001e e e turn a lot more night Thursday I was like I have something every night yeah lots of pots of was it a like weird mix of local and state all right we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order this is our uh make sure I have the right yes our special meeting on the the public hearing so first I need an approval of the agenda so moved second all right move by deward second by beer bomb all in favor say I I oppos nay passes 5 Z so we'll uh move to the public hearing a public hearing is requ required for the consideration of public ta tax notices which will be mailed by the county auditor to tell all residents by March 20 the public hearing will be labeled public hearing a
002for the district District's budget process this is the time and place for the public hearing on the matter of the proposed tax levy for the 2025 26 fiscal year as provided in the notices mailed to taxpayers um are there questions comments or objections from those present so this is if you have any comments uh you can come to the mic this is this is for the special hearing on the tax levy so this is [Music] the that's the next meeting yeah oh that's the next one okay that's for the regular one oh uh Dr Goan this is for the property tax lby were you here to speak are Dr Goan yeah yes you you had signed up to speak for the public hearing yes you can go ahead and come up to one of the
003microphones yeah uh is this thing on yep yeah uh thank you for serving our community and I'm glad to see for the first time some maybe parents are here uh one thing that I want to say is not to add up anything on your task but I want to offer to you there are alternatives that I personally as a grandfather are willing to offer in order to basically alleviate some of the financial pressure which require this uh property taxes you may really not to need to go too far but I'm not going to elaborate too much until when I hear that what the board the respectful board have to say that's all I want to say thank you thank you any other comment for the public hearing on the tax levy yes yes and if
004you could state your name and address too oh yeah I was planning to I just waiting for to be done okay my name is Judy lemish I live at 327 South Maple here in ases Iowa um I received the letter that everybody did about the tax proposal so I had a couple questions as well as some statement here so my question is this is just a proposal I'm assuming that we don't know for sure what the state legislator is going to do so this would be to have it ready to go should they not change anything the way it is okay so being that being said I don't really have an objection to tax increases because I come from an Educator's family a lot of professors and teachers etc etc myself um in the past
005so I I do agree that that needs to be done to keep current Etc um you guys have seen us here many a meeting um part of my problem is that I don't I think we need to fight harder for our rights in this state um so just adding more money to the problem and not actually going out there and doing something about it it kind of leaves me a little bit confused okay um I write it wrote this down really fast so Ames as a community and uh as the school district in Ames um we know that the tax um supported esas are a big part of our problem here so I guess I I don't see you know the organization I belong to is trying to fight this from the ground up I
006guess I don't see anything coming from our community um from the school board so maybe I'm just a little blind so if you know maybe in another time you guys can explain that to me and some of my friends who come here regularly um but I don't think because uh these you know tax funded private schools are not don't have the same requirements and I appreciate the fact that you educate all children all subjects regardless of you know where they come from and I think this is kind of we need to start fighting harder so that's what I have to say that's thank you is there anyone else that wanted to speak or uh submit written comment regarding the tax levy all right I declare the hearing for public tax notices for the property tax
007levy for the 25 26 fiscal year to be closed and I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the special meeting move we adjourn second uh move by beer bomb second and by award all in favor say i i i oppos n passes 5 Z and we will we have to wait to start to 545 right so we will start our official our regular meeting sorry our regular meeting at 5:45 is scheduled so quick egg break there's Bo song I'm not very pretty I'll just we got like there's no set chicken whatever was like that one looks cute that one looks cute too I'm not against policy yeah being on Cut the best time I have ever done on my NCAA brackets was my very first time when I was like sixth grade and I was based
008off of I like that school's name like or they have good school colors that's why I chose in sixth grade and it was the best I ever e e e you're like 15 seconds late and usually it's Rob he's like time up I'm of course you are all right we will go ahead and call our regular meeting to order can I have a motion to approve the agenda so mooved second moved by beer Bomb seconded by deward all in favor say I I I oppose nay passes 5 z uh next we have two uh public hearings the first is on the 2017 Iowa legislature um I'm not going to read all of that this is the expending funds from the district's flexibility account that we discussed at the previous meeting should we have anybody here
009to speak for that okay uh I will close that and open our next public hearing on the school calendar is there anybody that wanted to speak on the school calendar all right then I will open our general public forum I'll start with our uh statement 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 any topic relevant to the district whether on the current agenda or not those who wish to 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 did not necessarily reflect those of the Board District administration or staff speakers are to remember that Iowa law prohibits the
010board from discussing specific employees students or their performance student speakers will state their name in school others will state their name and address and do we have one if you could state your name and address please um my name is way uh I live in 26 27 W off Drive uh my kids in second grade currently go to kid Mitchell um So lately I noticed that he bring less and less artwork to home compared to kindergarten in first grade so then I learned that uh K mitro they only have half time uh art music and PE teachers at least for his class and his class is 27 students instead of 25 which I think that's unexpected and the reason I heard is that if they adding one more class they have to hire fulltime art
011teacher and music teacher and PE teacher so I think at this age it's very important for kids to have proper art and P educations um if you think about at this time there is so looking forward to art class uh coming back tell me I don't want to miss art class but nowadays you don't have received um you know a lot of uh proper resources um I also heard there sports closet is out of date maybe art um inventory is not up up to date that could be the reason that maybe the teacher are so busy because it has to share with other duties um so I just want to raise this concern and a request um I feel this is a very important manner for the kids at that age I hope that at
012least the kids kid Mitchell can receive same resources at fellow at Gilbert um they can have fulltime art teacher music teacher PE teachers has proper size of class has updated the supplies for for good education thank you thank you I believe that was our only uh the only person who signed up for a public forum so I will close the public for Forum next item is our consent agenda we have a motion so moved second all right moved by to Ward second and by beer bomb all in favor say I I I oppose nay passes 5 Z next we'll move on to our reports uh with our building presentation with activities in athletics and I will turn it over to LY fed as high activities director do you want this computer to run anything there
013well thanks everybody think the board received uh some documents uh from JD earlier anyway I just have a couple things here to discuss uh from the activities Department lens anyway the first is we're going to discuss a little a bit of Staffing uh in terms of our head coaches and directors we've had a high uh rate of retention amongst our directors and our head coaches which is great uh it's always great to have sta uh staff that stick around and uh makes that meaningful for our student athletes as well as our uh individuals involved in activities as well we have had our typical turnover and assistant coaches uh particularly in in some of our our Sports uh we do rely on Iowa State to to give us some uh young coaches and of course by
014the time they graduate then they move on and we have to go look for new ones and so that has been in my four years here with the district uh we had a little bit of turnover in terms of our assistant coaches um one of the things uh that we are seeing we are seeing an increase in participation and with that of course uh we see uh coaches kind of being strained because of a lack of coaching that we have to offer for the numbers you know so some of our programs are pushing you know 1 to 40 uh in terms of a ratio and so we we see some struggles in football volleyball track and field right now we have 200 plus kids out for track and field boys and uh boy soccer cheer
015and our dance teams um have all requested additional coaching stiens throughout my my career here and specifically lately because our our participation continues to increase in those things I recently hired a new football coach which you probably all saw uh we hired Jesse Von Baron who was one of our longtime Middle School teachers as well as coach uh taught at the high school as well as Elementary School uh and we actually are now currently looking for a dance drill coach um and so that will uh think the job closes March 31st and we'll start to look for that but other than that that's really the two uh two big things that we had in terms of hiring in terms of the activities office this year terms of the budget budget's always fun in the activities
016office there's a lot of things going on um we we continue to look for ways to increase Revenue one of the the things that our conference currently did this year was We increased uh admission prices we had $8 for cash and $7 if you paid it online or with a a debit or credit card uh and the conference is currently exploring options to further offset the expenditures and also that cash uh cash option which I also understand is being debated at the uh General Assembly as well that whether or not you have to accept cash uh fees for officiating are going up dramatically uh every sport has issued us uh an increase uh and right now basically every sport I'll say is demanding a 2 and a half% increase of officiating fees every single year
017um so it is not getting any cheaper for for us to do things uh one of our larger events that we host is the menend and Hall wrestling invite we uh that day we have eight officials that invite a loan cost us $2,700 in officiating fees so it is very difficult to continue to do these things and still make some money uh on top of that fees for tournaments and in invitationals are increasing and partly that is in turn because schools are realizing that they have to basically charge the schools that are coming to those events in order to pay for the officials because if they don't they lose money um one of the things that's happening recently we actually just received an email last week that uh because of the tariffs that are being
018put in place a lot of the sporting goods about 95% of sporting goods come from overseas specifically China uh so like a dozen of softballs is going up eight bucks we just received that email um last week we order about 20 dozen softballs for example on the season and so that that's uh a little unnerving in terms of athletic directors as well how's that going to continue to work across all the different things one of the more recent things that's happening in terms of the budget is we were notified that our athletic training contract which expires here in June and we did a three-year contract for athletic training which is through McFarland Clinic technically they're owned by Athletico it's kind of a weird marriage between the two there um that our contract expires in June
019and they notified me that we are going to be hit with have a substantial increase in our contract of around $30,000 so um talking with Mr Grimes and Miss rusik we are going to send that out for RFP uh we would very much hope that mcfar would come back to the table with RFP offer as well as long as along with some other athletic Training Services but that's some substantial increase it's it's double basically what we pay right now so um kind of get hit hard there um other than that though uh we do work um with the am athletic booster club to help students that uh need required equipment uh if they can't afford it and then one of the things I just put on there was uh if individual students have issues purchasing
020equipment or something like that of course we work with those students to try to do that uh in terms of scheduling most of our athletic uh schedules are done within our own conference which is the Iowa Alliance and then of course uh depending on what sport it is and how many dates or contests we have available we're working through uh some of our local friends to schedule those non-conference games um our football group was announced uh right before spring break which was exciting that seems to be a later and later process process we won't have our final schedule until after March 14th which I know has passed they still aren't out yet uh so everybody keeps asking when's homecoming uh all that we don't even know so we don't know what day we're going to
021host so um we hopefully have that here early April and then um one of the last things that we start to do about this time of the year is we start to work with our Fine Art directors as well as myself to start to try to figure out all the puzzle pieces of the calendar try to avoid as many conflicts as possible between uh the Fine Arts and Athletics which is almost nearly impossible but we try to do our best when it comes to that so terms of facility things uh in terms of the activities Department uh the track Stadium project which you're all aware of is scheduled to start May 5th which we are exatic about our track is about 15 years old so it's going all the way down they're taking the base
022layer and everything off uh and then we're also getting some upgrades with the bleachers adding on 300 seat uh to the west side and we're also redoing some of the fencing and rails and and that kind of stuff and adding new lights so it will'll be a nice uh new lit facility that won't have so much of the Overflow from it uh also one of the things that we continue to receive is just High Praise about our our inside facility specifically the high school uh people walk in there's that wow factor and there is uh just every time kids walk in there's just so that you can tell like man this is this is awesome I wish I went to school here so that's something great that we hear continuously uh one of the things
023that we are continuing to have conversations regarding is a trophy case there is a trophy case in the high school unfortunately it is in the basement and if you've been to a athletic contest at the school you would never see that as a spectator because you shouldn't be on that floor uh when you come to an athletic contest you should be on the main floor and you shouldn't go down by the locker rooms which is where the TR few cases um if you weren't aware ases high school has the most state championships of any school in the state of Iowa which we very proud of we have 95 uh Val is one behind us by the way you keeping track um and so one of the things we'd love to do is to build a
024trophy case between two main doors of when you kind of walk into the commons of the main gym there um and then there would also be a little a smaller one kind of between the main door and the glass walls and there would also be a trophy case placed over by the entrance to the auditorium where the Performing AR CER um estimation would be 125 to $185,000 on that FYI and so we're we're just we're kind of discovering what ways we could try to fund raise money for that and uh possibly come up with a multi funded process to fund those trophy cases uh because every time people give tours that's one of the things that they talk about is where's the trophies where's the trophies and unfortunately we're out of trophy space uh in
025the our trophy case space so we don't even have all of our trophies out right now they're sitting in a storage uh the last thing I'll talk about in terms of some of the updates is Transportation uh one my first bullet is probably no one void because we are moving on from Durham but we do have a pretty good working relationship with Durham uh they've been easy to work with in terms of some of our changes of course in Trans in activities things change dramatically whether it's weather or uh just the number of kids and so we hope that the transition to First Student is a smooth one in terms of the activities that we have uh we have seen an increase in the amount of charter buses that are being assigned to us uh
026we we typically don't request a ton of Charters but we do see charter buses show up at the front door which causes a whole bunch of fun uh amongst the coaches and the students I think some of the young men back there would agree with that wonder sometimes why they they don't get a charter bus but I always tell them it's just about when you leave it's not always about uh where you're going sometimes just because it's between 1:45 and 4:15 happens to be the bad time upek so um and I I kind of put that in there so it is a special event state tournament um our pet B for example requires some extra storage space we do sometimes then book a charter for and and Charter prices are just increasingly uh there it's
027crazy a bus to go from here to De is about $2,500 on a charter bus versus a school bus is about $450 so it's it's get a little lot of little L of hand and the the last thing in terms of Transportation uh we do have um a fleet of Vans and Suburbans that are housed at the high school and uh we're getting to the point where a couple of them are getting over 10 years old and so I've been working with director Addie to try to come up with a a plan to start placing some of those older vehicles that getting up there in mileage as well as yours and so becom a little less reliable and we're just hoping to kind of get there through there so Dan if you're R the show
028over there I'm kicking it to the one that says participation I believe one of those two tabs there or whatever one you click on I'll talk about next that's great look at you you picked right uh next thing I talk about is participation so this is my first time in my four years uh being employed by Ames that I've sat in front of the board and given a presentation like this so I thought well I'll go back and try to give you the best numbers as possible uh this data is from Infinite Campus which uh we roster all students that participate in athletics activities and clubs in Infinite Campus uh 2021 the 2020 2021 school year uh was the year before I got here and um you can kind of see some of the numbers
029there and it's a little hard in Infinite Campus you have to be a guru of infinite campus in order to get this to pull so I appreciate Christina over here at the district office helping me out pulling that stuff because I don't have the wherewith well to pull the ad hoc reports for it and so you can kind of see in uh I'll just point out a couple highlights there uh if you just counted every student once in that school year we had 709 students participate between activities Athletics and clubs so about 50% of our Pursuit population participated you can see in that year though we didn't uh they didn't track participation in clubs if you go to the next school year um you can see that that increased to 1,8 students which is about
03069% of the student population um that was my first year here at Ames moving on to the 2022 2023 school year uh I don't know what happened um Christina I tried to have her do a little bit more digging but all of our Club rostering disappeared for that school year and so uh unfortunately that data disappeared it is gone but in that year if you just counted every student once we had 866 students participate in athletics and activities or 59% of our population uh some of the numbers above there you can see like in athletics if you counted students that are multi- participants we had 1,031 kids that participated in the Athletics if you look at Fine Arts 900 67 or since County kids more than once that could be a kid that participated in
031football and band or uh drama and debate for example so if you go to the next school year that year we did get everybody on the books in terms of Athletics activities and clubs we 1,62 students participate uh that's again counting every student once for 71.5% of our uh student population and then I'll go to this year this year is you know it's three quars of the way down I guess kind of uh even though baseball and softball goes all the way through summer so I don't ever really feel like it's nearly over but um we're currently sitting at we don't roster clubs till towards the end of the school year because we let students continue to uh participate in clubs or even just join and so right now between Athletics and activities we have
032885 students participating which is 58.9% of our population that does not include any of our spring rosters or the summer rosters in terms of of Athletics and it won't include our uh clubs I did push a couple of the things over there so right now if I just projected it out I would say we would beat our participation numbers of any year that I've been here which is awesome and so we continue to see those participation numbers increase which is awesome we want as many kids to participate as as possible you go to the other document there Mr Raider which is athletic activity success had to zoom in quite a ways it's hard to get everything so we have had a pretty successful year I'll KCK it off our boys basketball team made a a
033run into the state tournament and gave the eventual state champion Valley everything they had in the first round they were back-to-back Conference champions our girls basketball team wanted Conference Championship uh I think that's first time in over 15 years that they've won a conference Championship our baseball team has been back-to-back Conference champions I didn't put it on there because it's almost two years old but of course we went to the state tournament a couple years ago our softball team was a conference champion last year volleyball team was a conference Champion our boy soccer team was a conference Champion our girls swim and dive team they were a fifth place finisher at the state meet as a team and they were back-to-back conference Champs uh our boys wrestling team saw a state individual Champion as well
034as an individual runner up and our girls wrestling team had an individual runner up uh boys cross country was a team State qualifier along with our girls uh cross country team being a a State team qualifier which is the first time that's happened in 14 years when both teams have qualified our girls track and field team was a conference champion last year girls golf was a conference champion and I they finished eth last year as a team our cheer squad was the icca co-ed stunt state champion as well as the co-ed cheer dance state champion move into the Fine Arts uh am High music students which includes drama or drama uh orchestra band and choir we a record-breaking 42 students selected to participate in the 2024 All State Music Festival and this is from Mr
035Buttermore according to his records that breaks the previous record of 34 students being all state as selected in 2016 our choir had six All State singers this is just a breakdown of the 42 for you band had 14 Orchestra had 22 terms of our drama they had successful uh play this fall and one acts this winter and they are very excited to kick off Mary Poppins April 11 through 133 I would ask you all to go cuz you're going to get to see somebody fly so if you haven't been there I highly recommend you go out our Esports team which right now is a club uh was the 2025 rocket League champions so I'd never watched it before man I was yelling at the screen do it I couldn't play rocket League I don't if
036you guys know what it this but uh it was kind of exciting our speech uh they just hosted the 2025 State individual speech contest the weekend going into spring break I unfortunately couldn't be there I was on an airplane we had 21 performances received division one ratings with four students selected to perform at All State uh March 31st and our dance team this year had a sixth place soloist at the Iowa High School dance team association state competition in class X so they kind of break they break things down a little differently than uh the boys and the girls Association and Union so those are some of our successes this year so pretty sucess last document there Mr Raider is Athletic Conference so our Athletic Conference is currently the Iowa Alliance uh we made a
037decision the year before I got here to leave the ciml which used to be a 19 team conference um that was a conference that Ames had belonged to since 1991 so that decision was a very difficult one for the community of am to leave and um was based on a couple different factors one of those was to try to improve participation particularly Athletics but it was also to improve athletic equity and um through that you know I think maybe four years later you could probably look at it say Yeah in terms of conference we probably have been pretty successful I don't know if you would say there's Equity we are kind of coming the team that beats up on people a little bit bit but since the creation of the Iowa Alliance conference the league
038stried to provide athletes with a great experience we have seen a great uptick in participation as well as success um but we've also had seen some struggles with the conference and a couple of those would be an increase in travel we see waterl in our schedule which is a 200 a 2hour drive we have Mason City which would been with Mason City forever but now you add in a Tuma which is a 2hour plus drive and you you start to see some of those increases in travel there's a decrease in Gate receipts of course with the increase travel you see a decrease in Gates uh and then in some sports we're overwhelming our competition particularly in swimming uh tennis we see a very overwhelming um difference in some of the competitions that we have there
039and one of the other things that's happening is we're seeing a lack in lower level of offerings girl soccer for example we Str will to offer jb2 games within conference same thing happens in softball so then I'm having to go out and try to schedule other schools to fill in those for the of course the athletes that are going to eventually fill our Varsity lineups um conference affiliation of course is going to change over the years there is a a bill I believe still uh flat at uh the state level that they might put put together a committee that will start to kind of steer conference alignment from what I don't I don't know exactly what's all part of that but that is still I believe a float I made it through the funnel um
040Ames has been trying to find its place to fit over the last couple of years we were recently invited to join the ciml along with three other schools we've also been asked to join the little Hawkeye conference um and that that is still on the table little Hawkeye conference one is still on the table we did deny the c um as we look forward to our Athletic Conference alignment I think there's a couple things we need to think about and uh way some pros and cons and this is not an exhaustive list this is just some things that were on my brain at the time um in terms of our current conference Thea Alliance we we do have multiple schools looking to leave or consolidate within the next couple of years uh if you've heard
041water loose schools is going to combine into one School uh we do not know what direction that school will choose to go in terms of that so that could leave our conference without a school and then de Mo has a lot on the table right now in terms of what they might choose to do they might go from five schools offering Sports to three um so that can greatly impact that also many of the schools in our current conference are in declining enrolling Trends currently so they're dropping down in classification as well um we do do have lots of travel as well as decreasing lower offerings lower level offerings one of the pros is we do have great relationships with Bas city marshal town and Fort Dodge those are probably in terms of Marshal Town
042and Fort Dodge some of our more rivalry type of games and then we have seen a increase in participation as well as success which that was part of the reason of leading the ciml um one of the bigger problems is our conference schools don't see a lot of success at the state level we're one of the few actually has success at the state level you look at the little Hawkeye conference there is the stability of the conference conference has been around longer uh the schools have been in that conference for a long time the member schools and communities are more aligned with AMS in terms of their demographics for introduce launch part uh participation uh that kind of stuff their Middle School and High School athletic programming are very similar to am most of them
043do offer a full eighth and seventh grade middle school offering in terms of their Athletics right now in terms of M School athletics we're kind of having to do a hodge podge we're playing the beta we're playing a we're playing roll and story and Gilbert and then we're having to dip also into the what's the ciml which a lot of the C schools don't offer Middle School sports like we do and then um one of the cons would be that we play schools that are quite a bit smaller than Ames well a Christian um is in that conference for example they're quite a bit smaller than us uh one of the pros also out of that one is that conf conference schools uh in that conference have had a lot of success here recently I
044know Norwalk their girls basketball team just made a run through the state tournament along with dcg so lot of success out of there terms of the ciml there's a familiarity with the conference and member schools of the CML right now there's nine schools in there uh has the least amount of travel out of the three options you see there U has the most amount of participation in levels uh it is a return to a conference that we just left merely four years ago so I'm not 100% sure that's the the best reason to maybe jump back into it uh and since we just recently declined a invite there's uncertainty on whether or not they'd actually ask us to come back which is part of the conference dance that everybody gets into when they start talking
045about conference align so we'll see what the legislature does here over the next couple of weeks with some of the bills that are still being pushed through the Committees and through the different uh houses but one of the those could be conference alignment as you flip through the the next couple of pages I gave you a little bit of a comparison between ases and member schools of each of those three athletic conferences broke it down in terms of their beds beds is your 9th through 11th grade enrollment that is how you are classified in Iowa Sports uh and then it gives you the approximate distance from high school to high school and it also gives you the breakdown of the reduced lunch percentages for each of those schools in comparison to ases high school which
046all that data is pulled from the report from the Department of Education so you can kind of I'm not going to read every single thing there I think you have the opportunity to do that so the first page is a table that shows the I Alliance the second page is a comparison of the little Hawkeye conference as you can see we are the largest if you compare ourselves to will Hawkeye we are the largest by quite a way but Dallas Center Grimes and Norwalk are steadily chasing us in terms of their enrollment uh and we kind of fit in terms of reintroduce lunch right into the middle of all that and then the last page of the Athletic Conference piece that I wanted to put in front of you is a comparison to the ciml
047or the central Iowa Metropolitan League um which we actually fall on the smaller side of that conference so um just an interesting tidbit there I know uh Mr gmes and I have had conversations as soon as he came board about what it would look like for join for Ames to join a different conference as we continue to be approached uh by multiple different entities uh with our athletic alignment so other than that do you guys have any questions or is there a lot there's a lot there I have two questions and they're both probably real dumb War now um number one is there a due date by when you have to answer like the the little Hawkeyes yes uh so in order to leave the I Alliance so they would like us to join for
048the 2026 2027 school year we have to notify the hour Alliance by June 1 of this school year in order to be released from the uh I Alliance there isn't any buy out or anything like that but that's I think that's the right thing to do um trying to remember what day we went to in February when we met with uh a bunch of schools were invited to a meeting with a little Hawkeye uh we were part of it Urbandale you know I'm trying to think some other schools off top of my head which is probably saw in the news um so they a lot of schools have declined that offer I think right now maybe uh us and one other school are still debating that offer so and I do know they've reached out
049to another school as well so they are still looking at um having enough schools that we can or little Hawkeye conf I say we because I was in it for 12 years um at a little Hawkeye conference can um look at kind of making sure that play is equal so that we're not so that some of the smaller schools aren't playing some of the biggest schools so there's a big enough numbers in there I will from a little Hawkeye conference standpoint uh as I was the superintendent Dallas Center Grimes when Ames was looking at moving out of the ciml little Hawkeye conference did reach out to Ames at that point to try and approach to bring as in the little Hawkeye conference at that point as well um so I do know that there is
050I think twofold from the standpoint when I was a superintendent Dallas Center Grimes in little Hawkeye conference which this I should say but not say because it's just the timing of it you're not on camera my first year at Dallas Center grage I did move Dallas Center Grimes out of the Raccoon Valley Conference to the little Hawkeye conference due to the exact same reasons we're having conversations here um for it's really for play it's for students to have uh compet competition as well as um being able to have more levels of play for our students and that was the same reason little Hawkeye conference also has a lot more than Beyond Athletics uh they have a very strong um art uh program within it uh they do set up um a lot more different areas
051for students and not just Athletics or even just music it it goes into all the related arts when it comes down the conference um that was my second question so with moving this also move like our speech kids and our I assume like music and would would we change conferences for that too the Fine Arts is less defined by conferences it's it's really yeah okay it you have the State Iowa high school state Music Association the Iowa State St Association they select indiv they select schools that host Regional competitions you go to that if you make it out of that then you go to the state competition so it's it's less defined by uh your conference versus kind of your size so you really end up going that way versus that so it doesn't have
052a huge impact on that now the little Hawkeye does offer they have art competition within the conference great uh they were talking about a marching band conf uh competition um there was one other can't remember what is off top of my head that's great additional competition is wonderful they also do I believe a even a music conference band night so they will have tryouts for kind of a little Hawkeye conference band and bring all the students in to have just their own um music performance for that night at one of the schools thank you sorry question so one of the negatives that was listed or the problems that we're having right now that was listed was declining gate receipts is there a thought that uh gate receipts would improve if we moved to little Hawkeye
053yes uh so we played We compare uh we played Indianola mhm Norwalk dcg and basketball this year and in comparison to the nights where we also hosted conference opponents you know just comparing night tonight our gate receipts were larger than when we played our current conference opponents okay little Hawkeye conference travels well and they're so much closer yeah it's hard you know when games aren't competitive people tend to not come to the contest unfortunately so the more competitive games can be it usually entices uh people to come out and of course if your team is good that typically tends to attract people to your contest as well so yeah right you know our boys B team was pretty good this year so watch so so one uh the little Hawkeye conference sounds like a good
054option I love the idea of the Cy little Cyclones dominating that conference uh question a question I would kind of have though is I've experienced this but I'm not sure everybody on the board has can you explain the issues we do run into like at the middle school level for example with being able toec find places for those kids to play so I mean currently in in baseball and softball we're experiencing that so we we create our own baseball and softball uh schedule so the the middle school is really a weird schedule uh it's the ciml it's dcg Norwalk Indianola uh ases Fort vge and Marshall Town they throw together a scheduling conglomerate um and you are pushed into a middle school schedule for volleyball football basketball wrestling baseball and softball uh we have elected
055to pull out of that for baseball and softball because we were not we were being pushed kind of into the ciml world mostly so we pulled out of that uh because our soft our eighth grade softball was really getting beat up on it so we pulled out of that so what's happened though is now we're getting a little push saying that you know hey why do you get and do whatever you want but uh to answer your question um the leveling so we do get Fort town a lot more than Indianola and dcg and Norwalk primar because we're closer and a lot of the ciml doesn't want to go up to Fort Dodge in Marshall town so we end up receiving those two schools on our conference a lot which is fine I mean they're
056in our conference we've played Marshal toown and Fort doch for over a 100 years in a lot of sports um but unfortunately they're starting to see their numbers dwindle so uh in eighth grade boys basketball when we offer four or five levels they might offer two but now the kids that are on the CDE teams AR get to play that night or if they are they're doing inner Squad scrimmage so we're seeing that more routinely uh whether it's basketball related or if it goes into the volleyball Ro which volleyball participation is increasing uh it's the highest increasing sport Across the Nation right now and um unfortunately in our conference though that's not true across all of them particularly at the middle school level so that's part of the difficulty that's running into it is we
057we're being provided a schedule but based on who we're being scheduled the leveling just isn't there in order to provide us that great opportunity because it Middle School sports yes it's competitive but the M the main purpose of Middle School sports or Athletics is participation kids should be able to do whatever they want whether they played it before or not and I believe our Middle School uh athletic offerings do that for our our kids which is why we see such great participation at that level uh so it hurts me a little bit that you know every once in a while kids don't get to participate because they're not offer the levels that they probably could if we had other people on our schedule and we could still play like Fort Dodge and Marshall Town non-conference
058if we did move right yep absolutely so you know depending on the sport there's always a of non-conference games that you're able to go out and get you know not to get too much into the scheduling you know a basketball schedule typically you're you're being provided 15 to 18 games you get it to play 21 uh football's off the table of course that's District volleyball you can play 15 dates typically the conference is provided anywhere from 8: to 10: um swimming is a an anomaly a little bit you get 12 we're usually provided six so we we do get to go out and look for some more um cross country for example that we only get one conference date so we we go and find the other nine uh in terms of that so that's
059that's kind of how those working terms of baseball softballs um 26 for baseball of the 40 softball is 22 of the 40 so then we go on schedule so there is a lot of flexibility that comes in there the other thing I would tell you is uh both the Iowa High School Athletic Association and the Iowa Girls Athletic Union are both debating whether or not in the what I'll call the major team sports if they will move the district model of football into volleyball basketball soccer baseball and softball which will have huge ramifications because then it it really won't matter because your conference will become n and void in those Sports because it would just be like football and then well I don't know what that looks like I know it's in the very infy
060stages of of that discussion so that that could also have some varing on that but in terms of the time being their boards would both have to vote on that and push that through it's probably still a couple years out um of course as the activities director I want to try to do what's best for the kids of Ames and if we look at it probably a move is necessary in order to maintain High participation as well as some some competitiveness that says meaningful in a sense it would be our recommendation to bring to the board in the April board meeting act on moving away from the alliance and aligning with the little Hawkeye conference um that would come in the future but we feel there's more benefits for the students which I think is
061our sole purpose um and the little Hawkeye conference can provide that for our students levels of play and and I I don't think we can go off of what the legislation's going to do or what the conference are going to do this is what we have in front of us and the recommendation we would be bringing would be a recommendation to move to the little Hawai conference Alliance and break our alliance with the alliance doesn't sound right but well and really going in this direction is actually kind of the way the legislation and the legislature right now would say you should do of trying to find schools that fit the same type of needs you have I guess the only other thing i' i' mentioned because I know we do this in those sports that
062we are say more competitive we still do an outof conference you know schedule like some of the bigger CML ciml schools and things like that so we really are trying to do the best for kids at all different levels so that's perfect that's why our basketball schedule looked the way it did this year why we went out and played Cedar Falls and we played Norwalk um but we were also purposeful in our schedule uh to try to see if we thought those schools were a good fit for us and thought it really out for us in terms of that those games were competitive and when we were in ciml our our female sports really struggled um and in the alliance that hasn't been the case but we've played teams from the little Hawkeye it's been
063very competitive um and so that's been also very good to see and can I make a conjecture for your confirmation or not I would think financially as far as like busing goes this is also a better Fit For Us in terms of just cheaper so it's a it's a on average on average right so on average the hard part is you you when you do an average you have five De Moine schools which are all roughly 33 to 39 miles away so it really throws the average off uh the alliance is split into two divisions so we're in the North Division which is Mason City Marshall Town water Lou East for badge and us and then you have the southern division which is the five to1 schools and a Tumbl and so we depending on
064the depending on the schedule uh we typically only play the southern schools one time um and so when you talk about an average it really throws it off because there are sports where we won't play a Tuma or we might only play two of the de Mo schools where we we have to play water L East as City Marshal Town in Fort Dodger Marshal Town Fort Dodger are two closest uh in terms of Northern pot and so it does we do get quite a bit of the travel from that piece uh I think I did the average um believe at the meeting and um in the alliance our average was like 56 and a half we went to the little Hawkeye it's 59.7 um so but again it's a little skewed because you you rope
065in five Mo schools which typically don't play all five M Mo schools in in the given Sports uh outside of basketball actually basketball is the only sport we play all five too schools even in softball and baseball we don't play all five do we know the other schools that the little Hawkeye conference is inviting to kind of come to the table are they in a similar kind of circle travel Circle or is there a chance there's ones that are kind of further out so the little Hawkeye did invite nine schools Ames Urbandale were the two larger schools because their Hope was to split into a large school small school divisions um they also invited anoy Christian Van Meter nadaa PCM Knoxville Ames Urbandale grenell grenell that's eight missing one there but I can't ADM prob
066not ADM missing one but I don't know who it is off top of my my head um and so that you know is in the bubble um in terms of that so in terms of the farthest trip right now our farthest trip is to AWA uh oh osalo no oscalus is in the confidence uh if we would leave the Iowa Alliance our bubble would go smaller uh in terms of the fringes right we would get rid of waterl um which is roughly 117 miles uh we would get rid of which is 121 miles I believe so you see a little bit of pieces there not only that but you know people Ella is 60 some miles I believe uh or actually might be 76 miles I believe and um but they're a really competitive 3A
067school I think they give us a fight most nights in night out but yes they are all a smaller bu and I think when we looked at the travel piece of it I think the key is I think families will travel any distance to watch their kid but they want to make sure it's competitive when they get there it's when you travel that far and you feel like either side either school is struggling or you feel like this is an equal balance I just think we felt the distance wise even in the little Hawkeye conference is a better trip to travel to um from the that aspect of it and also if you have five levels of play in your middle school it's worth traveling you're going to take a lot more buses um but
068you're able to play all your students that's the part I like about what we're talking about is um number of students involved to me that's the most important thing we talked about is the number of students engaged in these activities so anything we can do to help that sounds great so I'm supportive of doing this I'll just add that um I think well one I like the participation number so I'll be curious to see what the clubs and activities just seeing like over 70% of students involved in something I think is fantastic um and it sounds like this would be a way to encourage more participation too um I'll just kind of say to the board we know this is probably something that we'll be talking about in a future meeting you might be thinking
069of more questions so go ahead and think of those questions and send them my direction and that way when we have that meeting in April we can make sure everyone's questions are addressed um I imagine you'll get questions from community members as well make sure we address those any final questions thank you for all the research thank thank you prob this is a board that loves tables and numbers so you yep thank you all right next up we have our uh do we have anything on teaching and learning today I didn't see any attachment to it that's why I asked yes well yes we do have some we just Dr Hawkins good evening I will hand it over to you for the surprise no tables and few numbers but uh hopefully we'll have some good
070information for you I get the eggs out that right sorry it's L's first presentation I didn't want to get snarky so now it's all gonna come out now we've got we've got five quick updates for you um so um as you may know uh we're we're gearing up in the teaching and learning office right now to facilitate isas testing our testing window opens up and is available for students to test uh April 8th through the 18th um buildings are busy right now um they've all turned in their um any kind of testing accommodations those have been um completed we actually got in the mail um just within the last couple days any paper tests that we need for kids um staff are busy taking the trainings that they're uh required to take coordinator training test
071proctor training school uh test Administration and and safety protocol training training um and then they're working with students uh helping them especially the students that are new to this figuring out how to log into Pearson how to navigate the test management tools um how to how as a staff M member remind yourself how to print testing tickets those kind of things so we're we're gearing up for uh successful completion of our isasp tests um we are one part that's still being developed is just what that site accountability monitoring plan will look like so we're required to complete a certain number of um walkthroughs to assess um whether we're uh implementing the security protocols as per se so we're we're still developing what that schedule is going to look like but we we're right where we
072need to be as a system for that um another thing that we're gearing up for is the conditions of learning survey um uh I want to talk with you about a few changes to that uh for this year uh coming from the state um so the window set by the state is April 1st through April 30th uh for students in grades 3 through 12 to uh take the conditions for learning survey um the the biggest change in the conditions for learning survey this year from previous years is that it's no longer a a learning measure or an accountability measure for the state which means it's no longer a required test which then means that we must seek active uh parent permission it's not an opt out it's an optin permission process for students to take
073that survey as per Senate file 496 right so we have to actively get parent permission based upon that law so we've drafted a letter um that helped buildings get prepared to send that out that should be going out tomorrow to families to let them know that the conditions for learning survey um is available and we would encourage their participation in that but it's it's one in which uh parents will have to tell us that it's okay for students to to take that survey we do have one of our district goals that was written before the state decided to rewrite their accountability plan that is grounded in uh some of the questions from the um survey itself so um I'm very hopeful that we'll get high participation in that um and then depending upon how that
074goes we may want to you I'm getting a little ahead of myself here but we may want to think about you how we write that goal and whether we want to continue to rely on an opt-in survey so um another change in the conditions for learning survey from the previous years is there the the state is no longer facilitating a staff or parent survey option they do have the surveys available in like Google form if we want to use them and and self- administer them they uh I actually went to a webinar uh for this today uh they stress that the key is we would have to uh devise both the delivery system the collection system as well as the scoring system they've given us a scoring guide but we'd have to score the assessments
075ourself as you may know our staff's being surveyed through qual tricks and and feel like that at least I personally feel like that um uh does a nice job of assessing our staff's feedback but what we may need to have discussion as a system about parent feedback and what we might have received um through the conditions for learning survey all right another update um is I'm just uh kind of giving you a an advanced view of of what something we'll be talking about more frequently next year and that is our elementary literacy curriculum review process so um all year long um a core team of teachers interventionists um administrators in collabor uh teaching and learning staff in collaboration with Heartland aea and the Iowa reading Research Center have been meeting in order to do a
076variety of things um our goal is uh to to bring to the school board next year uh so probably a year from now a recommendation for a structured reading material purchase that provides tier one instructional materials uh aligned interventions and a plan for curriculum based excuse me professional development all grounded in the science of reading right so that that's really been the the work of this committee thus far some of the work that that committee has done is to review our current literacy data locally as well as Trends within the state and nationally uh to review the connection between um mtss or multi-tiered systems of supports processes and literacy instruction how do those two work together um to create a shared vision of what high quality literacy instruction um looks like when using a multi-tier
077systems uh approach to to teaching literacy uh to the examine the impact of second language acquisition for E Learners as it relates to literacy materials and instruction um as you may know um of our schools that are identified many of them are identified um for um our e students and so making sure that we're cognizant of how those materials uh support our work to improve the performance of our e students has been one of the emphasis of that work um and then um uh our next stages will be to uh take the screening that has already occurred um from a variety of literacy materials engage that team in that screening process um so we um we selected or or had suggested either from our um staff who are knowledgeable we have very knowledgeable staff about
078literacy instruction in their system so good for us we have lots of training um we have lots of stff that have engaged in the state sponsored letters training we had lots of Staff last year go to the Iowa reading research conference we got a an even increased number that are going this year our staff do a really good job I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to give kudos to them do a great job of staying well informed on how to teach children how to read so we we have materials that our staff have said oh we think these would be good we um also looked at the reading League uh which produces curriculum evaluation reports as well as Ed reports to say hey what material should we be looking at uh that that generated
07913 different products and over the course of the last several months the teaching and learning team has been looking at those products and screening them against uh different rubrics that we have uh in order to narrow that down to five are uh we're going to bring that back to the team and that team is going to be doing some work to further screen those uh materials um we've actually been collaborating with the Iowa reading Research Center on what that process is going to look like that'll um kick off uh Wednesday we we have a a meeting on Wednesday to start doing that work the goal would be to get that down to two products that we intend to Pilot over the course of the next year collect people's feedback on those Pilots so that we
080can uh then come to the board a year from now and make a recommendation on a materials purchase uh one other update is I I'm excited to be able to share with you guys uh the work that our our team did on February 20th uh for a Danielson showcase so on that night in in the boardroom and in other rooms around district office um approximately 60 staff members came here um uh as you may know we have teachers that are identified as Danielson core team members and other words they're they're paid a stifen in order to engage in in more learning as well as professional development um around the Danielson framework for instruction well they were invited that night to share uh strategies that they use in their classroom or building because it included both
081teachers and administrators um to to share the strategies that they use in uh relationship to the eight uh uh components that we've identified as a system as the essential eight for aims to the staff that are engaged in the mentor mentee process so so our our our our staff that are being mentored as well as their mentors came to listen to the strategies that the core team members have been practicing and using and getting better with and so it was a great night of learning uh for those staff members and I I'm certainly appreciative to our teaching and learning staff that helped put that together so that's that's a fun celebration to share and then finally um on March 11th superintendent Grimes and I met with the Career Technical and education teachers at ases high
082school as well as uh representatives from our local community including representatives from Iowa State dmac the alliance and uh mayor mayor Halo joined us as well uh really really was an opportunity uh to share information both ways right so it was a great opportunity for our teachers to be able to hear from our uh Community organizations uh the work that they're currently doing as well as their passion for expanding and supporting uh the expansion of work-based learning and so lot lots of conversation around oh I I might want to do this project oh well this business has indicated that they'd be willing to support and we can connect with these people and then uh vice versa it was an opportunity for our teachers to share with the community members again what projects are they considering
083what ways have they thought about expanding work-based learning opportunities and so just facilitating some conversation um to to one help us think through how might we expand opportunities for career exploration that end up in either an industry recognized credential or an apprenticeship or an internship as well as our an opportunity for our community to talk about how they want to support that work those are the five updates that I brought you tonight any questions that I can answer I do have a question about the opin survey um so I remember registering my own children this past year uh that or I guess like whatever spring summer of of the past year that we now have a check off box for yes I agree my children can take this opt-in survey and this opt-in survey and
084this opin survey um have we gotten good resp response from that we have but we did not um we didn't include this one because do the conditions of learning because the state hadn't finalized their accountability plan with the federal government and so um at the time that we put um both our district goals together as well and I appreciate this question so that I can explain this at the time we put our goals together as well as the time that we created the registration process this was an accountability measure through the Iowa school performance profile process and so it would have not been a relevant question to ask I got it and now it is so again I appreciate the opportunity to explain that okay so for this year the data may not be very
085good but next year if like are almost all parents just saying yes I agree my child can take this survey when they register their kids great question um if if I can use parent response for the optin for the ruler uh surveys uh for the for the mood meter uh and and if I assume that that would be parallel uh we we should get an overwhelming uh response of of agreement to allow us to do the survey cool all right so basically almost all parents are allowing their kids to take rulers so they would likely be also allow their kids to take the conditions for learning survey see these are really rough numbers they're off the top of my head but I think the year that we had to survey people outside of the registration
086process about opt into to the mood meter we had U maybe around uh 17 or 1,800 people that did not opt in and I believe that number dropped to below 400 when we included it in registration yeah that makes sense yeah again those are really rough numbers I wouldn't want to be uh held to those but it was a significant decrease yeah if it's just a checkbox on a form that you have to fill out anyway a lot more people are likely to say yes yeah so with then new changes that the state has made do they have anything in the accountability information for basically kids sense of belonging or their feelings about the school or how the school okay no that that that's no longer a part of their accountability matrix um the data
087is still available in the Iowa school performance Pro if you remember um maybe a few um maybe two months ago I gave a presentation on some changes and I talked to you about the difference between a a learning measure and a reporting measure right one is accountability data so the conditions for learning survey has moved from a learning measure to a reporting measure so this data is still there and available but it's no longer part of our accountability nor is it part of the state's accountability to the federal government and there there to to be more specific your question there isn't a replacement piece around school belonging or climate not a priority for the state apparently that's why Sark comment not of you book ending yeah well thank you Dr Hawkins we'll see what the
088state changes later to mess up our plans but we appreciate you all adapting to these things yeah yeah yeah thank you for the opportunity to share the good work coming out of the teaching and learning Department i' gra you legislative session uh next move on to enrollment yeah let's go on superintendent we'll move to enrollment uh see similar to what's been presented each month uh the change here is as I discussed at the last board meeting I kind of gave two recommendations for class sizes one that was currently in practice and then um one that I would recommend we moving forward with uh I have put that in there assuming and you'll tell me differently later but I would be having the board take action on class siiz recommendation uh that'll be an annual recommendation
089uh in March uh moving forward um also when it comes down to class size recommendations uh and looking at these charts I talked about the The Legend uh the the Reds uh decrease uh greens are an increase yellow is um On the Border uh please understand that recommendation goals does not mean those are hard limits there's I talked in the past there's a lot of varying factors that go into class sizes um we want to keep families together in one uh building if possible we understand that uh at times some classers may have a more of a need within them due to IEP numbers uh we do have uh staff that support IEP and those are different than our factors in class sizes um but I believe this is a good step moving forward with
090the board at least having conversations uh annually on class sizes um and how that can impact um really budgetarily ideally I would not be um if I wouldn't say that the smaller class sizes the better but financially we're unable to do the recommended class sizes that we would want within all of our schools um the other piece of this not much has changed within the numbers I did add a column on the end with open enrollment um you can see that right now we have a number of students that are not placed that are moving uh would like to open roll into the district uh those will be placed uh hopefully in um May or June at the latest but previously I don't think those were placed until I think July or even August for
091some of those um placements my goal as you can guess from all of the other actions that the um District would like for us to move forward is to move up as soon as possible that we can make some of those determinations um other than those numbers not much has changed on the document itself uh is there any questions specifically around the document or even class sizes you can also have conversations around class sizes during the recommendation uh the next is certified um Staffing uh so this uh once again is going to be a document that you'll see running document between uh board meetings uh this will be presented at the second board meeting not every board meeting unless there's a major change that needs to happen with Staffing as I mentioned before I'll bring
092to the first board meeting uh this gives you an indication on uh retirements resignations and right now you're seeing at the bottom we're starting to move into transfers so as we see a position um open up as you go down to number 17 we have a success teacher was um District wide I think that's the right oh that one it's going to be a transfer meaning it's going to be filled internally only so that will be open to internal transfer only uh if you look at the well that is a success teacher um wanted to move from success and moved up to fill the third grade position at Meer so that you'll start to see where staff go within the transfer aspect of it we also have a couple more that we can be adding
093but right now uh we just have the resignations um filling these positions are now being posted interviews have been set for majority of the positions uh this is earlier than has been in the past and this started the process earlier which I think was the goal of the board uh with having early resignations and retirements um trying to get those as early as possible it does not mean we won't have resignations between now and the end of the year uh some other things within the Staffing I would like to make mention is we've talked about um you know I've talked about the success teachers of um not filling two success positions as well as not filling to uh kindergarten POS or ele not kindergarten do not hold that one to me um kindergarten was a
094lot of discussion lately in the admin meetings but um two reductions within kindergarten du the class size enrollments uh we do have places for all individual within our district uh for transfers or to fill those positions I'm also now starting to look at what other supports uh within the buildings uh that we can have beyond the teacher rule I believe buildings are successful not only by this the teachers and class sizes but also what are the supports that we can um use within those buildings uh so we are still um looking at the um resource allocation I would put it uh so we're looking at Title One of success teachers um currently those are being reviewed and discussed with uh Elementary principles on where they will be or what percentage they will be at each
095building um we're having conversations around counseling uh within the elementary as well as High School counseling support we're having conversations around El uh supports within the elementaries uh and secondary and um we're also having conversations now newly with the AA transition um and uh having the pay per service for the AAS is what ways can we increase Services internally to help provide more supports for our special ed um beyond having a uh director of special ed uh we are probably seeing we need more um actual supports in the special ed Arena beyond the classroom teacher special ed more of a a building level District level supports to provide some of those gaps that we we're going to see with the changes from the AA uh from the state and I've mentioned before that we as
096a larger District in the area we need to start finding ways to support our students um internally and with dollars and flexibility uh to meet the needs of our kids first um I do want to talk a little bit about um you know I kind of mentioned about special ed uh insurance insur es those are assurances special ed is a different pool of money that's a tax uh Direct Tax to um our community but also beyond that also looking at um the related arts aspect of it so the individual that came and spoke uh I've been having weekly meetings with all the principles about related arts scheduling calendars as you know I've had that conversation from the start um we are looking at trying to have a more more efficient way to do related arts
097so that students can benefit um more and I do know that that at times is perceived as being not Equitable amongst the district but there are conversations around that subject um and have a follow-up meeting with related arts teachers next week uh to have more dialogue around what some of the areas we can work on for next year but looking at as a long-term future aspect of it we were not able to make all the changes that we want within the district so it's kind of a meaningful change but it's all planned uh with not just next year in mind but two years three years four years out um that tends to be my goal when looking at Staffing and how we make changes it's not a not a one-year fix this is a long-term
098fix that fits within our plans so we are reviewing um a lot of the supports from the district level to the buildings and that even comes down to assistant uh assistant principles uh we do have certain buildings that do have assistant principles we have other buildings that do not but how can we how can we use that as a support for our administrators and I've talked to you at a work session that our administrators with the changes from the the state level and federal level is requiring more I'm going to say administrative type work that is different than when we're talking about the belonging um other supports that your counselor can provide your success teachers can provide your sfas can provide some of the changes from the state and federal level that we're feeling is
099actually having a bigger impact on our Administration staff then probably it's having an impact for teachers as well but a lot of the work is being pushed back up to the administration level to allow documentation and support to happen when it comes down to communication with parents as well as Staffing and other changes we want within the district um everything I talked about with Staffing is a cost and so there's one pie chart out there with all the money coming in it is trying to ensure that we're making some changes that is freeing up dollars from um our for our district to have not only um with the money we're getting from the state which right now is looking at a 2% SSA it's not enough of what we need but I cannot wait till
100that SSA that is that doesn't sound right we cannot wait till SSA comes to make effective decisions for our students and so we're going to have to know that we're going to have to have some difficult conversations but also I have a good conversation with administrative team some staff that I've had conversations with in the district office to know that what I'm recommending or the direction that we could go with Staffing is all fundable in our current situation and for the future um we were also making changes in the district that has to do with Staffing so when you look at um taking um busing out for bid rfps uh when we're taking our athletic out to rfps what we're taking that that is a a liberty we don't have anymore of having a um
101a good relationship which is what we want we want that relationship with these act these individuals in these groups but due to Staffing funding from state and federal level we have to look at our best interest and sometimes an RFP going out is sometimes a it doesn't feel good to the people that are currently in the system they assume that it's a it's a knock on them it's not a knock on them we as a district have to be fiscally responsible so that we can do things with our staffing conversation each month that is best for our students and that will always be the drive when it comes down to making decisions in the district and it fits with the uh uh the district goals it aligns with that um what Dr Hawkins talked about
102with meeting with the um Staffing with a the PK and Beyond you probably heard some of that with that meeting at the high school uh but also for that to be successful we made to look at Staffing that differently so that we can get the most out of our CTE dollars and the dollars that are coming from our state so I talk to you about class sizes in k12 and at the other side I say well we probably need more administrative support in the buildings and then I say we probably need to hire some staff to support um special Leed because AA is changing and we're probably going to need to look at some staffing to support CTE and PK and Beyond because our state is throwing dollars in that area and we don't have
103the capacity at the district level or building level or even teaching level to be able to support the the changes that are happening I and with the administrative team of trying to be ahead of the curve and find solutions to what we're going to be getting into and so one side of my mouth I'm saying hey we're making these reductions the other side I'm saying we we need some positions it all comes down to how can this District be sustainable with changes being happening and so that we're not faced with curve balls we're just we just want straight ball we want fast ball straight down the middle every time I know if there's any baseball players out there they're like yeah you want the curveball and then you want that slider and you just want
104sometimes you just want to back them off the plate and just throw the ball and make them move maybe music analogies are more your thing well I think I just need to stop talking because I think I have a timer out there so when it comes down to Staffing we'll have more conversations but I'm kind of giving you some indications of where now we're looking at what what do we need as a district to support um it's not all about Cuts it's about efficient use of our students our our staffing dollars and also knowing that we still have negotiations coming up um we all still need to give uh increases to all of our staff um and we'd like to give what everyone needs and deserves but we also at a place that some of
105those supports can come from other areas um I've always said we can pay this much but it's the environment that the staff and students work in that means just as much as the dollars on the table um people want to be uh they they want gratitude and they want conversations and they want to know that we are looking at the best interest of the staff and supports ultimately for the students and need to just stop any questions on the Staffing page I think I just unplugged all of you I just kicked the Wi-Fi cord Just sh Kelly no mine wasn't even on just me all right any questions on Staffing thank you I think I have one more don't I facilities facilities um facilities you have the notes for the meeting it was a very
106short meeting because I showed up when it was getting towards the end of it so I did want to acknowledge director Addie and his work um I also just want to highlight when I talk about rfps and services that we are looking at r P for I want to say the a aim Center area but we're now start going to start calling at the Northwestern and 13th Street property so if you see NW 13th Street that's the property we'll be talking about so that's how the RFP will read um so we will still meeting with Architects and engineering firms uh director Addie and I will be coming uh working on RFP we'll bring it to the board at the next board meeting to have the board uh have questions or approve the RFP and we
107will get that out to firms that we've been consistently meeting with so to make sure that I understand the difference in terminology so we're using the aim Center to refer only to the building and the larger property is called Northwest 13west okay all right maybe we can abbreviate it to like nw13 that is what it oh okay sorry okay NW3 all all right we'll just say NW3 or maybe just in3 same number cable so n13 we could just do in13 uh gifts to the district yes we have two gifts to the district we have a $200 cash donation from the Iowa agriculture literacy foundation on behalf of the Iowa Farm Bureau recipient will be Miker Elementary we have $35 cash from Amy renberg and that is for the lunch HERO program we will next move
108to our Chief Financial Officer and I believe we have we have something on supplemental standing supplemental state aid so um Senate file 167 is a bill relating to school funding that establishes state perc of growth and categorical state aid percent of growth and the Senate um originally came in at 2% and then it went to the house and the house um their version of it is s0 4 and what they proposed was 2.25 and then it's like plus $10 um if you're um if your supplemental state aid is not at a certain level well as is and so our residents would receive that $10 in property tax relief per student and then I think it was $5 an additional $5 for categoricals and then that would also come in um property tax relief so now
109this is back um sitting in the house um so it's kind of like stuck in limbo so there hasn't been any decisions made on supplemental state aid for next year and it is kind of problematic because we do want to you know get into negotiations and buy our curriculum and you know decide you know what we want to charge for fees and things like that so it's it's all relatively concerning that the legislature is supposed to set this within the first 30 days back in session and we're approximately 40 days overdue and so I I I know that um there's concerns about you know our property tax statement that is out there but we do have to publish at the absolute highest um rate that it could possibly be because if we do not get
110any supplemental State day we need to realize what that effect could be on our property taxes so just wanted to kind of get get a little blurb out there about um why there's kind of a leg in the planning of the budget for next year so any questions on any of that so the date by which it's supposed to be approved in state law is what 30 days after legisl after the legislative session starts like mid okay so yeah we're 40 days behind schedule yes yes we are I calculated it today because I kind of thought oh I bet someone will ask me that when is it supposed to be said I mean it's it's been late every year seem to not prioritize this in the very late this year yeah very late right okay
111school fees school fees so I kind of what um I did speak with um director feds and with the athletic director at the middle school that's eslinger and just kind of went over our fees and so on um we talked with um superintendent Grimes about our textbook fees and and also director C Meyer regarding um our discretionary transportation and so we came out um with kind of our fee schedule now I know that a lot of times it's asked well can I get that for free or you know I'm on free lunches is that free not all of our fees are free and we do kind of go beyond what the state recommends for some of them so um textbooks and essential school supplies you know we can charge for and we do um provide
112provide free and reduced status on those and like the eye prot protective gear so for like um chemistry we could charge for goggles and we do y and we do provide those free to students that are on free lunches and half price to students that are on um reduced price meals we can charge for summer school and for driver's Zed and then we can also charge for discretionary Transportation now discretionary transportation is a fee that the school charge charges for and we also provide um a reduction or free based on lunch status but that is not a requirement I just want you to I just wanted you to know that that we do that and it's not a requirement to do that one um the other fees that we charge for um are instrument rental
113and we do provide those for free or reduced price as well so that um we want all kids to be involved in those programs if at all possible and then of course driver's education um the school lunch prices are on there those will be going up a dime they have not been raised in several years um ever since before Co and now our our um balance is starting to decline a little bit so we did raise those prices a dime the reduced and free rates will remain the same at 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch per day for fines um they don't I did talk with um director Raider um about fines for Chromebooks and so on for things like that and he's going to be bringing a proposal on that when
114he I think he presents two weeks maybe something like that yeah so he will be talking about um fees and fines associated with um the Chromebooks but for right now um the only time that we we are we really don't assess any fines for our Chromebooks at this time so that's kind of problematic so and we can assess a fine for lost or damaged equipment at the district so he's going to be addressing that part of it when he presents in a couple weeks otherwise all the other fees will all fees will remain the same except for lunch prices for next year that's ask the only change that is is those lunch prices correct so no change at all in our transportation fees huh correct um okay superintendent and Grimes talked about that and um
115with a having a new transportation company and and aligning more with what our board policy states we want to get a year under our our belt first um before we dive more into that okay am I correct too that we were what we had been charging was not covering our costs anyway right yeah okay correct we're not making money off these is what I'm no no we're not making money and we transport um more generous I would say than what our board policy says one mile thing gotta yeah and so that was something I was discussed I think towards the end of last year um that the board was expecting to have conversations around and we were just holding off knowing kind of get Del lay of the land for the year we will be
116holding um stricter to board policy so there will probably be some individuals that live beyond or closer to the school than the discretionary that possibly fell under um approval that will be um not approving now um so we'll be holding a policy a lot more so there'll be more of that question first when it comes down to transportation all right any other [Music] questions we move to our student Representatives do we have anything for our student Representatives tonight yes we do and I'll try to keep this brief I know it's been a long meaning but as you all may know we're meeting with the middle school students to Advocate on behalf of those that we don't always see every single day and the younger elementary and middle school students so here's just topics that we've
117been discussing we meet with them again on Wednesday this coming Wednesday um so we'll be able to try to discuss things to put these into action but some topics that came up were the phone policy they thought it was so strict so something about the FL policy uh lunch options I know launch options have been getting better throughout the years but something about cross contamination as well was an issue uh ELP and Club awareness so not everyone is aware of what's offer at the middle school so maybe some sort of a communication platform and I know the district had something in place the parent Square so probably make it more student friendly you know something along those sorts we also have some concern as as [Music] just so that you guys know there is a
118Governor's the governor introduced an something about a phone okay you guys are aware of good deal and there is a student Square option I believe a student version so they just might need to download it thank you so thank you yeah than you anything from board members excellent uh so we'll move to our old business and our school calendar I will entertain a motion we move the board approve the school calendars as presented second all right any discussion all right it was moved by deward seconded by Smith all in favor say I I oppose nay passes 5 um our new business gifts the district a motion I move the board approve the gifts as presented second any discussion uh move by Smith second by Rodriguez all in favor say I I I I also 5
119Zer okay uh class siiz goals I move the board to approve the class siiz goals for the 2025 26 school years presented second any discussion I just wanted to say something super quick um just just in case everybody's been hearing us talk about money money money money um I I really applaud what the district office has done here to try to set uh class siiz goals it's it's a great first step um especially when we have a state where we have the sixth worst uh Federal funding uh for the entire State and uh we're like 19th worst for the um the state base rate so and then that's not even the actual rate that we get we get like 88.4% of that so anyway we we don't get very much funding um so just paying
120for the teachers that we have is uh is an impossible solution so thank you so much for working on this who was our second was I think so yeah uh any other comment all right move byward second by Smith all in favor say I I I oppose nay passes 5 Z and then our resolution to expend funds from the district's F flexibility account I move the board uh to adopt the resolution to expend funds from the district's flexibility account as presented second any discussion moved by Smith seconded by beer bomb all in favor say I I I oppose nay passes 5 Z I didn't have any requests for the superintendent and our board planning calendar our next regular meeting is April 7th at 5:30 and that will be one of the shorter meetings with the
121work session correct all right and move we adjourn second any discussion all right move by B seconded by Dart all in favor of adjourning say I I I oppose pass 5 Z