001Good evening. >> This meeting of the Fairfield Community School Board of Directors to order. The time is 6:31 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 of 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. >> Uh, roll call, please. >> Yep. Christy Kessle >> here. >> Dave Spurn >> here. >> Mark Porter >> here.
002>> Mark Thornton absent. >> Megan Robbins >> here. >> Terry Wells >> here. >> Cody Freeman >> here. >> Great. Um, are there any changes to the agenda as presented? >> I have none. >> Okay. >> I don't either. >> Okay. Do I hear a motion to approve the agenda as presented? >> So moved. Second. >> All right. Uh, moved by Mark and seconded by Dave. Um, any discussion? All in favor? I >> I opposed. >> Motion approved. All right. Um, and do I hear a motion to approve the official abstract of votes as presented? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Mark and seconded by Dave. >> And those are for the school board members. >> Yes. For the school three new school board members. Um, we just approve them. There's no need
003to discuss or share anything. have any discussion on that appointment. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> All right. Move on to the oath of office for our new board members. >> Yes. So, welcome Terry and Cody. If I could have you guys stand up. I'm going to read the oath of office and then you just respond with yes or no at the end of the vote. So, you can just raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Iowa and that you will faithfully and impartially to the best of your ability discharge the duties of the office of schoolboard director in the Fairfield Community School District as now and hereafter required by law? >> Yes. Perfect.
004Welcome, guys. Great. >> All right. Up next, we we have our committee reports. Um so each committee chair will share two to three minutes uh a two to three minute update connected with the committee work and uh Mark Thornton is absent tonight but we have Terry to present on policy. >> Okay. Um we went over a few policies. Um 710.4 we just changed the wording to meet 710.5 which was for the negative balance rather than uh $5 rather than five meals or more. Um, we had a couple that we went over but made no changes. We in the employment section we uh removed specific locations for posting so that we could have more flexibility on where our job postings were and we had some discussion on moving forward with um how to utilize AI, what
005policies and things would need to be in place but we didn't make any actual changes. Uh we'll continue that topic later. >> Great. Thanks. Strategic planning. Christie. >> Yes. >> You need a second? >> Yeah. Just a little unorganized. If you want a second, we can >> um Okay. So, we just met last week. Um we discussed uh a little bit about the next steps for the middle school facility. Um we're going to go further in depth as a board um on our January 5th work session. Um we just kind of looked at you know the the summaries that we've gotten um previously about uh the potential cost of repairs and um just discussing what our options were about you know being able to move ahead more quickly than having to wait until April for
006this um assessment that they can't do until the weather changes. So we were just discussing possibilities there. Um, we talked about a staff survey um and potentially doing a staff survey uh surrounding the building and what the staff's feelings are moving forward so that we can incorporate that as a part of our discussions at our um January 5th meeting. Um, we discussed uh the seed bond and whether or not to move forward with that at this meeting or wait until January to um vote to approve the sale and the payoff of the note. Um, and we decided we should probably wait until after our January work session because it doesn't shouldn't affect anything um there. So, uh, we talked about beinder garden and, um, the launch of that hopefully to come next fall. Sounds like
007things are in the works for that and that should be a great addition to um, our program. So, essentially, kids would go uh, from preschool to be kindergarten if we don't feel like they're ready to go straight to kindergarten. kind of like a in between step for them um to make sure that they're they're ready and that you know they have the attention that they need so that you know our other kids can move forward you know as well. So, um, Heather and Zach are working on that. And, uh, we discussed the marketing program. our uh um agreement with Donovan Group is up and we talked about the possibility of >> maybe bringing some of that in-house um at some point and maybe looking into just moving ahead with Donovan Group on a month-to-month basis
008or something until we decide what we want to do there for sure. um they've kind of changed some of the things in our contract and they want to now charge us to do like videos and things like that in addition to what we're already paying them. And we feel like um we could maybe get more bang for the buck if we bring it inhouse and maybe hired like a part-time marketing person that could tailor make it a little more than what they're doing. you know, a lot of them, a lot of what they use is templates that they use for all schools and maybe making ours more customized and tailored to our district. Um, and we discussed the potential of maybe reaching out to the city and seeing if they might be interested in sharing
009a person so that that might be a more appealing position if it was full-time shared, you know, with the school and the city and we get to kind of tie the two together and make it a full-time position for somebody. So that's something to think about and talk about. Um we talked about AI. Um there apparently was some information at conference. Um I was not able to attend that session but um if anybody wants I think Megan has some information that she might be able to share via like a video or was it you Zach? I remember one of you. Um, >> oh, we watched a market a marketing that was the um the Iowa City marketing >> videos which we can share. >> Yep. Right. Okay. >> Yeah, that wasn't connected to AI. >>
010That's right. Yeah, we will share those Iowa City >> videos if you want to just Yeah, >> that was kind of what spurred our discussion because Iowa City had some really cool videos that they were using to promo and um uh so anyway, there are some AI programs out there that specifically talk about uh learning that we thought that we should maybe delve into. And um so we're going to continue kind of talking about that in our strategic plan and hopefully have more information coming for you guys on that down the road. Uh is there anything I'm missing? We we also just discussed the board level uh report conducted to the strategic plan and how we want to move forward kind of presenting on the strategic plan. We're still discussing it. >> Yeah. So maybe
011shifted away from the building as the focus and then more the priority as the focus and then what's happening in each of the buildings connected to that priority. >> Yeah, it was a lot. It was a good meeting. >> Yeah. >> Thanks. >> All right. Um up next, Dave finance. >> Thank you, Megan. So, the finance committee met on December 8th at 8 a.m. Uh, we welcomed Terry Wells as a new member. He I'm pleased to note that he passed the initiation process for the finance committee. He's now part of the elite group. Uh Cody Friedman also also attended for uh financial education purposes and the committee reviewed strategic plan goals for financial health and policy limits definition and calculation of unspent authorized budget authority solveny nets cash and we went over the five-year facilities
012plan and contract bidding. Uh, additionally, uh, the budget authority requests from the school budget review committee were reviewed and with unanimous consent and without objection, the following SBRC requests were approved for recommendation to the full board which we will be um addressing in our agenda. We're recommending approval. uh the required increase in enrollment the open enrollment out not on prior years uh headcount English lang English language instruction beyond five years at risk and dropout prevention and also the uh budget guarantee uh resolution questions. Okay. >> All right. Operations Mark. >> Yep. So, we met on December 5th around 4 PM and Mark Thornton joined the committee. So, it's good to have him as an addition to the committee, but uh it's pretty simple. We didn't cover a lot of information, but just like you guys,
013it's mostly been just trying to figure out what the next step is with the bond. Um, right now, I think we talked about kind of the current phases that we're going to work with Carl Nelson. The phase one is basically just getting Carla Nelson in there and giving us a full envelope assessment of the facility. And then from there, um, we can basically start to make, you know, decisions or plans. uh around what we want to do moving forward. I mean, first and foremost, we're going to have to see if the um basically the estimate they give us if that's something that we want to start tackling and we talked about once we start pouring money into that building, you know, we're going to kind of start to get to the the point of no
014return. So, um obviously the voters voted and made the decision that they didn't want to go through and build the new middle school. So, our our first step is to make sure that's financially feasible to go on ahead and pour existing funds into the existing school. um if they come back with an estimate that's just simply just not in the realm of what we think we can do then we have to start looking at okay what can we do with the dollars that we have. So we've discussed you know you know using our existing save funds um to get as much of a project completed as we can and then we've also discussed what if we try to run a bond at simply a smaller dollar amount. Um but the the first step is is
015basically just um coming back with a number that they come up with. So the phase one will obviously be from them getting a full envelope assessment. phase two, basically just seeing what it would do to get it uh getting the building up to ADA compliance. That's the most common thing we've talked about. We also talked about paying off an existing $2.5 million debt load that we have. I think we were all in agreement, you know, in that committee that we want to wait here for a couple months until we start to see um what Carl A Nelson um is going to give us for an estimate and then we'll decide from there. We'll have to talk to Evan, but we're going to have to go month by month um and decide how soon we want
016to pay that debt load off. But personally me, I want to put that decision off as late as as possible until we kind of come to a consensus as a group how we're going to move forward because I think as a board, this is going to be probably the toughest decision that we're going to have trying to come to consensus. I think we all have a little bit different ideas about how to move forward. So, so that was basically the long and the short of it. Um, covered a few other small things, but that was basically the extent of it. We didn't get into any other um project list really. It was just pretty simple meeting. So, >> great. >> Yep. Thanks. HR negotiations did not meet. Is that right, Cody? >> That's right. We
017did not meet this month, but we will meet Thursday, January 8th, next next month. >> Great. And we have a new student rep. She's at NHS tonight. >> She is. She's being inducted. Marley Wah. Um she did send me a little message. Hey, I'm Marley Wah, your new student rep. I'm excited to start the year off in this new role and am determined to support our student voice as best as possible. Sorry I couldn't be here for the first month's meeting, but I have an NHS induction ceremony. I look forward to meeting all of you at January's meeting. Again, thank you for this opportunity. >> Great. All right, we get to move along to our focus on learning. We have Amy Harris here to share about what she does as our CCTC college and career
018transition transition coach. >> I have this gift over here. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. >> There you go. >> So, like she said, my name is Amy Harris. I am the new college and career transition coach at the Fairfield High School. Uh my primary goal so far this year has been educating students on FASA. like what can it do for them? It's so much more than just student loans. It's scholarships. It's grants. A lot of the students are unaware of what it can do for them and understanding that if you don't fill it out, the possibility of being eligible for certain scholarships could be out the window. So, we want to make sure they get it filled out. Um, college visits has been a really big
019one. The students are super excited to be going to these different colleges. We went to the University of Iowa. We went to Southeastern Community College last week. Um, we went to William Penn. I've set up tours for jobcore for some of the students that are in uh the alternative school at the high school to kind of give them a pathway uh to different career technical training opportunities that are out there for our students. Uh the career expo was a huge success for our students. Got a lot of positive feedback from them with that. Uh 33 different employers came. Uh the students got bingo cards with different questions and they had to get a bingo to be entered in for prizes for drawings. Uh the students loved it. They thought it was a great uh time.
020They got in front of employers and got to meet a lot of important people. Uh senior meetings. So I am meeting with every senior one-on-one uh to kind of just go over what they want to do postsecary, whether that's career, college, what is their plan. Um so meeting with them one-on-one, getting to know them and how I can best help them and assist them in their future plans um after high school. Uh I'm also becoming a member of our decap team. So learning a little about the decap and how I can assist uh the Fairfield High School with that. Um second trimester is going to really focus more on um mock interviews. I've had a couple meetings already about mock interview that we're hoping for the end of January. uh have different employers come in,
021interview our students, talk about, you know, what they look for in an employee, ask those difficult questions that some of our students might get stuck on because they get nervous in front of people. Um, also starting to focus a little bit more on juniors. They're moving into the last half of their junior year, making sure that they are prepared for also post-secary stuff. So, FASA, college, what do they want to do when they leave high school? Um, more FASA nights. Uh January 26th, we're going to host another FASA night at the high school for students and their families to come in and get help. Um I have a financial aid um expert coming from Indian Hills to help with that as well to help students get that application filled out, help their families through that
022process because if you have farmland and all that different stuff, it gets a little bit harder. Uh so focusing in on that. Uh we are definitely looking at doing a college fair for the students in April. Since I started so late this year, getting a college fair planned for the fall was really hard to do. However, we are planning on getting one done in the spring of the year here and then following next year. We will start having them in the fall of the year. So, and like I said, just FASA and focusing on what students want to do when they graduate high school. So, any questions? Now, do you do work with kids going trying to get into trade schools at all or? >> Yes. Yes, I will help with whatever they want to
023whatever they want to do. Like when we meet and we have that conversation, I will help explore that for them and get them there so they can look at it. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Maybe speak a little bit to how the connection is with our school counselors and how you guys um kind of navigate this new position and how it supports you. >> Yes. Yeah. Uh so I work really closely with Carla and Mark at the Fairfield High School. Um, I do a lot with dual enroll uh with Carla. So, helping students that are wanting to take dual enrollment classes through Indian Hills. So, being a concurrent student, I help a lot with that. Uh, and they help just me plan and go through stuff with the students. They know a lot more information
024background on students than what I know. Uh, so we kind of meet, we go over like 10 to 15 students. They're like, "Okay, this is where we want to lean at with them. Here's the pathway we want to go uh with that student." and we just really go through and we try to help better the students and serve them to the best of our ability. >> So, I'm just curious what kind of um when you meet with the students and encourage like you know if they're taking Indian Hills classes like do you lay out for them like the differences that are going they're going to like >> Absolutely. Yes. So, I host orientation. So, uh, before any student starts any Indian Hills classes through the high school, they have to attend an orientation session with
025me. So, they understand that their GPA starting that day that they start the college class starts to matter. You have to attend. You have to be there. You have to get your homework done. If you're stuck, don't stay stuck. Come get help. Like, I'm there. Carla's there. Everyone's there to help them and assist them. you know, we I have a huge poster outside of my office with the IT support uh phone number for Indian Hills and they're amazing as well. So, if students need help in that portion, they can call that number. Uh but yes, we definitely have that conversation. I tell them all the help that Indian Hills will provide them, I'm there to help them. So, yes, absolutely. >> So, we have a goal uh to have every student who's graduating kind of
026know what their plan is. How do you feel we're doing towards that goal? Whether you know whether >> Oh, I think we're doing great. >> Okay. >> A lot I mean I will say this, the students in today's high school, they know what they want. I mean, I would say in 2002 when I graduated, I had no idea what I wanted. These these students know like they're like, "This is what I want. This is where I want to go." And that's the pathway they're on. So, they're doing great. >> Okay. >> And I think the internships that the high school offers now really help support them in that journey. So, like I will give you an example. One of the students today was leaving to go uh do an internship with a physical therapy here
027in town. And that's what she wants to do. She wants to become a physical therapist. And she was so excited and that's her pathway. And she's like, "But I have a plan B. If physical therapists don't work out, I'll be a PT assistant." So, yeah, I do. I think the internships combined with the concurrency combined with just the conversations we're having with them is helping them, supporting them, pushing them to their future. >> Right. Now, how does those internships work? Is that part of your job or is that a different deal? >> No, that's not part of my job. I mean, I I mean, I'm there to support if they need my help with it, but I mean, I'm hoping to get to be part of that team eventually. Um, I'm still kind of new,
028so I'm becoming part of decap and just learning, >> yeah, the ins and outs of what all I can do to support. So, >> great. >> Yeah. I just publicly like to thank Indian Hills and Amy just coming on in this role. Obviously, um you're here 4 days a week and shared with the tumble and a little bit of, you know, uh your schedule, too, but um we're glad to have somebody that's from Fairfield and connected with with Indian Hills. Um it's a it's a good good partnership so far. >> Yes. Yes, it is. >> All right. Well, thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Moving along to the consent agenda. Do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? >> So moved. >> I have a quick question. Evan,
029do I need to to abstain because my uh sister-in-law is being approved as a coach? >> Can answer that after we get a second. >> Okay. >> Second. >> Um that's your choice. >> Okay. >> If you want to see or not. >> Okay. So, we have um uh moved by Terry and seconded by Mark. Um all in uh any discussion, any additional discussion? Okay. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. I'll just >> abstained. Okay. All right. Motion carries. Moving along to >> public participation. Do we have any public participation? >> I didn't receive any. No one is currently here, so we'll move along to new business. Um, we have a number of motions under our school budget review committee. Do I hear a motion to approve the school budget review committee request for
030open enrollment out not on prior year's headcount in the amount of $270,567? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Dave, seconded by Terry. Any discussion? Can you kind of fill us in, Evan, on those? >> Yeah. So, these are kind of annual approvals. I mean, they change from year to year just depending on um our status as a district. So, this one uh the motion on the table is uh approve a school budget review committee request for open enrollment out not on prior year's headcount in the amount of 270,000. So, this would support um kids who may have been um in our district or new to our district or went to a neighboring district, but we didn't receive funding for them last year. So, we're requesting additional authority so we can pay our bills.
031So, it helps our unspent authorized budget financial metrics. >> Any other questions? All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. Do I hear a motion to approve the school budget review committee request for English English language instruction beyond five years in the amount of $23,485? >> So moved. >> Sir moved by Cody, seconded by Mark. Any discussion? Again, very similar to the answer before. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. Do I hear a motion to approve the school budget review committee modified supplemental amount of $533,439 for the at risk and dropout prevention program for the 2026 2027 school year. >> So moved. Second. >> Moved by Dave, seconded by Mark. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. >> Motion carries. Do I hear a motion to approve the school budget review committee request
032for increased enrollment in the amount of $34,348? So >> move second. >> Moved by Cody, seconded by Christie. Any discussion? >> Yeah, I want to highlight this one. Um, many of the people sitting on the table probably haven't seen this one before. Um, and hopefully we continue to see this, but since we increased enrollment this year, remember funding's always a year in the rear, but we are currently serving those kids. So, we're going to the school budget review committee to to request additional authority to assist us in helping those kiddos. >> Great. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. 9.2. Do I hear a motion to approve the budget guarantee resolution as presented? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Mark, seconded by Cody. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carries.
033Moving along to board policies. Do I hear a motion to approve the board policies at the first reading? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Terry, seconded by Mark. Any discussion, questions. >> Was this all stuff you guys went over it Terry at the meeting? >> Yeah, the 7104. Um, you'll see it in the second reading. It would have been, but since we made the change to that wording on it, we moved it back to the the first reading. >> Okay. >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. Do I hear a motion to approve board policies at the second reading excluding 710.4? >> Some moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Cody, seconded by Dave. Any questions? All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. >> All right. 9.4 Early Notification
034Incentive. Do I hear a motion to approve the early notification incentive as presented? >> So moved. >> Second. Moved by Christie, seconded by Cody. Any discussion, guys? I'll read through the bonus. Do you have any teachers that are taking advantage of this or >> so? This is for all staff. And this was really again based on feedback from last year just thinking about how um we can highlight and better appreciate the people that we do have that want to stay as opposed to incentivizing those to to leave >> or let us know early that they're leaving. So the the dollar amount was less, but yeah, we've gotten quite a few. Um and ultimately it it's not like hold you're not holding it over their head. I mean if something does come up and they have
035to leave or need to leave um they just wouldn't get that $500 in September. Yeah. >> Um, yeah, we have a good a really good chunk so far. They've got about another month left to turn it in. Um, so yeah. >> Yeah. Good. >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carries. >> 9.5 Classified pay schedule. Do I hear a motion to approve the PAR educators pay scale as presented? >> So moved. >> Second. Moved by Christie, seconded by Terry. Any discussion? >> I would just like to thank Evan for the hard work he's put in with our our pair of leaders. Um I haven't been at all of those meetings just because I I couldn't be and he's really um kind of led the process of them u bringing information back to their
036um their 80ish employee subgroup. And um we've got a spot got to a spot where I think um it's going to be unique not only to Southeast Iowa but but all around um in regards to how we acknowledge pairs that stay with us. >> Yeah, that's great. It's exciting. >> All in favor? I >> opposed. Motion carries. Do I hear a motion to approve the maintenance groundseper pay scale as presented? >> So moved. Second. >> Moved by Dave, seconded by Cody. Any discussion? >> How is this different from before, Evan? >> Yeah, there's not a um ton of changes of what we've seen mapped out before. They just made it a little bit more clear and um kind of the proposal. But what we really did is we looked at um some ONET guidelines which
037takes in some um tax forms and census data to see what fair market pay would be. And we went through a little exercise with that. And they essentially really use that data to come up with a slightly different pay scale and way to honor more experience >> within the district and honor like different credentials they have. Yep. >> Um so >> licensing incentives was a a change too. >> Licensing incentives. So they're seeing about a$138 increase on average um while also building in those licensing incentives. So applicators. So now we're going to not have to reach out to you know outside sources as much because we'll be able to do that stuff in house. So creating efficiencies through recognition. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carries. All right. 9.6. Do I hear a motion
038to add a work session on January 5th, 2026 at 6:30 p.m.? >> Second. >> Moved by Christie, seconded by Dave. Any questions? Is everyone able to make that date? >> There's a small chance I'm able to make it, but I'll probably make it work. So, >> okay. So, >> and Megan and I will try to get some some outcomes, at least thoughts around kind of what we >> think needs to be discussed. >> Do we have school that day? >> That's the first day back. >> Yeah, >> back at it. >> All right. Uh, all in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. >> All right. Uh, do I hear a motion to go into close session pursuant to Iowa code section 21.51? I >> moved. >> Second. >> Uh, moved by Terry, seconded by Cody.
039>> Roll call. >> Uh, this is a roll call vote. >> Chrissy Guessel, >> yes. >> Davies, >> yes. Mark Porter, >> yes. Megan Robbins, >> yes. >> Terry Wells, >> yes. >> Cody Freeman, >> yes. So, now we'll go into close session at 7:03 p.m. recess. >> Yep. Let's take two minute recess and close doors.