001Wow. Good evening and welcome to the September 22nd meeting of the Ames Community School District Board of Directors. I will call the meeting to order and entertain a motion to approve the agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. Moved by Beerbomb, seconded by Deward. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Nay. Passes 5-0. had to count for a second there. All right. And we will uh begin our evening with our celebrations and recognitions with our school board representatives. And who's doing the honor to introduce are you Amy? Okay. >> Good evening. The Ames Community School District is proud to welcome two new student representatives to the school board for the 2025 2026 school year. Vienna Ross Manith and Da Tahir. Ross Manith is a senior at Ames High is active in robotics, orchestra, science
002olympiad, math club, and cyber security and technology club. She especially values the Ames High music events and performances where she says she loves playing in orchestra concerts and watching the band and choir perform. Now in her second year as a student representative, Ross Monith shared, "I am excited to continue sharing student perspectives with the board and advocating for the needs of our student body to hear is a junior and is a leader in DECA student council and the uplifting spirits club. She also participates in key club, the Muslim student associ association, and the national honor society. Rather than naming one tradition that she loves at Ames High, she highlighted the passion of the Ames High student body. It's the dedication to everything we do, from clubs to community service, that I believe is our most
003meaningful tradition, she added. I'm eager to gain a deeper understanding of our school's inner workings and ensure the diverse perspectives of our student body are heard by our district's leaders. Ross Monith and to hear will serve from the first regular board meeting here uh coming up in October through the last regular meeting in May. Welcome. [Applause] Welcome. We are thrilled to have you both join us and we look forward to working with you this year. All right. Our next item is our public forum and I will read our statement on public comments. Thank you. Residents of the district, students attending the district, parents or guardians of students attending the district, and district staff members may address the board about any topic relevant to the district, whether on the current agenda or not. Those who wish
004to speak must sign up at the beginning of the meeting. Speaker participation is limited to three minutes once per item. The views and opinions of citizens addressing the board do not necessarily reflect those of the board, district administration, or staff. Speakers are to remember that Iowa law prohibits the board from discussing specific employees, students, or their performance. Student speakers will state their name and school. Others will state their name and address. And to start out with, we have Shelby Root. If you'd like, you can come on up to the microphone either here or over here. Whatever is more convenient for you. You might have to tap that one to make sure it's on. >> Say I've never actually had to speak at one of these before. >> Okay. Is that I I don't think it's
005on. Jeff, if you want to. >> Thank you. >> I don't know. Doesn't sound like it. Check. Check. >> I think it's >> check. Check. It says >> Okay. Okay. Gotcha. As long >> as you're good. >> Hi, my name is Shelby Ruitt. I live at 2007 Hayes Avenue in Ames. Um, I am a thirdyear vet student at Iowa State University. And that little boy in the wheelchair over there is my son, Suede. He is a kindergartenner at Fellows. Um, we moved from Nebraska to Ames in 2023 to allow me to attend vet school knowing this would mean leaving our family and our support system back at home. I'm not sharing this to gain sympathy from you. I just want to give you an idea of what we're kind of going through. I'm here to
006highlight the need for transportation and support to ensure students like Suede are able to have a school experience as normal as possible while still being able to succeed in their day-to-day lives. To understand the situation, I'd like to give you some background on Swayed. Suede was born 5 weeks premature after I was lifellighted for preeacclampsia. He spent a month in the NICU before being discharged with no medical concerns. Within 5 months, Suede was admitted to Children's Hospital in Omaha for infantile spasms, a serious seizure disorder in infants. From that point on, Suede added medical diagnosis and still continues to do so today. Suede has a cortical visual impairment and is legally blind, an inutral brain injury causing a lack of white matter in his brain, global developmental regression, cerebral pausy, and so much more. He
007has been in occupational, physical, speech, vision, and feeding therapies since he was a year old. He has over 10 specialist doctors, a multitude of surgeries done with more to come, and now uses a wheelchair and assisted speech device for mobility and communication. As you can tell, Suede has not had the typical childhood and has spent more time in hospitals than the average child his age. On average, Suede spends up to six hours in medical therapy weekly, not including the at home therapy we provide after. When we started discussing preschool, our medical team and his therapy teams all agreed that a half day was the best choice for him. We have kept that recommendation into kindergarten and likely will for some time into the future. We were told the only option for Suede was dual enrollment
008and based on our location we ended up in Fellows Elementary. Upon our meeting we were told that transportation would not be provided which we were told was because child serve where he attends his day health is within the Gilbert school district and Ames only asked permission through preschool to transport there. Therefore his IEP currently states we are choosing to transport despite me informing the school this is not a long-term option. Currently, this means I've had to leave the vet school during my lunch break to get swayed at 12:20, drive him to child serve, and hope to make it back in time for my afternoon classes, which I'm required to attend. This is simply not working. For example, I am in charge of meetings over the lunch break on days and therefore have to pick Suede
009up even earlier than he's scheduled to leave or on the days that I'm in surgery, Sway doesn't attend school at all. I've brought up several options to the school. I asked for a request to transport form be sent to Gilbert District as we are led to believe that the reason they do not transport was that Gilbert wouldn't. However, their transportation manager assured me that they do when the form is sent to them. I've spoken with with his insurance who agreed to provide transport if an adult is present to ride with him and inquired whether his paraprofessional could ride with as he is supposed to have a onetoone person. Anyway, I was told I should look into hiring someone or look at moving him to a different care center. to which I reply, who and where
010should I trust with my med medically fragile child when he's already in the best care facility you have here in Ames? In essence, we have been met with the the district won't or the district doesn't to XYZ thing we have offered. Persuade and many others like him, transportation affects his access to a free appropriate public education which is protected under the individuals with disabilities education act. I know you cannot give me a resolution today, but I ask that you seriously consider the impact this has on families like ours and make changes in the future. I don't know how we'll manage the rest of the school year, let alone next when I'm in clinicals. But as taught us one thing, it's you don't just quit when things get hard. You get up and you try again.
011Thanks for your time. >> Thank you, Shelby. Uh, Maria Shipley. >> Hi, I'm Marishia Lei, second grade at Kate Mitchell. I've been with the district. This is my 202 or 23rd year lost count. Anyway, um, I just would like to speak in regards to a current pilot that is being done and concerns that as a second grade teacher I have. I've already shared my concerns with multiple people within the district and I just think that as a board you need to hear from teachers who are very passionate about what we do. So, thanks for taking time out of your day to listen to me. Um, as you probably already know, I'm very passionate about what I do and I'm passionate because I see it in my students every day. I see what I'm teaching relate
012to them and then they are asking questions and they're using what they're learning to become better readers and writers. Um, foundations is a funological program that we purchased quite a few years ago and it has helped multiple students become readers, become writers, become lovers of reading. We've seen tremendous growth. If you look at Kate Mitchell's growth, um, Mrs. Vos and I together have worked very closely on making sure that our students grow and most of this is not solely due to foundations but a lot of it is because of foundations and the material that is taught in it and how it is explicitly and systematically taught and then with our direct teaching that we do in the classroom. Our success teachers, our EL teachers, our specialed teachers are also piggy piggybacking on what we are
013doing in the classroom. And so kids are getting that instruction in a whole group and then it's being given individually or in groups of three to four depending on kind of where they are. We even have some kids that are new to Kate Mitchell that don't have all of the foundation skills from K1. They're getting some of those from those small groups as well. So my concern is that we are going to be spending $50,000 on a pilot for 95% phonics. 95% phonics is not necessarily a multiensory program like foundations that doesn't offer all of the things that foundations does for all of the kids. Every building already has all of the materials from foundations. They also have the phenemic awareness program called Hegrity which is a piece that foundations was lacking. We also have
014purchased every building has what's called geodess which are fiction and non-fiction stories that are decodable and they align with the foundation units that we are currently teaching or that we should be teaching. I've heard comments that foundation doesn't give out enough data to support interventions or to support that we should keep it, which is absolutely wrong. Mrs. Voss and I have a plethora of data that we can share with you in regards to how we use the foundational data to move our students along. Last year, Brietta and I both had 27 students in our classroom and it was one of the lowest in the building and we saw astronomical growth as we typically do every year. I know that we've spent money before on curriculums that have been less than desirable, aka Lucy Caulkins. And
015I would hate to see money wasted on a program when we could be using that money to fully fund um every teacher that needs the training. We could buy updated materials. I just am strongly strongly asking that we not go on with the 95% bonics because it is a disjustice to students. Thank you. Thank you, Marie Brietta. Hi, I'm Brietta Voss. I'm a teacher, parent, and community member in Ames School Board. I'm sharing with you my concerns about our literacy pilots our district is implementing at the elementary level. I've been teaching elementary school for 26 years. I believe that through my experience in this district and the training I've received, including letters, I am extremely knowledgeable about teaching literacy and especially phonics and early elementary. Our school has used foundations, the primary program our district
016has already purchased for grades K3. While implementing this curriculum with fidelity and integrity, we have had a positive gain every single year since 2018. This includes last year with 27 students in each of our classrooms. Wait. And our school makeup has the highest level of EL students and the highest number of low SCES students. It's pretty remarkable. Our kindergarten and first grade classrooms have also had positive gains every year since 2018 until last year when there were two teachers out on a maternity leave. Their data dropped. It makes me sick to think that we would purchase another very expensive program to replace foundations when we have the best of the best and literally go backwards. Let's not repeat this mistake that we made with Lucy the Lucy Kulkin's adoption. Teachers at our school who have
017children at other districts who use 95% cringe at the thought that we as would purchase such a horrible program when we already own foundations. We do need a comprehensive component to address the literacy standards. But that's easy too. There are programs that align to foundations for upper grades and comprehension programs that are designed to partner with foundations. That seems like a more logical and economically smart way to go. All that needs to happen is top administration needs to hold the principles accountable and the principles hold their teachers accountable for implementing foundations with fidelity and integrity and they too can have the same results we have at our building. It isn't rocket science and it might mean that some teachers need to be trained but every single one of us who has taken letters training knows
018that the only program paired with that training is foundations. Every instructional coach is trained and can train new teachers are ones who have not been trained. It will not cost money for their training. We already own the best of the best. Not to mention that the proposed quote you'll be voting on today for the 95% program cost $45 to $50,000 and that is for only 10 students. We are What are we supposed to do with the other half of our class when I'm supposed to be piloting for only half of my class? Are you going to be ready to shell out the other $45,000 if the district decides to purchase this terribly expensive program that isn't even listed as one of the top five phonics programs in a simple Google search? Those numbers would be
019for a classroom of 20. The additional 45,000. That is no longer the norm for primary classrooms in our district. As mentioned before, the cost will go up even more than that because we have way more than 20 in each classroom. Why would we throw away something that is scientifically based science of reading aligned and most importantly teaches explicit rules of our language which has the biggest effect size in learning how to decode, encode, read, write, and comprehend. Please do not purchase another phonics program that will cost our district thousands of dollars and in the end might not even be worth it when we are already own the best program. It is not financially smart just because a few squeaky wheels do do not want to do hard work. Doing what is right isn't easy isn't
020always easy and doing what is easy isn't always right. New teachers just want a paycheck and want what is easy. Please listen to the veteran teachers in this district and know that we are in the trenches every day and have the data to support keeping foundations. Thanks. Thank you, Brietta. Dan, I don't have access to the Zoom anymore. Can you check for me if anyone was signed up to speak online? >> Sorry, I didn't think of it sooner. >> Yep, we have a note. That's okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. With that, I will close our public forum and move on to our consent agenda. And I'll entertain a motion. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. Uh moved by Deward to approve the consent agenda. Seconded by Beerbomb. All in favor say I. >>
021I. >> Oppose. Nay. Passes. 5-0. >> Uh then we will move on to our reports beginning with our associate superintendent report and the online learning program update. is not downloaded. >> Good evening, board. Give me just a second. Pull up the online learning presentation. I'll be right with you. Maybe Dan, is there anything I need to do to make this presentation pull up? >> Maybe. >> Okay, >> increase. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> All right. All right, thanks for your patience, Bourne. Good evening. I'm excited to be able to give you an update about uh where things are at with our online learning program. Um it we've had, in my opinion, a pretty exciting start with it. Things are going very well. But I'll talk with you about the individual components of it. Uh I'd
022like to start with just um how does this align to our strategic plan? You can see here objective three um specifies uh providing programming uh that each student will benefit from a clear system in which academic behavior and social emotional needs are identified, skills are taught, and high expectations are met to address the diverse uh learning needs of our students. Um by offering an online learning opportunity, we're just really offering another way to uh address both pace and uh content delivery as a way of differentiated instruction. So, it fits well with this uh objective, our strategic plan. Some of the questions that I wanted to uh be able to talk uh to the board about uh this evening is first and foremost, what are the criteria used to admit students into the program? Um for
023example, um do we ever turn away any students? And if so, why so? or how how are we m if if there are families that we think are good fits but maybe that aren't seeking us out, how do we how do we address those? And really comes down to four questions uh that that the school personnel and I consider together, right? Uh one of those questions is, is this student seeking open enrollment to another district's online program? As you may recall, uh we indicated that one of our goals with the program in addition to increasing flexibility and responsiveness to students needs was to retain students in our district. This question really addresses that program goal. The next questions are really about uh making sure that this u fits well for our students. Um so is
024is a student unable or unwilling to come to school for some reason? Right? Uh do we believe the child can function in an independent setting with success? Uh so for example, we we've had uh a situation in which somebody sought open en uh or not open enrollment. We don't do that yet. Sorry, that's the last slide. Uh we we s saw a family that was seeking uh enrollment in this program. Um but and when we looked at their record, they'd actually they have a pretty good history of success in online learning. maybe they're they're they're not able to or um have uh some attendance issues at school, but when they enroll in online learning, they do really well. That's okay. That fits that criteria. And then the last criteria that we look at is does
025the number of credits that the need child needs to graduate or to make meaningful progress towards graduation fit with what's available online. I can tell you of two of the denials that we've had so far, we haven't had many, but of two of the denials that we've had, um, uh, two of them have come from this like I'm a, you know, this kiddo is a senior. They need more than 16 credits to graduate. You can really only earn 12 in this program. Maybe we could find another way to serve this child's needs so that hopefully they can still graduate on time. So, those are some examples of how we process different situations. Next thing that I wanted to address are how many students are in the program now um and how many students have been
026retained who previously sought open enrollment outside of the district. Um as of last week uh we had all 15 of the 15 seats filled. Uh we are able to accept more students into the program. We have a couple of students right now that are um families have reached out and they're seeking um uh being a part of this program. Of those 15 students, third well I shouldn't say that 13 students have been retained. And here's why I I make that clarification of oh I shouldn't say 13 of those 15. Some of the students that are in the 15 that are in the program have been retained because they were seeking open enrollment outside of the district. Other students have been retained in the program because uh there was a question about online learning. We had
027some conversation with them and their family and they decided to actually enroll in in-person learning in our district. So not every retained student was retained by being in the program. And this would be a good point to point out. I would share those specific numbers with you as to how many were retained by this and how many were retained by that. But those numbers would go below 10. And once we get below 10 in any kind of public information we're sharing, we risk um having information be personally identifiable. So therefore, I I'm not sharing those specific numbers. nor am I sharing other information that you might that we might normally share about a group of students in a program simply because uh with a program of 15 kids you very quickly get into personally identifiable
028information. So one of the things that I wanted to update the board about was well what's the process for when someone gets into the program? How do we begin that orientation process? Um it starts with a welcome letter um that has a video um attached to it from we held a we held a back to welcome back to school night and orientation night uh with our um program partner uh where we went through things like how do you log on and how do you request tutorial support and where can you get access to resources and all sorts of helpful information that you normally might expect to have on an orientation night. And so we recorded that so there's a link to that. Um then they begin the process of working with a designated school counselor.
029We've got one counselor at the middle school and one at the high school that are designated to work with students and families in order to get them signed up for classes. Um and then uh once they're signed up for classes, they get those orientation and welcome letters from their teachers and they begin that process. Uh we can sign students up for these classes at any point. there there never is such a thing as oh it's too late in the semester in order to transition to online learning. Um so that process can happen at any time and as I think we've shared before one of the um beauties of of this flexible pace for students is that they get a year to work on that learning from when they begin. So, while the normal school year
030might end for many of our students on uh May 29th, if our students in our online program want to continue their learning on into the summer, they're very much able to do so. There are a number of supports for students within the program. So, the next two slides I want to talk about supports for students within the program and then supports that we've set up um as a system. Um the first is a resource page uh a resource academy wi within the the tool itself. They have a vast repository of lessons, videos, previously held course discussions, guided notes for different lessons, uh tutorial v videos embedded. And so um if students are in a subject matter and are getting stuck, they can access tutorial about that subject matter through videos. they can actually go to
031previous material, even for courses they're not enrolled in, and access material from those courses to see if that helps get them unstuck. If they need live support, there's live support available 8:00 to 5:00 every day, except it's only available till 3:00 on Fridays. Um, but they they log in, they say they want to get live support, and they're connected to a content area specialist. uh that could be a one-on-one meeting, that could be a larger group meeting. They can stay for five minutes and get their question answered, they could stay for 30 minutes and get their questions answered. As much tutorial support as they need through that live teaching help is available to them. Um and then also embedded within the the program itself and within their documents is a I find to be a
032very helpful FAQ document. Um how do I get logged on? How do I check my grades? When will grades be done? um any of the type of typical questions that um EdMUM had or Ed Options Academy has gotten from people in the past are embedded into an FAQ document within their within their program. Outside of that, we we as a district are also um monitoring for success uh mostly around communication. So we uh myself and one other staff member uh have district access to view all of our students. We have a process by which every week um we add a a page to a spreadsheet where we're tracking kids uh when was the last time they logged on, how much progress have they made in this class, where are they supposed to be at this
033time, um what what you know what what's happening with this kiddo, and then a process to send communication to the family to say, "Hey, um things are going great for Jeff right now." Or, "Hey, Jeff's doing really well, but he may need to log into this class right now." now, you know, so just a little bit of extra attention to um making sure parents are notified. The teachers within the program are notifying parents as well, but we just felt like that extra layer of support uh from our district uh would be helpful in making sure parents are aware of the progress students are making in these courses. And then as far as next steps are concerned, you can see here some of those are crossed out because we've we've made progress. We've um approved that
034contract. We've uh developed the criteria that we use to determine is this going to be a good fit for this uh kiddo. Um we've worked with our staff to identify students needing the support. Um we will um apply for um acceptance from the department of ed to serve open enrolled students for next year but that won't be our our timeline will be to try to have that approval um um before that March one deadline opens but we don't plan on applying like this fall. Um and then again including um enrollment in ed options as a registration option for secondary students for next year. What questions could I answer? >> I don't recall the answer to this. Are students able to the students in the online program able to enroll in activities at Ames High or
035Ames Middle School? >> Without a doubt, yes, they are. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Y >> this was just a I didn't think of this ahead of time. I apologize. >> Okay. >> So, like for assessments and grades and stuff like that with the year being rolling, is that hard for the sta? I assume grades for student A might come at a different time than student B. Is that is that easy to manage for for the staff or is that kind of a difficult >> That's a that's a that's a great question. To be really frank, I don't know the answer to that question because right now the staff that are issuing those grades and doing that work are edums. So I don't have as much contact with those staff members to get feedback about that
036process as I would if they were our own staff. >> Makes sense. >> I guess one question I have is I'm taking it from the sheet. Um, what will we use as evidence to determine whether the vendor we're using is actually delivering the quality of service we want? Basically, success. What's the >> Yeah, I I would um I would suggest we measure student success as our success. So, the number of classes passed. Um, we certainly could, um, uh, design, we haven't discussed this yet, but we certainly could design a a student survey to get student voice. Like, was this easy to navigate? Was this is this something that you would want to do again like get to get um a perspective of the of the student voice or the parent voice in the process. But
037I think the primary way that I would want to measure the success of the program is the success of the students uh continuing to engage in the class and passing their classes and you know metriculating towards graduation. >> So would we basically use the same evaluation measures we use from the state for students within our inerson? >> Yeah. Yeah. Well well rephrased. >> Okay. So it's not so much they pass the class, it's that they prove that they got the knowledge that we wanted to make sure they get. >> Yes. Yes. I I you're right. I'm assuming that passing the class means that they're attain all of the classes are taught by Iowa certified teachers and aligned to Iowa standards. So you're correct in my answer. I'm making the assumption that passing the class means
038that we're attaining the standards and evidencing the learning. >> To that end, do they have to do like MAP testing or anything like that? Like uh >> they will need to do uh Iowa assessment testing. And if you remember, we u structured the cap this year in a way that allows ourselves the option of letting those students do that in an online fashion if if we want to. We don't have to, but we've given ourselves that option based upon how we put together the cap. um they're they don't have to do the the map testing because the whole point of that is for us to get local data in order to be able to intervene and we're they're not coming to our classes for the most part. We have a we have a few students
039that are um coming on to campus to do uh different experiences but not their core classes where they would see those interventions. >> Good questions. So are you thinking that you will also look at say percentage growth I mean the same kind of like growth numbers that you look at at an ISAS test from an test >> that you would also look at that >> we would certainly have that data to determine whether that was successful for students. Yeah, I mean a number like with an NF15 with only 15 students, it is a little hard to draw conclusions, but it is does also seem really important to know whether I mean >> yeah, if we saw a drastically different result >> like the students in our system were growing this way but students who were
040taking online learning were >> growing differently. Um it would certainly give us pause. The the other thing um that I think is important to to keep in mind is that um at at this time this plan is step one in our plan of moving towards a place where eventually our teachers teach those courses. And so, uh, not that we wouldn't want to assess the success of this program, but, um, having students being taught by Ed Mmentum teachers is not the long-term, uh, plan or goal of this of this program. >> Okay. Right. >> Yeah. You're welcome. >> All right. Thank you. I think you can move on to the pilot elementary literacy materials. >> All right. So, uh, um, I I feel like maybe I should address a few questions before I get into what
041I was going to share. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. So, first I would say um, thank you to our presenters tonight. both fantastic teachers, passionate and dedicated for student success. I appreciate what they do in the classroom very very much. Um I would also say that I would remind the board that the recommendation for these materials isn't Jeff's recommendation. This is a recommendation of a committee of staff members uh who also are very veteran teachers who have gotten together and done study over the last year and a half. And at least the last time we got together when we looked very critically at 95% group which by the way does pair nicely with our geodess and um I can explain why we're at in the process where we're at. 17 out of the 18
042people on the committee decided yes this is a curriculum that we feel like we should pilot. I too wish it was free right like it'd be if it would be great if we didn't have to spend money in order to get exposure to this. But I think it's important when the board's considering whether or not we want to move forward with this purchase order that this is not just an administrative perspective on I think where we should go. This is a committee of our staff members who are saying we believe this is a tool worth looking into because we're not consistently getting the results that we want out of our current curriculum. And when we look at a best practice rubric as put together by uh the reading league which is endorsed by the Iowa
043uh uh reading research center this tool rose above others or this curriculum rose above others uh for this committee. So again appreciate the perspective. I I would share a little different view. Um, okay. So, as I've alluded to, this um this committee has been uh working uh to try to uh make some decisions about what curriculum materials that we might want to uh put in front of all kids for the next several years. Um and has decided that uh part part of that process would be piloting these materials. We're currently in the process of piloting benchmark advance. The committee wanted to pilot, we had group discussions. The committee wanted to pilot more than one set of materials. There was not a second set of materials that the committee was interested in that they felt met
044the broad range of needs. Um it was a discussed tonight that right now we combine foundations with um units of study. Right. We try to combine those. remember sitting here five to six year seven years ago when we talked about maybe they don't combine the best and I I would agree with that assessment. We've only found one um curriculum product that the committee felt good about that that was a holistic product. So now we're looking at are there things that we can put together. That committee did look at foundations. They did screen foundations to determine whether or not that was something that we wanted to to pilot and they decided 17 out of the 18 decided that no, they wanted to go in the direction of the 95% group. So, um, I'm bringing forward to
045you a recommendation that we approve a purchase order for, uh, $45,000 plus, uh, to to purchase, um, 95% group materials as well as professional development from them so that our staff can get their hands on and use to this. I would acknowledge uh, that it's a lot of money. I also acknowledge that um we we for sure will not be using both uh the benchmark advance which we've paid $25,000 for and the 95% group which I'm asking uh to spend money on. Again, we won't use both. They wouldn't that wouldn't make any sense. 95% group already covers what this um purchase would cover as well. Um and so uh there there is a bit of I I want to be transparent. there's a bit of money that uh is going to be spent in this
046pilot uh that um won't be materials that we intend to adopt permanently. We'll get to keep the 95% materials because they don't do piloting. So, we're purchasing those materials and they'll be ours to keep. We don't have to give them back at the end. Um again, just trying to be transparent with you about it. So, um I would recommend that the board approve the purchase of the uh of the 95% materials so that our um uh team of people that are doing piloting have a second set of materials upon which to base their pilot. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to end with 95% group and I know that that's an expensive gamble. Um but that again that is the that's the work of this committee and it's where they felt um it was
047best to go after uh using a tool that we believe in in order to assess a variety of uh curricular materials. Maybe one other question that I know um came up prior to this conversation is what does that mean for transitioning? Right? Do we have how many transitions might we have for students learning this foundational material? So we have um right around 30 teachers uh in our elementary schools that are currently piloting uh either on our core or extended uh teams. So in those 30 classrooms we have students that are learning uh benchmark advance currently and then after 16 weeks so right around January we would transition to um the 95% group and then that that would be it. So there would be a transition in those 30 classrooms uh from one uh foundational literacy
048program to another. >> Can I ask a question? >> Mhm. >> So you'd mentioned that ben that 95% group is not a holistic in the way that benchmark advance is. >> Correct. >> So if we decided not to do benchmark advance, would we do 95% group in addition to the foundations that we're already using? >> No. Um, we wouldn't use it in addition to foundations. If we chose not to do benchmark advance, we would probably choose between foundations and the 95% group. They they both address the same for for the simplistic way the same portions of the reading row. >> So, what we would need to pair foundations with or 95% group with would be another um curriculum option that would teach the uh language comprehension portion of the reading rope. We've got a team
049of people coming together on October 8th in order to review um curriculums that would address this part if I'm using spatial visually um to determine what would be good to pair that with. >> Yeah. So, um, my understanding from having been on the board for a while, um, but I don't think we've talked about it at the board table recently, um, is that this is part of a regular curriculum review cycle that we have. Um, can you talk a little bit about that process just to help situate us and the public in what is going on here? Sure. >> Um, how we I mean, I think it's like important I mean, it's important for me to remind myself and important for the board, I think, in general, and maybe the public to know >> to
050understand. Well, yeah, I'd be happy to. So, um, yes, um, we purchased, uh, units of study, uh, to combine with both foundations and Hagerty, >> um, uh, as a way to approach, uh, elementary literacy seven years ago, >> right? >> Our curriculum review cycle is a ground in a seven-year cycle. So, every seven years we get together and at a minimum, we ask the question like, are we what's the lay of the land? Are we getting the results that we want for our kids? do we want to look at new materials? And the resounding answer to that question uh at this point was yes. There's some mixed feelings on the committee as to whether foundations works or doesn't work for our system, but there is resounding agreement uh on that committee that uh units of
051study is is not uh what we should be doing. And quite frankly, I agree with the committee's two cents on that. Right? It's not grounded in the science of reading. It's not really where we want to be. So, um, as part of a curriculum review process, we gather a team of people. You've heard me call that core and expanded team. So, especially because this is an elementary curriculum, um, we can't pull every elementary teacher together um, to suspend elementary school in order to look at our curriculum. So, we identify grade level representatives and program representatives in order to come together. >> So, K3, >> uh, no, we have uh, folks K5. >> Okay. >> Yep. K5 uh as well as instructional coaches, interventionists, principles, so on and so forth that come together and uh in
052this case over the course of the last year and a half or so um that group has been receiving professional development uh both from district staff as well as from reading experts from Iowa reading research center or from Hartland AEA um and learning about best practices in pedigogy, best practices in material material and material review and then have really just been spending quite a bit of time digging into reviewing different curriculum material sets to determine what do we think would best meet our students needs. >> Okay. >> And so we have a choice between buying a sort of a comprehensive package or the my understanding is that the foundations is effectively the phonics component or the like sound sounding it out component. Um >> it's a good it's a good way to >> the sounding
053it out component. Um so foundations andor 95% would provide the sounding it out component and then the and then we need something we need something for the kids to read. So kids can sound things out then they need to be able to read something, right? Um so the so we're definitely getting a something for the kids to read um component to go with the sounding it out component. for the sounding it out component. Is foundations one of the two options implicit in this? Like we already know what foundations is like, so we want to try a different like is it the control? >> Is it basically a control that is still under consideration >> or is it >> That's a great question. I I I would say it from my perspective it fits in between
054there. I don't know that I would say it's a control. I I wouldn't say that we're not piloting foundations right now because we already know it, right? that that's not been the tone of the conversation in our committee. >> So, let me back up a few steps as I explain here or try to answer this question and if I'm drifting, you can pull me back to where you need me to be. Um, so um, we have the we're looking at curriculum products um that do both the sounding it out and the >> thing to read. Thank you for the language all together. We looked at four or five of those products. >> The only one of those products that this committee felt good about was Benchmark Advance. >> Yeah. >> So, initially what we'd hoped
055is that we would find a product that did both of these things that also, by the way, provided us materials that our interventionists could use. Because in the past, we've approached curriculum review from we're adopting tier one materials >> and then we'll we'll figure out tier two and tier three after we get tier one. And we're trying this time to approach this from the perspective of let's get materials that address the gamut of needs. >> Right. Again, we only found one product that we felt good about and we're currently piloting that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. knowing that we couldn't find another we looked at several but the team didn't feel good about it and I don't want to force the team to pilot something they don't feel good about that's not a way to uh
056engender implementation because at the end of this regardless of what we bring forward and eventually approve I know we'll approve something because nobody wants to stay with uh units of study whatever we ask to approve we got to implement and so listening to people's voice in the process and going through that process of agreement and debate is really critical >> because we need to get to the place that's different than what we did last time and that was we adopted a curriculum that many people right away put their hands up and never really implemented >> right so we've got to be in a different spot when we end this process so getting people's voice not enough voice to find another comprehensive product so we started to look at okay how could we piece things together
057and how could we do that better than what we currently have both with the quality of products that we have, but also with the ease of partnering things. What things partner well with each other, right? >> The team looked at a number of these types of products. And we started with the sounding it out products. What do we want to look at from a sounding itouts products? And we looked at foundations and we screened foundations with the same rubric that we screened other sounding it out products. And that team's perspective again 17 out of 18 was we want to look at 95% group. Mhm. >> So, we're not looking at foundations right now because the team when they screened it didn't screen it as high of an interest in moving forward with it as the
058one I'm bringing to you tonight. >> Okay. >> Now, I would say there's an advantage that we already know it and we I would agree with our presenters tonight if we were to stick with it. There's significant work that we would need to do to get it to be more effective within our system, but we do know it a little bit. But again, that's not why it's not a control group. It's that that team decided it wasn't the product they wanted to move forward with. >> Right. So, kind of using metrics and and looking at our measurements, you know, like from our from our paper, would you then look at the same metrics for, you know, I know it's not a controlled group, but for what we had before versus each of the two different
059>> new options, and then that was how the decision would be made. I I really think we're going to have to trust in the voice of our professionals who are doing the pilot. Um I've said a number of times in our process that I don't believe it would be fair to foundations to use the data that we currently have to judge its merit. Quite frankly, that data is not fantastic. I I do appreciate what our presenters tonight had to share about their classrooms and I wouldn't argue about their classrooms, but we have 90 classrooms through the district and our data around foundations is not where we would want it to be. So, if we do choose to stay with it, we have significant work in order to make that data better in our system. Um,
060so therefore, I'm a little I'm a little um hesitant about the idea of comparing uh data sets because I already know what that data set has looked like for several years with foundations and I don't know that we're going to get a true look at data a data set around a pilot group with just a limited time. So rather I think we're going to have to trust in the opinion of our professionals um around their their body of practice um with these different tools. which by the way the plan is that that hopefully engenders ownership of the process and facilitates some uh integrity in implementation. >> I have a different type of question. So looking at the sheet it says the budget amount was 176,000 and the estimated cost is 45,500 approximately. >> Yes. >>
061So this is less expensive than we planned to spend on this. Correct. >> Yeah. Yes. Uh it's there is still if let me answer this question this way and if it this doesn't answer your question I'll I'll try a different there would still be room in the budget to purchase this as a pilot tool and still be able to make the curriculum purchases that the team recommends at the end of this process. >> Okay. >> I I wouldn't I wouldn't move forward with a recommendation for a pilot knowing that that would sabotage the ability to purchase the material at the end of the process that we want to. I was just thinking also about some of the state legislation that was proposed last year surrounding not dictating but but it indicating what curriculum should be
062used for different things. Would this um would we read the room uh on how that is going before we make a a purchase? >> Without a doubt. And right now all of the um the foundations would meet the expectations of the state. So would benchmark advance. So would 95% group. So would all of the tools that we're going to review on October 8th. So we're not bringing anything to the team that wouldn't meet with what the state has defined as um uh the the way to approach reading materials. And up to this point, again, I don't know what will come out of October 8th, but up to this point, everything that we've looked at is on the the the purchasing list from the state. >> Thank you, Dr. Thank you. >> Moving on to superintendent
063report facilities. >> Uh yeah, with the facilities, we have really the same. Um, moving on the update with the, uh, track as well as the finishing up things with the track as well as the, uh, playgrounds. Uh, we did have some deer prints in our track. So, uh, we have those repaired and ensuring that they don't provide a situation down the road. Hopefully, it makes our students faster uh, fast as deer. Anyway, um, I think I want to Anyway, I'm going to move on from there. Uh the big biggest thing I want to share is the uh progress we've had within the northwestern and 13th um project. Uh you have actually a um a map of the facility itself. Uh ideas through working with what the site upon completion would look like if if we
064were able to um go through the whole uh pieces of it at once. It is a phase in project. So it's it's kind of uh we know the pieces that we would like to start with and that we need to start with and then as dollars become provided um we would then add to that. But knowing that we have a long-term plan for the AIM Center uh space, the northwestern and 13th uh ensuring that this can grow with our needs uh flexibility uh with possible building expansion as needed uh as well as a um nice um city I would say improvement with the community area to be able to use the site as a walking path, traffic guard, in and then in and out uh trans um pretty much moving uh in in and out
065of the facility. Right now we really have one entrance and one exit with not enough parking uh with the actual site. So it does look at um repurposing the Oddland building. um updating the gym space, uh tearing down the old uh storage shed and actually put an IT storage building um located there. And then also just looking and making sure that we had room for building addition for future whether that's classroom space or meeting space. Um it does not mean all the dollars are going to be uh spent or approved by the board, but it's knowing that we have a master plan for that uh space that is um meets the needs of the district as well as I would like to say the community as well. Uh in and looking at phasing it. I
066believe we have one more uh picture. Um phasing in is really we need to work on our uh flow of traffic within the site and then also to increase our parking uh spaces. Right now we are using street parking as well as the church up north uh for our parking knowing that we were going to need to come up with a plan for the use of staff development and then also parent use uh for the Ames center itself. We actually have the parking um phased in as well. Uh the green would be the initial uh parking planning. So that would be probably the initial dollars that we would be looking at. Uh we do have an estimate of all of the um dollars for each of the phases. So just to give you an indication
067uh first phase is actually tearing down the buildings um that are on site. Uh second phase is really the parking aspect of it and then we plan out phases by dollars from there on out. um a full project if this uh board and if we had dollars unlimited or a nice sizable donation from anyone that's around $12 million, we could actually do the full site full project at one time. So that is why we're phasing the project in in chunks that works with our district budget, our facilities budget, our 10-year facility plan, as well as possibly if we have any other um large needs within our district in renovations or another uh bond vote, we would then be able to actually add parts of this project onto that as well. A reminder in district um
068the use of the site would be uh right now currently is housing some of our students uh to help with their um learning environment. It also houses our homeschooling assistance program uh which is kind of giving a centrally located with a book library and then also um a space for staff to work with students. Uh we have event space and um that is used for stat development and can also be used for public if rented out. our food pantry, which I want to take kudos out to uh the great story we had last week on our hope pantry and the amount of work that has um uh that has gone into that for the past uh year uh going for empty shelves to two full shelves. So, we could actually open up space for food
069pantry uh if we um increase space there. And then looking at that gym as a space that can be used for not only the students that are on that site, but actually another space for our event space for our community to use. Um that is not really big enough for athletic use internally, but would be good for another space for our community. Um so that's kind of the initial phases. We do have the full plan. Um, but I did want to share at least the pieces of it uh upfront that I think public view uh letting people know that we are making progress on this uh this piece of land. >> Any questions? >> This looks great. I'm excited that this is going to be happening. Um the outdoor classroom, do you have a thoughts
070about what this what's going to what the uses will be for the outdoor classroom? I mean, that's super cool, but um what's happening there? >> It's just super cool. >> It's just Huh. >> It's just we're >> It's super cool. >> We've isolated spaces that we can put um >> pretty much outdoor classroom space to utilize it. I think the other piece is we looked at some larger classroom spaces or um playground areas on the site >> and determined that it would be nice. So, if you look at the little um little yellow or the little orange pieces, not the triangle, but the little half moons, those are actually each little individual um playground pieces or activity events so that it encourages the movement of the family with the child versus them being stuck in
071one location and sitting there and watching your kid hit every contraption that's on your park and playground. it actually causes movement within the site and also is more visibly appealing to the community as one large >> uh playground setting and we have a lot of playgrounds right now in Ames. >> Yeah. >> Uh and so looking at how this could be more of a walking path and opportunity for um families as well as students. >> Also, can you tell me what a traffic garden is? a traffic garden that is a uh a piece of um usually it's asphalt and it has stop signs and walkways and uh stop and goes. It's for parents to be able to take their children or themselves if they like on their bikes to actually go through the process of
072riding your bike in a community in a safe controlled environment. >> Um there are very large traffic gardens if you want to Google it sometime with stop lights and everything. Uh this is actually a place for um individuals can take their students to learn how to ride their bikes in a community. >> Um it have stop and go or traffic signs and >> Cool. I'm glad you asked that question. >> Yeah, that's really cool. >> Wow, that's really >> where you grow traffic. No, I just >> Yeah, >> it's a it's a learning environment for safety. >> Huh. and people in other areas have rented the facility out for birthday parties, other events or activities. Um, >> yeah, I mean >> way down the road from that from the community, but if you look at
073the gym space, the traffic garden, uh, the walk path, and then even our Oddland building, once that is completed out, there will be space in there for a community to be able to rent out. Um it would be you know eventually it would be a place that families can use, community can use as well as the district. >> Mhm. So it's like pedestrian and bike only. So traffic meaning only pedestrian and bikes. >> Yeah. And maybe like scooters or something I would imagine or something or not? >> Not any not even none of that. Just just like Yeah. Human powered things. >> Uhhuh. >> Yeah. Cool. scooters that you could put your feet on and push kick scooters but not >> cool. >> Seems like a really great site. Um I'm guessing the city's pretty
074excited about it too. >> I mean seems like it be a great resource for the city as a whole. >> Um I have continued my conversations with the uh city as well and finding ways we can work together on projects like this. So yeah. >> Great. >> Neat. Enrollment. >> We're looking at the enrollment page. Um I do need to make an update and say that there should be no yellow parts on this uh page uh for the elementary. So those two uh yellow means that we're at goal. Actually, we are within board goal ranges after changing even after changing or lowering the numbers in our elementary so that we don't have class sizes of 26 or 27 anymore in second grade. Um, but there's not much change uh within those enrollment numbers. We will
075have more numbers when it comes down to our vouchers or more information once we pass the uh October 1st date and we have a better understanding of what our numbers are. Um, overall though, our numbers are less than they were a year ago. Um, so um, that has to do with our I mean it's just our enrollment. I'm not going to say it has to. We had a large class go out, smaller class come in. But as long as we stay with our recommended board goals and look at our staffing as based on need uh versus numbers, uh we should always be able to work within our means um to a point. We can always want more dollars uh for our to support our public education, but our enrollment document is supportive that way. Any
076questions on enrollment? Uh the staffing uh this is the last um staffing for this year. So, it's just really the finalized staffing document. This staffing document will start again in December and then go through our hiring process. And typically I wrap that up in September, August once we have all the hires filled. Um once again I think this is just a good public facing and open communication for the um board to have as an ongoing uh document. It shows what classes we didn't fill. Yellow shows which are new to our district and then it shows all of our trans transfers within the district. Um any questions on staffing gifts to the district? Uh we do have some although all gifts to the district is much appreciated, but we do have some that um some large
077monetary value uh gifts the district. uh from Mary B. Stratton, uh we have a $10,000 gash uh cash donation uh Ames Community School District. Uh we have a $5,000 cash donation from Farm Credit Services for Ames High Agriculture Department. $1,500 cash from Dan Foss for Ames High. $1,000 cash Ames Homebuilders Association for Ames High. $1,000 cash from Greater Iowa Greater Union Credit Union for Fellows Elementary. We have miscellaneous toys for around $200 value from Meline Hoff Hotham Mitchell Elementary. $50 cash from Grant Menowitz Lunch Hero Program. $45 cash from Bean Caffeinated and Relle Dearborn Lunch Hero Program. And $45 cash from TS Bank from lunch hero program. Thank you. U chief financial officer reports. I guess the first one I have um is our financial report for the end of um fiscal year 2025. And
078so I mean I'll just highlight a few things that I few items that are in the report. number one um by state statute I do have to provide to you the ending cash balances and so that is provided to you in the report and um one thing I do I will so I'll just kind of go down it a little bit so we did um receive more revenues than what we had budgeted for which is good and um we did after we amended our expenses we were within our the total expenses not um within the statutory line of the instruction. So, we were still over spent on that one line. Our fund balances. So, our fund balance is cash. Okay. So, that fund balance dropped a little bit, but that's because we're not able to
079get cash reserve, you know, to do a cash reserve levy. So, till we can, you know, do a cash reserve levy, that that's going to come down a little bit. Um, but we are still within where we should be for our solveny ratio. So, our we ended with 18.1% which I think is pretty close to ideal when you think we do not receive state aid for two months and two months is you know a little over 16% of the year. I do feel like you know we do have the right amount of cash on hand to cover our summer months when we're not receiving our state aid. Um the next thing we'll go to is our unspent budget balance. So we did um gain in our unspent budget balance this year again. Um so we
080did have a nice increase there. Um some of that is well there are several factors that that that's attributed to. Number one, we started um receiving started going I said I should say going after some revenue that we didn't have before. And we can see this year, you know, the results of um some of the actions the board has passed with like um our natural gas, you know, putting that on our management fund. So, you know, we're going to have some savings on our general fund. And then um we're going after gas tax rebates that um we haven't done before. So we're just kind of going after a little revenue that we haven't had that now we can see, you know, on our unspent authorized budget side. Does anyone have any questions on this on
081the June 25 report? >> We don't I mean you don't have to. You you should probably show the cash balances since because I'm required by law to put those out there. It's probably on the second to the last page actually. There you go. So, and and this is cash is this is not you know spending authority or spend authorized budget. I mean we have so many terms I guess we use in Iowa school finance. So those are ending cash balances and what we have in the bank and then what we also have in investments in the IceJet PMA program. Thanks. >> You're welcome. The next thing um I'm bringing to you is the modified allowable growth supplemental state aid for our special ed deficit. My paper on that. Oh, Dan has it pulled up here
082for me. So, as you can see, our special ed deficit increased. And there's several reasons here as well. One of the biggest factors is is that this last year we equalized benefits between our EAS and the rest of our staff. So prior like EAS had um different deductible for insurance and then they had to pay a portion of their insurance as well. um and being part of the EA work groups and I mean just just there there was just a lot of they didn't felt like feel like they were treated well and that was one of their ask and that was something that we put on pen and paper because it's not all going on special ed. I mean we have general ed EAS we have you know other staff members that this um equated
083to as well and so that's where some of this deficit um is coming from and then I mean we opened the AIM center as well and as well as equalizing benefits our insurance also increased in cost for all staff so I mean some of this is just for our special ed teachers or BIS and you know other people that are paid out of the special ed as well. So, any questions on that? And then the next one is um the modified allowable growth for English learners excess cost. Um we there was some funding that we did not receive this last year. So, this this deficit is a little bit higher than in the past, but we did not receive um the title three funding for the what's the center downtown called? >> Yeah. Where the
084the kids went to Ballard? >> Ember. >> Oh, y >> the Ember House. But we still had to pay the expenses this year or this year because those kids were on our account the year before. So since we did not receive the title three funding to pay them, they came out of some of it was out of the EL excess cost, some of it was out of our at risk. So just want to be transparent about, you know, where that why we had a little larger deficit this year. >> Okay. So to put all of this simply for us and for the um public at large, the um but we have many requirements for both special ed and English learners uh which simply the amount of money that the state gives us in those specific
085pots cannot cover the things that we are required to provide and that we and also say insurance which we want our employees to have good insurance because that's one of the best ways to retain Um and we really really need to work on retaining especially the um the the um the classroom aids. Um >> correct. Yeah. >> Correct. And we and one thing about the EL funding and the special ed funding is you know when once enrollment is set if if kids haven't been our enrollment before I come to you and say hey we I want to go to the SBRC and get you know ontime funding for those programs. There's no on-time funding for special ed and e as well. So that's not why I have to come to you after the fact. For
086all the other programs, I come to you like I come to you in November to get the funding from those after our October count. Right. >> These programs is after the fact, >> right? >> So we we spend the money and then we have to figure out how to pay for it. Correct. >> So for the special ed, we can go to the state and they will give us a little bit of extra money to top us off, right? >> Or no, no. Okay. That's what I I had misunderstood what was written there. >> No. So well well the state gives us money based on who was on our account on October 1st of the prior year. Okay. >> So anything that we overspend then I have to come to you and and we go
087to our taxpayers for. >> Okay. All right. So we'll go to the taxpayers. >> What? Right. What I'm asking for is for when I say that we're going to go to the SBRC. I'm asking for the spending authority for it right now. >> Right. When we do the budget next year, I will ask for the cash to back it. >> Okay, great. >> All right. Thank you. Uh, next is our student representatives. Do we have any items from our student representatives this evening? >> No items today. Thank you. Okay, >> fair enough. All right. Any items from board members? Okay, we'll move on to our new business beginning with gifts to the district. >> I move the board approve the gifts as presented. >> Second. >> Moved by Deward, seconded by Beerbone. Any discussion? >>
088All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Nay. >> Passes 5. Pilot elementary literacy materials procurement. >> I move the board to approve the procurement of the of the pilot elementary literacy materials as presented. Second >> moved by Smith, seconded by Beerbomb. Any discussion? >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Nay. >> Nay. >> Passes 41. >> Uh, financial report for June. >> I move the board to approve the financial report as presented. >> Second. >> Moved by Deward, second by Beerbone. Any discussion? >> All in favor say I. >> I. I >> opposed. Nay. Passes 5-0. Request for modified allowable growth and supplemental aid. >> I move to approve the request for modified allowable growth and supplemental aid for the special education deficit for the 2425 fiscal year. >> Second.
089>> Moved by Dart, seconded by Beerbone. Discussion. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Nay. passes 5-0 and request to SBRC for modified allowable growth for English learners excess costs. I move to approve the request to the school board uh sorry school budget review committee for modified allowable allowable growth for EL excess costs in the amount of $621,7327. >> Second move by Smith, seconded by Deward. Discussion all in favor say I. I >> oppose. Nay. Passes 5-0. Uh, request for superintendent. I did not note any requests for superintendent this evening. Anybody? Did I miss anything? Okay. Um, board planning calendar. Our next meeting will be October 6th and I believe that one will be with a work session. Any questions on the board planning calendar? >> I move we adjourn. >> Second.
090All right. Moved by Beerbomb, seconded by Deward. All in favor say I. >> I. Oppose. Nay. Passes 5-0. Thank you everyone.