5.7.2025 Special Board Meeting of the LJSD Board of Trustees

001Yep. Okay. All right. So, we're going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. It is 6:01 now. Everybody, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You may all be seated. Welcome everyone. I do need a motion to approve tonight's agenda. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. The motion carries. Uh moving on to accolades. It's my understanding we have a whole bunch of them. We weren't provided them. We have five pages of accolades. Timberlake and Lakeland High School really brought it. Um so we have district champions for softball, baseball,

002golf, first place um for golf. North Idaho um Hall of Fame. 21 total nominations between the two high schools. 35 of our students um got CDA Chamber Scholarships. Uh 30 total top scholars, which is the top 10% between the two high schools. Um NIHR, we have four teachers that were chosen. Um, so our two stu two academic students get to choose the the teacher or principal or staff member that they felt like had an impact on their growth. And so at LHS it was Shannon Matillaa and Shannon Hall. And then at THS it was Molly Miller and um Sean Lawler. Um FFA got awards for both um high schools. FCCLA got multiple awards. um journalism, BPA. So, I could redo the laundry list. All these kids just knocked it out of the park. But I

003would like this to just go to Maria so it could be part of public record because we got the students names and it gives a little detail about uh what each award is kind of for and but there's literally like 50 kids on here. So, that's awesome. For time purposes, I won't read it, but All right. Um, is that posted on our website? Uh, I I just got the information finalized, so I will make sure that it is posted on our website. You know, yeah, we should highlight. Yeah, I think Jackie has, but I'll I'll make sure. I know it's on Facebook. That website would be good. All right, moving into the old business. We have the superintendent followup. Um, take a moment for it to come up. Uh, do we have any conversation with

004the followup? What's that? No, I don't have anything. Okay. Um, I would like to address item number two on her follow-up. I asked Lisa when um our renewal for the Wrath Chamber was coming up because I saw that Spirit Lake had come through and we were paying $100 and we paid $1,200 to the Wrath Room Chamber, which I know puts us in a special bracket, etc. Um, I did not uh tell her that we were moving back to a nonprofit status. I said the board needed to have a conversation about it. Specifically, I wanted to bring it up that we would have the ability to save $1,100 if we would drop down to a nonprofit status. Um, like, you know, we're paying Spirit Lake $100 and we're I think we're part of Bay View. I

005think we were part of Apple, but I'm not sure if we still are. but making it more um equitable throughout all the cities that we actually support. Um I I get what she her reasoning is as to why we pay the $1,200 to the Rather Chamber, but I feel that's kind of slighting the other cities. And I don't agree with that, especially since this is taxpayer dollars. And if we're willing to forego, you know, her recommendation was to forego the newspaper at 300, I think we should be foregoing the 1100 and just dropping us down to a more um economical position until things until there's a need, I guess, that arises. I don't know. But I wanted us to have conversation. I did not state that we would be going back to the $100. So,

006um I just wanted to clarify that. But I did ask her about, you know, when is the removal and she wasn't sure. She said she'd let me know. And I I this is what we're we're getting first of the year cuz I thought I had seen it go come through for $1,200. Yeah. Beginning of the year, right? Um but I couldn't remember when it was. But it's better to have those conversations now so that we're ready for that when January does come. Exactly. So, um I don't know if we want to give her direction with respect to that cuz I did not. I just wanted to know when it was up for renewal to have the conversation. Um but that was the only thing I wanted to talk about with respect to her uh followup.

007Does anybody have any other conversation they'd like to have? Well, I don't I mean, I would be surprised if the ability to speak at the chamber lunchons and the events and all that would be, you know, that Yeah. that the school district wouldn't be able to give their updates or and if we had to pay extra for somebody that attended something. Well, we did have to. I mean, even though we pay the 1,200, we have to pay for the lunch and tickets and all that anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think we just do like we used to do. And I mean, I'm I'm with you on that. And um Yeah, just back to the regular nonprofit status. Seems fine with me. Anybody else have any other input? Uh yes. Figured you would follow. Uh first

008of all I don't have to excuse myself from any right chamber as well. But having said that I would I would stress that having a good community partnership with the chamber is ultimately important. I was looking for a piece that they recently did in support of the levy. Did you happen to find that on the website? It was on there. Yeah. And I, you know, I' I'd love to forward it to you, but we went to a lot of work based on the appeal that Lisa and I made to have the chamber positively support the the levy this time around. Uh, and they have a very nice well done piece uh with testimonials from business people supporting the school district and the programs that we have and so on and so forth. Uh, you know,

009I I I just would not feel good about slapping the hand that helped us at this juncture. Well, in all fairness, I've brought this up almost annually because it bothers me that we're we're we're a school district that falls under the umbrella of a nonprofit um classification and that we're giving $1,200 to the city here in Raft and we are not to the city to the chamber and we're aligned with that chamber but yet we're also in Spirit Lake, we're also in Apple, we're also in Bay View and we're not making that same type of an alignment and we're not we're not as um go-getter with all the other cities. It's just rather and I don't think that's appropriate given that this is taxpayer dollars. So I think it should be I mean if we

010want to go above and beyond with all the other cities then step up our game but I don't see that we're doing that and I think it would be more appropriate to bring it back down. We could save $1,100. I mean, that may not seem like a lot, but given the situation that we're in, I think it's significant, but that's just my opinion, and it's been my opinion for a few years. This isn't the first time I brought it up. Maybe take the 1,200 and split it among the different chambers. Yeah. But with bathroom chamber, I know there's different tiers that you have to buy into. So, um, and I we're giving them less, but and the other ones, I think it's just a flat a flat fee. Yeah. I think the only difference in

011some of the other ones is whether you're a business within the zip code or not, but the school district obviously is in all of them. So, Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, that would I don't know that they um unless they changed the last couple of years. I'm not I'm not too sure. But yeah, it looks like they did a good write up too for the levy in 2023 the the raft chamber. Mhm. I know Lisa spoke um for the 2023 one as well. They've always been very supportive of Yeah. But in defense of that, I do think the other cities have as well, but they don't get the same accolades that we give Rath. And um not that that's giving Rather the accolades isn't a bad thing, it's that we don't do a good job of

012giving all the other cities accolades for their support, right? And I I just think that it would be more appropriate given that this is taxpayer dollars um to go in that direction. So, this is on an update on action item. No, just a Lisa's already said in her update that she's let Ashley know that the board is moving back to another No, she didn't say that. She said I let Ashley know the board asked about moving back. So, she didn't say that we are or that we want to. She just said that we asked. Oh, but my frustration is the board didn't. I just asked Lisa about when was it renewal because I wanted to talk to the whole board about it. So, that was um I just wanted that clear. I wasn't out there

013making conversation and making direction for the board. Dr. So, that was just the followup to the question, correct? Okay. I I don't have any questions. So, we have the financial followup. There's a lot of Yeah. information in here. Thank you. Um, do we have any comments, cost, or questions on the followup? Yeah, I'd be curious to know if uh just because they use that um they said that the increase the slight increase was because of the tariffs. I'd like to know which if they had that information. I just when I read it I thought, "Oh, really?" Jessica Grant, I'm chief finance officer. Um it's the metal that's coming in um for it. Uh, so I did my due diligence and did ask and then I did follow up with all the other companies that bid

014on the bus RFP that we had out there. They're all experiencing similar uh increases that they're passing on to contractor. I was just curious because they've all said they're holding their prices. So for them to come and say Yeah. No. So it was the most recent purchase of materials they have. Um, so we should have if we agree to the price increase, which um we're it's it's a small amount. It really truly is. We do have the funds to cover it. Um, and if we wanted to go with someone else, we would have to pay the same price increase. This was the company that could get us the buses the fastest. Um, we'll get all three of them this year um instead of waiting uh through until next year to get them. So that's the

015thought process behind it. So um we should have the first bus from them in the next couple weeks and the other two before school starts. The frustration with Harlo's is it seems like every time we purchase from them, they come back. It was Bryson's last time that had Oh, it was it wasn't Harlo. It wasn't Harlo. It was Bryson last time that had the increase and we had to go through the whole bond call and all that stuff. So um I did check with our attorney on this. It's considered um an act of gone because they can't predict the market. So, we can't call the bond on that. So, I did look into that though. Okay. Yeah. So, please know I did my due diligence to make sure that we were still getting the best

016bang for our buck. Um, and No, I appreciate the information you've given us. Yeah. How many buses was that again? Because we had all we had so many different buses. Three or four. Okay. I apologize. It's been a long couple months. Yeah. I just know we will get what we paid for. We what we haven't paid for yet. They we pay them. Okay. Upon delivery, but do we I later on there's talk of an increase for our um uh I cramp insurance. Um but do we have any idea where who they're going with and what we're looking at costwise on So, I anticipate that they'll go to a similar model like NIC did where they you kind of have your insurance from a couple different brokers. Um, that's what I'm anticipating since I crimp dropped

017Morton and Suns. It was kind of a mutual dispairing I believe. Um, I am talking to another company that could continue to ensure us with I crimp, but I think the premium increase would be more than staying with Morton and going um through their route. I do know our uh HR director and assistant superintendent recently attended the ed conference. Brooke was able to talk to Chad Rstrom from Morton and Suns at that time Martin company. Sorry, not Morton and Sons but um she could maybe potentially add some additional um to that. Sure. Um so misdirector of HR. Um so uh Mr. Randstrom did tell me that they are looking at um one um a carrier over in Washington that um does a lot of the Washington schools and he said we probably will see an

018increase this year but he anticipates it's going to stabilize and it will be less than what I crimp was going to provide us. Um, so it should stabilize. He said because I crimp is somewhat monopolizing all the government entities in the state of Idaho that they have more leverage within their increases. So that's why they decided to shop around. We felt like the Spokane company or the Washington company also could match some of the similar services that we had been used to where I cramp it was going to either be more expensive or some of their services were being dropped. And so as a whole just um talked about for us to continue what we have been so used to as far as the insurance piece and coverage that it was just time to start

019branching out and looking at some other companies and so that we have we have our own leverage. So um well we took a significant increase this last year from so it would have been another one increase this year. So that even switching it would be less. No, but what what my point was was that if there's any way that we I mean if a new insurance company's coming in and we're going to be at that same sort of rate with that significant increase, I'd like to know, you know, just kind of have some insight as to what the factor is to put us up so high given that the reason we were told we were rated higher is because we had to share the the deficits that went on in the insurance world um from

020the fire. So I I just Yep. So as soon as they finalize everything with um the company that they're looking at, um I anticipate it'll be around May 27th is what I think he said in his last email. Okay. Um we will be able to compare and contrast that to the coverage that we currently have with uh I crimp. Okay. What I don't know is what coverage we would potentially lose if we went with someone else. But I am in, like I said, in talks with another company that does still have access to the I crimp pool um to see what they could potentially rate us at. It's just a lot of additional paperwork right now, right? Not a lot on my plate. So, um I'm just trying to work through all of that. Okay.

021All right. Thank you. Does anybody have any ideas? Yeah, I was just thinking I know the one piece that uh administration and the board lean has leaned heavy on is the uh legal um so as long as whoever it is is, you know, up to par with Idaho law. I I Brooke, tell me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was they were going to stay with the same legal team. That was um a big that was the superintendent. So Anderson Julia Hall would still be right, which was great. They're fantastic. Okay, that would be my only I mean obviously there's a lot to it, but I just know that from we're always asking them like we just did with the bus issue and all that kind of stuff and they're experts with Idaho law specific

022to schools. So that was a big point of concern. Okay. Okay. Those my own. If you don't mind, I'd like to just highlight uh the one thing we didn't talk about for my followup, which is the school district modernization moderniz modernization funds. Um there has been a lot of talk in the community about the $91 million that's going to school districts. And so we had that question last night at the town hall. Um just some confusion about that because I don't think our community fully understands that this is a very specific pot of money for a very specific purpose. Right? So even though the state's out there saying we gave 91 million to schools, they gave 91 million to schools based on our average daily attendance, we received an additional 1.8 million on that, but

023it is specific toward um facility or seven capital projects that will last more than seven years. So I just wanted to have that out there that it's not extra money that we can pay salaries and benefits with. It's in its own separate account. we have to treat it with special um there's special guidelines around it subject to IRS audit which is a different thing it's it's very similar to a bond um so I just want it out there that it's a very specific it's wonderful that the state did this but in the grand scheme of things it's barely scratching the surface of what we need from a facility standpoint um looking at the work that we did on our 10-year plan that's hundred million dollar worth of work over the next 30 years and we're

024getting 20 right to address the next 10. So, um while it's great, um it just scratches the surface of what we need and what other districts in the state need as well. So, we'll take the scratch. Yeah, I know. Absolutely. I'm not I'm not complaining about it. I'm just saying um across the state with the the facilities because that is and you know, to the community's credit, that is a big load off of them. But I mean the name itself modernization facilities funds you know says it's only facilities or like you said capital projects that lasts a certain amount of time but that should you know that is a big relief off of them too because we and that's the other thing um maybe if that question comes up again we didn't even run the

025plant facilities fund because of this or the levy because of this right trusty Jones actually brought that up at the town hall just made that point of how fiscally responsible the board has been and how it has just been just that you know ongoing maintenance has been a difficult a difficulty for us without that plant facility. So how critical this this money was. Yeah. When I asked to put the 2 million cut I have gotten a lot of feedback and the community loved that that was up there. Oh perfect and they saw it that you know oh I got comments you know oh looks like the board actually did some work. Oh, it looks like the district, you know, blah blah blah. So, people have been very receptive to being able to see a line

026item of what was and uh Superintendent Arnold has included it in her levy presentations um of just spotlighting this is and then talking about all of the cuts that have happened over the course of the last three years, but especially this that November to December time. This is the 2 million from the 9.52 7.52. So, I just wanted it out there that it's not 91 million just for funies. Um, there's a very specific purpose for it. So, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, maybe that needs to be a blurb on the community page. Just this, you know, just a little blurb on there that what the uh 91 million. Yeah. Well, what the modernization facilities funds is and how much Lakeland actually got. you know, 91 million sounds great, but we didn't get

027that, right? We got So, I did just include that in my financial facts newsletter that went out. Um, I'm sure I can work with Jackie to create some sort of infographic to go on our social media, but if uh in that financial fax newsletter, I covered it pretty in depth of what we what we received, what the purpose was, what process we had to go through to get it, and how we're supposed to spend it. So, it's all in the April, right? We have a huge part of our community who's not tied to the district who doesn't do social media but they have internet they can go to our website. So that newsletter is on our website and it is on social it gets shared to social media as well. Um but we can definitely

028pull that out and make it its own um post as a standalone. Well, I think the more that we make it um relevant for people that are looking and they don't have to dig and search and hope they get what where it's at. We just here it is. They like the community page. I've gotten a lot of feedback of uh the different, you know, they feel like it's that you're getting the information simplified, right? You know, yeah. Perfect. Jessica's doing a great job. Moving on to the consent agenda, we have the minutes of the previous meetings, minutes of subcommittees, subcommittee meetings. Uh, any questions on the previous meeting? Minutes. Okay. I have one I got to find it. Okay. I I have one on the policy committee for 424. Um, you have Shannon Montaine there.

029thought it was Shannon Ryder on 424 I just thought that because the last meeting I was at was with Mary and Shannon Ryder. So that's my mistake then. Sorry. I think Yeah, cuz I think Shannon Shannon I think I was going to track me. I'm sure that was my mistake. I can just Wanted to clear that up. That's all. Okay. Yeah, it wasn't on this. Never mind. Sorry. It's okay. My mistake. All right. So, if there's no Anybody else have any comments or questions or input on the minutes? Okay. But I kept referring to the community page that stuck in my head. It's the levy page. The levy page. Yeah. That has the information on it that the people Okay. Um, so can I get a motion on the consent agenda to approve consent agenda?

030I have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Clearing none. The motion carries. Uh, moving on to new business. We have revised the attendance policy. Um, and I would like to point out that um, Shannon Moffa, Shannon Law Fonte, and Dustin Frank um, really kind of took the bull by the horns with this given what our current policy has, our principal assistants, all the hoops they're jumping through to make sure that secondary is doing their what's there was a might be just oh I'm like what? Um so I just want to thank them for jumping in and doing that and then um Shannon Ryder and uh Josh Hexstead came alongside them and they all four collaboratively worked on getting the bugs out as we went through them. We actually

031drafted secondary attendance policy first and then brought elementary in. So, we didn't spend as much time on elementary cuz secondary pretty much had it lined out. But what the reason the attendance policy came back is what was happening is um our assistant principles are spending their entire work career um hunting down students to have them fill out these petitions and and all of this. They're just they're just the attendance police is really what they their jobs become. And I don't think that's a very um good use of their skills when that's all they can focus on. That's something that we could pay somebody so differently. Well, and what we've done is kind of streamline the attendance policy so that teachers actually have um some control as to when students are gone and when they come

032back and when homework's expected and and all of that whatnot. And then um we just made it more so that without the building input we can sit here and say what we want it to be but without understanding if it's practical and can be um implemented. I I'm just very grateful that they did the work on this policy because it's something that they can implement and they can um navigate which and it will help when things do come to the board with respect to students. Um, there's going to be a concise list as far as either an excused absence or unexp Yeah, that's and it may take a little bit to get everybody in line, but the goal is so that everything will be streamlined and consistent. Um, I would just add to this. Um

033we spent I think it was roughly nine weeks on this policy. They consistently came. So again, yeah, I appreciate Michelle uh acknowledging um they were I mean an hour and a half of all of us just really trying to brainstorm and really trying to go through all the whatif scenarios so that we weren't writing a policy through the lens of theory, but really through the application piece and what that really looks like and what would implementation be. Um, we also really wanted to focus on adding some teeth at the elementary level because right now we do have kids who are missing substantial portions of their day upwards to 50 absences in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and to some degree you don't come back from that. And so, how do we put some teeth in

034there? Um, but the excused and the unexcused. So, we really talked about we used verified, unverified. I mean, we went through multiple vocabulary and semantics of what do we use to just here's here's what we're willing to excuse and not excuse that goes to that attendance and then here's the reasons that we'll excuse. And so we anticipate we used to have excused and unexcused. We anticipate that there could be some push back just because people feel like well if I call it in it should be excused which is why we've talked about verified I'm verified. So, um, but we spent lots of time just trying to wordsmith this and make it clear. Um, and, um, outside of just the, uh, attend or the policy committee, um, our high schools came together and really tried to

035work on how do we make this feasible for implementation. So, I really appreciate you guys. The biggest struggle is, you know, when students aren't in their seats, then we aren't being funded for them. And yet we're still having to pay teachers. We're still having to pay, you know, everything else that makes the school run without the resource to to inc, you know, acquire the income for that. Um, that point is uh is well taken and certainly accurate and I have a question in that regard. Yeah, we start out by saying that uh attendance is really important and that kids really should be in their seat at 90% of the time. But then we have this whole laundry list of absences that don't count. Those two things are incompatible in my mind. We either believe they

036should be there 90% of the time or we don't. And it looks like we don't because we're going to, you know, you could count up uh 15 20 days of of those absences that are not counted toward the n the 90%. So it just doesn't make any sense except the the struggle at secondary Bob is at least this is my understanding that everything counts towards the 90%. So, we have assistant principles spending their entire job from the start of school to the end of school monitoring and running around and chasing after kiddos to get their credits because when they've gone over then they have to according to our current policy they have to fill out a petition. They have to do there's all these hoops that everybody's jumping through and that's all they are are

037hoops. And so to make it more of a reasonable approach given that yes, we want them there, but we realize there are going to be circumstances that may prevent them from being there such as bereavement or a medical absence or you know if the student gets suspended or they have to go to court. I understand at all but anyway go ahead. Well, I think that's by law. we can't count that against them, but um trying to help the uh attendance police not have that be their sole responsibility for the entire school year because I don't think that's appropriate. Well, you know, I don't disagree with any of that. But on the other hand, you know, what you're speaking to is the issue of personnel as opposed to the issue of whether or not a kids

038attendance 90% of the time. And once again, we either believe that's valid or we don't. But if you have personnel trying to enforce the policy 100% of the time and the policy is strictly hoop jumping, how how does that benefit our personnel or our students that some other way? The other piece to this and you guys I asked them to come up here they can speak to this is when it's a bereavement situation or it's a you know they're going out for BPA state and they're going to be gone for 5 days and they're a kid that has BPA then they're in FFA and then they're in a sport or whatever. So accumulative like they're they're missing days. So if we're counting all of them there's letters going home and then parents are like well

039you knew what was going on. and I've talked to this and so then they're fielding phone calls from parents where then they're spending lots of time saying well that just it doesn't really count like we're not really going to do this because we recognize it is excused. So we really spent a lot of time talking about what are those scenarios where we currently excuse it because it's just intuitive to a high school setting. Um well let let me approach this a little differently. There's a laundry list that are essentially excused absences. Are they counted in attendance for those days? Um, so Shannon La Fontaine, assistant principal Lincoln High School. Um, school activity ones do count because they're tied to a school activity and they are coded with an A. Um, unless they've applied to be

040a self-directed learner, all of the rest of those do not. But the way our current policy is written, if they go over the nine absences, even if it was because they had to drive to California for a family funeral, that we're probably never going to tell a kid they shouldn't or couldn't do. If they go over nine for those things, we right now we're being the letter goes out saying their credits could be withheld or are being withheld is what it actually says in the letter. So then they get the letter, they have to do the petition to appeal the letter. like that process is our current reality except for school related activities and a couple of other codes that are there. So, we tried to look at those scenarios where if a kid's out

041for surgery and we know they're out for surgery, they can't we had an unavoidable absence, but right now they're still having to get the letter, do the petition, come back through us, and we knew ahead of time that this was happening. We've already communicated with parents. So, we're trying to to look at those pieces in a way that is a more efficient way to say which kids are habitual offenders or avoidable absences. We can really improve attendance in an effective way because most of those and I shouldn't say most, but a lot of those letters we send out. We already knew what was happening and they probably are going to have their petition approved based on the circumstances that they were under. And it feels like if we want if we want to hold to

042where our policy is now, the number of kids we would withhold credit on is enormous and it would drastically impact our graduation rate because our kids are going to lose all six credits. So you just made the statement that if like the in school absence, if they're classed with that, they still count as being in school. So you said the ones with the A's. So, an activity absence counts. They're still counting as part of suspending a school activity. Suspended absence would count that they're still in school. Medical absence does not. Okay. Um unless it's part of their school excused, right? That's the disability code. It's different. Part if they would be if it's part of their 504. Correct. Um Kelsey Badger, director of special um education. So a 504 and IEPs um we do have

043a marking for um marked absent due to disability which is the D that's which is the D on that list and so some of our students um do fall under that we do have some that have disabilities. Okay. So disability related they would count as being in school and that's on that list like that was accounted for when we created that list. Okay. And court appearance does that count or not? Okay. Even though it by law it can't count against them but it doesn't count for us. Okay. So they're required court appearance school excused pre-arranged bereavement and medical. So five of the four five six seven eight nine. So half of the list. Yeah. So you're looking at five. And if it's a recurring thing like a medical that would be a recurring because they're

044going to counseling or I mean there's a couple things there. They if they maintain that GPA requirement they can apply to be a self-directed learner. And if that was happening it was going to be we don't want to see these kiddos having to petition every semester. We also don't want to see them negatively impacting our ADA. And so hopefully we can guide them in the direction of one. have to meet the criteria for that to fit because there was actual talk of the fact that maybe we should just not have an attendance policy because if we're just making everyone hoop jump then what is the point? I mean definitely making parents angry you believe in good attendance or you don't. What we've done is allowed to for the creation of a culture of I can

045be gone whenever I need to for whatever purpose and it'll be excused and they don't care whether they're counted in attendance on that day or not. It doesn't mean anything to them, but it does mean something to us. We didn't have control over CO and that open the door for this 10 doors box. I I I think our to combat that we and it's the next policy of that we really wanted to look at the self-directed learner and so as we're working in conjunction coupled with this attendance policy if you know that there's medical or if you know that you're having events coming up um that then we're getting parents by their kid as a self-directed learner so that we're not being penalized ADA wise but then they're not being penalized and hoop jumping um

046when they know it's a it's a plan situation cuz the reality is is they're missing it anyways. Um so we were trying to minimize some of the hoop jumps um but then not impact ADA in a way that has a negative. Can we implement it for like 6 months and then see how it's working and then come back to the table and adjust? We can bring any policy policy committee anytime we want. You have the power and when it comes back, we'll check it. Okay. I'm just Yeah. No, I you know, see if it's working and sometimes it might be good to try it and then you work out the kinks and then bring it back and go, there's a little tweak that we need to make here or there. I mean, that's best practice

047with systems anyway. So, we 100% could do that because the tenants came back new after co when I started in this position, right? And so, we didn't know how that was going to look and how it was going to work. And I I mean I'm kind of a data person anyway. So tracking the data over those three years, I did think, oh, it's going to get better. We're having great conver well the kids that have to fill out the petition that are put on probation and they get better and they're replaced with a new group of kids the next year or that particular kid who had surgery, he's good and fine, but the next year somebody else had surgery. So it's like our numbers aren't actually decreasing. It's just changing who they are minus a

048handful of repeat offenders. And those are the ones we're really hoping that this policy will but we are minimizing repeat offenders. Yeah, for sure. Well, we wanted Shannon writer, principal assistant at book to really um we wanted to make the letter more impactful and meaningful when it comes because right now a lot of times when the letter comes, we're like, "Okay, I'm sorry. It just automatically sends this out. You can kind of ignore it. It's a hoop job. Just fill it out. Send it back. You'll be approved if it's like for surgery or a funeral or something that we already knew about." So this way we're hoping when you get that letter it's it's a serious offense. Yes. Yeah. So just helps with the severity of that. But we have I mean for years been

049working on trying to improve our attendance but going through this process really led to some good conversations about ways because we're never going to create a policy that improves attendance on its own. So, what are we doing on the other end to incentivize students to be at school, make the learning, you know, more meaningful? Um, we added the two-day rule for late work or, you know, when they come back for work that they need to turn in their makeup work. So, that should help. Students shouldn't be able to miss 30 days and still be passing all their classes, right? So, we're hoping to attack this from a lot of angles because yeah, we wanted some of those accountability measures, but I think we spent the first two or three um policy meetings really just talking

050about how do we ensure that kids feel really connected? How do they connected to their peers, connected to their teachers? There's a safe how do we want our school place where kids want to go so that we don't have situations where they don't want to be there. So, what are some things and we brainstorm at elementary, at middle school, at high school what that could look like. So in conjunction having I mean we talked about every school having some type of attendance plan of just incentivizing kids being there and being present and being connected understanding that that is a huge part of this as well. So putting out on ADA that I know it's part of the levy information that's going out and I've had some of those discussions with our students and I think

051just educating them the cost of them not being in school, right? What it has to the district. For some of those kids, they really are invested that they're a kid that can show up 85% of the time and still get A's and B's because they're a pretty solid student and they don't realize that that extra absence from them actually is pulling money. And I've had several they're like, I have no idea. And I do think in some cases they're like, "Okay, I might show up more often." Like which was great to hear that they realize that their absence is impacting more than they at that point they're like, "Who else does it impact? It's just me and again I worked on so why does anybody care?" So I think it's an educational piece also. So

052let me let me see if I can summarize this. Based on this policy, you don't anticipate that it will have any impact on our average daily attendance one way or the other. Correct. I mean hopefully. and and you don't and this pardon hopefully I don't think it'll negatively impact it. I think it's the current reality of where we're at. I don't think it's going to encourage kids to miss more school than they currently are. But like hopefully it will have a positive impact. We just don't anticipate that it will solve the whole problem. So we're currently running at about what 92.4%. I think we're closer to 93. 93. Just are we at 93 94? 92. 92. Yeah. So if by next Christmas Mhm. we don't see any marked increase in average daily attendance that's going

053to be okay. Well, it's conversation to have increase it. I mean, our goal in this is I don't think any Yeah, I don't think any policy is ever going to increase it because it's it's people families you're dealing with. There's nothing we can do except try and funnel as much as we can. You got you Yeah, you either have to have a deterrent or you have to have an and we're trying to have both. The steps to this if they violate are um weighty consequential. Yes. Anticipate that this policy will have any impact on academic performance one way or the other. the makeup policy could and we we haven't really had in policy where if they were absent they only have two days to make up the work and some teachers were willing to work

054with kids for you know I had a question about that when I read that um let's say I'm gone for 5 days to California for a briement I come back and I have two days to get it get it in but during the course of time that I'm gone I don't even know what the assignments are how's that going to There's a piece in there that the admin team and teachers can make exceptions for extenduating circumstances and they could access to the rules. Yeah. And we know so many of our kids have you know whether it's Google classroom or if they know it's a briement hopefully they would know ahead of time to have had some communication with teachers to do those things. But again if it's some you know I I you know I

055like the two-day rule. You know, I've been in in school districts where we had two days for every day you missed to get your report back in and that was discussed when we went through that. Yeah. Be care one day or maybe two days, but if I'm gone for longer than that, it seems like it might be a little tough to make that happen. So, the teacher's going to have to make the exception. Now, the rule doesn't mean anything. It means something to the teacher. It does mean teachers, which I think they're looking for. We have had students that have requested that their parents don't take trips. Bereavement is a different thing, but like can you can we only take trips now when we're we're off because it's too much to try to make up

056now when I'm gone. So, we have had especially student athletes like request like I don't take me out of school. I can't do it. So, maybe their parents are talking or the students are talking more to their parents. Well, you know, and yeah, there are arguments in in all directions. I mean, you know, you say, "Okay, we're going to take a family vacation to Fiji. Never been to Fiji before. That's going to be educational." Yeah, probably, but not in the way you think. But anyway, hey, education's education. That's pretty awesome. Um, I I don't know this off the top of my head, so I can check, but I do think that this might be one of the annual policies that you guys have to look at every year. Anyways, I would appreciate you looking. Um,

057but if it isn't, I can bring that policy back and add it so that it's one of the policies that you annually review. I I think it's on there, but I don't know them off the top of my head. Yeah, I'm not sure. Hi there. Okay. Any other conversation on the attendance policy? I will state that it did go out for survey and um the survey I I was told the information that came back was rather positive. There was no negative which is nice when that occurs. People were appreciative about the work. Yeah. I would move to approve uh attendance policy 3050 both for elementary and secondary. I have I have a couple of questions. I just want to make sure I understand this right because Shannon made the comment if the students miss 30

058days and they're still passing the classes they shouldn't be. And then it's my understanding that if the parent calls in to excuse the absence it's not excused. Right. Was that correct? Kelsey Badger, um, federal programs director. I think that was a just a general like 30 days is a lot of days. No, no, I know. I know that was, but yeah. So, if a student, um, if a parent excuses it, um, it's still an they are absent. So, it's still marked against. Yeah. Tech for our policy. So, you can't have more than that or you will get the letter. Um, so yeah. So it's just those marked now that we won't count against which is the medical that once um just the ones underneath that are not everything else. Okay. Yeah. So if you are

059unfortunately sick for an extended period of time um that is going to go and if the kids if the student is absent that puts them in this however many absences to be truent and they're passing all their classes it's still up to the teacher or whomever to decide whether the kid actually is going to receive their credits. Correct. If it goes to the the Yeah, they have to petition for the credits and explain why. Obviously, if there's a sickness and there's a reason behind it or surgery or things like that, then those will be granted. Okay. Well, and if the kid is out for a significant amount of time because they've gotten sick and they bring a medical note, then that doesn't count against them, right? So, yeah. Okay. Those those were my questions. I'm

060sorry. You had a Thank you. You had a motion in a second. Yes, we do. We have a motion and a second. Um, any other conversation that needs to be had. Okay. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Nay. All right. Three in favor, two opposed. Motion carries. We have the fertilization and weed control services. Um it appears that our facilities director wants to bring back the uh weed control in fertilization. Um my only question is was he provided anything to show what these quotes were because we weren't given that. We were just given dollar amounts. Uh Jessica Green, chief finance officer. Uh I didn't receive that documentation. And um our director Hey is not here tonight. He had um some family stuff that he had took care of. So I'm doing my best

061to cover the pieces that he did on this. I do believe he had they're not official contracts. They're just quotes, right? Um I I can bring those to the May 17th meeting if you'd like. Well, I'm the only reason I'm asking is one is $141,740 and one's 31400. Yeah, they're exactly the same. I can tell you from my from my understanding everything was bid exactly the same as the services that we had previously. Um so it's the same square footage, same application zone, um same materials, all of that stuff that I don't know why that one is so much when you when you say it was exactly the same as before. If I understood this correctly, we're going to four applications rather than two. So uh as far as coverage, um what was being sprayed

062that? So exactly the same as that. The only difference is four applications instead of two. Um I do service the service with the service area um the service square footage all of that is it's just number of applications increased from 2 to four. Um and I do would like to remind the board failed to put this in here because I just thought of it as I was sitting here. Um we did previously pay uh $23,000 for just two services. So, I did want to add that context to um increasing it to four. It actually isn't that big of an increase um compared to what we were paying for two. It didn't double. It didn't double, right? Well, depending on what company you pick, it goes less than, you know, more than double. So, and I

063apologize, Tim could definitely speak better to this. I'm doing my best with this one. No, that's fine. If we approve this is for one year. For one year. Yes. which if you've seen on some of our Are they going to spray the weeds before they go to seed? Uh if we can get this approved tonight, they will be out as soon as dandelions are so they don't replant themselves since that's the one that everybody No, but they distribute seeds. But it doesn't but it doesn't matter that it's not a perennial weed. So it doesn't matter. You're not going to kill You're not going to spray this year and kill next year's no crop. but we would be able to put down some treatment in the fall that would hopefully prevent them from coming up and

064that's something that we have not been doing. Um so that's what we're looking at by doing the four applications is doing an early season and a late season which we have not been doing. Um so that would help better the grounds. Um didn't we have conversation with him? I thought we were hiring a person that had this applicator's license and that's why we didn't have to do that. We talked about wanting to do that. Okay. Okay. So we never went that this is coming back. Okay. Um based on his work on it um since being in charge of facilities at our district um it's just not feasible to do what was recommended through the budget process last year. So it's a lot of work. It is a lot. It is a lot. We do not

065have anybody certified for it. We don't have a license to order the materials for it. So there's a lot more to it than just a cut and dry. Let's go throw some stuff on the grass. Move to approve the contract. Second. We have a motion in a second. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Hearing? None. The motion carries. Um, everybody, thank you. I'll just tell. That's probably one of the number one phone calls I've been getting with all sick by the end of next week. I'm hoping I will let Tim know right now that he can't pull the trigger on that one. Do it. Moving on to the concrete bids. Um I would just like clarification because it didn't state but the base bid, please tell me that is Lakeland High School.

066Yes. So the base bid um if you look at uh page two Yeah, page two. Um the base bid included Lakeland, Lakeland Middle School and uh those two schools because those were the ones that needed a lot of work. And then we added alternates because we weren't sure. Um I do want to remind the board the initial quotes that we got or bids that we got for these the first time we ran this last fall were over a million dollars each. Um, so you can see by using the specs that we received with the work of architects west that we were able to get um, more reasonable bids, I guess, in my mind that better align with the budget that the district has for this project. Um, so we did put those two in the

067base bid and then we had bid alternates. Um, the work with WM Welch, they're able to do all of those simultaneously. So every single school that is on this list will be done at the exact same time if that's the contract we choose to approve, which is our recommendation. So they're not moving from school to school to school. They're just coming and doing it. Okay. Yeah. I couldn't find anything within these documents that explained what the base bid was. I was hoping that's what it was. That in our financial followup for the May 17th meeting if you'd like to see it. No, I just needed clarification because it's it's not I keep saying the 17th. That's the 21st. I want it to be the 17th because, you know, I would I would recommend for future

068when we're providing information on bids, if we've sent out a request for proposals or bids that that gets included with the the final typically so that we know. Yeah, typically those come requested earlier. Um, this one was kind of just a different one because we've had such a long conversation on it. So, I apologize for not including that in here. I do have one clarification question. Sure. On page I think it was 25. But at any rate, it's on the bid document for the low bidder. With respect to the alternates really they've listed numbers but not circled whether it's add or deduct. Can we interpret that as deduct? No, we cannot. It's add. We did clarify that. I don't know. I looked for all that trying to see what they were pouring, how thick they

069were, what they were removing, if they're sealing the concrete with these bids. Raspberry. Um, if it's permissible, can I provide that document to the board and have it attached to this meeting agenda for the RFP? Um, it provides all the bid specs. I mean, there's a pretty big uh Yeah, I would like to see because I'm curious uh how they had a $30,000 nearly 30,000 20 something uh for Apple Elementary between all the other bids and these guys and then the difference in Spirit Lake Elementary and the I'm so that's why I was looking at the specs to see where I mean, how could they $30,000 is a lot. Um, and in talking with Architects West about that, um, sometimes if they think that's a school that you really want the work done at, they'll

070bid that one to get your business on it. Um, it's just a contractor thing. Um, Tim was part of these conversations as well as part of the bid opening and the entire RFP process. And he did agree he used to actually do um, bid writing for asphalt and concrete. And so it was a tactic that they used if they felt like a school that was one of the schools that we really wanted done, they would sometimes build in a discount on that one just so that the business would go their way. Um, so I anticipate that's why. Um, everybody bid on the exact same specifications. Um, and like I said, if it's permissible, I'll attach I'll provide it to our board clerk to attach to tonight's meeting and send you all of that. Um, it

071was on the website. I just apologize oversight that it didn't make it into this. Don't attach it to tonight's agenda because it's already it wouldn't be a real time. You just give it to us I guess or next one or something. There's such a huge discrepancy in some of the numbers that I I did have that same question trusty person and um that was the explanation is a lot of the times they'll kind of build in a discount if they Spirit Lake the stairs alone at Spirit Lake are a big thing. Um and so but knowing that they all bid on the exact same thing. The only thing that we're not 100% sure on because we didn't tear up the concrete is what's underneath. Um so that's where uh I can anticipate potentially a contingency

072on that if there's something underneath the concrete that we weren't expecting. A change order that would come as a change order. Yeah, that's going to be almost all of it guaranteed because the base is not otherwise you wouldn't have failure. a lot of the based on the budget um or the amount submitted with this contractor um the contingency the normal contingency for a project like this would still keep us under budget with what the district has budgeted for this. So I'm confident that we would have the funds for the change orders um to facilitate the work. What did we have budgeted for? Oh, I knew you were going to ask. It's a little over 600,000. Yeah, because we had the two different amounts. Yeah, I we we set aside money from both plant facility levy

073years um for this. So, it's a little over I think it was like 615,000. So, you can't you can't really ever totally understand the differences from one better to another, right? But in government contracting, you get that big of a discrepancy. I guarantee federal contracting, they're going to want to know why because that's a red flag. Whenever you're looking at a federal contract, if there's that much of a discrepancy, that's a that's why I was like, well, you know, but I mean, if they all bid off the same specs and they understand, I mean, I would ask them why that was there. Why did they do that? All of these companies did attend a pre-bid meeting. Um, and all of these companies walked the site with Tim and Architects West and asked questions. I mean,

074it I All at the same time. All at the same time. Everybody was there. Everybody, we didn't have individual oneoffs. It was everybody there. Um, the addendum went out with answers to the questions just to make sure everybody had the same exact information. I will say this process, this time around, I was so excited to receive six responses. Previously, we had only received two um and they were competitive bids. And I mean, we haven't had in my experience here at the district this level of a response to one of our RFPs in my 2-year tenure here. So, it was exciting to actually have people that wanted to work with the district and spent the time to actually go through and do the spec walk and all of that and provide good a good quote for

075the services. Right. So, and I do want to remind you that the initial quotes that we received last fall were upwards of a million dollars each. Um, and we did not have the level of detail that we had with this RFP process. So, I know that there's some frustration on how long it took, but I do feel like we did our due diligence with this. And I will reiterate that I am not a contractor. Um, that's why I wanted to make sure we did this right. I just want to make sure Lakeland is in the base bid because Nope. Nope. Both Lakeland schools are in the base bid. Okay. Um, and I'm just excited we can do all six schools um, for the amount of money that we set aside. Move to approve the little

076bid. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Can you give us the the specs that we're send out to please? Thank you. Uh, next up we have the LMS parking lot entrance safety al alternation proposal. Did I Did I spell that wrong? Nope. Okay. Um, I did print these. They're part of the board packet, but I know sometimes those are hard to see, so I just wanted to make sure you guys had a a printed copy. Um, yes, cuz I kept scroll back. Scroll back. I know it's a pretty big uh visual. So, I just wanted to kind of walk you through as part of our process of looking at all these concrete projects, we identified um

077a safety issue at Lakeland Middle School. Um it's been there for years. It's been there for years. Um Did you identify the one at Apple, too? We're working. They have a huge safety issue. Yeah. So, this one because of the the highway and all of the stuff that runs right through town and the kids walking um and then the traffic backup, uh it's a rough morning commute and afternoon commute through the city of Rather. Um the architects West did work with Tim and I to kind of identify what we could potentially do to ease that issue and then provide more safety to the students um and the staff at Lakeland Middle School. um that is this plan that you're looking at before you. Um one of the things that my print out doesn't show because

078I couldn't get it on big enough paper. We're looking at adding an exit at Lakeland High School. So, you know, the drop off zone, you would be able to go straight out on the highway um and turn out there instead of having to loop back through the parking lot. Um so, that alleviates some of the congestion at this intersection. You're going to have to explain that better. Um, so if you scroll to uh page, you're talking about Lakeland High School. Yep. So I'm talking about to the both Lakeland schools, but if you scroll to page, it's basically on that curve where you go for the parking like if you're just temporary parking and then or if you're a board member, you go, it's easier to get in that way and you park there along the

079concrete. So, on the student side of Lakeland High School, you have the drop off zone in front of the school. And right now, you drive around that drop off zone and then you go back through the parking lot, come down the hill by the baseball field, and you can either go straight left or right. Instead of coming back through the parking lot, we're looking at opening up the fence and taking that drop off lane straight out to the road. Um I anticipate I anticipate ITD will say it can be a righthand turn only and not if you're lucky. Yeah. Um ITD was on board with everything that we've done uh so far. We Tim approached them with this because we were working with them on the state highway 54 um access for Timberlake High School.

080Um so Tim approached them with this. In the past, ITD has not been receptive to any changes to Lakeland Middle Schools entrances and exit um exits. This time, they were in full support of this. We still would have to go through the hearing, which is why I'm bringing it to the board to ask for permission to do the surveying and everything that we need to do to bid it out, to know the cost of it, and to get ITD to officially approve it. But based on this preliminary documentation, um they were in support of this change. Um, so to walk everybody through it, we would move the current existing crosswalk that goes from the high school to the middle school. We would move it south of that intersection so that right turning traffic would be

081able to freely exit the school without having to wait for crosswalk. Wait, before you leave that, the the problem I see with that is all the walking traffic that's going to have to go to that crosswalk has to cross that entrance exit. Mhm. From the high school that's currently manned by crossing guards. They're not allowed to cross without someone crossing them. Um and so yeah, yeah, but but if you make that change, then all the walking traffic from the high school uh has has to cross this way one way or the other. Yep. And that same walking traffic has to cross the LMS entrance that parents are currently using as well. Um so we're just shifting where they're crossing the south. Yeah, just south because either way they're crossing across turning traffic um currently. So

082um the recommendation for that was supported by our school SRO's for both schools. Um and then ITD uh and city of Raptum I forgot to say also has looked at these plans and is in agreement with them. Um, so we would the entrance that's currently there for student drop off where you drop come into Lakeland Middle School is that far back entrance. Um, that would be become a staff and bus only entrance which actually would help with our transportation zone back there. Um, and our buses. Um, then the kids would have a cross uh, a sidewalk put in so that they're not if they're coming from the high school over to the middle school because we do have a lot of that. A lot of our high school students bring their siblings and they walk

083over to the middle school in the morning. Um there would be a new sidewalk that would be placed um to meet up so they're not crossing the traffic that's now turning in like they currently are. Um there is an approach already on the highway right there where we're proposing to put this. There's already an approach kind of there. So we would have to just put the asphalt in to bring that new ent. Yep. So we're just trying to reopen that opening. um you would have oneway traffic through the parking lot. Um they would exit now where the readerboard sign is. We will not have to relocate the readerboard sign. Um that will be able to stay, but they'll be able to exit um south of the existing crosswalk. Right now, if you're taking a right

084out of the school like I do every morning, you're crossing straight into the crossing guard. Um and it's it's it's scary sometimes because you don't you're looking to make sure you can go and then all of a sudden they put out the cross light, right? So it's this will increase safety for students. Um that middle entrance and exit will be closed um and will be fenced and landscaped um by internally by our um facilities department. Okay. Um to make it very clear that it's not an entrance and exit anymore, right? Um and then if you miss dropping your kid off for some reason, you'll be able to kind of loop back through. But in this design, you would only have students crossing from that uh existing middle crosswalk. You would have them crossing to get

085to the school. This design also aligns with the work that we're doing with the concrete already. So, there will be no changes to the scope of work for the concrete bids that you just approved. Um there's no change to the scope of work because this aligns with that as well. Um do we have any kind of anticipation on what the cost is going to be? Um no. which is why I'm trying to get dollar amounts for this. I did talk with the state we are allowed to use the school modernization facilities funds especially because it is a safety issue. Um we would be able to use those funds which we did receive more than we were expecting um for those cuz we're closer to 20 million than the 18 million that we initially received. Um,

086so I guess I'm just coming to you asking for permission to continue walking this project forward so that we can scope it out and get a true cost of it so that I can bring that back to the board for permission or approval. Will the crosswalk existing crosswalk out front of me across the That will stay. Yeah, that will stay. And the one down here by John Brown will also stay. So the only one we're proposing to relocate is the one right between the high school and the middle school, that walkway there. Um, and the only thing I'm not 100% sure on with ITD, we had added that exit at Lakeland High School. Um, so that's the only thing I'm not 100% sure on whether or not they'll be on board with that. I anticipate

087if they are, they would make it right turn traffic only because it's really close to the stoplight there. My guess is they're going to say it's too close to the stoplight, which is fine. I'm fine with that as well if we could do the rest of this. That's another besides weeds, the Lakeland Middle School parking lot is another one I get a lot of community phone calls on. No, that the revisions that are proposed are really quite good. And I apologize that this is the first year hearing of it. It just kind of came organically through um reviewing all of the things that we've been reviewing in relation to the concrete projects and the school modernization funds. Just for giggles, has there ever been any conversation about maybe putting a walking bridge there where we're

088moving the um I mean, I don't know what the cost involved with that would be, but to where the children can safely cross the highway without having to cross the highway cuz they're going up over the bridge. Um I anticipate that would cost more. Um and I think Well, I know it would cost more. this I think this would no there has not been any conversation about we could ask okay um I did get some assurances that if we were able to get through the IT process with this that it is something that they think that we could complete um shortly after school starts um and be able to do the work this calendar year to get the work to get this all shifted around um as long as we can get through the ITD

089process fairly quickly. Okay. Um, so I can add that move quickly. Um, I I I have high hopes for this one. Um, they're aware of the project. Unless you have an end. Uh, I feel like Tim might have an end. So I um they're anticipating if the board does give direction to continue down this road. They're anticipating um it coming through. Move to approve it to go forward. You're will you're moving to approve the proposed concept and allow for survey work and the official plan to go forward with the plan. Okay. Just making sure we're second. So we have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. The motion carries. Thank you. You're welcome. Moving on to the ths LHS football equipment request. This is a pretty standard

090annual request, right? I move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a harmonious second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing. That the motion carries. See, usually I would the second the second, sir. Yes. Um, next item is the LEA request to begin IBD. Okay. Um, so they want to begin starting Tuesday, May 22nd, which would be the day after the levy. Um, two days. It's wouldn't be Tuesday, May 2. Thursday. That should say Thursday. Thursday. Okay. Lovey is uh 20th and then we have a board meeting on the 21st. So, this would be Thursday, May 22nd and um I don't have all of the details and Jessica is confirming, but we will definitely be on the time crunch in the sense of and what she has to get ready for the

091budget hearing. So, it's kind of time is going to be of the essence for sure. I move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. The motion carries. Um, and can we ask um the document that was provided to support has like things cut off and trying to figure out what what it is actually that we have other than just a bunch of numbers. Um, what they're at least column headers would have been nice cuz you've got all these columns and you don't know what they actually represent. No, you don't. And it, you know, I I had to do my own math to figure out where the 177 came from, but I figured it out. Are you talking about the 177? Yeah, he

092he attached something like a screenshot. Yeah, that's why it's page or something. Yeah. So, would have just been nice to have a little bit more um thoroughess on that. Um okay. And then next item is the assistant superintendent job description. Move to approve. second. Uh the only thing I would like to add in is uh it says um a master's degree or higher. I don't think we should go down. I think we should say that you know doctorate is preferable that that's what we currently are used to. Um, I mean, I know it says masters are higher, but uh, trusty person, can I address this? Court Cunningham, director of HR. Um, yes, Dr. Pasley does have her PhD, but your superintendent does not. And so, this has not been a typical where we've required um,

093our assistant superintendent to have a PhD. And I think it's kind of I'm not asking for a requirement. I'm asking for a preference because in my brain I'm thinking at some point our superintendent is going to retire and I don't think it's that far off. It would be nice if we could start thinking long term when this person would end up being the the superintendent was was my thought. That was my that was my only So would you just like it worded something um uh yes well doctorate is um preferred something like that. Yeah, something like that. I mean, I understand where we are with the current superintendent, but I mean, she also had 30 plus years in the district, so that was, you know, can't that was my only thing. Other than that, it

094looks it looks uh I think I asked if we could put running a building in a budget principal ship. Principal ship. Isn't that the LA's 5 years successful experience in administration? No, because you could be a you could be an administrator and be a athletic director and not run a budget or anything. So, our athletic directors do have to run their budget. Yeah, but I'm talking a school a whole school. Yeah, that was what we talked about last time. Well, if you got valid certification as a superintendent, you got background in all those areas. You can't get a superintendent certificate without having gone through all the coursework requiring for that including school finance. I'm not talking about coursework. I'm talking about experience. I know what you're talking about. I'm just saying that just because you're

095trained in something doesn't mean you're you have experience in it. Converse would be want to have the education without training. put anything in there and I'll go. Yeah. Or you could just put building administration. Would that would that work? building administration or I think the principal is is I mean the principal is at the top and I think that's where um where at the if it's administration it's it could be anybody it doesn't have to be a principal so and I think that it there should be some principal experience involved in for the superintendent or assistant superintendent Yeah, know I the one. Yeah, that's what I had written in the one that I come up with. That's how I worded it, too. It was what principal. Okay. Administration principal. I I also need more heavily

096on our community, but that's fine cuz this is I guess just counter kind of thing. So add the preference in the in the education and the uh building administration or principal ship 5 years. Yeah. Principal. I think those are good traits to have. I mean we're always wanting we're always wanting to you know bring the students up to higher expectations. I think we should do the same for the leadership. So just just to clarif so just to clarify on under qualifications number two, you'd like it to state at least 5 years successful experience as a building principal. Yes. Yes. And then under number three where it says master's degree or higher you can just put you know doctorate preferred. Do you guys need to vote on that change? Oh, we can. It's an admin thing.

097We can just say administratively. I mean that can be part of the motion. Yeah. Are we good with that? May I ask another clarifying question? If you guys go ahead and make that motion um and we make those changes, can I at least post this tomorrow so we can I'm starting to panic. I talked to Lynn's husband today and I told him that I was going to kidnap her and put her in a closet so she ends up missing. I'm probably going to be the first suspect. So, I just want to get it posted. We just admitted that online. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, what she said was she was going to put cockroaches on my house and she sell it. Ouch. So, I'll make a motion to approve the assistant superintendent job descriptions description with the

098um uh modifications to the qualification in point 2 and three. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Four in favor? When opposed? Motion carries. Okay, moving on to the STEM charter. MOU keeps coming back. It's like the Energizer, but um okay, so remember where we were at with this. I know that this is recommendations to discontinue And I think last time it was up there was one or two board members have that same consensus just based on what? Okay. Insurance. So Lisa's recommendation is uh to not continue the practice of letting STEM charter use our buses. Okay. Based on the current insurance carrier, the overall liability for the district. Do we need to have any conversation on this? No. I move to accept the superintendent's

099recommendation. I'll second that. So, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? So, we have four in favor, one opposed. Motion carries. How long have we been had this relationship with them? Since 2014, since Dr. Reynolds with the superintendent moving into discussion. Uh building staffing with slashwith without levy there. There's nothing there. So, okay. I think there was it the that's fine. We can wait for documentation. That way we don't have to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll wait for It's just a discussion item. So, Right. It is. Jessica Grant, CFO, I apologize. This is a a big lift and it's coming as part of the budget process. Okay. Um but I do want to say just to kind of ease some of the concerns that with the resignations and

100the retirements and the category one staff that we have currently, I'm confident that we potent I'm looking at our HR director to to come. I'm confident that we would not have to go to a riff process um because we have enough people that are leaving the district or would leave the district as a category one that we would not have to go to a riff if the levy were not to pass. Um so I just I don't have the numbers for you this evening. I apologize for that. We're working through the position control process, but we did not budget that way last year. And so I'm trying to get a snapshot in time to give you because we've had, you know, movement um this year to be able to provide that this is where we're

101at. This is where we we potentially will be and this is what it would look like with or without. So it's just taking time to go through that individually. And I apologize. I've got two budgets on my plate and all the other things fun things I brought to you tonight. So um it will get done as through the budget process. I will just add to this. Um this was the first year when um Trusty Bane mentioned doing positional um staffing. Um this was probably the most streamlined process as far as looking at staff and really going building by building. Um uh Brooke and Jessica both spent a lot of time of meeting individually with principles and then bringing the whole team together with all of the directors and so really streamlining the process and then

102being able to fill the back end if we made some decisions with one building and you know doing the followup. So, um, by far this has been in my four years at the district office and I would say as 10 years as an administrator in the district sitting in the principal role, um, by far the best process for looking at staffing from my perspective, it just felt like everybody was on the same page, far more collaborative. It took a lot in um, work on the front end for the two of them, but I think we will reap the benefits and you will see the benefits of that going into IBB and then the end of the year. So, they did a great job. And not to jump ahead, but I did address that kind of

103in my update on the budget process. Um, I anticipate continuing to use this. This is something that I wanted to do as well. Um, it's just it's the right thing to do from a transparency process. I think the district used to do it a long time ago. Um, and it's just a practice that fell to the wayside. Um, I will say during this pro this process, we did look at anticipated enrollment for next year and did adjust numbers. based on that as well. Um, just to make sure that we were truly looking at what does it take to be bare bones based on the kids that we anticipate we'll have next year. Um, granted there's always fluctuations as a big numbers and but we were very very conscientious going through this of do we really

104need to fill this position or do we wait to see what that looks like for fall? Like can we manage until that start of the school year to see where the numbers head? So that was the process that was done. Um I it was in my estimation very very well received by everybody that participated in the process. So I'm excited for the collaboration that happened um through that. Awesome. That's a safety I've been asking for for a few years when I was Well, now we have it. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, cuz every time we went to do something. That's why I was always so surprised that we didn't have it because it's like it's such a huge organization. How do you not have that at your fingertips? This makes it very easy for us

105to um to identify exactly we'll know you will know the number of hours. So if somebody wants something more than currently is approved that comes to the board every time. Um it also allows equitable services throughout our building. So it doesn't feel like there is this we went through a whole custodial burden matrix. We looked at par educator hours. We looked at school clerical hours. I mean everything was really tied back to the students that we serve. So, it's really truly a right sizing of what our buildings have um to make sure that we're being equitable and that the students are getting the services that they need with the appropriate staff. So, and of course, a huge portion of that will change every year though because there's no way you can anticipate how many IEPs

106you're going to have, how many and we did build in a couple vacancies. And I I apologize, I'm kind of jumping ahead on another agenda item, but we did build in some vacancies for that. um where we anticipate well we might need some more uh PAR educators in in this building. Um so there's a little bit of a I would I don't want to call it a pool because we put them with a specific building but if that building ends up not having it I can maybe transfer that vacancy over to a building that does. We did build in a little bit of contingency just to make sure that we have that so that we are able to move quickly. When we have a need for a parent educator it may not be able to

107wait two weeks to come to the board for approval. So, we just try to build in a small amount of cushion and I can identify what how many vacancies we budgeted um just so that you're aware of that through the approval process. So, perfect. Yay. Sounds great. It does. Okay. Thank you. So, we have an SLP update. Um I wish we had more information on this because We have what the contract was, but we don't know how many persons that was, how many students were being served, how like there's no breakdown. It's like, okay, so if we can hire two, but is that all we had before was two with the Okay. Yeah. Um Kelsey Badger, federal programs director. Um so exciting news that we actually got inerson SLPs to apply in the district. Um

108so that was exciting news. Went through the interview process. um excellent candidates, both with many years of experience. Um so that was great. We were offer we're able to offer them both and we do have letters of intent signed. Um so that was great that we're going to have that. We do have one SLP that is moving to a different district. Um so basically one of those SLPs would replace her full-time position. Then we have one SLP that will decrease the amount of um ser contracted services that we have. Um currently we have four people that we're contracting um services with. It's not they're no one's a fiveday contracted service. Um but we have they do multiple schools in in different areas. And so we are able to eliminate um four days um of the

109contract service. So currently with our contract services, we pay our highest month when we are in school the most days um 50,000 a month for these contracted services. Our SLP case loads um in general for the whole district is 300 students. Um and so they're servicing um quite a bit of those students because we do have like I said four of them. Um so yeah, so they're in and out. So this will eliminate the contract by um four full days. Um, as of right now, we're trying to restructure a little bit of things, but um, SLP services is one area that is increasing, especially preschool students coming in. We do have the influx of COVID. Um, and so a lot of families unfortunately we are seeing are not a lot of communication because they have

110tablets in front of them. So, um, we are in most majority of our students that qualify for preschool have language or speech. Yeah. So, we eliminated the days, but how many bodies is that and how many students we're serving? And the other thing is is do we not receive any reimbursement from SLP? Isn't that a Medicare, Medicaid? Okay. Yep. So, every time we say we eliminate the money that I mean, it's really just a flow through because we're billing out for the services that we're providing. So even though we're paying, we're still billing to get the money back from I would rather make sure that we have enough instead of being slim. I would just want to make sure that we have enough people to service the students that have the needs because you know

111we it is something we can we can bill for. Yeah. You know if they have Medicaid, right? Yeah. And so and if not we should be helping them get there if they qualify. Right. There are some families that choose not to um do Medicaid, which we we ask them often um to do that, but that's um their choice as well. But that is offered all the time and we have a great process to streamline that to go through and get them ready um and get them on it. So, we do have a lot of um families that move from out of state and we are on it right away to get them in. Um but I think the purpose um that Superintendent Arnold put this together was unfortunately um there is our pupil services that

112doesn't align our salary matrix doesn't really align with our pupil services um and so other districts have different salary matrix and so um they are making quite a bit more in other districts and so I think that was the intent of her bringing this to you. Um, the two SLPs, um, that we did bring, like I said, came with quite a bit of experience. Um, and, um, we would lose them to a contract service if we weren't able to be competitive with what they were previously making. Um, so I think that's why she brought this to you is because we had to go outside of the negotiated agreement um, and and place them on uh, a step that we wouldn't typically place them on based off of our salary. We're we're hoping that through this

113IBV process we address it because it gives us the ability to be competitive because otherwise we're going to pay more and Medicaid is Medicaid, but we will pay more for contracted services versus just being able to be competitive with our neighboring districts to get in person. A lot of the contracted services are online. It's Zoom. So, you know, um I think they try to do a good job, but parents definitely feel like there oftentimes can be a compromise in the services being provided. We're just trying to fit the needs of the students to the best of our ability. So, and I what some people don't understand when we have a virtual, we have to hire a parah because someone has to be in the room with the student while they're doing a virtual. So, not

114only are we paying for the contracted service, then we're also paying for an SLP parah to be in the room while wouldn't we be able to bill for the parrot because now this we would have to write that in, right? Because now this is an accommodation that has to be met. So there again, we would still be billing. Unfortunately, um Medicaid has removed um parah SLP parah last year. Last full school year we were able to bill um and they did work through the summer and they took that away from us. So that was a huge decrease from our Medicaid this year. We're able to bill for SLP assistance and they do have a certificate um in that communication field that just paras were not able to bill for. But wouldn't it so what would

115be the difference if it was an accommodation with having the parah or whomever there with the student when they were taking the test versus the same thing as a parah there when this student is getting the I mean how is that different? Yeah. So, it just a little bit of different I think and not getting into too much of the weeds of it, but um we are able to build for students with behavioral needs and it's written in their um IEP. So, they have a behavior and it's a part of that and it's part of the service plan and we have we're working on that. Whereas what you're saying is if they're sitting with them in the therapy session, it has to be written in their IEP that we could bill for that which Medicaid

116doesn't accept that. We can only bill for the therapist if they have Medicaid whereas we can bill for paras if they have behavioral needs but SLP doesn't count that but if the student has the accommodation for the test taking and somebody has to sit there while they take the test whether it's make sure they understand or read it to them or something they don't see the same thing as the parent sitting there with the person helping them do the no not all not all students that require SOP services need that type of assistance so it's not they don't need behavior assistance They don't have an FBA, they don't have a BIP, so we can't bill for that service under the umbrella of speech and language using a parah. So how do we say that they

117do need that? Because obviously they would need that. Well, they need that only in a virtual setting, but if they have an in that's all that we can give and where I mean, yeah, I would I think I would go back to the state on that. But anyways, I would be feel better if we actually had some numbers and you know the one to one I mean this really doesn't tell much of anything. Well, and I like I said, I think the purpose of the um superintendent what she put together was just showing you that we had to go out of the scope of sequence of the negotiated agreement. But it doesn't Okay. But it doesn't give me anything. It doesn't say anything but 50,000 per month we were paying. And I think she's just

118trying to explain to you that we pay 50 currently right now 50,000 a month. We had to we were thinking about maybe doing a stipen based off of the salary matrix placing them and then what is the difference between what our salary matrix would place them at to what they would like to make. Okay. Um and so then the difference of that is that we're just trying to show you and be transparent that she didn't show that. That's what I was saying. So maybe she can give us that information so we can save that like she all she said was 50,000 a month we saved and And what I want to be transparent about that we're not saving 50,000 because we're not we're not eliminating virt saving the full 50,000 in contracted services is her

119exact words. Well, by hiring these two, we would have been saving in contracted services, but we just found out that one of our inerson SLPs is taking Yeah. Right. So, I'm just saying if we if I had more numbers to what we were doing, that was all. So, It's a It's a little misleading because we're not actually saving the full 50,000 that we hire somebody on. No, you know, maybe we're paying that $5,000 a month for two would be 10. So maybe we're saving 40 just as an example. So would you like a grid of how many SLPs we have, how many students they currently serve, and then No, I just want there's this doesn't show me anything. How many people did we have? How many people were they served? What was the cost? So

120then here's, you know what I'm saying? It doesn't show me line item of what we had and line item of what we're saving or we're estimating it to be around 4,000 a month. Um, but we can definitely prepare a schedule. Yeah. If we just had something to see, there's 4,000 a month that we'll be saving. That's it. Well, if you multiply that out by the the year. Yes. It's really only one SLP because the other SLP is replacing. Okay. which is still a significant. All right. What I would like to share with the whole board is that I received a phone call from Lisa um who wanted me to give approval for her to hire these two SLPs um that we would be paying approximately $18,000 above their where they would place on our salary

121schedule. My response to her number one was she said we'd have to do like an $18,000 stipen, but the board wants to go away from stipens. And first of all, I was kind of shocked on the whole thing. So, I was just listening. Um, my response to her was the fact that, well, if you're the superintendent and you're doing the hiring, you just need to update the board with what it is that you're doing because this is for next year. This does not impact this year's budget. it's next year's budget. And she told me that we would be saving approximately $400,000 and that she felt the board would really buy into that. So now that I'm hearing it's only $4,000 a month, that's a little concerning. Um, I'm not quite sure why the math is

122so far off because, you know, I said, "Hey, if you're willing to save the district $400,000, you just need to inform the board of what you're doing that because you're the superintendent, you should be able to make these decisions and choices and explain why, which also I was not aware because the language within the negotiated agreement is quite poor and I have stressed that um the negotiated ated agreement actually covers speech language uh pathologists. It covers all pupil service service. What is it called? S pupil. Yeah, pupil. There's a title because it's pupil service, but they're technically considered certified, right? Because they have certification to be speech language pathologists, not necessarily certified teachers. And so I because I said there is nothing in our negotiated agreement that addresses this. And when you look at the

123statute, it clearly gives you definitions about what it's all-encompassing. Um because I was like, "Well, why can't you put them where they need to go if that's if that's what needs to be done? Why can't you do that?" And she's like, "The negotiated agreement won't let me do that." And I said, "Well, that doesn't make any sense cuz I don't see anywhere in the negotiated agreement that it actually talks about this because everything is targeted specific to teachers." And so she said, "Well, sometimes they teach groups." And so I mean I was trying to be empowering of Lisa saying you are the superintendent. You should be able to make this decision. And she was backing her choice up by saying we were going to be saving $400,000 um by hiring these two people based on

124the savings of $50,000 a month. Um which I was going to ask, do we only have SLPs for eight months? Because that's the only way I could come up with $400,000. But, um, now that you're saying it's only about $4,000 a month, um, that's that's rather a little far off, but to the $400,000. That's why I say I think if she just gives us the numbers, it'll all make sense to Yeah. Clear explanations. Yeah. I wasn't there for the conversation, so I'm not exactly sure. I think what we roughly could save by now having the two in person would be about $48,000 if we do that's just $4,000* 12 in that's all right in my head. Um the contracted services the benefit of a contract service is that we do not pay benefits obviously um

125we do not have to pay them during the summer so they only work those months. So I mean with breaks and stuff roughly maybe 8 months to answer that question but no they are with us day one of school to the end of school. Okay. Um but we do not um we do not they do not get the extra days or the before days um like teachers do um because of the contracted service. So the day that they the students start they start right. Yeah. When we're not in school snow days they don't work. All that stuff they don't get paid. And I should preface, Lisa wanted us to hold an emergency meeting so that the board could vote on this, but I said as the superintendent I and this is impacting of next year's

126budget. So my thought process would be if this was the choice you wanted to make just to update the board because it's going to be reflective in the budget and that's that's why this is there but it's not very well at least articulated as to the whole for chair premises. Can I say something please? Sure. HR director Brooke Cunningham. And so I agree with you in the negotiated agreement, we probably have some work to do because um all of our pupil uh personnel, pupil services personnel, all of our nurses, all of our school sites, they're all contracted on a teacher's contract. And so yes, negotiated. And for me, Brooke doesn't like to color outside the lines very well. I'm very black and white. And so I and I'm a rule follower. And so me when

127we go into negotiations, um, negotiations is about all certified staff. So you are correct. During negotiations this year, maybe we need to change that language to certified staff instead of teachers. We need to we call Exactly. It would be a lot easier. Yeah. I've looked at negotiated agreements or master they're called master agreements, whatever with other school districts. I mean, they have this whole introduction. They talk about what who this um agreement oversees and whatnot and ours doesn't. We just jump right into teachers. And that's why I was caught off guard. And so then I went back to the statute and I'm like, well, here it is back over, you know, you can find it, but you got to look for it. And it bothers me that um ours isn't that inclusive. It's so this

128is this is such a statewide problem. I mean this came up at the state legislative uh tour as far as SLPs and that type of thing. Um the contracted services are just astronomical and we do need to try to get away from them. And I can tell you other school districts are actually going to that separate salary schedule for SLPs school sites. Postf Falls kind of has a good one and so we kind of worked um the offer letters to where we were a bit more competitive with Post Falls otherwise they were going to go there and so during the negotiation process we do need to come up with a separate salary schedule for these folks in order to recruit and get away from that contracting services. Yeah. I mean, we're in such a narrow

129box and it's not clear. And I mean, it's clear for the teachers, but for everything else that it covers, it's not clear at all. We need a North Idaho co-op where all the districts have their own co-op of SLPs and we all just, you know, share. That's a good idea. They've talked about that because Washington does that. That was mentioned on on last Friday. I just wanted to clarify. I feel like um again I wasn't there for the conversation but I think Lisa really felt like she really tries to stay within the lines of that negotiated agreement and so um making this decision to bump somebody up two people up outside of that and so how do we do that is it a stipen is it part so I think um her goal was that

130she was trying to be transparent in the sense of we'll bring a board meeting together a special meeting kind of explain where we're that um I do feel like I would be remiss if I didn't say um myself and Kelsey were really pushing her and Brooke of we have to get out of contracted services. We have to get people we have to get out of virtual services and so um I I she was trying to figure out all the ways that we could make this work and we were going so I do feel like I have to be transparent about that. We were being a little pushy. Brooke, what's the uh was the issue where to place these people on the existing salary schedule? Yes, we've always placed them as we place teachers. We place

131um based off of we give them their years of experience. So like with SLPs and school nurses, it isn't necessarily experience and education. It's all their experience, all encompassing, but we place them all on a salary schedule the same way. So that's why we need to come up with a separate salary schedule for these people. Before we go there, did they fall off the end of the salary schedule? I don't they are at the very they we were able to we we had to place them beyond their years of actual experience in order to be competitive with other school districts who would take them away. So we colored outside the lines and got creative a little bit. That's not very much different than what we did when we went to the single column salary. Correct.

132But wasn't it like a $10 to $12,000 difference potentially that the other district something like that? We would have had to have come up with like an $18,000 stipen if I placed them according to the negotiated agreement. So So years of experience in the negotiated agreement, we can only accept a certain amount. Yes. So when we have an SLP that's coming with with 25 years of experience, what she's making currently in a different district that maybe gives her her 25 years and we're only able to give 12. Yeah. Well, and that's only a step eight. So yeah. So when we're interviewing these people, are we not telling them what we can afford to pay them or are we hiring them and then trying to figure out what to pay them to keep them? So I

133try not to have any conversations about salary. Um, Brooke and I have had this conversation where I try not to get into the weeds of that because I don't want to promise something that I can't promise them. So, no, that is not it. Um, yeah, I can tell you that we've had now this is the third year of having um contracted SLP services. Um, and this is the first year that we've had indistings for three years and this is the first year we had in district um employ um candidates. Yeah. Um, and so I No, I did not have I did not even That did not cross my mind because I knew it would be cheaper than what we currently are paying in that contract. And that's for us that was the end game. If

134we go to contracted services, what we pay out at the end annually versus if we even if we gave them that 18,000 we save substantially more money. And so um and with the need being as high and with everyone I mean this is not just a this is a nation problem. um they don't Yes. and you know they don't have incoming students going into those programs and so we're going to see that fall out for probably years to come and so the moment we got some applicants we were trying to jump on getting them in person because again in person is the contract mind u what would be helpful to the board I think you know now that you know kind of what's coming in place based on the assumption of 50,000 a month for

1358 months, 9 months, whatever. That's the contracted service money we're paying out. Two individuals we're hiring are being hired at X number of salary. Mhm. Combi together the comparison less, you know, and and show us what the real less the SLP that's leaving. Yeah, we can get that for you. I'm sure. Perfect. Thank you guys. Yes, thank you. Thank you. All right, so the state funding update, lots of fun information with that. Um, it was well put together. Yes, I enjoyed it. Thank you, Jessica. But it was nice seeing those comparisons of this is what it is now. This is what Yeah, it and every bill that it related to and all. Yeah, it was great. It was so so clear, you know, of why and what was going on. Great information. Thank you. [Music]

136Any conversation we need to have? I don't have no it's great information. Yeah. And just because we don't hold conversation doesn't mean that we don't value what you've done because we've all read through it and we can understand. I'm totally fine with not having conversation. Just wanting to make sure that you don't feel shorts that we're shorting. It was when you don't have thorough enough that we don't have to Yeah. have the back it up. All right. So moving on to the salary schedule adjustments for 2026 that they're telling us part of the negotiated agreement conversation in IBB and just part of that whole thing. So Jessica Grantham, chief finance officer, just to paraphrase what's happening here. Um with uh the change in the Idaho code related to um uh it's Idaho code 33104B10. Um

137it states that the salary based aortionment program compensation salar amount shall be adjusted by an amount equivalent to the salary based aortionment adjustment for administrative and classified staff positions. So for this year they added 5% to the administrative and classified um positions. Now reminding you that's based on what they have in our salary based aortionment formula, not what we actually paid, right? Um so we get a percentage of that through our support units. So we don't fully receive that full 5%. So not everybody's not getting 5%. So, but in addition to that, um they also in uh required and changed the law to state that now we have to meet R1 um minimums, which we've had to do, which is why we raised our salary schedule in 2023 24 to the 4747 starting salary for

138certificated staff. Um we have to hit P1 and now AP1 minimums. The thing that really threw all of the business managers in the state for a loop um and I've alluded to this at previous meetings is um if you look at the information that I provided on page two, the base salary in state statute last year was $41,500. Um based on the state's interpretation of that 6359 um that they gave us two years ago, right, that they never codified, right? They never codified it. It's just an appropriation. it can go away at any time which is a little bit scary but they didn't codify it but the state interpreted that the intent of that appropriation was to be part of the base um so they have taken the residency basically all cells of the career

139ladder added the 6359 to it and then added the 5% CC on it right um so now our base salary for the district instead of being 47477 now has to go to 50,252 2 for a starting salary. And then that's going to have an impact across the board on all of our certificated salaries because if we have to raise one, we have to raise it all um to be to keep the structure whole. Um so that is the thing that um has provided me probably the most heartburn, headache, um sleepless nights is trying to walk this forward because it is a significant increase. if we were to just add it to our existing salary structure um that we currently have in place, it's a 5.85% increase to every cell essentially um which is pretty significant.

140Uh we also have the issue of having to move individuals to meet those minimums. Now, I identified 20 that would have to be moved um for the uh AP or for the the P1 minimum, and I have 23 that would have to be potentially moved for the AP1 minimum. Um in some of those instances, looking at it, that would be a 44% increase for a couple of those individuals. Um so, it's a significant thing. So, we've been looking at different ways to deal with this. Um and the thing is, I don't really have a choice. The state's mandating this, so we get to do it where whether we want to or not. Well, and it might be a time to actually look at where we are in comparison now that we're up to $50,000 for

141minimum fresh out of college base. I mean, that's 10,000 more in just a few years. Um, we might look at what the actual, you know, the little, like you laid out here, the little example, which is like the code of what the different realms are and how they get the incremental pay. Yeah. So, I did start I have two different proposals that I've been working on and it's taking a lot of time because it it's just taking a lot of time because we're looking at all the factors and the one that I was really hoping to move forward to was mimicking the state career ladder. Um, but as I continue to put dollars to that and um people and placing them um I don't think we can afford it. So, I mean, ideally, there's many

142reasons to go to a a structure that more mimics the career ladder because it's easier for us to place people. We if they move in those cells, they they move on the career ladder or the salary schedule. If they don't move, they stay. Um, so it kind of rewards people and it encourages them to go on to get that advanced professional certification. However, like I said, um the more I put the the people to those those potential items, it's not necessarily working out budget wise for us. Um so I'm also preparing for IBB that and then just increasing our current existing career ladder using that 5252 um as the base. So, it's been a lift. Um, and it's been making this budget process that much more difficult because I'm not really sure where we're going

143to land for salaries until we get IDB done. Um, the other tricky thing is with IBB being on the 22nd, I have to submit the budget for the budget hearing to the paper the on the 23rd to get it published. So, and I know we don't have to be fully through ID. I'm just going to put in what I think it's going to be for the budget and if we have to amend it, we have to amend it. But ideally, no, you just live within the budget. Okay. But ideally, it would be nice if we had all of that dialed in so that the budget hearing dock was um done. Well, yeah, there's just a lot of moving pieces. There's so many variables this year and it makes it hard especially when this this information

144from the state didn't come until I think April 15th is when we got the information and literally the we had a webinar with the state to go over the changes and I think every single person just kept going wait can we go back to this can we go back to this because they're essentially codifying that 6359 without actually having it in law and so that was heartburn where I would say in a good place if there is a good place in this because we did raise our minimum salary to the 47477 a couple years ago. There are districts that are still at a minimum salary of 415. Um and this is going to be extremely painful for them. Um I don't know how districts in the state of Idaho are going to be able to

145make these adjustments without dipping into fund balance because this was not an anticipated thing. This was not information that we had when we went out to the levy. Um this is this is something that is I would say for lack of a better word this blindsided a lot of us. Um it was not anticipated. What we could do and the good thing about it though is this is the basis for the salary based aortionment. So with the salaries and they're increasing so much that does increase our potential um average weighted average for our teachers. So in theory that should mean more money for us. However, I am anticipating a decline in enrollment just based on the numbers that we currently have in stu in school. We do have lower elementary numbers um and we have

146a big secondary class that's leaving us and graduating. So, I do anticipate we'll we'll be down about 200 students next year. Okay. So, it kind of washes. Um so, we're we're pretty flat. We're pretty flat this year. Um there's not much to work with and um I just want to again applaud the board and this district for all the work that we've done so far. I really truly feel and I'm again stepping ahead to the next item, but I really truly feel like we've been working on this budget process since last November. Um, and the collaboration that's gone into this has made this, even though we have a moving target and so many variables this year, it makes it very easy to work through what we're working through because we have a very clear defined

147plan. So, I appreciate that. Can I answer any questions on the salary structure changes? I have I don't have anymore. Nope. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we have the budget process update final. I I have no questions on that. I don't either. Oh, yeah. I am curious. Um on the Was it 2 million? Yeah, on the $2 million cut where we're not actually cutting the 75420 for the Skyward Learning Software. We're just moving it out of the general budget and putting it under the technology budget. Um, what in that budget are we reducing or getting rid of to accommodate that 75,000? Jessica Gren, chief finance officer. Um, Chair Thompson, that uh that state technology funds is what we've been using traditionally to replace Chromebooks. Um, with some of the changes that we're having,

148we're just shuffling and if we do purchase Chromebooks, there'll just be less Chromebooks purchase because we're we're using that now for and and it really if you look at the letter of the law to receive those state technology funds that Skyward should have probably always been charged there because part of getting it is having an ERP system, right? um it was moved into the general fund because it was able to afford it and that allowed us to do additional things for the classroom, but it in all intents and purposes that's really where it belongs. So although it it's not a cut, it's a cut to the general fund because it's not going to be part of the general fund budget anymore. So, um the only other thing I did want to kind of touch on

149is I had an anticipated 5% increase on workers comp insurance, right? Um, I did receive a letter from the uh from uh state insurance fund um today. Uh I anticipate that will be fairly flat. So I'm not anticipating that 5% now. So there's a small win I guess in all of this. Okay. So well, but you're also anticipating the 8% on the liability insurance, which maybe it won't be that much. I'm I'm hopeful. I I mean 10% is kind of we were told five to eight 10% so I'm hedging on eight. Okay. Um, this is, like I said, probably been one of the most nerve-wracking processes. Um, again, I'll just go back and say that our district administration, our our district leadership, this board, we have literally pulled all opened all the curtains, pulled all

150the closet doors open. We have literally done everything we can in our due diligence to make this process as smooth as possible. So, I just I can't thank everybody enough for the amount of work that every individual that's been part of this process has done. I know that I've put countless hours into it, but I know that there's others that have had to do the same in order to come to these meetings prepared and stuff. So, I just I want to thank everybody for the collaboration again that we've had in this district to put all hands on deck and get behind a plan that we can move forward with. So, well, thank you for calling that out. I have no questions. Do you I just would like to clarify. Do you anticipate needing another budget

151workshop or are we okay to just move forward with the information that we have to a budget hearing? I don't know. I think that depends on the levy. Well, the and even then with the levy really we have all of those cuts outlined. Um I think Well, I think we would have to What do you mean all those cuts outlined? What we have in the in the the levy language? Yeah, that's 7.52. Yeah, but could we really afford to cut all that? I think the board would still need to meet and decide if that's really what they wanted to do or not. Um um I mean if if it I'm sure it's going to pass. I mean I don't anticipate that it's not. Thank you for your optimism. Uh but that would be my um

152I think we've been pretty we have we have a meeting very next. Yes. We should be able to sort things. Yeah. Okay. So, I guess I I will add an agenda item to that meeting just to in case we need to have additional budget conversation so I can I literally am going to have 3 days after the levy to finalize this stuff. So, um I just want to make sure that we have all our ducks in a row so that we can finalize so that we can have appropriate docks for the budget hearing. Yes. Okay. We would assume at that meeting you'll you'll have the budget in essence outlined at that point. Yes. And it's just the matter of which budget A or budget B that we're publishing. Yeah. Um but if there's any changes

153to that, I need I need direction from the board within those three days after to make those changes. But we can look at that a budget you know that night. I can do that. What happens if we don't submit it on time? Uh there's a lot of statutes behind that. So that I have to by statute publish something in the paper. So I can budget I last year we did make an adjustment to our budget. I'll just have to republish after the fact which is fine. I just want to make sure I'm moving forward with the best one. I was thinking they pushed us all the way to the line. Yeah. And and you know almost not enough time and then um I did give you more days. Yeah. And I think the part I

154wish I wish it worked this way and really truly the hard thing is with this late date in May, at least in November, the election is on the first Tuesday. So I mean there's time to work there. With it being the third Tuesday in May, it just is really difficult with the state statutes outlining everything related to the budget process. In our March financial effects newsletter, I outlined every single Idaho code and the dates that are associated with the budget process. There are so many things that we have to tick and tie against. You have to have this meeting no later than this date and that date and and I mean it really you have to sit down with a count a calendar and outline exactly when everything needs to hit in order for us

155to make this happen. Um so we can always adjust the budget at that June 11th meeting. We would just have to republish. Um and then that budget's just due to the state by July 15th. So we have time. I just in an effort to be completely transparent with the community and not have to keep republishing and have questions about transparency because we get a lot of those even though everything's out there for them. I just would like to be as clean as possible if we can. Well, and to not be pushed up against the wall in time and it seems like we've always been in that position where we're just scrambling last minute. So, it's good that we if we can losing the two additional levy dates. Um, I mean, I would have rather they

156take the May one than the March one person. Well, even still, you have those years like the one year the legislators, they stayed and they didn't even finish till the end of April. And then the state didn't even have everything on the website and we were guessing, right, what literally we were guessing what they were going to do. Yep. No, I I I just crazy. And I mean, and I just want to remind everybody that a budget is our best guess plan, what we think is going to happen. It's a it's something we can amend. It's something we can adjust. Like, it's not an end all be all. It's budgets are our plan at that point in time. So, it's not a bad thing to amend them or adjust them. It's just I'd like to

157I'm a perfectionist. I just want it done right the first time. So, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any other questions or comments on the budget updated budget process? No. Okay. Um so on that we have our dates to remember uh policy committee long range planning committee town hall meeting at Rather Senior Center which was recently added and then the regular board meeting on May 21st. Um is there any input for future agenda items? No. Okay. All right. On that, I need to enter I need a motion to enter into executive session pursuant to Idaho code 742061B MD. So moved. Second. There's a motion in the second. We need a roll call vote. Yes. Trusty Bang. Yes. Chair Thompson? Yes. Trusty Quimby? Yes. Vice Chair Gerson? Yes. And

158that is 8:11 and we're going to go into executive session. I apologize for we will take a 5m minute recess. Okay. All right. So, we've come out of executive session. There are no actionable items that need action on. So, we'll go ahead and end the meeting. It's 9:32.