001convene open session tonight at 7:00 p.m. >> Motion. >> Second. >> All right. All those in favor of reconvening open session. >> Before we continue, please join us in the pledge of >> 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. >> Thank you everyone. All right. Next item on business tonight is our consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve all the items on the consent agenda as presented? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Okay. Got a number of items on the consent agenda. Any uh concerns or questions? Any items that we pulled or details? You like some additional explanations? All right. Hearing none. Okay, everyone uh for approval and none opposed. Motion carries.
002All right, then we'll turn over to some reports this evening. I'll turn it over to Dr. Isson for Board of Education candidates report. >> Yes. Uh board of education um filings closed in late December and we had three citizens sign up to serve on the board of education. We had three open spots um and with again three individuals signed up. Uh Mrs. Oshi resigned up as well as Mr. Stevenson and uh Miss Tina Tibo uh is signed up to run for the seat that's being vacated by Miss Petri who chose not to run. So with three um seats and three individuals uh interested um we don't have to have an election per state statute and so uh that'll be our board members will be sworn in in April at the reorganization. >> Okay. All right.
003Appreciate that information and we'll send it right back over to you for this month's superintendent report. >> All right. A few things on the superintendent report that I want to bring up is typically this time of year going into February um Miss Hilleran would be bringing the school calendar uh and they would be meeting on that. Uh at the last state board meeting uh in Jefferson City, several school districts brought up uh to the state board asking for an exemption to the start of school date. Um due to the calendar this year, um the start of school is actually as late as it's ever been. And part of that is several years ago, uh a state law was put into place that you could we cannot start school until two weeks prior to Labor Day,
004the first two Mondays before Labor Day. This was a bill that was put into place in part because of tourism in the state of Missouri. uh and so 14 days before Labor Day. Well, this year Labor Day falls on September 7th and so we would not be able to start school until August 24th. The issue with that then is it makes your first semester, don't quote me on the firm number days, but you get into one of these like 65 days first semester [clears throat] 100 days second semester or some thing like that which >> what is it about 20 >> 20 days difference which um for the high school type classes if you have uh semester classes is it gets pretty wonky on what you're able to get done, etc. In addition to that,
005it will push us getting out of school much later, summer school, uh impacting all the breaks. So, um we're hitting pause as well as um a lot of the schools in Jefferson County, uh that was brought up at our super Jefferson County superintendent meeting. And so, just kind of seeing uh if anything occurs. I don't know that it will because it's a state law and so the state board really doesn't have the authority to necessarily violate state law to say yeah you can this year but um it's worth just waiting a month to do that. Um last week Governor Kho uh delivered his state of the state address and released the FY27 budget recommendations. um they're recommendations only and so they have to go through the whole legislative uh process, but it was interesting uh
006listening to some of those things. There are no reductions in the K12 foundation formula [snorts] um that have been proposed at this time. Um but there is uh the funding and all the savings that they had coming out of CO that's kind of dried up and at the end of the day uh the state's budgets like a school budgets like our home budget like the money's the money and if it's drying up there's only so many different ways uh to spend it is with that um when you throw in some of these other issues [clears throat] that we'll probably talk about more in depth later on as well as throughout out in the spring is one of the big things that Governor Kio wants to do is phase out state income tax um which is
007essentially cutting [snorts] the state of Missouri's funding source um unless they institute uh an additional or different type of tax. And so the fallout to that will be an increase of sales tax. Um my fear is as citizen and as superintendent is people will be like well I don't want nobody wants to pay taxes and in the short term sales tax doesn't feel like it's much but when you have sales tax of 15 20% on everything and actually kind of pushes the tax spreads it out to people actually don't make as much money. Everybody's got to buy food. Right. So um but not everyone makes the same amount of money. So it kind of disperses that out. And the short term for the school district is the less state funding that we get, the greater
008the need we will have to go toward tax increase property taxes uh in our district. And we have the lowest taxes in Jefferson County. So that's going to potentially impact. So that was item number one. The other items are the A throughF grade card. Um they have to have a plan. and the state board does by June 30th. So, they'll have the APR score, but then they'll also grade each school on an A through F uh type format. What's interesting there is charter and private schools don't have to participate. They can choose to, [snorts] but public schools have to. We'll talk about that in the future here. Open enrollment is a huge proponent as well as uh property taxes and u pushing local control which is also an interesting thing that we're going to talk
009about uh momentarily is we're hearing a lot about pushing the local control because the board of education is in control and you ought to be making the decisions. Um but then we follow up with uh not making all kinds of decisions that dictate what the board is. Uh the final thing is recommended that Misha uh is under the direct oversight of a committee established by the board uh or by the governor. So that was um some of the state items coming out of there. some district staffing updates as we're planning is uh we have a retiree of the success room at the primary um in the first grade Miss Arbor is retiring is what we're going to do with that room is uh that's going to become a behavior support room. We have a behavior
010support person um that's interested in making that transfer over there currently. And so we're going to add an additional not FTE but by adding a $4,000 stipen we're able to add another behavior person. [snorts] We actually have some people on staff that'd be interested and are certified in that. So using the opportunity that will get posted here soon probably [snorts] next week. Uh it doesn't require a new FTE. It's just a little bit of that stipen there. It is one of our strategic plan items was to have one. to have one primary focus and then one uh focused in the elementary and um and then finally uh on the superintendent report is I've been invited uh in the last couple weeks to attend two uh different items on the national level to participate um on
011committees. The first one was I was going to the superintendent conference in Nashville so close in [snorts] February and I was contacted to go a day early and be a part of 150 other superintendents to sit down and discuss some things in education and what uh we anticipate it looking like in 5 to 10 years. Um and in doing that they were like Dr. as you come down there because they're trying to get carrot for us is our district will be able to apply for a national moonshot grant. So there's some grant funding there to them. Um the second one is in March there's actually uh [snorts] AASA reached out there's a focus group and uh they've invited 50 superintendent nationwide to come to Savannah, Georgia. They're they're paying for everything. So the district isn't
012like, well, will you please come? Um, and talking about just some education in the future, career technical education and some of the things that we're doing here at Hillsboro and uh so that's covered by the essay. The catch to that is it's March 25th through the 27th. There's a board meeting there. So, the board board's okay, I'll miss that meeting and Dr. Lu and Melissa will run that meeting. um to that. So, it's a good opportunity uh to share what we're doing here. And I was kind of it's exciting for myself, you know, being that, but also from what we're doing here in the district, you know, people heard about. So, I kind of looked at the list people from Bank of Wisconsin to South Dakota. They've got representatives from each state. So, it's nice
013as well. That's my superintendent. >> Any questions uh on this evening superintendent report? >> Okay. All right. We will move on to our monthly financial report. Uh this also comes with a a budget amendment. So we will be offering a motion to approve that amendment after the report is complete. Turn it over to you and uh Miss Mike. So, I'm going to run through uh the monthly financial report that we would normally give [clears throat] uh each month. We're midway through the fiscal year. Uh so, make sure I got this on the words on the screen. I work in here. >> You don't need to hit escape real quick. >> Okay. Here you go. All right. I'm going to [clears throat] go through this fairly fast because these numbers haven't necessarily changed uh from when
014they were approved last November. We started the year with our $17 million in operating funds, 1.7 in debt service, and the $4.69 uh in capital funds. Um throughout this year, we've received $28 million uh year-to- date revenue. um in the report separately on the other document and I pointed out because this is going to be important longitudally like two and three years from now is that $28 million number is actually $4 million higher than what it would normally be because the HVAC loan we count that as revenue and it's a onetime loan for the uh HVAC work this summer that's put in a revenue uh waiting for us to spend. We've actually spent 25 uh.31 million. So if you take $4.5 million off 28, we're at 24 million. So so far this year, we're about
015spending 1.4 million more than we've brought in. That's normal because state our tax money starts coming in now. And so that's um where all of our funds will be and then it'll start showing that surplus typed that um again it kind of restates it in a different uh format and again any citizen or the board can go this is in the board packet this presentation and then also um and more of a report form and all of the banking numbers that Miss White puts together that we use to it's the actual ledger books. Uh so I encourage anyone to go check that out. It's in our board packet, but it's also online uh at all times. So even go look at previous months. Um comparison to FY24, so been two years ago, the 23 24
016school year. As you can see, we're about $3 million ahead of where we were in spending. Um, some of that's in salaries, which we'll get to. Uh, we've had some pretty significant salary increases. Um, as well, revenue, we're running about, again, I'm taking that $4 million, $4.5 million off that 28. So, we're at 24 million revenue if we're going to compare it in the future to 22.3 million. So, about a 1.4 4 million more in revenue than we' had two years ago. I explained that there again, too. So, so quickly at the start of the school year, this is what we budgeted. We anticipated 51% of our district funds, 23.5 million, would come from local property taxes. Then for state money equals 41.8%. Which is 19 million. That's why um it's important when I talk
017I'm sitting there talking about Governor Kho and the legislature and all that is any type of cut to this blue has to be filled in somewhere or you're doing something different and um you're not likely we're not going to get more from the federal government. Um and this is our railroad utility. Uh so there's not going to be anything there. So that's as this would get smaller, this black has to get larger or we're uh changing things. So far this year, we've received this is what we expected on the left. This is what we've received here today. We've received 14.3 of the expected 23 12 million from local property taxes. Um 8.3 from the state. um of the state funds. It's interesting that I think it's probably going to be on the next slide. I'm
018going to just jump to that. [clears throat] There it is. Is you know last year the state adequacy target and fully funding of the state foundation formula this year like went up pretty significant but our enrollments declined. But it's interesting to me that we're literally 11,000 difference than two years ago when you're talking about 8.3 million. We're within $11,000 difference on our state funding. Um, and as you can see, our year to date, it's 14 million, which local funding is up about uh $2 [snorts] million thereabouts. And there's the 4.5 on the HVAC. And I wanted to do this for long term. Um, so it go kind of goes in the record for Miss White for the board in the future. This is what we've got. The 23.8 million is when this is subtracted from
019this. So I try to write that in there. So future years that explanation is there. um just in a different format out of each fund and then a comparison of each of the funds um that we use in a school district budget year-over-year. One of the things especially if we have some individuals in the crowd, so I want to kind of walk through some school funding. General [clears throat] fund is our normal operating fund. That's a the electricity, textbooks, supplies, um gasoline for the buses. That's kind of like the household budget. Special revenue is a teacher fund. That's what we pay the classified teachers out of. And so, um that's salary and benefits of the certified staff. Our bus drivers actually get paid out of the general fund. So, this is our certified [clears throat]
020teachers fund. debt service is can only be spent to pay back bond debt and so it's a restricted fund. So, you see in the budget in fiscal year 25, we plan to have $5 million if we had spent uh we was planning to spend 5 million uh because we were paying off bonds and we had spent $4 million because I think we paid off some bonds in December whereas this year we've only spent 50 because our bonds get repaid in March. Is that accurate? >> Yes. I'll actually transfer the money next week. they they want it holding um and then they'll pay out March. >> So you're going to see here two months from now that money rolls over. So there's some timing pieces, but that can only be spent on bond debt. And when
021all your debt's paid off, it's different than like a home budget. School districts, you don't if you paid off your house, it'd be like your boss said, "Well, now you don't get the $1,000 a month that you were using for your house payment. You we're not going to pay you that anymore." school districts can't charge taxes when all their debts paid off. So, that's one of the reasons our taxes have been going down. Uh, capital projects is a restricted fund for paying for just that, capital project improvement around the district. And as you can see, um, we've spent $4 million so far this year. activity fund is [snorts] for things not just like activities. It sounds like it's you guys spent that that amount of money on activities. Our health insurance for our employees in
022there. It's like a miscellaneous kind of a bucket for putting uh things that don't necessarily apply in those other boxes in that account. So the 2.4 million is actually Miss White. That's where we're funding our health insurance and make those payments out of there. So each pay period when we're deducting the health insurance for my kids goes into that account and then we pay the bill out account. So it's kind of a pass through account. But that's why that number is so much larger. So uh that's kind of a general overview on that. I'm going to go into the next report because it aligns into um where we are through December is Miss White put together um our budget amendment. So, kind of a just a brief bringing everyone up to date on the budget
023[snorts] process. In July, we pass a budget based on what we expect the financials to be as far as revenue, expenses, etc. The board will approve that. And then as we get everyone hired is we know now then like we hired a teacher at 40,000 [snorts] versus 60,000. So it's 20. So, we're able to lock in those salary numbers. And so, we do um refriger refigure that and then do a budget amendment. We did one earlier this fall in November. Uh we did one in July, then we did one um a recapitulation in July. Bud first budget amendment was >> November. And this is budget amendment number three with our latest information within this um packet is and this information is in the board pack as well is it updates the budget for our current
024conditions. The revisions in the budget uh align with finalized cost and current student needs. The adjustment reflects some higher insurance which I'll talk through sped cost capital project timing. The amendment does not introduce any new spending initiatives and ensures that the budget is responsive and accurate because that's key even as we talk about doing a teacher. We have to know how much money we have uh all the time so we don't spend more than what we have. So operating expense updates is our insurance premiums through music. This is our property and liability rates. [clears throat] Um and our workman's comp came back $27,000 more about than we anticipated in the spring. Um red is actually it cost us more money. [cough] Green we [clears throat] have savings on here. uh we needed an early an
025additional early childhood teacher once we got rolling. Um and so we had to use a outside provider or contractor. So we ended up spending $74,000 more than what we anticipated as well as $40,000 more uh to deal address for an individual student IEP needs. some savings and reduction is um we saved about $70,000. This is aligned with special education for budget placements that weren't needed so far this year. That could change next month, but so far this year uh and these are placements would be like Mapville State School, the MOO for like a deaf student and such. And Mr. Whitehead uh uses that for we're paying uh other entities to provide services and because we don't have to have a board election we save $15,000. HBAC project is [snorts] um we had to add the
0265 million. >> [snorts] >> uh Miss White put that in because we don't know uh the amount to be invoiced and when it's [snorts] going to go as far as ordering the equipment and such. So, we built that into the budget. These two items here, uh Miss White did a recapitulation on the FY25 which ended in July. So, why would we do that? We just got done with the audit and the auditor asked that we actually put these two numbers into [snorts] this year's budget. We cut the checks in June because they were on last year's budget. That's why they were in there is because we anticipated to pay for it in last fiscal year. Well, when the library furniture showed up at the primary, we had some issues with the quality and such and
027we weren't going to pay them until that was satisfied. And so that ended up being in July moving over to the fiscal year and the same type issue. We had some site work at Broad Ridge and we didn't sign off that we were happy with the work until July even though we had cut the checks in June. So, we're moving that over uh to that end. And then we have $30,000, I'll call it savings, uh in playground equipment at the elementary that Dr. Laroo had kind of planned on doing and we had some issues coming up with warranty and putting the padding down. it's just not going to work out to do that and so we're going to defer that and so we're taking it out of the budget on that. So that's keeping us
028up to date on those items. Uh so the capital lease proceeds are additional [clears throat] uh income that came in that $4.5 million of that $8 million HVAC project. our interest earnings are actually higher than we expected on that $4.5 million to the tune of about $70,000. And then finally, um we're with the change over at Christmas, um we're no longer going to receive rental income for the performance engineering building. Uh and maybe many people in the community didn't know since we bought the bus garage years ago. Uh if you've lived in the community a long time, that was I believe like a tour bus company had owned that is performance engineering is that building right next to a bus garage. The district has owned that for years. That company was there I believe when
029it was owned by the tour bus and the district has leased it to that business owner uh for all these years. I mean it's been decades, I I would imagine. So, what's that? >> Late 80s. Um, >> we're talking about 30 years. And so, he's retiring, getting out of business. And so, we're in the process of going um in and just fixing that building up. And Dr. Rue is working on how we're going to use that in the future. We have some ideas as far as maintenance and food service and reusing and restructuring on that. So, um we won't get the the rent from that anymore, but I just want to put a picture there and update um included the insurance items um and adjustments in that fund 60 which is the activity account. This
030is more structural rather than new spending. So at the end of the day, this is uh where we expect to end up 39% reserve balances. Uh and this is the amount ending balances on June 30th as we start next fiscal year. Uh and then I included in here the recapitulation of FY25 uh that Miss Whitehead put together. So that's a a run through. wanted to spend a little bit more time because it was a budget amendment and we're we're updating um our actual budget document uh to walk through that because our goal is to finish at 95% accuracy come June to finalize strategic plan. Any questions? Thank you for the report and uh we will we'll move into the motion to approve this. Do I have a motion to approve tonight's budget amendment and that
031recapitulation number three as it is presented? >> Motion second. >> Final thoughts [cough] on the presentation or on the budget amendment? Okay. Hearing none. All those in favor of approval? Okay. None opposed. Motion carries. All right. Do we have any items of public comment this evening? [clears throat] No items of public comment which will then take us into some new business. The first of which is the approval of the memorandum of understanding between uh Shnooks Markets and the district. Do I have a motion to approve entering into anou a one-year between Shnooks and the district for our vocational technical education? >> Motion second. Any questions on this? Hearing none. All those in favor of approval? None opposed? Motion carries. All right. We do have uh an information only this evening. Next item of business is
032board [snorts] policy. We have a first read of policy revisions 2025E. Uh give you all a moment to uh consider any comments, questions or concerns with that policy read. Few updates there. We'll see those next month for a second and a final read and approval. If you have any questions on those, feel free to reach out to Dr. Any questions before we move on. Okay. All right. Our next item of business then is the approval of the MSBA superintendent search proposal and those tentative timelines. So, the motion itself is uh ask for a motion to approve the MSBA superintendent search proposal as it's presented. That's an all-inclusive cost of $15,400 that includes post hire support. uh search process that'll begin in August 2026 and that newly selected superintendent would assume the role effective July 1,
0332027. The district will be um responsible for [snorts] that candidate any candidate travel costs during the duration of the search. So I have a motion to approve. >> Motion second. >> Okay. Like to share Dr. Isacson has got some information uh to accompany this to share with us this evening. [clears throat] >> Yes. So um included a graphic um assuming [clears throat] that the board approves this uh that MSBA had given us uh some timelines that we could kind of work through uh in planning. So I wanted to share that with the community is between now and August um they will be reaching out to the board. Probably the board will have some work sessions as far as identifying um just some look fors and some timelines. Uh and then what they want to put
034in the job posting. Some of that's going to be like salary, initial salary. How do they want to do that? So August 1 making the the job posting between August first part of August and September uh end of September will be some community input that could be surveys or meetings and uh participating in that just inquiring from the community that feedback of what um they would like to see uh in the [clears throat] next leader of the district and uh some of that will also be working with some of the staff of the Then uh during that whole period of time people will be applying for the job. So October uh beginning of October will be MSBA will uh review the candidates and then bring candidates that qualify and uh kind of they'll be the
035bird dog I suppose for uh communicating with the board and doing that leg work setting up the interviews and then the board will convene kind of that end last part of October to uh work through do interviews and then uh with a goal of making a selection and working through that contract. So then um if all goes to kind of the timeline from November till June, uh the new superintendent will work with me on kind of just transitioning over. will attend board meetings and going through some of the financial documents and all of that to just um lay the groundwork for a successful transition to uh then taking over in July. This will be in the nest as well. >> Any questions on the approach or on uh on SBA as the selection uh process.
036>> All right. Hearing none. All those in favor of approval. Opposed. Motion carries. All right. Our next item of business is the approval of the 2026 27 certified teachers. Do I have a motion to approve the 2627U between the district and Hillsboro NEA and the Hillsboro CTA as presented and authorized the board's board president and the board secretary to sign on behalf of the district. second to share some >> yeah just detailed information on this as well. [clears throat] >> So I'm not going to go through all of this presentation. This presentation uh was developed to push out and share with teachers likely tomorrow when we [clears throat] communicate if the board approves of this final approval tomorrow as an [clears throat] explanation. But I do want to just um highlight touch base uh some
037of the items. All this information again found in your board packet and online is uh the things that kind of drive us are within our strategic plan and focusing on things that allow us to hire and retain the best teachers we can for and [snorts] staff, not just teachers, uh staff for our students. and also focusing on things like teacher attendance and staff attendance uh and the things that we've done have really been successful on that. But one of the things that I'm just going to point out here is over the last uh six years from 2020 to 2026 the district has invested heavily in both salaries and benefits. Um and during that time uh as insurance costs etc have went up and I'm really proud of this. That's one of the reasons I wanted
038to kind of talk about in 202021 school year the starting salary for a teacher in the Hillsbor district was $35,000 and then then on that well it's our extra duty salary schedules and everything was kind of based off that is um we did work on our salary schedules both on the front and the back end. Um, we've made significant increases there as well as the teachers ability to move over without having to go back to necessarily college and spend $10,000 at a university. Now, through just their normal training, like a letters training and training that's specific to benefit them in their job and working with our kids, um, we allow uh staff members to move over in salary. Our new starting salary next year will be 45,500 which is one of the top in Jefferson
039County. So the base salary increase over those six years is roughly well it's $10,42%. You can see what we did in each of those years. And when you add in career ladder and the things I just talked about, the average increase for a teacher when if they were here in 2020 and who is here now and I went through I go through each teacher individually. Uh on the low end it's right at 16,000. On the high end it's 20 to 22. And if they're also coaching and doing other things it's even north of that. So the average teacher salary in 2020 was roughly about 49,000 and we're at 61,000 without those other uh items such as gratter and such. So, um, that's paid dividends as far as all right, what what's, you know, as a
040tax, what are you getting for your money is Hillsboro's retention? Uh, 82% of our teachers, uh, according to, this [snorts] is from Desi, not Dr. Isacson. I went through the DEC reports, 82% of our teachers on the three-year retention. We're at 82% three-year retention. That's highest in Jefferson County and in the St. Louis area. The only district that I've seen going through and belong that's above us is Leoo and so um we're ahead of Fesus and and so that's people when they come to Hillsboro want to teach at Hillsboro is because we got a great culture but you can only rely on culture so much people still got to make money and so you got to have both of those type items and we have our career ladder there as well as our uh leave
041day stipen the special education stipen the thankfulness at Thanksgiving stipen and our extra duty um staff. So the things that we're doing the period they're working so um and our average I'll call it teacher age like years of experience has increased by I want to say like two or three years in that time. So um that in itself does bring I'm going to use the word consequences because this is uh on the insurance side is we actually attract a lot of teachers from neighboring districts and this is something for the board to be thinking about in the future and administration is um we truly are a destination district as we go through the hiring process. We're hiring teachers that have 15 years of experience in other districts is so they cost more but what ends
042up occurring is they retire from Hillsboro. What that ends up the impact there is in the state of Missouri uh I'll use myself as an example. When I retire next year I can stay on the district insurance at my cost. It's my cost. I will have to pay the premium, but I can stay on the district insurance until I choose to get off of it. That's a state law. Well, if you're a district that has a lot of retirees over time, you have older people on your insurance. you have a lot of John Isacson's versus if a lot of teachers let's say it's a district in a neighbor district where they're coming to us from here they may have a lot of teachers in the first 10 years so they have different issues the first
04310 years young families etc so there's tradeoffs there but it all kind of works together um for us and so those are just things that as a district being mindful And we're keeping notes on all of that to that end. So, um, next year summer school, this summer, summer school salary is going up by 500 bucks. Lead day stipened increased by 25% again to $125 a day. We have our wellness uh reimbursement program. So, where we reimburse uh individuals who are like join a gym, etc. And that's been pretty popular as well. So that's all I'm going to mention on here. Insurance we've been able to kind of uh keep relatively the same comparatively to the market. We do anticipate in this contract is we the board will pay up to an 8% increase because
044there's also that balance in uh insuring uh paying for the insurance versus giving people the money because the money's the money on that. So, that's all I'm going to say on that. This is in your board packet. This was more geared for just informing the teachers of their package, but I wanted to share with the board and the community uh to look at those. >> Do you happen to know um if either of the teacher organizations, they they obviously they take the proposals out to their constituents for a vote. if they share any feedback with you on how that turned out. Like how how how many people voted in favor of this that they they have to >> share something? >> Give me a 96% were in approve. >> 96% [clears throat] yes on MSTA.
045Not as many members voted that I would like to but overall I had 96% yes in favor. 96% in MSTA and I don't know the exact amount from any but um I think it was very it was a definite majority uh of different things and we did get some good feedback of just uh with that is we have a great relationship with our organizations and Miss her and Miss Hood share just feedback of their members of hey these are things and questions to be addressed because some if you're a new employee you don't necessarily know the history and the why. Why do we do what we do? Sometimes when you look at, well, that other district has this. Well, they also have different guidelines for doing that. So, it allows us to explain this. >>
046I'd be curious in knowing where that 4% who didn't vote in favor. If sometime you could provide that feedback to Dr. I and Mr. Lynhor just to see if there's opportunities there that were still missing >> for the for those staff members who were in agreement. you thinking I just >> flip a side so I got more stuff to talk about but because I'm al is this is pretty impressive too that for our employees on the high plan [snorts] because we've done like wellness stipen into physical is for those you know if you don't work at Hillsboro and you know how health insurance is for our employees on the high plan a $500 deductible the employee cost is actually $64 a month less now than it was in 2020. So those things, what else is
047$600 or less a year cheaper than that? And our middle plan is 66. Our base plan 70 and so our HSA which is fully funded by the district. So there's no change. But basically employees now have between 600 750 and 850 more dollars in addition just on uh the stuff we've done on their insurance. And [snorts] one last thing I did put in here is that I think is we haven't had to use it. I don't ever want to use it. Um but one of the things because it's not all that expensive is our district has $75,000 in life insurance. We are the highest district in the St. Louis metro. Leoo is the other one at 75,000. Why 75,000? 75,000 is the top of our teacher salary score. So if something would happen to one
048of our teachers, kind of when we brought this to the board, our thought process is that's one year of income. It replaces one year of income um that you'd be able to step away. And in our business, 80% of our staff is uh moms and women is that if there would be uh families on that is that takes care of something we hope we never have to use, but it's something uh that we provide that it's just kind of that truly up. Any questions, comments? Appreciate the involvement of MSTA in the NEA in the in the process concerns. Hearing none, all those in favor this evening and approval of the NOU as presented. Okay. None opposed. Motion carries. All right. We have one more presentation and an action item tonight with regards to our legislative
049platform. We have a legislative committee um that has a recommendation for a formal approval of some legislative platforms for us. So before we make that motion to approve, go ahead and turn it back over to Dr. Isacson for that short presentation. >> All right. Well, as a school district, we always don't necessarily want to get involved in politics and that's not necessarily uh what this is about, but we do have to advocate for our kids and our community because there's definite impacts here. And um as I go through this, there's impacts for the adults in our community and in some things. I actually visited with our economic development, they had [snorts] a meeting and there's things that um people in the trades, if you're a construction worker and you hear something like school choice, you
050gloss right over that doesn't impact me. And it does in a big way. And I just want to bring uh some light to that. So, um, each year, last year was the first year we had a legislative platform. These are some of the things that, uh, the board approves that when I, if I'm visiting with, uh, somebody that's representing us at the county level, on the county council, or in Jefferson City, or even nationally, um, we're not going to give John Isacson's views, right? This is I'm representing the school district when I'm doing that. So it kind of develops that legislative uh platform there. Our why it matters is we want to have a shared voice for our community in Jefferson City. Ensure that we advocate for legislation that strengthens opportunities for all students. Demonstrates
051our commitment to working constructively with state policy makers and connects policy policy decisions, funding and governance to student outcomes in our classroom. So today I actually added a few of these slides because I got some information from a board meeting I had to be uh on ed plus I was a part of and I didn't even realize the scope of the amount of uh the importance to this is over the past decade Missouri public schools have become the most heavily regulated industry in the state of Missouri. A lot of times the school board is like, "Well, it's up to the school board." You pay attention to the media, the school board does this, school board does this. The reality is the school board, I would say the superintendent is not here making rules to make
052things tougher on themselves. You know, I don't think I'm going to do something really controversial to in order to really make my work harder. That doesn't occur in schools, but things get pushed down to us. And so they they had compiled the list from 2014. It's six pages long at 12.5 font. This list isn't comprehensive. Just walking through and it's on a variety of areas from curriculum instruction, staffing, calendars, etc. But each one of these items that I run through very quickly represents a new requirement, a compliance obligation or a financial impact for Hillsboro R3. And I'm going to include Jeffson County. So when a lawmaker says it's most people are like what's the cell phone bill that's the high-profile one that hits the news there's so many different one one that hit the news
053today I saw that like introducing cursive writing at elementary I'm not saying or against I'm saying that there is time in a day training to be paid for all those different things each one of these different items does have an impact So from 2014 to 2017, these were the different laws that were passed and impacted schools. Um more dealing with labor and taxes, project labor agreement, which would be prevailing wage. 2018 we start ramping up traffic stop training, teacher workshops, ACT, career readiness. Some of these are good. These are actually things that have actually made Hillsboro even stand out on our career technical education. So everything I'm going through isn't necessarily bad. I'm just saying it's a lot. Is 2018. This is still in 2018. There was a big omnivous bill where they just pushed
054if they couldn't get their bill passed individually, they just tucked it into one big bill. And so braille instruction, counseling programs, the calendar change, days to hours, which we kind of talked about there, the 10,40 hours, bond requirements, CTE, public finance, data transparency. We weren't done in 2018. We just kept going. We throw human sexuality instruction. Some of those things that we've had people show up at board meetings to talk about. It isn't even Hillsboro school board or Hillsboro. The state of Missouri health immunization notifications visiting scholars prevailing wage organ donation 2019 wind farm assessment A+ teacher externship required holiday cost education mental health board member training virtual snow days foster care child protections in 2020 lead testing AD requirements So, you have to buy the ads. Um, so 2021, I'm not going to read
055through all of these. 2022, the 169 day calendar, that's in 20 2024 2025. As you can see, I literally just went through 10 slides of just thing after thing each year. Um that's why having a legislative platform that is kind of broad uh is important is local control exists within an increasingly state controlled framework which is frustrating at this level because a lot of times people are like well your schools are doing this our schools and our teachers are responding to what is state law and mandated you know like where I talked about we can't start school until two days or two weeks before Labor Day. So with this try to how do you take our legislative reality to district direction and do great things with it. So while we can't control every law passing
056of city we can control how we lead prioritize and advocate for our students and community. The [snorts] reality is exactly why uh the student our district has a clear legislative platform built on student needs, local accountability and fiscal responsibility. So these were kind of our platforms. It's tries not to get into like some of the things you hear about. It's politics, but we're not getting political. We're not getting the blue and the red. We're getting on. We're focusing on laws that uh benefit kids, require responsible stewardship of resources and taxpayer dollars, clear focus on student outcomes and successes, alignment with our community values in Hillsboro, and investment in our community in Jefferson County. There's a document that's like a cleaner, prettier document in the board packet and will be put out uh publicly. This is
057a summary of that is our guiding principles that summarize that is public funds must prioritize public education first. Um in regards when it comes to education local control decision-making authority of a school should reside remain with the locally elected board of the citizens who elected them because they know what their community wants. Our community wants a school that educates all the whole child that has a farm that offers opportunities and some of the things even when the governor is talking about an A through F grading doesn't include that. It doesn't include oh you guys have a farm and because you have a kid that wants to be a heavy equipment operator like my son that's not graded there. So we don't look as good. And if we want to get the straight A, we could
058do that. But then you're not going to have different programs that we have to. That's a trade-off. So it's fighting for those improving educator retention mandates that if the state says you have to do this that they send the money to do that. When they say you have to have a minimum teacher salary, which is great, but a local community, if there's not the state funds, they just told the local taxpayer, "Your taxes are going up to pay for it." Because they said, "You have to do this, but we're not giving you the money. We have to do it." Or in order to do it, you're cutting teachers in order to pay the people you keep. So, our we hit like five major topics. I'm going to run through them quick. School funding, protecting our
059foundation formula and the different streams. Uh workforce addressing educator and staff certified staff shortage. I'm going to rechange that to for Hillore. We don't have shortage. Actually, we actually do a really good job attracting teachers. And in the state of Missouri, it's more probably about retention. Fun fact, and this is some news all the time. Educator shortage, [clears throat] there's actually 3,600 more teachers teaching in 2026 than in 2014. 3,600. There's over 6, 700 administrators working in school districts and we actually have lower enrollment, but class sizes have went down post. So, why it's harder to find teachers is there's more people teaching. um open enrollment, which is going to be something that uh is talked about extensively this year um as well as school choice and then the school ratings and accountability. So the
060key our position the summary is we support full funding of the foundation formula transportation and special education. We're we're asking for that because anything less than that requires our local community to pay more money and that's any change there will require a tax increase or changes in the different planning that we have to do. And we just got done with theou. 80% of our budget is people. So, uh, and you still need to buy gas for buses. So, you see it gets a little challenging. Uh, we oppose, uh, any shift that costs local taxpayers more money or creates unfunded mandates. address workforce retention issues, not necessarily here, but statewide to [snorts] uh that we chip away at educators. Our stable staffing is a number one driver in education, school districts that have teacher turnover all
061the time. One of the things that makes Hillsboro great for our children is we have great teachers who want to stay here. And when you're hiring a 15-year veteran, we love our first year teachers, but you're a young person starting in this camp. Getting veteran people uh [clears throat] is better for our kids over the long term. You got to have a good mix. Um but being able to attract them accountability for all public funds. Um this is a big one uh that I think is very important and I've been visiting with uh different groups about is I think as a state uh as a school district is advocating that as we hear about uh providing education outside of public education on the private schools and charter schools and that's the school choice. Here's the
062thing. In our um legislative platform, it's in there that the district isn't necessarily opposed to school choice. We're not opposed to a parent wanting to send their kid to private school for whatever their personal reason being that. And we're not even necessarily in our thing saying that there should be a way to have some sort of state help with that. But, and it's a big butt, if we're going to do that as a state, if we're going to say we can use p public funds, which we already have with the Missouri scholar program, $50 million, which is now public funds, and if I was sending my kid to a private school, I could get a reimbursement to help pay the tuition for my child to go there. But if we're going to do that, those
063private schools should have the same requirements that we do as public schools because you're now getting public funds. My question and I think our school district question is and it should be every citizen is if you're getting public funds, if you're getting tax dollars like a public school does it directly or indirectly because the endon in all the different states is but we don't give it to the school directly. We give it to the parent who then gives it to the to the kid. And when I talk with the legislators, we have the technology now to address this to check whether a private school kind of that wants to participate and allow parents to get a tax uh money from the state and then pay that tuition. Like you could send in your audit, send
064in the documents just like a school district would. You say Missouri, you go through a link on your tax papers and you're like, John Isacson High School did all those things. So any parent that send their kid to John Isacson High School can get those or John Isacson chose not to do that. They chose not participate. So those parents don't. And one of the big ones, and this is why I talk about uh our local community, a lot of times what's occurred is people ask the question, should you be able to choose where your kid goes to school? And most of us in this room are going to say, "Yeah, that's like kind of this is America. I should be able to choose where to send my child to school." But they don't follow up
065with all right should those schools be able to discriminate in enrollment. Can they Hillsboro is going to take every kid every you just talk about special education needs a four time is another school that's getting state aid for state funds doesn't have to do that or when you talk about local income is we in our community we have a lot of union trades people who work in the trades they don't have to do that and some history that I'm aware of just from growing up growing up in Wisconsin was the first school choice state. 1992 I was actually in high school and Milwaukee. It's it started there. when they started uh the private school and voucher school is one of the big pieces of that is that I want to use the word decimated but
066really got into cutting um construction industry in the state of Wisconsin union workers because they didn't have the same uh regulations remember Wisconsin back 2015 right to work state [snorts] and the state of Missouri public schools do approximately $1 billion dollar with a B of construction every summer during 2008 2009 during the housing crisis all that that those construction projects propped up the construction industry. So when we talk about diverting money from public schools the kids going to private schools my question is not against it but for use shouldn't everybody play by the same rules. Shouldn't we require that and should our labor organizations have had those conversations to just be aware because most my sons and every school choice he don't think that it has any impact to him but those are the things
067that it's just uh making people aware public and basically public dollars require public accountability and my question and I think as a board as our question is if it doesn't then why are we doing then why does the board have to do an audit in December that doesn't make sense it's either right or it's wrong and not being choose open enrollment is just for public schools to be able to choose what school you want to go to um I think that as a district we have to work this is one of those there's going some districts they're going to be very opposed to it and some in education they're going to be very opposed to it because we historically have been. But I do think it's important to when we're representing our community uh in
068the recent elections, people ran on this platform and people voted into office. people want that our that's recognizing, hey, what do our citizens uh potentially want is changing it from no, that's bad for us to also being like, all right, what are the guard rails to this? um and creating a situation where all right what's an open enrollment system look like in the state of Missouri where if a student wanted to go to Dodto don't know why they would but if they did I'm just teasing to [laughter] um but where there's guard rails and there is a lot of information out there uh candidly um they have was in Wisconsin and I've had long conversations with my brother who had previously been at some and when he went to Wisconsin he was like oh what's
069this and he was like John it's really most people who live in they want to be dragged those were hawks it's not been a an issue and the reality is in the state of Wisconsin they have and kind of where I talk about guard rails is there's an application time like you got to apply in March and April and then the schools like you know they were only accepting 80 students they weren't accepting anyone in third grade because they're already maxed out with so you're not having to add teachers so it's putting those in where you you don't have the kids just I'm jumping around because here's the thing the state tax dollars follow the student. So that's one of those things that creates some issues even when it comes to local funding is I'll
070use an example and these are the things that need to be talked about is let's say a person from Fesus wants to move to Hillsboro because we got the egg program but they also play quarterback and they beat out the local taxpayers's son who's also quarterback who's [clears throat] paying property taxes in that community. There's those type of scenarios that do play out in communities. And that's why I'm saying mandates at the state level that's going to land right in your lap. The governor is not talking to that dad about the football playing with the superintendent, board president, and the board will be at the board meeting. Those are the things that being with our legislators and asking them to think about, not saying the hard like, "Hey, we got to have some guard rails.
071some common sense versus just u some of the rhetoric to that is we got to make sure that we're able to pay for these things that don't end up costing taxpayers more. Um and the last one just fair accountability system. The things that we're going to do in a state um they need to be fair from the private to the charter to public. We're all about transparency. We're all about doing the right thing, but we're also about and public accountability, but that goes for all. Um, and that's the big thing [snorts] here is let's work through things and make things better for our kids, no matter what it [snorts] may be. It may not be Hillsboro, but there needs to be the guard rails to do that. and and challenging that I think is uh
072the thing which also takes us from a district to me if when we're visiting with uh representatives who also have a job to do or not just that hard no it's a reasonable expectation of where we're just like but let's uh because there is a huge ethical thing these are practical so um and again presenting And those there I wanted to talk kind of at length about that provide some understanding there questions or questions concerns on any any one of them or the approach a lot of heads during the presentation. Appreciate the insight. So our next uh item here is to take a motion to formally approve these. So I will ask for a motion to formally approve our legislative platform and use for advocacy during 2026 legislative session. [clears throat] >> That's a resounding
073set of motions there. We have a pair of motions. Any any last options uh for questions or comment or any concerns? Okay. All right. Hearing none. Then all those in favor of approval and none opposed. Motion carries. Thanks again for for the insight. I know that our our community appreciates that uh that that level of detail as well. All right. Our last item of business tonight is a first read discussion with regards to a board of education onboarding and mentorship program. We talked a little bit about this at our work session a few weeks ago. Um so [clears throat] if you've had any opportunity to reflect on this, have any questions. Um we talked some about having some mentorship [snorts] between new board members and those that are have had some tenure on the board
074and ensuring that we have some knowledge transfer and having some conversations on board culture. So any thoughts or questions about building that process in as part [snorts and clears throat] of our uh our board on boarding and mentorship process? I think we've um as a group we've unofficially been doing a lot of that in practice. So I think it's good to have an official program on place especially as we all start to transition off over the next however many years. >> We'll work to formulate this and uh and then do a board recognition of the second readal in [clears throat] a coming board meeting and u we'll put that put that into place as Petri transitions off of the board and we have a new board member in the next couple of months. [clears throat]
075Okay. All right. Well, our last item then is with regards to important dates. We've got some upcoming dates. Most of them are related to our regularly scheduled meetings. Uh we will have it's a little ways out there, but in [snorts] May we'll be doing our annual uh board awards on May the evening of May the 7th. So that's a slightly a slight deviation from our regular scheduled meeting. So any questions or comments with regards to our upcoming schedule? It's always been that way. >> Yes. Yes. I believe it's always always been. >> I plugged all these in already. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Just looking looking out there a little further. That's the one that is little it is and is annually a little different than our our regular >> open meeting schedule. All right.
076Um our last item then is to a motion to adjurnn. It is 11 I'm sorry 8 to 11. >> That was a short presentation. [laughter] It's it's it is 8:11 [laughter] p.m. Do I have a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting? >> Motion. >> All right. All those in favor? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Motion carries. We are. Thank you, everybody.