001next is our celebration and recognitions with the Ames middle school science B Champions and I will turn it over to director delash good evening congratulations to the Ames Middle School team for winning the Iowa Regional Middle School science Bowl hosted by Ames National Laboratory and Iowa State University the competition took place on the Iowa State campus on Saturday February 8 8 the Iowa Regional School science bll is an opportunity for students to excel in science technology engineering and math while experiencing a sense of community with other stem focused students students compete in a question and answer format that tests their knowledge in a range of science disciplines including biology and chemistry Earth and space science physics energy and math the Iowa Regional science bow is one of 115 Regional competitions held throughout the nation top
002teams frequently spend months practicing for the event we have members of the team who are present with his here tonight if you'll stand up to be recognized and also their coaches are here as well if you'll please [Applause] stand thank you and congratulations we're going to have we're going to have superintendent Grimes come get a selfie with you guys real quick too I've decided this is a thing we're doing now and after your selfie you're welcome to stay for the meeting but you certainly don't have to come on coaches yeah all right [Applause] congratulations congratulations thank you all for your hard work and representing ases and for for coming up a and yeah now this is a thing that you have to do with every recognition you're welcome everyone uh next up our public forum
003and I'll read our statement on public forums uh 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 agenda 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 do not necessarily reflect those of the Board District administration or staff speaker speakers are to remember that Iowa law prohibits the board from discussing specific employees students or their performance student speakers will state their name in school others will state their name and address and I don't believe we had anybody sign up here and no
004one on Zoom so we will close the public forum see we have plenty of time and move on to our consent agenda have a motion I move the board approve the consent agenda as presented second all right moved by deward seconded by Smith all in favor say I I I oppose nay passes 5 next we will move to our reports and we will start with the associate superintendent reports are we timing it I remember I was said I can get little time cards for you if yeah that would be that there you go I think that's the general gist okay I mean we can also do the hangman yeah yeah exactly yeah thank you well thank you for the opportunity to give you an update on several topics um the first one that I wanted
005to talk with you uh about the evening was the uh update from Sak here let me see I'm sorry you're okay we get there there it is there we go okay so on Monday February 3rd uh Sak met for its second meeting of the year the focus was around family engagement and a requested topic from Sak which was around technology so each year I ask Sak to give me topics that they think that they would enjoy hearing about last year Sak said that they'd like to know more about technology in the district so following a welcome by superintendent Grimes uh director sundermier led the group in a review of policy 505.01 uh the group listened to portions of a podcast entitled combating chronic absenteeism through family engagement and discussed the efforts that our district and
006building are using to engage families director delashmut then presented information to Sak about parent University Future Ready night at Ames high school PTO and booster events in our buildings and the work the district is engaged in to ensure the parents and Community are well informed including its work around translation services data was shared with Sak from parent University indicating that 85% of attendees agree or strongly agree that the session taught them what they'd H to learn as well as the information provided at parent University was useful to them so we're getting really good feedback and data from our parent University sessions director Raider then presented Sak with information about updates to technology in the district including interactive flat panel displays installed at the preschool and in our home school assistance program audio enhancements installed at
007the preschool and all Elementary buildings and the safety upgrades in our system as a result of that um as you may recall our vulnerability assessment uh indicated that having a enhanced Mass notification systems was a strategy that was suggested and these do a wonderful job of assisting with that uh updates to video projection at the elementary buildings in the aim Center the installation of nearly 100 interior and exterior cameras in all school buildings updates to a plan for student use and access to Chromebooks at the middle school and the next steps with our go Guardian Geo filtering system those uh cameras also were um highly correlated to our our school safety Grant so a lot of the technology updates that were provided to Sak also uh correlate well with safety upgrades for a district any
008questions from the board about Sak can I just call out the go Guardian filtering system because I thought that was really interesting when director Raider I uh presented on it uh I think the next when we reschedule it the next uh parent uh uh meeting the next University parent University oh my gosh I'm having a day you guys uh the next parent University is about it and it's what what's great about it is that you're going to learn about how goguardian is currently used by our teachers to monitor access um of of the internet and how parents will start to have access as well in the near future so I just wanted to call out it's really cool uh please Eng with it if if you can yeah I appreciate that and that's tomorrow the
009next parent un it's getting postponed oh right okay but you but yes it was okay right okay I remember yeah next update that I wanted to give the board uh was around our school calendar process so as maybe you're coming used to now um a calendar committee met uh in both January and February that committee continues to be made up of students staff and parents uh the first thing that we did was we reviewed the priorities that we previously had established like what what exactly do we want to make sure that our calendar accomplishes to make sure that those are still our priorities they are um and then we went about determining okay these are the questions that we've used to try to assess how those priorities are making an impact on parents students in
010the community the community decided those questions are still relevant uh so we administered a survey um you can see maybe if I scroll correctly that the response rate to the survey was slightly up this year again it's the most survey responses we've had I was particularly excited about getting about triple the number of student voices uh in our survey data so that that was really nice uh to make sure that that group was at least better represented in our survey data and I was really excited also to see in the results um that while in the past we have had really strong very agreeable results the range of those strong agreeable results was even higher than it had been in the past in fact for the students and the parents the rate of agreement was
011uh the highest it's been right so in other words at least my personal belief is we're folling we're finding ourselves falling into a pattern with our calendars that meet our priorities and people find to be acceptable satisfactory ways to accomplish those priorities it's a it's a good pattern to be in in my opinion uh so uh that that calendar committee then met on February 17th to review the data from those surveys and as we have facilitated for the last several years uh recommend any tweaks or adjustments to the 25 26 Calendar that 2526 calendar is attached to our agenda tonight um as a as a draft for our discussion some things that I would point out maybe specific to that calendar first and foremost Maybe most importantly in my opinion um as you well know
012August 23rd is the date set in legislation it's the first day that we can begin school on a year well this year August 23rd falls on a Saturday so the first day that we could start school next year uh for the 25 26 school year is Monday the 25th I will note at this point in giving you some information there is a senate senate study bill 1036 uh that is um potentially could potentially have an impact on on that start date uh but as a result of that start date and as a result of trying to keep all the other priorities that the survey respondents have said are important um we have scheduled 168 days for instruction in the 2526 school year it's one day different than what we have typically seen for the last
013several years also um I was approached this um Fall by our folks who had participated in the parent teacher conference committee conversation that we held a few years ago to see if we could re-engage you know we've applied these uh this way of going about it for a couple years now how's it going what does our data look like is this still where we want to be um so we met again uh with uh the members of the committee that were available uh this uh maybe November December time frame and ultimately decided uh let's give some autonomy back to the buildings in order to design what they uh think is the best way to to engage parents through parent teacher conferences you'll see in the draft that they uh opted to return to a more
014traditional structure or format for parent teacher conferences um and so so you'll you'll see that as a change um this next slide outlines kind of what you what you might see as changes between the 2425 year and 25 26 school calendars um not a lot of change because as I said we're falling into a pattern where our calendar really is is working pretty well for us um but uh due to when uh Labor Day falls you'll see that next year we have scheduled four days for many conferences where this year we scheduled for three um you'll see again those um parent teacher conferences in the fall in the spring at the secondary level again the data at the elementary level suggests that it continues to that structure really works well for them um most of
015the changes between this calendar and next year's proposed calendar really fall around in January uh there W the committee suggested that if we moved the start date of second semester back by a few days we'd have a better balance between first and second semester which is important to our secondary teachers that teach uh semester long courses to have a better balance between those semesters that impacts when the work day would be scheduled to give teachers time to be prepared to wrap up the semester it also had an impact on the professional development day that typically is scheduled in January we moved it to March so excitedly um I know sometimes we've gotten some anecdotal feedback that there's a lot of weeks in January that seem very choppy and broken up this will this will address
016that are there any questions that you'd like to ask me about the calendars oh there's one last thing I apologize I forgot one last thing um it would be our typical routine to hold a discussion in one board meeting and then a pretty subsequent board meeting usually maybe the next one or right away uh we would ask for approval um it's going to be my recommendation that we hold off on that approval until we find out what happens with that study bill that i' previously mentioned uh just doesn't make sense to me to open a hearing and go to approval if the study bill passes we probably would want to change the start date to have to then hold another hearing so while I think we can engage in discussion tonight it'd be my recommendation
017that we hold off for hearing and approval until a later date okay so can I ask a question about that or um yeah so are you suggesting that we wait until after the legislative funnel or until the end of the legislative session I was thinking the funnel date as well that if we saw that the study bill passed the funnel then uh we probably would have more information but that would be a good barometer I think yeah for those who don't know the legislative funnel is when a bill has to leave the legislative committee which will be like second Friday in March maybe something like that yeah so like the second Friday in March we will know whether it has a decent chance of passing alt together or not whether it makes it out of
018Comm if it makes it out of its committee the education committee then there's you know a moderately good chance it could pass and then we have to think seriously about we would have to wait or decide make some kind of further decision about what what the likelihood is of a change in the required school start date it's under state law any questions about the 2025 26 or again same same pattern we've been in the 26 27 calendar built upon those same priorities and same tweaks any questions about those quick question about sorry about the survey um did it have an open-ended response option okay no we haven't we haven't had one for several years I did get three pieces of feedback to say hey I'd really like to have I had someone I think I
019just email you guys I did okay silly question I don't remember um with the parent teacher conferences are there early outs will those be asynchronous between the secondary and Elementary one of the priorities that we established for the secondary when we asked when we kind of gave them some latitude to to say what would work for them is that we um we ask that they make sure that they work together in order to ensure that no parent has to choose between going to either elementary middle or height that that they can go to all of them and so while the secondary are relatively close in date they did work it out where um there's an evening where Middle School is holding conferences that the high school's not and vice versa so we shouldn't and then
020the the elementary actually prefer to have theirs a little bit later in the semester when the trimester ends so there shouldn't be a situation where a parent has to choose to attend conferences for one child over another child okay that was a priority of our system all right thank you right thanks okay next AA the next update yes is the aea uh service for fee model and uh just a little bit of information here I just wanted to make sure that we'd had some conversation about the changes in that model um and so um maybe what's key here year is to note that this year the 2425 school year uh this the funds that flow to the AA for the um special education services um 100% of those funds flowed again to the AA next
021year 100% of those funds will flow to the district we will pay uh our local aea for 90% of those funds so so that money will end up 90% of it will end up with the aea the remaining 10% still need to be spent on special education but don't have to necess necessarily be spent with the aea or with our local AA similarly some changes in funding structure to library and Media Services as you can see from this slide 60% this year flow to the district 40% flows to the AA next year again 100% of that money will flow to the district um superintendent Grimes and I I I I think we have a meeting scheduled maybe even later than this week but we work regularly with our aea as far as updates as far
022as the work that is happening um and that we're Contracting especially under the library and Media Services portion um and we we do quarterly reviews with them and again I think this Friday we have a meeting with them to begin our planning for the use of those funds for next year any any questions about that okay and then the last thing that I wanted to talk with you about was stop the bleed kits uh pretty excited about this from a safety upgrade for our district so on Monday the 10th um the School nurses and the nurse Associates and I were able to attend a session um uh Ames fire department Story County Emergency Management and a representative from Mary gley Medical Center were there in order to train the trainer model around stop the bleed
023kits stop the bleed kits are tourniquet and Gauze kits that are available if ever there's an emergency where um blood loss becomes a significant issue in that emergency um we learned how to apply pressure how to pack a wound how to accurately use a tourniquet how to assess when a tet is not actually an appropriate intervention for a given injury um as a result of that training our nurses left that with uh stop the bleed kit in hand right so they they have one in their buildings right now um from the grant that um a variety of uh Story County Partners you can see here the here just to make sure that I don't leave anybody out am fire department am Police Department Mary gy Medical Center Mobile intensive care services Story County Public Health
024Story County Sheriff's Office and the story County Emergency Management are all collaborating on that Grant um and uh we're so thankful to be a recipient of that Grant at the end of this we will end up with three um stop the bleed kits in each of our buildings as well as stop the kit stop the bleed kit on each of our buses as well other Story County municipal buildings schools uh so uh fantastic Grant I will say this is um one of the efforts that we were hopeful to have come through in our vulnerability Grant but it wasn't an eligible expense in our vulnerability Grant Grant so this is really a great opportunity for us um and uh again we've got staff trained and I've already been contacted by one of our School nurses about
025the process to start training some of their staff in addition to the kits we will receive two training uh kits from the Ames fire department as a part of the grant so this is just a great safety upgrade for our school system is this a let's say that somebody needs to use a tourniquet heaven forbid will is the grant uh repeat able annually or would that be something where no the the cost the cost to replace the parts of the kit are are born upon the district but they the the the cost of replacing the pieces are really quite reasonable and Story County Emergency Management is willing to to work with us uh to assist us if it all needed they said that multiple times um but getting getting this off the ground it's really
026helpful to have that Grant so any other questions about stop the ble kids I don't think so thank you Dr Hawkins thanks appreciate it next we will move to our superintendent report yeah I want to talk about enrollment first I don't know if kind of fly through these so on the enrollment document uh it's kind of small um but there's three once again again you're going to see this once a month the second uh board meeting of the month the first one is our current enrollment and that's for the elementary and then the second one is the projected for next year and um has color coding in it a legend is on it and thank you you're welcome uh the green numbers when I look at sections for next year as we drop down the
027students from the this year to next year so example second grade this year would be third grade next year we currently have um increase in decrease sections uh and I also gave you two examples of class- siiz recommendations that I would like to move forward with um from the standpoint of um knowing that this the section sizes that's been used that's why there's two different Elementary ones for example I'm just going to go through the easy quick fix of this so from the public you can quickly see that our elementaries have the first scenario we have three sections that need to be increased one at merer one at Mitchell and one at Sawyer and we have 1 2 3 4 five six seven sections that can be decreased so with our current enrollment with three
028sections increasing and seven sections is decreasing we could absorb four Elementary staff for next year and still be within the means of the board's let's say the enrollment that the board's been working with I'm not going to say the board's been working with but the system has been working with for the past number of years so that's meeting other the goals class sizes for elementary the second one is the proposed class size numbers which right now the class size for kindergarten first grade and second grade first grade high kindergarten is 25 per section first grade is 25 per section and second grade is 27 per section per 27 students per section um I'm uncomfortable with those numbers and I believe that anybody talking about early childhood education would be uncomfortable with those numbers and I
029know that that was part of the process coming in uh that I would like to move to a new recommendation of class sizes these are the same numbers that I've used in previous districts for probably the last 15 years so that moves the numbers from kindergarten the top would be 23 versus 25 first grade would be 23 versus 25 and second grade would be 25 versus 27 uh moving those changes would mean we would need to maintain two more teachers in the elementary and so we would have a reduction of only two um sections overall um but we have three resignations in the elementary right now so no one would be without a position that would be done through attrition but that would maintain class sizes for next year currently um and moving at the
030same time our goals for class sizes reducing those numbers so that I believe it's uh better aligned with what elementary or the elementary needs for the classroom space those numbers I'd be bringing to the board next month so that the board will actually approve class- siiz recommendations annually I typically bring those to the board in March and then if you have questions about hey we want to move down smaller or budgetary wise what would look like to go up I can give you numbers then to compare that so if you were to do a quick math here if we were to reduce four teachers in the elementary uh due to attrition that'd be a cost Savings of around 300 $300,000 yeah if we move to smaller class sizes at a mere cost of 150,000 uh
031you will be actually reducing the class sizes for the elementary to a 23 versus 25 um that's those are the numbers that I work with I usually go 75,000 is kind of my average per teacher uh so that's the quick math um so the the board can tell me if you want to reduce four at a cost Savings of 300,000 or um I probably wouldn't accept your recommendation at that point I want to move to smaller class sizes and go with the two would you be my recommendation moving forward as a district and looking at the positions that currently are available thoughts around that or any questions on now the color coding I think your recommendations actually fit with what has been standard what what I think has been practiced even if it's not actually
032what we have said that we want to do the these numbers are not what we're doing right yeah yeah but I think that yeah they fit with class sizes that I've seen in other places even if we haven't oh in other places or in yeah but yeah I I think that it it seems to me to be appropriate to have those glass SI to keep to go with your Rec working towards smaller yeah yeah also just to the numbers of classes for next year that could change by sections because we do not have current kindergarten enrollment numbers that's why they're still red um we will be um posting positions tomorrow uh because we now need to start so I had dialogue with all the principles this morning about these numbers and how the transfers will
033look um internally um how the postings will go um no surprise the principes already were aware of all these transitions in their own buildings it's just now we're looking at it from a districtwide standpoint uh so there will be postings tomorrow um that are lying to some of these positions and I can talk through those once we get to the Staffing document um and then the other thing I think if you look at uh let's say Edwards next year kindergarten at 23 first grade at 23 those are both at the top end of what I would recommend a goal understand I have to remind people that goals doesn't mean we can always meet them but those are the times when we need to have conversations of how can we support those classrooms when they're around
034that goal and sometimes we have to think about not moving students out of the residential area plus we have to look at our open enrollment and where we place open enrollment and then like this year I explained a few months back U our second grade class at Mitchell uh was very high so we actually put a ea um we put an associate in that those two classrooms to support with those class sizes so the dialogue isn't a hard and fast it's more of how can we we need to be aware of how to provide supports in those classrooms when we do get to the top levels of the goals yeah I also have another question that just occurred to me right now as I was looking at the resignations uh we have so far six
035uh Elementary School teachers who have resigned or uh retire or are retiring at the end of this year of whom two are success one is special ed and the other three are like grade level specific do you so is that made me think oh yeah success success teachers special ed teachers where do they fit in this scheme or do they like they don't fit on your we're ready to move to the next document I can go to that page I'll answer all your questions once we get there oh okay sorry I think this is a good start no I was just wondering if they were you had Pro so you really can't I understand you can't talk about one without the other one so it tends to get Blended through this whole conversation okay and
036I think before we move on is is it my is my sense correct that we are comfortable with a recommendation to vote on in the future of this class size of 20 to 23 for the lower grades make sure I was reading the room okay uh next document is the Staffing which kind of aligns with this so you will get a monthly update on the Staffing document this is the same document used by our HR department and that's also communicated with the uh Administration weekly H during the management meetings so um this has been updated even from presenting but I wanted to just kind of walk through it at the same time uh with the positions that as you can see you can tell when they've been posted uh so we have posted so far
037for a PE teacher at the high school we've posted for special ed teacher um due to a resignation going from the top to bottom these are conversations I've had with all the Administration so far so anything that I'm sharing with you today has been shared with the administration and um proba probably shared with staff as well beyond that so uh currently you go from top to bottom we have two success teacher openings those are our Title One Reading supports we are currently $450,000 in the hole for title one I will not be posting these positions due to the amount that we are over those positions so I have let the principles know that we will not be filling these two positions due to resignations but we will need to start to get some of our
038areas into um areas this is where we talk about how do we provide success for our students that need it uh and that's starting to now have conversations around using staff equitably among the buildings with the staff that we currently have uh left so no one's out of position but it is when you have a resignation you need to use attrition as times to get some of your costs in line and I think it was $250,000 the last time I spoke to you about success being over we were shorted that amount from the state not shorted that didn't sound right we receed less funding from the state and then we add our 200,000 on top of it that we've been pay over for it or at a $450,000 deficit that information came to me this
039morning so you're getting it as soon as I have it um the success teachers were both by retirement you mention you mentioned resignation twice but I think you meant retirement yeah both are retirement I probably blend those two terms together right just for the record yeah they're both retired um or retiring retiring not retired yet gotcha uh the second one down counselor at the high school we do have two current uh resignations one retirement and one resignation for counselor ELP at the high school one of those positions we will be posting tomorrow due to need to replace the other position we're holding for other conversations around um supports in the high school so we will be posting a counselor position tomorrow at the high school uh the next teacher down would be merer success that
040would be on hold uh language arts 6th grade we need that position so that will be posted tomorrow as well and as you can see from the elementary um the elementary enrollment some of those teachers may want to transfer over to the sixth grade position which would provide us some more flexibility at the elementary with moves um I do know of two elementary teachers that have already sought information about the secondary uh the sixth grade position so that will be posted tomorrow to help with movement the hsap position um I think right now we have those are two shared smaller positions um I can't guarantee whether we posted those or not I know we've done some hsap posts uh the peach for the high school I talked about will be posted is already posted and
041closed third crade position at Meer will be posted tomorrow sth grade science will be posted tomorrow kindergarten Mitchell will not be posted tomorrow due to some possible internal transfers that I'm allowing um Mr Jeffs to have that conversation internally before we post so that's where you would see why is this one not posted in others that is more of an internal conversation where that administrator has time to work with their own staff to be able to see how they're going to move things through um another hsap Special Ed's been posted so we've been posting special ed as soon as they've been opened because we know we were usually short on special ed from year to year uh therapeutic classroom um aim Center we have not posted that one so it's just it's open right now
042we're not posting at this time Bonnie May counselor at the high school not posting at this time as I mentioned earlier special edit Sawyer um that one has been posted um and just hasn't been updated here Julia sson scar fifth grade will also be posted tomorrow so I'm going to go back to November when I said the goal was to hire and post quicker and sooner and to go back to the thought of early resignations being done by July and or January and then having retirements by January resignations then that quick little last couple weeks would produce 14 openings in certified Staffing that will be posting or trying to get those out earlier than later um everything that I mentioned on the positions either being held or posting or based on need uh and then
043there's also cost implications that I'm bringing to the board as as I've mentioned I'm going to be working through those through the process I may post other positions between now and the next board meeting to probably just keep things rolling I typically will'll have then the bigger bulk of the second board meeting be conversations around Staffing if there's a major change in Staffing that needs to be discussed sooner like I don't know what it would be I would bring it to the first meeting and use it during that time questions about Staffing I'll say thank you for this detail I think this is since I've been on the board this is the earliest and the most detail we' we've had and it's really helpful I think for the board to know where things are at
044and probably staff as well yeah yeah I would agree it's very helpful to see it in this way to understand what the moving pieces are and I'm not I'm letting you know that I don't take the success teachers not being rehired lightly I understand the importance of all those positions I just have to make sure that we are within our budget to maintain programming as long as we can with the uh budgets that we're receiving um and everything on here is still going to be based around 2% or 2.25% which we don't have from legislation the difference that I'm moving forward with versus probably sometimes are a little more cautious these are the positions we need no matter what dollars we come from the state we need to get on filling these positions um and
045I also need to make sure we're getting our and well more conversations around the other expenses like we talked about them during the workshop the work session was Title One success you have your modified allowable growth uh you have your eel teachers you have your tag dollars you have your special ed those are all categorical funding that right now we're we're over spending a lot of those and is trying to get those into a line with the resources and providing opportunities for students and staff to meet our kids by buildings so I guess having sat on the board now for a while um my understanding would be that one of the answers to oh no we're going to have to figure out our success budget is that success teachers are supposed to be basically tier
0462 in mtss right so one of the things I've been hearing for a while on the board is that we really need to double down on making sure that tier one is working right um so it sounds like that will be would need to be an increasing Focus if we're going if we are over budget on essentially funding tier two is that would that be a you're correct that's a conversation I have with Dr Hawkins specifically today about um our par students and uh success in Reading as well as special ed um if you don't have a strong core tier one are you are you're going through a transition and change over that that strong core tier one helps to reduce the number of students that are needed for tier two and then tier two
047to tier three uh so yes you're you're right in that alignment so right so that just means it's all the more important to get the general education right correct okay I'm going to be honest that's a lot that you guys I mean I'm just comp good job because you guys are I mean like this isation this is a lot of stuffing so you're good okay well you're lucky I like to talk about it um any more qu facilities really we had our facilities meeting uh we talked about an upset um up update on the aim Center renovation site development no upset not upset it was a good one um ases High School stadium Improvement project talked about the playgrounds that will be um Improvement for this summer and then we talked about the development 10year
048facility plan I think the two highlights from the conversation I just want to emphasize to the board is probably the center the aim Center renovation and the site development there's conversation around the boo site because right now we have the AIM Center and then we have the Lutheran areas that were purchased by the district we have a an older home that's on the site um and so we are working with the facility committee and then um D director Abby and I Addie and I are um meeting with Architects and kind of coming up with a plan also conversations with the city how can we make that area um kind of twofold one a center for purposes for our population as an education but then how do we connect that with the local community for uh
049possibly a walking area a bicycle Zone um you have the uh the community garden is on that site um how can we better use some of the spaces for external um for rental areas looking at our alumni association looking at our foundations group how can we make that a not just a school related but how do we connect that with the neighborhood and also how do we fix some of the ice SES I believe that are on there that the neighbors are looking at going when are they going to start doing something with that so our goal is to move forward with a a plan for that site um and communicating with architect firms to come in with kind of an RFP to help us through that process and then that connects to the 10-year
050facility plan that was another conversation of also getting a firm in here architectural firm to come through and go through all of our buildings again again and then come up with a kind of a 10-year facility plan handling where our current growth is what needs to be updated roofs big projects Heating and Cooling carpet updates painting updates window updates and kind of assessing all of our buildings currently those would be two of the biggest areas that I know that director Addie um is working on and then also communicating that with the facilities and then on the general outside of that I'm working with the city or having conversations with the city about possible joint um use of facilities and how can we work together on some of the facilities within the city of ases and
051the school district so a subtlety that I must admit that I hadn't picked up on until now is that we're calling just that one building the aim Center yeah okay I totally had not gotten that so when we say okay so then everything else on that property then is I call it the bloy area I don't what it is okay um the other sites on there that we're talking about just for you have the AIM center right that has our therapeutic classrooms on one side it has our homeschool assistants on the other side and it has a community area for rental and presentations that could be rented out on site north of that right now is a gymnasium right that is being used by our girls and boys clubs before and after school and also
052in the summer we do see some benefits of continuing with that facility but it needs a lot of work if you come back to the aim Center and you move to the West you have a parking stalls that need torn down that would be the yeah they just need T down the other side of the aim Center you have the three-story building which was the Lutheran offices that needs to be demolished through the process you have the house which is to the South um I the bo I don't know the name of the house but it has a nice plaque on the side of it um we see that there's some interior that we can work with that right um so that all of that together is the I don't I'll just call it the
053bloy area I don't know if that makes sense to people but right I call it the Lutheran Home area too but yeah I like the booy area booy area sounds good but hopefully we come with a good plan and present that to the board and I'm guessing dollar-wise it's kind of a pH plan for the project M yeah anybody else in the facility committee have anything to add to that I think I'll just say I like some of the ideas that were thrown out um uh of ways that we can collaborate connect with the community and I think that's space is limited around the city in general so some good opportunities yeah I'd love to see like Community brought in all right gifts to the district you know my time frame is going really long
054I'm someone's going to bring this up to me anyway gifts to the district the tape later uh we have gifts to the district uh so these will be once a month um we have $5,000 cash from Colleen uh gulash for the lunch HERO program that's in honor of georgin rasmuson we have $1,000 cash from Dorothy Anderson for the lunch HERO program we have 24 $463 cash from the Labyrinth coffee of the Collegiate Presbyterian church for the lunch HERO program we have $170 cash from Tyler Perkins for the lunch HERO program $60 cash from Sarah CH cherem lunch HERO program and $50 cash from Kenneth copi for the lunch HERO program thank those that uh donate and it's great to have these read every month thank you next up our chief finan officer and I think
055we're starting with transportation we are going to start with Transportation um so I do want to let you know that um the we did release an RFP for our transportation services our transportation services for those that do not know um we do Outsource so those are not in-house Services um we did release the RFP on February 11th and we did um require a pre-proposal meeting and we had three compan ianes that attended our meeting for that so we're hoping that all three of them will submit a a proposal um proposals are due February 27th so that is Thursday at 4 pm and we hope to um the following week to score those and then to bring a recommendation to the board on March 10th for approval um so we did um issue the RP for
0565 years and then so it'll be for FY 26 through fy3 and then after that there's an opportunity for three um one-year extensions beyond that we're hoping to maybe save a few bucks along the way and um maybe I mean it hadn't been bit out for 10 years we really don't know where we're at with things so it was it was time to um to release something because a lot has changed in the transportation World in 10 years so yeah any questions on that all right okay the next time there will be self-driving buses so yeah so yeah so that is interesting that you bring that up because like 10 years ago like um the cameras were different you know just so just so many things were different you know in the rfps 10 years
057ago so we really did do a lot of homework when we came when it came to writing this so yeah great cool thank you next on my list is um transfer of funds to the flexibility program so I think that this this is something new for this district and so I'll give you a little history um so in 2017 the Iowa legislator legislature adopted house file 565 which created a flexibility account um within the general fund and so how it works is there are certain Cate orals and I I mean it's preschool um professional development homeschool assistance any or any other type of categorical fund that maybe there's a small balance left over and you didn't use those funds and so my recommendation is um there's a resolution attached to transfer $50,000 from The Homeschool
058assistance program into this flexibility account and I can give you several reasons why I'm recommending this but one of them is is now the our homeschool assistance program is in housee and we used to pay rent for that program um at $35,000 a year and now since they're at the aim Center we have operating expenses and you know we have custodians there and we have air conditioning and we have heat and we have internet and all those things that we used to rent are now on our on our general fund so transferring These funds um to this flexibility program will allow us to pay those expenses um out of The Homeschool assistance program so would this then be something that we would do every year correct so okay so what it is is that you
059can really deplete your fund any un unexpended and unobligated um funds at the end of your fiscal year Well currently that balance is like $250 some th000 and it's just been inuring every year and so we're going to start with this and we did have to buy some additional curriculum supplies um just kind of some wish list things when they moved into the aim Center so I don't anticipate that it will you know be you know as large as it has been in the past but there will be a surplus of fund still yeah can you clarify for me what the flexibility account I I I apologize I should probably know this but I don't like what what does that allow us to do what what uh what flexibility it allow what the definition so
060it no that's a good question it allows the flexibility to transfer the funds for the use of any um purpose that can be used in the general fund and that we say we're going to use it for in the resolution so in the resolution I believe I stated um aim Center operations or any general fund purpose s thank you welcome okay all right anything else on there or not thank you Sher is there anything else sorry I don't want to cut you off oh no no I I couldn't remember had any other items on there I think that's it it's a long Monday unless there's a surprise um do we have any items from our student representative today yes so we kind of have an update for you all so as a reminder um Vienna
061and I our primary goal for the year was to basically bridge the gap between the student body and you know our Representatives so we've been setting up meetings and we met with the high school and tried to meet with the student council co-presidents it was a it was a funky day it was very cold outside the day that we tried to meet you know last week was a little bit rough so just trying to set up another meeting with them and we have a meeting with the middle school so we'll be excited to hear from them and that's on Wednesday so that's coming up and we'll have an update to share next time we meet so right thank you uh any items from board members all right uh old business we have none so new
062business uh first item is gifts to the district we want to do the motion I move the board to approve the gifts as presented second any discussion all right it was moved by Smith second by Rodriguez all in favor say I I I I oppose nay passes 5 Z uh next we have our policies for discussion uh Sabrina couldn't be here so I don't know if who else is on the board I can give a quick uh overview from the minutes um there are there are two recommended policies to resend from iasb uh and those looks like those are folded into other parts of policy um and I believe the secret Aries report area that had some content added as well if there are any questions about any of those policies yeah um so one
063little uh like language thing I don't know which one of this so these okay so so these policies are all related to basically sher's job more or less this is the Sherry section of our policy um in some of the policies she's called the secretari and and some of them she's called the treasurer I asked this and and I mean I know that they're the same thing and also I think that this could be confusing I'm not sure they're not they're not the same thing okay no um and there's one policy that alternates between the term Secretary and Treasurer which is um there was one where I got confused and had to do a double take and like read more um maybe secretary's report um it's the is it the audit one it's the scope
064of the policy it's the financial the first sentence says the board secretary report to the board each month and then the part later says the treasur will also furnish the board with a statement from the depository and that's two different things okay some um some school districts have two have have those are not the same positions where they may have like a board secretary and then the CFO is not the board secretary right okay so um so is the treasurer always the CFO usually okay all right um so the when the this scope of the policy says the board secretary will report to the board each month blah blah blah uh at the end in the second sentence says at the annual meeting the treasurer will give the annual report stating the amounts held over
065received um so is should we have those as the first sentence referring to secretary and the second sentence referring to Treasurer I asked the same thing I think it gives us Grace if we do split those apart um I think that's why iasb has them those separate ways I think that if we um you know currently yes same position but in the future they might not be so it just gives us that latitude and am I am I correct that in terms of like statute there's distinct roles is that that could be within the same person but terms of Legally the responsibilities aren't necessarily aren't the same okay so then I link to policy 206.000 which is a policy about the quote secretary SL treasure policy 206.000 so this um so SE uh policy 77.1
066which is under discussion okay refers to is the one is is the one that we are currently actually under discussion but it cross references 206.000 which talks about the quote secretary treasurer which basically defines who our secretary/treasurer is it is a current policy on the books and it defines one position called the secretary treasurer in the singular so when would align that right I was just wondering if maybe we wanted to clarify the language if this is actually one person in our policy according to policy 206.000 I think then should we have isn't the idea that we want it to be separate in the language of the policy we we don't want it to seem like one person in the language of the policy ex except that we are in the different policy that's already
067approved well I understand what you're saying I think but I I think that it's the flip of what you're saying is that we want it to be we would want then two separate policies no you can use both names but just don't think of these necessarily as the same person we could put or in between or and you know and slash or on the second one right or whichever person is a role is appropriate for that task so then that would call for revision of 206.000 or no I'm confused without knowing which one 26.3 it's Link at the bottom of 77.1 is the one under suion at the bottom of it there's cross reference we only I think we would only need to change that if we were to change the position I think we
068just reviewed that one in February so we would probably have to bring it back for review again if we wanted to do that okay so we're okay with referring to a single position called secretary treasur in one policy and being ambiguous about whether they're one person in a different policy let me what what is your suggestion so I understand where where I mean if they are called if the position is called secretary treasur in 206.000 then I would suggest that we use that same term secretary treasurer in 7 77.1 or flip the secretary treasur to say or or yes I guess it could be in 20 6.3 you could change the language but I would suggest that we have use consistent terminology between 206.125 one the 77 yeah so my yeah you're suggesting first reading
069to change board secretary to be board secretary treasur we'll bring it back next month with those two terms on it and you can then yeah it's just it's just clarifying who this position is because it seems to change who we're talking about between the first and second sentence and then I got confused went to the other policy discovered that they are actually the like the other policy clearly defines them as being one person personal opinion would be we just check what iasb has on their model policies and we follow that on both of them that would be my personal one just because that's what we really closely try to align to okay yeah I mean I'm fine with that I just think we should use one term no I I agree I just would make
070it consistent you can table this one okay well it's I don't think we're anyway they discussion so yeah so this would be this is going to come back first reading you guys want do that no no okay yeah we don't have an ex them for them no no oh I think we I think we talk about them tonight and then vote next I think so I think we I vote next week I've just been working on enrollment Staffing so you're good work on the policy St I think we'll we'll say uh let's make sure the wording is consistent and correct both with iasb's recommendation and whatever Iowa code is my only concern was if there are statutory requirements that are different based on those two types that if we were at some point to hire
071a separate person we would need to make sure that that was clear but then that would also need to be clear clear in the policy that defines that position yes um yeah the other thing I wanted to point out is that we are now prohibiting purchasing food products misbranded as meat or egg products or cultivated protein food products in accordance with applicable laws it was last legislative session yep yes this is a per a 2024 state law yes we are required not to Mis brand meat products that are not meat all right anything else that on any other items for policy all right our next item is our resolution for the transfer of funds which Sher spoke about a few minutes ago I no you go I move the request to approve the resolution to
072consider approving transfer of funds to the flexibility account within the general fund expenditures and setting hearing on proposed resolution approving expend approving expenditure of funds in the flexibility account for the board meeting on March 24th 2025 at 5:30 p.m. second all right moveed by dward seconded by Becker and this is a roll call Vote Yes dward I Rodriguez I Smith I Becker I Winfrey I all right that passes by o that's just a one motion right okay uh so item request for superintendent I think that's just the policy language we just talked about to double check um I don't think that there was any other I don't think anything other items for you uh our board planning calendar our next meeting regular meeting is March 10th uh and that will be our shorter meeting meeting
073with a work session tentatively and Allan is not here tonight so oh I move we adjourn hey second I say somebody have a second y by seconded by board all in favor say I I I oppose nay passes 5 Z what is our word session going to be in March we know I don't know we'll see the kids are already left probably going to to bad