drills last year. We are required to do one of some type every year in each building. Um this year at the middle school we did one. Uh last year I do believe when we had law enforcement come we locked everybody down. Law enforcement went around and cleared each individual room and it took us about a half hour to get through the building. This year when we did it, we had it all cleared in about 10 minutes. So, we are more proficient at it. The law enforcement that comes in and we get the sheriff's office, we get local PD, we get people from the uh conservation from the uh parks and things. They come in, we get the dispatchers coming in sometimes. So, they all see a part of this. when we get into one
011of our next ones, I want to invite some other people from our safety preparedness uh county group so that they can see it too. So, public health and people like that if anything, just to see what we go through. And having done that, uh one other one I wanted to point out here, Pence, they did two of them about a week apart. The first one was just a bring law enforcement in to clear the room, say, "Hey, you did good." The second one, we took it a step further and actually evacuated the building. And we had every student and staff member out of the building also in like 10 minutes waiting on the south part of the playground in an organized line. They took attendance and things like that. So it has really gone well.
012And the best part going back to the idea that I mean this was really scary before. I walk the halls I hear no sounds. I see nobody. And that means I don't hear people freaking out or crying or anything either. The the students are really taking this in stride. We've got some things that make a little fun but also have another purpose like you know when they go into lock down the elementaryaries they usually get a sucker because one it's kind of nice two it keeps them from talking. So there's a dual purpose there. So I've had a lot of good things come out of that and I think people are more comfortable with it now than they have before and that's really good. So we still have two buildings to get that done in
013this year yet but we are working on that. Um, some of the the building level committees, I had a note here, they help with some of the things locally in the building. Maybe somebody has an idea at Pence. They said, "Hey, when we have kids outside, because we don't have speakers outside and we go on a secure, how do they know we're on a secure and they need to get in?" And they decided, "Let's have a flag at each door with the secure symbol on it." Then if we go into secure, somebody goes, grabs that flag, goes out and starts waving it. It's a big flag. So everybody on the the playground can see that, hey, we've got something going on and we need to get inside. That's a simple little thing, but that came
014from their staff. And that was really nice. Uh something I have worked on. It was kind of a dream last year. I made it happen this year. Doesn't look like much, but that is these boxes. We have one for each building. Middle school, high school, Pence, Washington. These are all kept in the safe here because I got thinking, okay, we have a lockdown at the middle school. Law enforcement shows up, other people show up and they're like, "Do you have the keys?" Yeah, we've got 10 master keys in the office. And that doesn't do us any good. So, we put together one of these to- go boxes. So, they're located here. So, they're not inside the building. Each of them have the same things. We have two badges. If the door locks, the the electric
015ones are working. They also have a master key for the door, outside door, and one for the inside door. And then we have several others that are just the inside door so we can pass those out to law enforcement and things in the groups in the parking lot or wherever and don't have to worry about getting access to them. So, that's something that is handed right there ready to go. We've got pens and markers. We've got emergency numbers. So, if they need to call the sheriff's office, if they need to call the hospital, if they need to call Zach, all those numbers are on here. We've got two copies in the box, so it's right at their fingertips. Copy of our latest emergency plan. This one happens to be 80 pages long. These were just
016redone this year. They are supposed to be reviewed every year. Uh, a couple years ago, we discovered they hadn't been reviewed since 2018. So, we started that work again, lost turnover. This year, I had help from Bethany LaRose and we went through and updated all the names, phone numbers, who's in charge of what, you know, if if Angela Jones isn't there, who's supposed to take her place, who do we contact, what is their phone number, what's the custodian's phone number, you know, things like that. We still have some work to do on this as far as some of the plans in the back, but the first part is all updated and there are still some names in there of people who were uh previously with law enforcement, things like that. That is historical data that
017talks about where this all came from, but in the key places that new stuff is updated. And this also includes, I'll just show you this, the maps of the building. So, they're all right there. And the procedures that our teachers should be following, our staff should be following. We also have in here multiple copies of maps by floor. We have two versions, one that are pretty plain and one that also shows where security cameras are, where fire alarms are, and things like that. This is all taken directly off an online website that the police have access to and dispatch have access to. So, they are probably familiar with what these look like. Everything is named and labeled. All the entrances are labeled and everything, too. So that is right in here. Multiple copies. And then
018we also just have some plain Jane ones that aren't fancy at all, but we have multiple copies of maps. So they can use those if they need them. Well, when they need them, cuz they probably will. Um, we also have a form for afteraction review. So if something does happen, we have a form right here. So somebody can start filling out how what went well, what didn't go well, what we need to improve improve on. And we also can keep track then of what drills we do and things like that also. So this is all in these packs again, one for each building. If the stuff hits the fan, somebody grabs it from the the safe here and can report with all that equipment that will be needed to be successful in mitigating the situation.
019So again, it is a small package. It may not seem like much, but to me, this is huge. Um, sorry for all the noise. Uh, new staff training at onboarding and panic pendants offered to new employees. So, we did training with everybody two years ago. We did training this year, but we also get people that start in the middle of the year that don't know what our quick alert system is. I mean, maybe some of you are not sure what that is. They don't know about the panic pendants like this. We have now made a change downstairs with the tech department that anytime we onboard a new person, not only they get their email address, they get their laptop. We do some training, initial basic training about a quick tablet. We've got one down there.
020And we explain the pendant to them, offer that to them, too, because we offer this to any staff member, whether they be a custodian or the superintendent, a teacher or a bus driver. It's totally optional. It does not cost them anything, but they can pair that to their phone and if they're in trouble, they can click this and get help. It'll notify me. It'll notify Zach. It'll notify some of the admin. And it does, especially when we are out of hours, notify dispatch so somebody can get you help. And again, this is not something that has to be on our network. So if you are at Walmart, if you are in a TAMA, or if you're in Florida on a Disney trip and you hit it, somebody here will get that message and be able
021to get you help in some way, shape, or form. We have some people that choose not to do this, and that's okay. It is not mandatory. It's just a tool that they can use. I mean, we can offer you a pen, but if you don't want to use a pen, you want to use pencil, that's fine, but you have the option. So, that's something we're doing downstairs to help get them a little more comfortable as they go into the classroom for the first time and know how to use our technology. Um, reu reunification training and ICS. ICS is incident command. Uh, you hear that a lot of times with the fire and law enforcement, but it can be used in the schools also. Basically, that sets a hierarchy. Here is the big head honcho who's
022in charge of the whole incident. These people answer to them. these people answer to them and that information flows down. Everybody has their duties and it's all taken care of and mitigated that way. So, our admin are scheduled to do some ICS training. It's online, but right now we're in the middle of a partial government shutdown. So, they can't get to the training about a week or so after I said, "Hey, everybody do this." They couldn't get to it. So, they're waiting for that to get to that training. But also on April 3rd, we're going to go through some of that training with all of our staff at the uh early out. We're going to meet in the auditorium at the high school, go through some IC training as well as uh the I love
023you guys reunification training. That's going to be moreformational. Sit and get this is what it's about. Here's the procedures and things like that. Then the next week on the 10th, we're going to get together again and we are physically going to go through the reunification process. So they will see it. They'll have some hands-on stuff. They will have gone through it and maybe be a little more comfortable with that. Um, this summer before school started, my wife and I went to one of these trainings put on by I love you guys. John Michael Keys is the person who uh founded the I Love You guys Foundation. He and his wife when they lost a daughter in a school shooting. He is the one who put that training on that day. Um, I emailed him last
024week and I should be having a Zoom with him tomorrow about this to help make sure we've got everything in the right place. So, he's been very helpful, very willing to help. Um, Bethany LaRose has been working with me on this. This is another thing. It may not look like much, but to me it is huge. This foot locker here, brand new. This is our reunification kit. So, this is something that when we do our training, we will have at the ACT or I mean at the auditorium, but it'll also be kept here when we're not training for anytime we have an incident. If something happens at tense, then we take the red box and this will go to our unification place. Now, I'll warn you when I open this up, it's not real organized
025because I've just started the organization this week. But for our training and in case we have to reunify, there are several things in here. This for training purposes has a master list of dummy students, just made up ones, and their parents. So that some of our teachers when we run through this will be students, other teachers will be parents. We also have ID cards for parents and students. We have reunification cards. These are the cards that will be filled out if we have to go to a reunification site. The parents fill out the top part. The staff members fills out the bottom. They split that. They go different places and walk them through. Again, it's practice for everybody to know how it works. This includes things like clipboards, wristbands colorcoded for what their purposes are,
026lanyards, pens, pencils, and there will be binders for lots of people that have different jobs. It may be the accountant. It may be the person who's in charge of reunifying. It may be a law enforcement person. They will all have their duties in a binder so they can just grab that binder and go. And again, that will be there for our training and then it will stay in here in case we ever have an actual event. There will be signs in here telling people where to park, where to go, where the reunification site is. We've talked about how we will set up our reunification site because you will want to have the students in one area and the parents in another. they will need to be separated and not have line of sight because if
027all of a sudden I see Johnny's right there, I'm going to want to go. And it's not that we don't want to have you reunite, but we need to know who is there, who is not. And that's what all a part of that is. And and keeping that distance and having it very organized, having things for them to do. I mean, it's very simple like that uh reunification card. If I show up to be reunited with my son or daughter and I'm just standing in a line, I'm going to get irritated. But if I have something as simple as a reunification card that I can start filling out, I'm doing something and it's making progress. So, there are little things like that that are involved. So, we're going to go through that and uh that's
028what we're going to that's how we're going to train. We're going to do the information on the 3rd and then on the 10th we're physically going to go through there. I've invited and I will do it again like law enforcement to come be a part of that because they will be a big part of this also. We haveus with the places that we will take students to in case of emergencies also and we're updating that as well as like the hospital has someus with us in case they have a problem and and use of our buildings and transportation. So that's all part of that. Um, Matt Tyler and Bethany LaRose have been helping me and they also go with me every month. We go to the county emergency preparedness meeting at the hospital. Joe is
029usually there too. Sees me on Thursday mornings. Um, we are not an emergency type of situation, but we are a big player in town and they use our facilities. we may use some of theirs and they love to hear what we are doing and we have worked a lot with law enforcement and the emergency management system and things and sharing that information and bouncing stuff off of each other is great. They have a tabletop coming up that uh we may have some people attend. We've done that before and it may not be directly related to our school but it could be a situation that could happen with our students and it's just nice to sit and have a tabletop talk through things. It's not an I got you, but you can sit and say, "Oh,
030we didn't think about this." And then we come back and say, "How can we make this better?" So, that's something coming up. Also, um just another note, the uh Fairfield journey for our safety and security has been shared multiple ways with schools across the nation. and I have been emailed uh we've been invited or I've been invited to speak at conferences about what we have done and people look to us. I think that's very good PR. I just got an email last week uh that also got sent to a school in Louisiana that says, "Hey, these people are new to the Quickler system. Here's John if you have any questions." And so we have a lot of people that come and look to our district. The Quickler uh system has a special page on their
031website just for Fairfield story. So, not only are we doing what I feel is the right thing, but we are setting the example for people around us. So, I think that is is really great for our district. Um, one thing that I didn't add on there, but I've got now, last year we applied for the COPS grant, which is a school safety grant. If you are awarded that, you can get up to $500,000 for your safety uh projects. We didn't get it last year, but we are trying again this year. The nice thing is we have a a guy who has worked on these grants a lot before. Last year we said, "Hey, let's have him help write this." If we don't get the grant, we don't pay anything. And if we do get the
032grant, his fees are written right into the grant. So there's there's really no bad situation there. It's just a part of that grant. So Evan and I are working with him again to update budgets. We're getting information about the city, about our school district, problems we have. One thing we may have done last year that may not have worked in our favor, nobody knows for sure because you don't get critiques. But it seems sometimes schools are too prepared. And those that might be smaller and don't have the money and don't have as many things in place as we do might get a little bit more of a nod than we do. So, we're reworking some of the stuff we're doing with this grant and we'll learn from where we were and how we move forward.
033So, I look forward to finishing that with him. And I think that's about everything I had on my list. It's a lot of verbal dump for you, but you have any questions? It was a lot at one time. Understand. All right. If you have any questions later, feel free to contact me and ask me. I want to make sure you are comfortable with everything we're doing also. >> Thanks, Joe. >> Thank you. >> I shared that video with the board too that he was referencing that quick put together. So, you can check take a look at some point if you want to. >> All right, let's move along to our committee reports. Each committee chair will share a two to three minute update connected to their work. We'll start with policy Mark. >> Sure. Policy
034committee met Friday, March 6th at 8 a.m. and we started reviewing. We kind of switched routes. Um I think I talked a little bit about this in the last meeting, but we did try and attempt all of the 400 series policies to go through all of them in a new way of trying to get through all of our policies in a timely manner. And so then we also had a follow-up on Wednesday, March 11th at 1 p.m. to finish it. And before you today will be a bunch of 400 policies that we're adopting, ISBs and a few that are have some of our changes added to them and several that we are deleting as well. The ones we are deleting were either stuff that's already covered in the handbook, so we didn't want to overwrite
035that. So, we kind of deleted some of those or just policies that weren't required to have and didn't see any benefit of having them um from our site. So, um, we do have a couple that we were asking questions on if they were required or not. So, those will see if we can get rid of them as well. Um, other than that, the next one we're going to go through is the 100s for next month. So, just want to call out Evan, thanks for getting it all ready and prepared for us. and then uh Zach, Dave, and Terry for battling through, reading a bunch of policies, going over them, making sure we didn't miss anything, and spending several hours getting it ready for tonight's meeting. So, >> cool. Thanks. Strategic planning, Christie. Uh yeah, so
036we talked about um our timeline for save bond um and the fact that the bond rating um scoring will affect the type of interest rate that we get um public meeting for bond sale uh Tuesday, April 7th, 1:30 p.m. >> Correct? >> Yeah. So add that to your calendars because that'll be something the board needs to meet on. Um we can do it virtually, too. But >> say that again, please. I missed >> uh Tuesday, April 7th at 1:30 p.m. >> It's the earliest that we can >> do a special meeting to approve the bids. So the >> Okay. >> Um so the first payment will be December of 2026. Um that will be an interestonly payment and then the first principal payment will be June 1st of 2027. Um we have a core team
037meeting every other week now. Um planning and discussing um one of the things we discussed is we need to decide as a board um if we want to move forward with another bond vote in November. Um, one of the other things we talked about is discussing with the education foundation um partnering with them to do some fundraising for uh the competition gym project and um how that would flow through. Um we talked about possible grants available and working with Pathfinders. Um they will help us do some grant writing for $50 an hour. Um they one specifically that we uh talked about is the Riverside Casino. Um as you guys may be aware that was kind of a thing that came up with um Adrian Dicki proposing that you know all of their money is going
038to Washington County currently and they just gave a huge uh bond to or grant to Washington County schools for like $3.5 million to help with the project that they're doing. And so, um, that's, I think, definitely something that would be worth us taking the time to consider doing. Um, and Zach also mentioned that the envelope study, uh, leak testing would be happening over spring break. >> Yeah, it got changed to this week. >> Oh, this week. Okay. >> Yep. >> Um, >> because it was so cold those first couple days of spring break, they didn't want to risk anything, I guess. >> Yeah, makes sense. The weather's been a little all over the place. Um, we talked about Indian Hills Academy. Um, Zach's planning on meeting with them to discuss um some different options for
039certain uh like specialtymies that we might be able to offer in our area like especially like an a academy. Um, apparently there was some discussion with Wheaten Companies about uh they have a a building that's not being used that we may be able to utilize for something like that for fall 2627. Um, so Zach was going to reach out and discuss that possibility with them. Um, there is a current academy in Albia. Is that a is that a too, Zach? >> That's the closest egg. So we felt like that could be a good opportunity to pull in from some of the neighboring um districts. Obviously we have a a strong a community in this area and you know possibly reach out to the peak and Cardinal Mount Pleasant um all those areas especially with Mount
040Pleasant. That'd be a really convenient location for them. Um, other things we discussed was potentially an auto academy, um, a building academy. Um, if anybody has any other specialty areas that they would, uh, you know, like to see pursued, let us know that. Uh we also discussed um some potential uh interventions for math um and doing some research into AI tools that might be used to kind of help facilitate some of that. We don't really currently have anything in place the way that we do for the early intervention for reading um and coming up with some personalized uh learning programs um for students. Uh we also discussed uh a little bit about coaches contracts um and how those were being issued. Um some of them were being issued on Friday for previous sports and some
041of them will be issued uh following completion of sports. So that is all the updates I have. Am I missing anything? >> No, it's all good. >> That's it. Thanks. >> Uh, finance Dave. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, we met on uh March 4th, 8:00 a.m. Uh, we reviewed the budget guarantee uh program from the state and the upcoming budget guarantee resolution that we always have to pass each year. So we uh Evan gave us a background on those issues and and why we need the budget guarantee resolution. Uh we tal we discussed special education funding. Um the budget me uh amendment resolution um because of the de variances in the deficit we uh it is positive but we'll have to amend the uh as we always do uh in May I think is when
042we'll be doing that. So we amending our budget. Uh we talked about the uh SSA funding from the state and the master teacher contract. We discussed some accounting for the upcoming bond issue and uh then we also attended uh on March 5th the S&P global bond rating uh meeting to get our credit rating and reviewed uh reviewed the uh financial position of the school district. And I believe on March 11th, we got notified that we got a double A plus rating. >> single A+ single A+ rating, which is very good. >> Yeah, it's um a very small number of districts in the state of Iowa >> get that type of a rating. >> We're in a very elite class for our credit rating and our financial health. Um so that's what we covered in the
043finance comm. >> Thanks. operations. Martin. >> Yep. We met on March 9th at noon and had a pretty short meeting. Just basically went over uh the contracts and new agreements with FE and Carly Nelson. Um also went over the professional services agreement with with both. Um and I believe both those are coming up for a vote tonight. Um, the big thing with that is is first and foremost, it'll allow Carly Nelson to start, you know, acting on behalf of the district and acting as a manager for the district. And then also allow them to start getting paid. As many of you probably know, Chris Smith has been coming to our meetings for as long as I've been on the board now for about six years now. And he's been doing a lot of that, you
044know, for not a ton of pay. So, it is going to allow him to actually start getting paid for some of the work that he's doing for the district. Um, and then, uh, we also just talked a lot about the phase one approach, uh, for the upcoming, you know, addition at the middle school as I missed that one meeting. So, we, uh, kind of, everyone in the committee kind of helped clarify a lot of that for me. So, pretty short meeting. That was basically all it was. So, yep. >> Great. Thanks. HR negotiations, Cody. >> All right. So, we met on, excuse me, we met on March 5th at 4 p.m. Uh, we discussed current known vacancies, which Zach will talk about in his report. Um, we talked about the career fairs that the district
045has attended and the success we're having uh with multiple candidates for interviews, which is a great thing. Um, and uh, lastly, Zach talked about an upcoming meeting with with the athletic director to, uh, come up with a plan for extracurricular activities to align with the district's vision and direction of the investigation district. >> All right. Thanks, everyone. All right. Um, approval of consent agenda. Do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? >> So, move. >> Second. Moved by Christie, seconded by Terry. Any discussion. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. >> All right, moving on to public participation. On behalf of the fellow board members at this time, I would like to invite any member of the audience that has filled out the form to step to the microphone
046with comments about items of interest or concern. Although we meet in public, we do not meet with the public. And as such, the board cannot comment or answer questions. Please begin by stating your name and relationship to the school. It would be appreciated if you would limit your comments to 5 minutes. Uh I think we have one comment tonight. >> So we ask you to remember that Iowa law prohibits us from discussing specific employees or their job performance. Um this evening, um Jerry Leonard. >> Yeah. Great guys. Uh, first of all, I'd like to thank the gentleman about the safety stuff they've gone through. That passion really can drive home to all of us because we know every day it's a it's a crazy world out there. We have to know how to deal with
047it. I'm not a public speaker. I've spent enough time in the public to know that a word salad's not good to eat, not good to spin out. I do want to first of all thank you all for taking a little bit of time for this because I think it's pretty important. I think that the Fairfield Community School is kind of at a crossroads. I I think that's always tough to sell a new school and I'm glad that you guys when I look at you, I kind of think of Mr. Frasier, the guy that kept getting in the ring with Muhammad Ali. Did he expect to win that fight? No. He was just expecting to take a lot more punches and maybe come out somewhere in the top side of something. But so what I wanted
048to talk about was the construction uh class that you had. Uh may maybe I should back up a little bit and start out with when I came to this community 30 years ago. It was kind of an eaten meeny miny mo. I waited until I knew I would go into the career that I actually came here for. Uh I thought I could move into this community kind of live in the shadows. But I I did have three children that I wanted to go to a good school. And when I looked at the Fairfield Community School, the first thing I noticed, well, wait a minute, I could hide pretty good here. They're the same colors that I grew up with. And you're in the Wallac conference. So, I thought, geez, this might be a fit. But
049I appreciate you educating my kids. Luckily, two of them stayed here. Uh, one of them's out there in the military, but we all think Fairfield is our home. So, thanks for the predecessors before you, but thank you guys for making that still happen today. So, going back to what I'm really kind of here for, with all this time that I've spent here, I've spent a lot of it within the DOT. Uh, I started this job uh back in 98 and there's this little project that the state decided to do was called the Avenue of the Saints and they thought, "Wow, this could be big." And I thought, "Yeah, I'm there. I'm gonna I'm gonna be part of that big." So, I spent roughly 27 years there. Um, done a lot of other things. I bought
050some ground outside of town. I put a couple houses out there. I've moved four houses. Uh, as far as way, one of them 37 miles. Uh, one of them were four miles away, which you would think, dang, that'd be pretty darn easy, wouldn't it? Yeah. You know, something about taking a h house down a highway the wrong direction. For some reason, the DOT didn't like that idea. But I was kind of like you guys. I I was ready to take the punches and give them the answers that I thought was realistic and really had some smarts to it. So, uh, we did make that move. We just went up the off-ramp. Looked like we were going to a tunnel with it, but we took it through the road ditch and took it back over and
051put it on Glasco. So, with every great idea, there's hits, there's great things, there's objects that stop you, but it's good to see you guys ain't going to slow down with your idea to put a nicer school because when it comes down to it, this community can only be good if it has good schools, good teachers, good involvement by the public. So, going back again to why I wanted to come tonight, because I thought this construction class that you guys had was really great. I'm also a project manager for Habitat for Humanity. And when I started with those guys roughly two years ago, things were kind of uh loose- ended. Cost of production was going up and it was tougher and tougher to get volunteers. So, I introduced them back into this uh IPI program
052with Iowa Newton prison systems. So, now we just put foundations in, put utilities in, they bring the house, we put floor coverings and a porch on, it's ready to move into. So, I thought that was that that was going to be quite an idea and um I'm happy that it's working. I I think that there's a an advantage for the school district if they want to get into a a construction program. I know these people well enough and I've worked with them long enough that they recently told me, "Yeah, uh we'll we'll supply you with the curriculum. We'll supply you with the blueprints to build houses." And I thought that was awful nice. So, again, I wasn't just happy with the idea. I I thought more about it. I said, "Well, okay, wait a minute.
053Now, Indian Hills is already doing this in about five communities." So, it was pretty strange. I uh had a friend within the area of 15 and he gave me this guy's name and he told me, "It's the president of Indian Hills." And I said to myself, "Oh boy, sure. I'm sure that guy's going to call me back." He called me back in about three days. And he said, "Yeah, we'd like to do something like that over in Fairfield." And again, it's they have in other schools around us, they have a program where a junior and a senior person can go to this class and then go back over to Indian Hills and they'll have a diploma within a year. Uh when you talk to employers and you talk about youth, they don't really have a
054good sense of that's a value to them. But I think if we could put that value of that uh diploma in these young men and women's hands, that's a value to our community, hoping that they would stay here. Because more and more I live here and work around here, I don't have people telling me, "Oh, we need another body shop or we need another auto mechanic shop." What we need is plumbers, electricians, handymans, carpenters. Really, we only have two carpenter companies in this town. You can't expand. You can't build a great community with two contractors building houses. You know, there's people that come from other areas. That's great, but that doesn't build our community. That doesn't keep our dollars local for people that want to pay taxes and live here. So, um, you know, with
055strengthen our schools like you guys are thinking, it it builds our communities, it supports the workforce by by trying to pull together this construction class. And I guess I should also step back and said I did have a chance to meet the former construction class teacher. I was looking to go back to have maybe Habitat employ some of the students. They used to be involved in the build projects and I started out with the former teacher working towards the objective to have them build his lawn sheds. And it it seemed like that at the time that there was quite an interest there. Uh and I I I was ready to further that interest and I was kind of sorry that it didn't go any further. So again, that's kind of why I'm here tonight is
056say I I think this is a doable thing. This is this is something that's going to not what do I want to say? When we when we think about schools and we think about new schools, it's funny what you hear out there in the community. You know, I heard that, oh, now you're going to knock down a school. Oh, they're still building another school. You know, nobody talked about that. It's it's kind of an even given on the tax role for us. So again, uh it it's hard to sell that. So, we have to have the community buy into what are we doing for our kids. Do we get a benefit from it? And I think that in my case, two of my kids got to stay here. That's a benefit. I don't go to
057Montana to see my grandkids or my mom and dad. You know, it's I get to see them right here every day. I want to every time I or every day I got time for. That's that's always the crucial thing to find time just to enjoy what you got around this community. And you know, that was one thing that really did sell me on the community was the adversity. Uh, coming from a little pod dump town in northeast Iowa, didn't see a lot of color in it, but I did notice that there was, you know, there was a future here for me and my kids. So, um, again, I I just currently I'm a county and I'd like to refer to it as the sheriff. >> Um, it's it's a great job. There's there's ups and
058downs in it. I run into obstacles, but it never stops me from running the job. I enjoy what I'm doing. I'm enjoying being a part of this community. And I just want you to know I really don't want nothing from you guys tonight. And I don't want you to have any You don't have to answer any questions. I know I you can't, but I I just want you to keep thinking in that direction. There's people out here in this community that would like to see some sort of construction class. I've had people that uh have that wherewithal to be part of the funding of it to start it again. So, um that kind of sums it up. I don't know if anybody's timing me, but I >> I just wanted to again come in again.
059I I maybe I should have started out by telling you I'm Jerry Leonard if anybody doesn't know me. >> Thank you, Jerry. >> All right. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Thanks. >> All right. Um, move on to our new business for this evening. 7.1. Do I hear a motion to approve the resolution supporting the proposed issuance of approximately 23,500,000 school infrastructure sales, services, and use tax revenue bonds as presented? >> So moved. Second. Moved >> by Dave, seconded by Cody. Any discussion here additionally? All right, this is a roll call vote. >> Yep. Terry Wells, >> yes. >> Dave Spurn, >> yes. >> Cody Freeman, >> yes. >> Mark Porter, >> yes. >> Mark Thorne, >> yes. >> Christy Kessle, >> yes. >> McN Robbins, >> yes. >> Carry 70. >> Okay. 7.2. Do I hear
060a motion to approve the engagement letter as presented? This is the Fairfield Community School District sales tax bond engagement letter. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Dave, seconded by Mark Thornton. Any discussion here? All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. Do I hear a motion to execute the financial advisory agreement with Piper Sandler for the issuance of save bonds and the parody letter as presented? >> So moved. >> Second moved by Terry, seconded by Christie. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. Do I hear a motion to execute the diss dissemination agent agreement with Piper Sandler for ongoing annual disclosure filings related to save bonds? >> So moved. >> Second. Moved by Dave, seconded by Christie. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I opposed. >> Motion carries.
061Do I hear a motion to approve the preliminary official statement as presented? So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Dave, seconded by Terry. Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. All right. And then moving on to 7.4. This is uh bondformational items only. These are memos that have been issued. And so there's no motion here. Just acknowledgement that we have theseformational items. Moving on to 7.5. Do I hear a motion to approve the FE amendment to the professional services agreement? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Christie, seconded by Cody. Um, any discussion? Mark, you guys reviewed this? >> Yep, we did. Anyone have any questions or All right. All in favor? >> I opposed. >> Motion carries. Uh, do I hear a motion to approve the Carl A. Nelson
062contract as presented? >> So moved. >> Second. Moved by Cody, seconded by Christie. Any discussion? Again, Mark kind of walked us through this. All in favor? I >> opposed. Motion carries. All right. Um 7.6. Do I hear a motion to set a public hearing April 20th, 2026 for the second public hearing on our budget? >> So moved. Second. >> Uh moved by Dave. Who was second Terry? Terry. Thank you. Um any discussion? All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. All right. Moving along to board policies. We'll start with uh do I hear a motion to approve board policies at the first reading? So move >> second. Moved by Mark Porter, seconded by Christie. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. Uh do I hear a motion to approve board
063policies with no changes as presented? in summary page and wave a second reading. >> So moved. >> Second by Terry, seconded by Christie. Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. Do I hear a motion to approve board policies for deletion as presented in the summary page and wave the second reading? >> Second. Moved by Christie, seconded by Cody. All in favor? >> I >> uh all opposed. Motion carries. >> Um do I hear a motion to So that was it for policies, correct? Yeah. Moving on to 7.8. Do I hear a motion to approve the resolution fixing the the date of sale, approving electronic bidding procedures, and approving official statement? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Dave, seconded by Mark Thornton. >> Need a roll call on this one.
064>> Okay. Uh, any discussion? I would just remind everybody that, you know, once you guys kind of walk through this and approve it, this is the board's official statement. It's not it's not mine. It's not Evans. It's the school boards. So, um, just making sure you guys are on board with that. >> Okay. All in favor? >> Oh, sorry. >> I lost my agenda, too. Here. >> Terry Walls. >> Yep. >> Davies >> here. Free. Yes. Elena Robbins. >> Yes. >> Mark Porter. >> Yes. >> Mark Thorne. >> Yes. >> Chris Crestle. >> Yes. >> Motion passes. Seven to zero. Everything. One second. Because I just logged back in. >> Okay. Do I hear a motion to approve the school calendar 2027 2028 school calendar as presented? >> Second. >> Moved by Christie, seconded by
065Mark Porter. Any discussion? This is very similar to prior years. This year >> this year and next year. Y >> right. So this is two years out as you've said a lot. Okay. >> All in favor? I I >> opposed. Motion carries. All right, that was a lot of new business, guys. Thank you. Let's move on to superintendent updates. >> Yeah. Um seems like it's been a while since we've been at this table, but I appreciative of just the work that the the committees are doing. I know it's u maybe not as much discussion here, but there's a lot of discussion that's taken place in those committees, and I'm I'm thankful that you guys are able to dedicate that amount of time. So, I appreciate it. Um, just a reminder that April 3rd was supposed
066to be a day where we were going to have professional development. That was actually when we were going to do a big chunk of some safety and security, but because of the change in the calendar when we um didn't have school for that funeral, we we added that student attendance day back. Um, it still will be a 1:30 dismissal on normal Friday. Um, but then that's why we are use utilizing some of the early release time outside of the collaborative learning times for this training because we wanted to make sure we got it done this school year. So, um, yeah, thanks for letting us do that. All of our contracts are out. Um, we got all those out prior to um, spring break. All the certified staff need to have them back. We've really asked
067for all of them by April 6th. Um, again, that just allows us to to plan and continue to see where vacancies are falling. Um Cody alluded to this a little bit in his update, but specifically um right now we've got elementary special elementary special education, third grade opening, fifth grade opening, and high school science. That should all be filled by the end of this week. We've been interviewing. Um we have a couple left that we wanted to interview. Um but those should all be filled by the end of this week. Um pending any kind of crazy things, but um we still have some coaching openings um at all levels, middle school, high school assistant positions. um school counselor at Pence. Um just opened up um success coordinator, whatever whatever we call it. High school math.
068Um we still have high school special education. Um we now have a high school industrial technology which would be that construction trades um position. So that's posted now. Um we've got second shift custodian, couple part-time custodian positions or one of them I guess. Um we've posted our summer custodial help. That's really for internal applicants. um the part-time director of marketing um is is now open and out there. Um had some people reach out about that. We still have a couple pair of openings and then uh bus drivers. So, as far as certified teachers go, um really it's the school counselor, success coordinator, math, um high school special ed, and high school industrial technology. Uh I wanted to hit a little bit more on the middle school project just so everyone knows. We've got this core
069team. U Megan is our board rep that is on that core team. Um, other than that, it's me, um, Evan, John, Matt, um, FE reps, and then Carl A Nelson. We're meeting every other week, um, to to really, um, just make sure that we're staying on track timeline wise. I'll probably have a more updated timeline for for the board um, by middle of April, end of April at the latest. We're pushing a little bit um, with with with FE and can code because we really want to try to get this thing open by August of 28. Um, so they're not sure that they can do that, but I think if we continue to push, we'll we'll we'll get um hopefully a commitment out of out of them. Um, but yeah, we meet again this Wednesday
070and as we continue to go and have decisions being made that really teachers need to be a part of, we're going to bring them bring them in to the fold so they can can give feedback and and their voice in the process as we as we go. So, um it'll be yeah, just a lot of meetings over the the course of the next six months as we um kind of finalize a design and and they can get it out to all the engineers to do what they need to do. And then making sure April 7th you had that on your calendar. Um I think Evan sent an invite, too. So, you should have that for um it shouldn't take long. It's pretty quick, right? I mean, it's Yeah. um is testing uh the statewide um
071assessments for academic progress that starts our window is open. We really won't start for another week and a half, two weeks. Um but that's for all third through 11th graders and those are the um you know the tests that we get all the judgment on. So um we're really'll make sure we um give our kids the opportunity to do their best on those. Um the nut nutrition department had their um their audit which really should be taking place every five years and again it just hadn't been done. It kind of slipped through the cracks for whatever reason. So we had that finally done and it came back really really positive. Um Stephanie and her team has just done a great job. Um not only you know from a budgeting standpoint but also just from a
072um compliance and um rule following standpoint as well. So we we essentially had zero findings in the audit which that really doesn't happen very often. So um kudos to her and her team. U trimester 2 belonging survey that'll be taken by uh the majority of our employees on Friday. So we'll start to get that data back and again identify things we need to tweak or change um if possible. And then lastly um just thinking about uh my evaluation. I think last year we did it in April but we're going to do it in May. um this year. So, just know um it'll be a similar process for that formal evaluation. New board members, Megan and I can kind of walk you through what that looks like, but um that's all I've got. >> Great. All
073right. Um highlights like start. I'll start Christie. Um, I just think hearing the bond rating um was amazing news. Like given where we were financially when we all started on this board um and how far we've come in that amount of time is pretty amazing I think and that should be a huge celebration I think for all of us. And um just want to thank everybody for all of their contributions. Um especially Zach and Evan. I know you guys have put in um more hours than any of us could count. So, um Dave, I know you've been very instrumental in in um weighing in there as well. So, >> weighing in, >> um >> that's what I do best >> to me. Um that that's just a huge win for us. So, >> great. Thanks,
074Christie. Mark Thornton. >> I'll go to everybody's favorite uh policy. I think it was a huge win for us to go through all of those 400 series. So, um, looking forward to the next group of those, but again, just a lot of work went into those, reading through them all and getting them pre prepared and being able to improve a whole 100 series is a lot of work. So, looking forward to doing it again. >> Great work. >> I think my highlight would be the public participation tonight. you know, it's uh honestly, we haven't had a lot of public participation for a while now. So, it's really good to kind of see where certain community members stand on certain things that are that we're doing as a board and that we're doing as a district.
075I also shared a lot of the same sentiment that Mr. Leonard had had to say a little bit about the construction um trades class and how important that is for our school and our community. So, I really really enjoyed what you had to say and I I share a lot of the same thing, you know, a lot of same opinions that you brought up. So, I enjoyed that. So, great. Thanks, Cody. >> Uh, I echo that. That was going to be one of mine is public participation. So, thank you guys for all showing up and gals. Um, the other one was getting contracts out early. My hats off to Zach and Evan for getting the contracts out early. I know that's a big thing. I've heard from educators on that and uh so thank you.
076>> Thanks. >> Yeah. So, my my highlight is the is the credit rating and uh thanking Evan and Zach for the uh financial health of the district. Um, we take, you know, stewardship of our tax dollars very, very, very seriously and we monitor the allocation of those tax dollars to use them at the highest and best use. So, we think we're doing a good job with the investors in our in our public school district and our taxpayers. Um, and our our motivation, too, is to keep the uh levy we have flat as much as we can. So, uh, we take it very seriously to monitor the allocation of those dollar dollars and I think the financial health of the district is something that we can all be proud of that our taxpayers can be proud
077of. So, that's >> Thanks, Dave. >> Terry, >> um, same along the lines with Dave, just, you know, making sure that point out that we can see the investment in those tax dollars. We're seeing all of our uh education scores come up and our rate as a school district and all those dollars are going to good places. And then again, what Zach pointed out, you know, just a big congratulations to Stephanie for the work she puts in to keep our surveys good like that. I can tell surveys in that particular area. It's not easy to keep all the ducks in a row. Good for her. >> I certainly appreciated hearing from John tonight. you know, super indepth and really appreciate knowing that we're kind of a leader among schools in safety and security. Um, you
078know, something that you have to have, but hopefully you don't ever have to use. Um, and then yeah, public participation is great. I had someone and just remembering that we need, you know, how we connect with the community and let them know how we're doing is just always a really important