001and then carmel rainey and dr irison both had about five or six years and so we have nice plaques for each of them the principles will distribute them to those uh recipients and we give thanks for their their many years of dedicated service thank you yeah that's what i'm saying these these teachers taught my kids who've been out of school for a long time but and a lot of respect for them we'll move back up to our bond refinance presentation by mark reader is he ready to go are we ready mary okay we'll just sit tight for a minute anybody know any current news or jokes i'm just kidding i will add that uh judy peterson taught one of our principals yeah coach london coached one of our principals yeah and it wasn't ryan or
002courtney or rebecca it was the old one this old man on the staff no that's awesome that's right i stand corrected two of our principles one parent of a principal we've got generations going here we're still in holding for uh our stifle representative in the future haven't yet i guess we could move to that point uh dr wright do we have time to do the br star award or go into the consent agenda are we good if you would like brenda's suggestion is a good one you could delay the presentation to 3.2 of the business item that's a good idea forward we'll just do that if that's okay with the board we'll we'll delay this until we get to the business section of the agenda 3.2 and then they'll correlate together well then so let's
003do our br star awards right now dr wright okay for the br star recognition for the month of may we had two denise london at the high school and assistant in the counseling in other areas in athletics and also mary causey a teacher at blue ridge elementary school these ladies are our br stars for the month of may and as you know now at the end of the year we always give a br superstar award and this year it goes to the entire technology department for our br star of the year so we have a plaque for that department and we'll present that to that team thank you all right good deal thank you board is there any item in the consent agenda that you'd like to take out and vote on individually that opportunity
004to say that now uh also item 2.14 which was the uh item to approve out of state travel for the high school basketball team that tournament's been cancelled so that item will be taken out of the agenda 2.14 just for those that are watching the consent agenda is a accumulation of the minutes from the last meeting that have to be approved items about hiring and those that are retiring just business things that don't need a whole lot of discussion unless there's a member of the word would like to make take special note or something like that if not do i have a motion to accept the items and the consent agenda items 2.1 through 2.16 is it with the exception 2.15 2.17 is the end and we're going to remove 2.14 so we have a
005motion to accept that emotion from chuck have a second from diane all in favor that would be a unanimous vote okay are we ready we will just jump right into this bond refinance presentation by mark reader if that's all right hello mark good evening can you hear me we sure can great would you like me to proceed i'm sorry i didn't hear that oh yes i'm sorry i thought you said who am i seeing okay yes if you would just go ahead with your presentation we're ready for that thank you okay thank you uh mr president members of the board uh good evening uh my name is mark reader i work for steeple nicholas and i've had the privilege of working with your district uh i don't know for the last 10 or 15 years
006on your bond elections on your overrides and on your bond sales it's been my pleasure um as you know as interest rates uh change we uh remain vigilant and always looking at your outstanding debt to see if there's a way to refinance and save the district money so as you know uh as a result of coved uh mortgage interest rates and uh treasury interest rates and municipal bond uh interest rates in the world we all live in have dropped to uh all-time historical lows and so we uh we've been working hard with uh with brenda and mike we identified a transaction that we did back in 2015 and i think uh many of you were on that board i think some of you are on that board and we did a uh refinancing at 2.5
007percent and so we've been keeping our eye on it it's relatively short in other words the maturities only go out from 22 to 25 so it's relatively short and we've had a uh recent rally or a reduction of interest rates we got a very solid uh a rating for your district and we're very pleased to report to the board that at the moment our interest rates are kind of as follows uh 0.25 for the 22 maturity these are like certificates of deposits so we have to pay a little more interest for each maturity to compensate for risk and inflation so we're starting out at 0.25 0.3 0.43 0.57 uh and so when we add in all of our costs we're about 1.06 percent all in to replace two point five percent okay so we're very
008pleased that we're in the low one percent range for you and the long and the short of that is that we think we're going to save you about 300 000 dollars in uh cash flow and net present value savings and we're going to be able to take the savings and we're going to work hard to use that savings to reduce our secondary tax rate a little bit uh the district doesn't have a lot of outstanding bonds that are eligible we wish you had more but you currently this is the only one that we is currently eligible so it's a very efficient refinancing and we're going to save the district somewhere around 300 000 so i wanted to give you that brief overview of the market and the economics of the district's current bonds versus where
009we hope to come out um we're going to be in the market early in the morning and this was based on some preliminary discussions we and you have a resolution in front of you to consider uh your bond attorney paul gales is on the phone but essentially the resolution with your approval tonight we'll delegate the authority to uh dr ford and to brenda to work closely with us to go ahead and lock into these low interest rates so very brief conversation uh presentation i hope that was helpful and we're here to answer any questions that the board might have thank you very much i just have one question will that shorten the term also does that shorten the term of the loan or does the long term stay the same i'm having a hard time
010i hear a lot of echo i apologize so does this shorten the term of the loan oh okay um thank you uh it shortens the average life of it we are not extending the 25 maturity that we currently have but we're just replacing it 22 to 25 with a new 22 to 25 and we're saving you the difference between the two and a half and the one percent money all right thank you that's that was what my question was any other questions thank you all right well thank you mark we appreciate your information and your input we think we're grateful that you're looking out for us in that regard thank you very much thank you thank you okay let's let's move into the business section of this agenda which is items 3.1 3.2 oh yeah
011we have to vote separately on well it's just removed we don't actually have to it was just removed no we don't have to vote on 2.14 that was the out of state travel permission for the basketball tournament that's been canceled could we yeah i saw we have people come in that uh walked in dr wright you want to acknowledge these folks since we've already voted on this if you don't mind let's go do that let's since folks are here let's do that right now and then we'll head into the business section so there's no confusion okay we'll have let's do the uh in order then let's go to uh the retirees let's have the principals please come up mary they have their their plaques let's start at the high school level first lauren if you
012could introduce your retirees dr let me just inject here we for those that might be a bit confused we've already voted on this already this is just kind of further recognition so we can give individual recognition at this time but there won't be any vote on these thank you jennifer all right first we have mr peterson can you come forward thank you [Applause] so much mrs peterson is retiring after 50 years here at bridge and a year or two so she's done an amazing job and has made a huge impact on the community and children grandchildren great grandchildren no we'll stop there she's done amazing job and we're going to miss her greatly and thank you for all that you've done for blue ridge thank you she was my teacher and she was awesome judy
013i need to say this my oldest daughter told me that because she took your english classes she didn't have to worry about writing reports when she got to college they just went right through it yeah they hated that but they loved it when they got into college thank you very much [Applause] we have bonnie sorenson come on now bonnie so bonnie is our cte director she has been with the district for 21 years and acting as ct director and before that she was in the classroom helping with everything at the junior high with cte and preparing the kids to go up to the high school and continue on their cte courses so she's a huge part of why the cte program is what it is at the high school so thank you for your 21
014years at blue ridge [Applause] our other two we have coach london he's not here he's actually with his track kids at practice getting ready for the state track meet so as we mentioned earlier coach london's been at blue ridge for 33 years in a teaching coaching capacity before that he was a student here as well so his years added up at blue ridge and our last retiree is jim rock he has been at blue ridge 16 years he is with our golf team heading back from a state golf tournament so you can tell the dedication devotion of all of our retirees we're definitely going to miss them and huge shoes to fill on each and every one thank you [Applause] if i could have miss mary lee cox come on up miss cox has been
015uh with the district for 23 years and all 23 at the junior high correct teaching english english and social studies and she has been so instrumental in pushing some students who are just a little more hesitant to get involved in their learning and we can call it nudging or nagging but it works and we are going to miss her next year she's just been so phenomenal with their kids especially the ones who struggle to stay motivated so enjoy your retirement but we are going to miss you greatly [Applause] there ought to be a special word for somebody who can teach in the junior high that many years those kids don't know if they're coming or going most days right they're trying to figure out who they are right miss cox helps to remind them if
016they're coming or going we also have miss rainey who is going to be retiring this year she was only at the junior high for one year but the kids have loved her all of her experiments and you walk into her room and there might be glitter or glue or balloons you never know what you're going to see in her classroom but the kids love it and so we're going to miss her next year too thanks okay okay we want to recognize our our be our superstar award winners for this year which is team technology come on up nate and your team [Applause] come on up folks and uh if we get you kind of grouped in here can you get a good picture of mary throughout the uh thank you very much team you did
017an outstanding job throughout the pandemic and through all of the covert crisis and all the hours i mean to say that they burn the midnight candle that's not uh it's the truth that's not a metaphor they have they've been here till one and two at night frequently getting computers repaired distributed and working to support our teachers and our students they did an outstanding job we would not have been able to pull off what we did in the absence of this these folks and their team and their hard work and the preparation we have the best technology team on the mountain and it competes with schools that are much larger so we're very proud of them thank you nate and your team congratulations you would think the technology team could organize themselves from the tallest to
018the shortest right there instantly thank you thank you we're in debt to you the new employees we do have that you had proved earlier megan can you stand up please we welcome back miss megan mrs megan penrod and she will be our director of student support supporting both the junior high and the high school welcome home megan appreciate all right thank you okay now we'll move into the three section the business section of the agenda item number um 3.1 the recommendation to approve the final budget revision for the 2020 and 21 school year that is what we just had our open public hearing on any questions or comments about that budget you good jennifer all right can we have a motion to accept that budget emotion from jennifer a second from margaret all in favor
019that is unanimous item of 3.2 this is the item about uh uh reef about the bond issue refinancing the bond issue that we just discussed earlier dr wright you want to take over for a second yes that we need the board's approval to move forward with the refinance of the eight million dollars in excess of eight million to the lower interest rate as described by mr reader brenda has done her homework on this we're well prepared our recommendation is that we we move forward with the refinance and we'll save our taxpayers in excess of three hundred thousand dollars by doing so thank you any comment or anything so we have the motion we have a second already all in favor okay that also passed unanimously item 3.3 recommendation to review and approve the junior high
020and high school course content books we'll open that for discussion right now anyone want to discuss those books have you read them all cover to cover yeah that's why i'm asking because i knew just a little background here everybody here is an educator but me so i'm sure there's a greater interest in the detail there i would just like to say after reading it reading both of them i'm very impressed with the the quality and the organization of them it's improved dramatically in the last few years and so i'm just very impressed and glad to see it any other questions comments if not we have a motion to accept item 3.3 the motion from check we have a second from diana all in favor okay that is also unanimous item 3.4 recommendation to approve the
021intergovernment of the iga uh the joint technical education courts for jted or the navit pro and the nava program for the 2020 and 21 years i mean 20 21 and 22 year this is something we have to do on a yearly and annual basis is there any questions or comments about that dr wright do you want to fill in anybody or no so you got it right we just need uh the board's approval to move forward with the iga between both our cted and navit programs which are very valuable to the district and we recommend and we're requesting your approval i don't think there are any comments questions all in favor i mean excuse me we have a motion motion from jennifer a second diane all in favor thank you item 3.5 recommendation to review
022and renew the food service management contract service dr wright you want to explain that for us or or brenda do you want to do that this is just an annual renewal of the southwest food service food food service management contract really the only changes are the changes to the administrative fee and the management fee for southwest food service there was an increase of approximately 150 a month for administrative fee and approximately a hundred dollars per month for their management fee and that was primarily due to their workers comp and a little bit of salary increase to their management staff so other than that there wasn't any increases to any other fees thank you questions about that item on the end of 3.5 we have a motion then to accept that and have a motion from
023chuck a second from margaret all in favor that also is unanimous uh dr wright will turn the balance of the meeting to you for an update on all the good things that have been happening thank you we're working through three and a half days of fun-filled events and interesting student behavior sometimes but it's all good our principles are busy we had a lobby in the lobby in the lobby with some chickens at the high school when i walked in llama has been removed safely yeah i drove by the highway and i saw a llama running through the parking lot and people scrambling all over the place i thought somebody show and tell got loose they they we had a little bit of confusion with our mascot we are not the llamas we're still the yellow
024jackets but the on the 17th monday at 7 p.m the back of laureate for the high school will be held at that time this the senior video will be displayed the the students organize and lead that ceremony it's it's been well attended the last couple of years and we're hoping to get a good attendance that will be at the auditorium at 7 pm this monday evening on the 19th from 4 o'clock to 7 pm there'll be our scholarship recognition event for students that are receiving a whole list of scholarships and students receiving them will come up on the stand at the auditorium like we did for graduation in their covet environment they'll be recognized there's a chance for them to go off to the side and have photos with their parents as well so very
025much like we did graduation that will be the scholarship recognition night a large majority of the presenters that give those scholarships are not comfortable with meeting in person yet so the administrators will represent those folks that are not going to come but all the recipients will be recognized and then on the 21st of course is our graduation it will be held in a traditional ceremony outdoors and will have it set up safely with physical distancing incorporated masks are optional and the lock-in night will proceed as usual we've had a number of people really step up the ptso has really led this event and helped and megan and others are involved with this our principals were really appreciative of that and it is a very it's a great event for our kids at that time a
026new car will be given away to one of the recipients whoever earns that and that is donated from hatch auto we appreciate the hatch motor group for providing that automobile for our students and that concludes my report unless there are any questions from the board thank you no questions okay the only announcement we have is that our next meeting will be june 8th at 5 pm in this location so we have a motion to adjourn i have a motion from chuck i have a second from