10/27/2025 - Board Meeting

001One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Excuse us while we have just pardon the noise while we have a transition of It's nice to see the schools getting used, right? So, we have uh middle school basketball leading and we have some cheer starting. So, we apologize for the noise as we start the evening here. We'll start with our public comment section. Public participation is encouraged in the Royal School District. All meetings of the board will be open to the public except as provided by law. Scheduled meetings of the board may be recorded. Audience members may address the board during public comment for non-aggenda interests or during the discussion of the relevant printed agenda item. Your attendance is welcome. If you plan to speak to the board, please look over the

002information on the agenda, then complete the public comment section on the back side of the comment cards and hand it to myself or Superintendent Toys. Public participation is a right that carries certain responsibilities such as informing oneself in advance of the issues being discussed. Voluntary voluntarily being as brief and gumain as possible, not unduly repeating remarks others or you have already made and showing respect at all times for the rights and opinions of others, whether citizens, board members, school district employees or students. We do have a few public comments. >> So these are both agenda items. So we appreciate the comments. The the that will be um addressed this specific item will be addressed later in the meeting. So we won't proceed with that commentary yet. But thank you for >> I guess it is

003on an agenda item. It is >> uh the two that I just got. It is an agenda item, so you'll be able to get up and comment at that time. But if someone would still like to comment during hearing in the public, they can. But uh we will be having an actual agenda item on you. And just know that during public comment, the board is not allowed to respond. So just to keep that in mind. Do I have um would the individuals who brought forward these like to speak now or wait for the agenda item? >> Just wait. >> Okay. Thank you. We'll proceed then to our next act, our next item, which is correspondence. But sort of above correspondence is uh we're going to place our newest student board member under the oath of

004office. She's stuck with us now. So, we'll do we'll take care of that now. Come right over here and do it in front of everybody. >> Okay. and raise your right hand. Yeah. Um, repeat after me. I do solemnly swear >> I dolemnly swear >> or affirm >> that I will support >> I will support, >> protect and defend and defend >> the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the State of Montana and the Constitution. And then I will discharge >> and I'll discharge >> the duties of my office. >> I'll discharge the duties of my office of the Yep. There you go. Now I'm sign. >> You're official now. So now we expect you to comment on every uh issue and item. >> Beat

005chase to it. >> I'm the only one that ever said back. >> Michael's not here. >> Yeah, Michael's not here to defend himself. >> Like that, I guess. >> All right. We had a few donations this week to the high school. So, we appreciate those as well as uh uh to the middle school and to the public school at large. Uh take time to take look at those and we just appreciate all the support that the community continues to give to the district. We'll move next then to the presentations. Um we do have I think on the line, correct Evan? >> Yes. Um John, >> John Doran who is representative of bridged. >> Hello everyone. Can you hear me? Okay. >> Yes. Just waiting for the screen to come up here. There we go. >>

006We can see you now, John. >> All right. Great. Well, thank you all so much, Mr. Chairman, members of the board of trustees. My name is John Doran, and I am the chief strategy officer for Bridge Health Alliance. We are the new self-funded trust that is starting as a result of House Bill 332 from 2023. Um, and I am just honored to be here today and talk about the progress that we're making and the prospects for Laurel and other school districts across the state. So, thank you so much for having me. I'd like to start with the why we are here. And as I tour the state, I have visited with more than 300 school districts. And I hear this common refrain. And actually, in visiting with your talented staff last week, I heard this

007story told out one more time by Superintendent Torx. And it is that every school district is being led to believe that increases in health insurance costs of 18 to 20% should seem lucky because it wasn't 25 or 35 or 45 or 100% increases. This is what we're here to solve and this is why Bridged Health Alliance is so important today. Uh I'm just going to give a brief overview of who we are and what we're trying to do as well as a very brief overview of the cost proposal for Laurel and then I would open it up for any questions that you might have. I could probably talk for hours about the value of Bridge Health Alliance, but I will be succinct and talk about four goals that we have as an organization. Number one

008is improve the health outcomes of your employees and loved ones. And I think if any entity in the health insurance or health care field does not list this as their top priority, their hearts are in the wrong place. We truly believe that we can help your employees and loved ones be healthier, happier, and more productive. Number two, we would like to redirect resources to school budgets. Along those lines, we want to return savings to employees' pockets where it belongs. And in doing so, we hope to capitalize on the historic investment by the legislature to provide the $40 million incentive payment to stabilize health insurance premiums for the long term for Montana public schools. So, how do we intend to do all of these things? Well, first and foremost, we are a pro-education, anti-corporate company. We

009are here for one purpose and one purpose only and that is public schools. And when public schools are at the center of all of your focus, it's really easy to determine a few strategies that benefit public schools. So by bringing schools together in solidarity, we can open up opportunities that simply don't exist for school districts of any size on their own today. And we can provide these strategies to provide stability and predictability. I know two two foreign words in health insurance today. in a trust this size. And that's exactly what we intend to provide. First and foremost, our strategies for our provider network through Allegiance benefit plan management are opportunities that simply don't exist today. But by bringing 12,000 employees together, we can open up new strategies. Allegiance is a Montana based company. They're headquartered

010in Missoula and they have 100% of the hospitals and 97% of all physicians in the in the network. Um, so suffice it to say that network disruption is almost minimal. But the real sweet spot of what we're trying to do here is we are tying all of our network reimbursement strategy to a multiple of Medicare. Now, I'm not going to dive too inside baseball here, but I do want to describe how this plays out and why it is so important. In today's hospital environment, most hospitals have what's called a chargemaster, which means that while companies compete for the biggest discounts off of that charge, it's a variable number that can increase at any point in time throughout the year. Imagine being a school district trying to maintain your budget when a chargemaster increases more than

01120% overnight. We've seen this happen a few times in Montana. While hospitals are going to be a very strong partner for us, we are deploying a multiple of Medicare strategy to to essentially save costs for the long term. So why Medicare? Well, Medicare is the most stable pricing platform on the planet. Most hospitals have a uh a multiple of Medicare or a price of Medicare around 300 to 350%. So, if a a service costs $1,000 at Medicare, it's going to cost you approximately 3,00 to 3500. We're here to provide a different strategy. We're going to tie up our pricing back to Medicare at a much more stable level of approximately 220 to 230%. Additionally, in considering renewals, Medicare unit costs. So, unit cost is the price of those services themselves, Medicare only increases by as

012much as 3% every year. Compare that to the uh the normal medical trend of anywhere between 8 to 20%. And you can already see how we're going to drive down the cost of health insurance for folks when considering that the claims you pay are the biggest driver of your premiums. If we can control the claims costs, then we can control your premiums for the long term as well. Additionally, by bringing schools together of this size and magnitude, we can open up new opportunities for pharmacy benefit managing companies. Those are the PBMs. Our pharmacy benefit manager is going to be Capital RX. Now, this is a company that is on a national scale, but they only work with employer groups of a thousand employees or more, which means essentially two school districts in Montana could utilize

013their services. But by bringing Bridge together of 12,000 employees, we can open up this opportunity. Now, in the pharmacy benefit manager space, this is a big profit-driven industry. Uh, a lot of this has to do with the price of specialty drugs themselves and moving drugs around on a formulary. So that's the the list of drugs that are available, but moving those around on a formulary only based on how much money those pharmacy companies make off of that drug. Capital RX is maybe the most ethical and transparent pharmacy company in the country. They have a complete 100% passrough model. Their pricing is tied to the ingredient cost, not the market cost. and were able to drive down the cost of pharmacy, which is one of the biggest drivers in health insurance today. We did a huge

014claims repricing for a education group in Montana that has approximately 2900 employees. And we asked several pharmacy companies to repric these claims that this large uh group of employers and and schools in Montana had experienced for a year. Capital RX had a 24% savings over the incumbent pharmacy benefit manager to the tune of almost hundred or excuse me a tune of $860,000. Those are dollars that could have been reinvested in your budgets and put back in employees' pockets where they belong. So what is the result of these types of strategies? Well, for Laurel School District, it is a 5.7% decrease over your current costs for insurance. If you extrapolate that uh in in the next renewal, Laurel and many other school districts are facing anywhere between a 10 to 20% increase in the costs, Bridged

015Health Alliance is going to afford Laurel between 15 to 25% savings in the second biggest line item in your budget, health insurance. This proposal that we have presented is guaranteed for the 2026 and 27 school district. So, what happens if you have more claims than expected? Well, that's where Bridge comes in. We're here to protect you. Your cost proposal is the maximum financial liability that you will experience in any given year. But here's the kicker. What happens if you have less claims than expected? Well, we're not your standard health insurance company. We are a pro-education, anti-corporate model. Guess what? We are going to return the lion's share of those differences back to you. When have you ever heard of a health insurance company giving you money back? This is the Bridged Health Alliance difference and

016we're asking you to join together with schools across the state to capitalize on this historic opportunity. I thank you for your time today and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Could you talk just briefly about the number of schools and the amount of school employees that are going to be required to make this work and then your projection? Do you think you'll get there? Yeah, Matt, thank you so much for the question. So, much like the Montana legislature operates, they didn't say, "Hey, here's $40 million. Good luck." They said, "If you validate the trust by reaching a certain number of thresholds, then you can earn the $40 million." Those thresholds are 150 school districts covering 12,000 employees. And the 12,000 employees as employees on the health plan. Um, we

017have been traveling the state extensively since last May. We've been delivering cost proposals now for about two months and I'm here to tell you that we are making substantial progress toward those goals. We are asking for commitments from school districts by the end of November because we want to give you enough time to know what the future looks like with Bridged or if you need to seek other alternatives with your renewals. Additionally, we want to make sure that we have enough time on the back end to stand up Bridged and be ready to offer services at full speed on July 1st, 2026. Do you uh so so we don't usually get our renewals until Aprilish? Um so if if when will we know if this is you're not going to be validated? When are we

018going to know that that hey we you guys gave it a great shot but you couldn't get it done so this is dissolving. When will we know that? >> Great question. So you'll know that by December. And that's really why we want to give you as much ample time and put you in the driver's seat to make this decision. So, you know, there's really very little risk in signing the participation agreement and multi-dist agreement because best case scenario, we move forward and we are able to save you money not only this year but for the long term and worst case scenario, you just move forward with the opportunities for renewing with your current carrier in the future if this does not launch. But again, I'm very confident the feedback that we're getting from schools across

019the state is very similar uh to what we've received from Laurel. There's a lot of excitement uh and I think a lot of opportunity and bringing schools together to benefit each other. >> So, would you talk briefly about the five-year uh I guess the basically the five-year commitment um and what that means and and and why it's a fiveyear commitment. And I believe it's a statutory requirement of this law. Is that accurate? >> Yes, it is a statutory requirement. It was built into House Bill 332 for a five-year initial commitment. The rationale for that five-year commitment was that it provides stability for the trust. And if the trust can be stable, then our pricing to you can be stable. Um the idea was to prevent schools from coming into the trust, having a really bad

020year, leaving the trust after one year, and leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces. Now, there is what's also called what I affectionately call an exit valve built into the bill as well. If your renewal is a certain percentage higher than the US medical cost index, so to be specific, 1.5% higher than that figure, and the medical cost index typically hovers around 3%. I'm no math major, but that's about 4.5%. If our renewals are greater than 4.5%, you would have the option to leave the trust. Now also built into that is the provision that if you do decide to leave the trust you cannot rejoin the trust for five years and furthermore you would be responsible for the runout claims that are incurred after you leave. So when we look at that five-year commitment,

021I know it's caused a little bit of concern early on, but I see it as a huge benefit. And if you really again think about the medical trends currently hovering between 8 to 15 to 18% versus the 3% maximum increase on unit costs for Bridge Health Alliance, you can start to see that over the course of five years, there are several school districts and Laurel would be one of them that that savings over five years almost pays for an entire year's worth of costs for your health insurance. Anyone else have questions? Any questions for Britney? Yes. >> I guess I didn't hear him say exactly how many commitments they have up until this point. Do we know? >> I mean, how many school commitments do you have? >> Yes. So, we we have issued about

02230 cost proposals. We actually have about 125 more cost proposals that are going out tomorrow and then the remainder of the cost proposals for those schools who have submitted information will be released by next Monday. Um out of the 30 schools to which we have already proposed, we have approximately 20 verbal commitments. Now being that we're asking for commitments by the end of November, lots of school districts like yours tonight are going through the process of making recommendations to the board and the board of trustees taking an official vote. Um but given that trajectory, I am extremely confident that we will be validating this trust by the end of November and into December and we'll be able to uh to sustain all of this for you for the long term >> threshold um a number

023of number of enrolles or school districts or is it and you have to have school districts a number. >> Yeah, it's 150. It's 150 districts and 12,000. And the idea there was that the legislature didn't want this to just be something for the double A school districts, right? So, um that's the rationale for 150 and the 12,000 threshold is is the rationale. They didn't want it to just be uh another um school trust 2.0 and only providing benefits for smaller schools. And that's really what our driving force was. And it's why we created a two-tier structure. And I won't dive into too many of these details, but in tier one, which is where Laurel would operate, uh it's a very predictable, stable environment, as I mentioned, with the opportunity to recoup uh recoup some claims

024costs for good years, so to get money back. And then in tier two, it's really designed for those larger schools that are already self-funded. And so they're able to continue operating and paying for health insurance and health care the way that they've been accustomed to. I mean, that is one thing that I like is that it I mean, usually that's an aspect of a self-funded program that you get that excess outside of reserve back. So, to me, that's kind of a nice benefit as long as we have years that are, you know, good years. Like last year would not have been a great year for last two years, right? Would not have been a great year for our district. So, we just have to realize that. Now, here's a question for you. Is there any

025time where we have to rebalance that reserve? >> Do we have an issue? >> So the >> the $40 million you mean? >> Right. Is that 40 million that covers our reserve portion or is there ever a point where you know like in a self-funded program we would have to cover that reserve? What's the difference if we have a exceptionally bad year? Is it just a premium increase? >> Yeah. So the way that that's a great question. So uh let me talk about the $40 million for just a minute. um the $40 million, there's been a lot of discussion on if that's enough. And I'm here to tell you it is. And primarily because in that tier 2 operation for those larger self-funded school districts that are self-funded today, they actually keep their reserves. They

026continue to pay their own claims, but they get to take advantage of the size and the scale and some of these new opportunities to drive down their costs and put more money back in those reserves. So really, the $40 million is is primaril benefits all schools. please don't get me wrong, but it's primarily to serve as the the backs stop for schools in the tier one area. Um, and so with that $40 million, once we reach a healthy quote unquote threshold, and an actuary is going to tell us what that number is, every cent above that comes right back to benefit schools in the form of cost stabilization. So, let's say that the healthy level that the state sets is 50 million. The second we get to 50 million, anything above that comes right back

027in the form of diffused increases, premium holidays. You could do things like paying for wellness programs for every school district across the state. You could go on and on about the the ways that we could benefit schools. Now, for for renewals, here's how the renewals are going to go for tier one. In the first renewal, so going into into year two, it will be a pulled adjustment. Everyone gets the exact same adjustment up or down um or sideways. Everyone receives the benefit of that large pool stabilizing costs. In the second renewal, it is also a poolled adjustment, but on the fringes, so the top 10% of performers or the bottom 10% of performers, they would have the additional opportunity, and it's it's not guaranteed. you don't have to do it, but the additional opportunity to

028raise or lower their rates by a maximum of 8%. So again, if we're talking the top 10 performers, um we're talking, you know, 10 to 15 schools, the bottom, uh 10 to 15 schools. Um but we really want to provide some sideboards so that you can understand what those maximums look like in the future, keeping in mind that almost everybody in the middle would just continue with the poolled average. And the reason we want to do that exactly for, you know, let's just say for two years running, um, Laurel has a credit, right? We're giving you money back. Rather than continue in that model, we would would want to lower your rates to get them where they need to be so we're not continually overcharging you and giving you credits back. >> The last question,

029who governs this? >> Excellent question. So, this is a membergoed organization. We will have 11 seats on our board of directors. To be considered for a seat on the board of directors, you have to be a representative of a participating school district. And all of our participating school districts will elect the board. So, we're not going to have construction executives or hospital executives or politicians on our board. It is purely governed by the participating school districts. So then I'm assuming it's all transparent that costs, overages, all of it's transparent. It >> is all transparent and and that includes the reporting that you're going to get back on a on a regular basis. Um your district will be able to lift under the hood like you've never been able to to see what's happening in a

030population health area, right? And and making sure that um that uh you know, HIPPA guidelines are are um are taken into account. But you'll be able to dig into what's happening with your claims and are there any outliers or are there programs within Bridge that we can utilize to create those healthier outcomes which we know lead to lower costs in the long term and that's something you simply don't get right now in terms of that level of reporting on a consistent basis. >> Anything else trust? Uh we do have it on as a discussion item later. So we discuss kind of what uh the committee talked about opinions. >> Okay. >> Thank you, John. We appreciate your time. >> Thank you all so much. This is a historic opportunity and we couldn't be more excited

031to deliver this for for public schools like Laurel. So thank you for having me and we appreciate your consideration. >> Thank you. Yes, Donnie. >> Can I just make one additional comment? There is currently a board that's governing the startup of this, but it will completely disband once it's up and running and the board he was talking about establishment. Okay. So we'll move on then next to the next presentation which is from our Laurel Intermediate School District or not district school uh admin >> my own district >> you are this it's a big building you pretty much own >> it is where do you want me to stand Deon >> just kind of come up a little bit here so so the AL can see you and pick you up >> coming up here um

032I just wanted to kind of get you in the loop. The start was great to the school year. I think that all the staff and students, we were all very, very, very excited to be in this building. The honeymoon phase hasn't really worn off yet. Like, we got some things going on, but um the goats have stopped coming over to eat the grass. Okay, they got the they got the stakes in and now we have a goat gate so we can go get our balls and if the goats do come over we can take them back with our leash Kevin cuz he's really good at that. >> He is the goat herder. Yes, I have a couple teachers that like to do it too. Um the educators have been amazing. Um and the staff I

033was we are very fortunate. Um, we combined staffs, but each grade level got a new staff member, too. So, it kind of shook it up a little bit. Super positive. I think everybody's I truly do think they're all happy to be here. I don't think it's just cuz I'm the principal. I think they might actually like it. Uh, Langless and all of the contractors have been amazing. I appreciate you guys so much. They're they communicate with us. They are doing the things. They fix things and move things and they've been really good to work with community's been awesome. We've done a lot of community stuff. Arbor Day. Um all of our other stuff. Now we're doing hometown troop stuff. It's Red Ribbon Week. If you want to see crazy, just come on in from 8

034to 4. We are all there. Um what else do I have here? Uh the one thing I did want to highlight is the we have really started to align the elementary K5. Uh Mrs. Fuches and I meet weekly. Well, sometimes it's bi-weekly because we get really really busy, but at least bi-weekly. We've been meeting trying to meet every week. Um our MBI standards, our behavioral standards, work habits, those are aligned in the report card across the board. Um before I know one, two was doing like 1 2 3 standardsbased like if we're teaching these behavior standards, we should be grading them. Are they at a one, a two, a three? We're not doing S andn. We're we really want these kids to learn what's happening. So that's K5 now. Um a lot of things are

035getting that way. So all of our dress up days and sure the parents appreciate that. I know on Facebook they didn't really like it when they were different before. So, and it's good for the It's good for the kids. It's good for us. And I'm going to turn it over. I do have a couple of other things. Gifted and talented is unique to our school. Uh fourth grade is going to start running. They're going to start doing the testing for that um starting this year. So, they just got trained on that. um fifth grade. One of my fifth grade teachers, Liz, she is starting a math extension group for our gifted because some of our kids have already been tested. So, they're already gifted. So, she's starting just starting a group there. Uh third, fourth,

036fifth have all started the win groups, the what I need. So, four days a week, they get put into groups and they just target those reading skills. The math will come only been in school like a month or something math. So to get all this going already is pretty incredible. The staff is pretty pretty amazing. And if if you watch the pictures, it's pretty fun because I have the teachers email me pictures and they do anyway cuz I like to put them on Facebook. But I love how many places the kids have been to learn. Like when you go in the classroom, there are times they're just sitting at their desk. But there's a lot of time spent with manipulatives and out, you know, in our learning areas and just it's it's been a fun

037community. Feels like a community here to me. Anyway, I'm going to let Darla is about to listen for >> I'm Darla Taurus. I'm one of the five fourth grade teachers here at Lis and um thank you for the privilege to to speak and I really appreciate uh I really appreciate you. I feel rejuvenated even though it may not look like I'm crying but I do. I'm 31 years and being here is so amazing. I really appreciate it. I think I speak for our whole group that not only the building, it's the aura, it's the you can put new paint on on anything. It's just it's the feeling of it here. It just makes me so proud to be a locomotive. Um I appreciate all our flex spaces, our communication, our our our say in decisions.

038I appreciate the positivity. And then you know what? We we're not here to just be right. We're getting it right. And and we have the leeway of doing that here. And it's so amazing. Uh we have incorporated last year at the end of the year, we had a different principal lined up. Um other things came up and you came in and she was so willing to see it through uh to to help us. our fourth grade. We really took a leap of faith and we're doing focused learning groups with all the fourth grade targeted. It's almost like win every moment of the day for all their reading and their math. They are getting what they need for shorter stints of time. And I'm just the math teacher. I'm not just a math teacher. I do

039other things, but I am just the math teacher. And I love it. I love that I'm focused. I'm better at it. So, who does that support? It supports all those kids. And that just makes me so excited. We do have work to do for sure. We always want to look at how we can make things better um through MBI. I know we have different levels and and we're kind of separate. We're not walking down the hallways together all the time. So, we're going to really make a conscious effort of incorporating third grade with fourth grade with fifth grade. And maybe in our our monthly train days and our celebrations, have third grade go up to fourth grade. be with those teachers and then fourth grade go up to fifth grade and fifth grade go to

040third grade. Um we have so much work that we can do but we're we have somebody here that's willing to try and and put it out there and rejuvenated teachers I think passes on to rejuvenated kids. We can we can be wrong but that's okay. We we can make mistakes and uh thank you again for your opportunity and to hear me cry right. Thank you. >> I have uh two daughters at this school and they love it. Not just because of the facility which they are in love with like the playground especially like they asking the first week they're like I love the playground. I'm like what about like the library? Oh yeah that's great too. you know, it's like they they are they're excited, I think, because the teachers are excited. They love their

041teachers and everything that's going on here. So, kudos to you for starting off with a being a new admin in a new building with new staff and a new way of doing things. It's like >> you've been doing awesome. >> Thank you. Any other board comments? >> Yeah. I'll also echo. I also have two kids here and one's in fourth grade and they do love changing the the subjects. That's really good. His other favorite thing is the microwave in the lunchroom. >> The microwaves are huge. >> That's awesome. >> Any uh questions or comments from the public audience here? >> Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for putting that together. That was great to to hear and see and feel in this in this space. It just feels awesome in here. So, we'll move on

042next then to our consent agenda. Do I have a motion? I I would like to make one comment. We don't have anything attached for personnel iron. >> Yeah. So if we have anybody >> is it on the other part of the >> everybody individualized like >> yeah there has regular actions >> that's right but we did actually get uh we did actually get a background check back today >> but at the time it wasn't >> okay that's right my My apologies. Any questions on that? I would take a motion. >> I make a motion to approve the consent agenda, noting that there is nothing under personal hiring. >> A motion to approve the consent agenda by Britney with the notation that there's nothing under action or item B of the consent agenda. Is there a

043second? >> Seconded by Jenny. Any other board discussion? Audience discussion hearing none. We'll move to vote on the motion by Britney to approve the consent agenda noting the exception with item B that there is nothing attached. Seconded by Jenny. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed. Motion carries. Move next then to our regular action items number A which is the graph fields project. There's an amendment there. So Matt, do you want to start or do we want to? >> Yeah, we can start. Go ahead, if you come up here at the same place. Um, one of the things that we we do is if if we have major amendments to the contract, we have to come back to the board uh to make sure that those those get done. So, some of

044the you'll see in there if you look at one of the the documents uh under that number one there's uh 200 about about $300,000 in amendments. So, uh you Alec will talk a little bit about where the money's coming from, but this is money uh that is actually been saved in this building. Uh is this money goes back into the kitty for the old pro all the projects we have. I don't remember how much is coming back in this building. Close to 200 grand or something like that, wasn't it? >> Yeah. So, aggregate between all the jobs that are closing out successfully delivered on time. So, they're good to go. Got minor items, we're looking at about 382,000 in total contingency get back for what's completed, >> right? So, that's so that contingency money that's

045coming back from South and from this building. the west pretty much ate it all up, but from south and this building is 382,000ish. >> So, uh that will actually pay for these amendments. So, we're not actually having to dive into uh you know that that that additional potential interest or whatever we have that we're talking about in the wish list fund. So, uh that's where this money will come from is is is these buildings that we're currently standing in. Most bulk of it will come from this building. Yes. Yes. And one item to clarify, even though that's below the items that we're the total aggregate amount we're saving. Legally, you need to close out facility based. So, we need to close those projects out and actually add this to graph. It's a net return overall,

046but just legally it does need to be added as an amendment specifically to graph. And then we'll deduct all the other savings off the other >> and that's why you're voting on the actual amendment. >> Yes. So if you wouldn't mind just talking a little bit about what those additional costs are that we ran into at Bradfield. >> Yeah. So soils are pretty bad there. A lot of unforeseen conditions. So the design team had a bulletin. This involved all kinds of stuff between ponding utilities site grading was fairly involved. Uh this was vetted thoroughly between the design team ve with contractor obviously a lot of involvement from the school district. We landed on a final design. that design is price as you see the top portion. So the majority of that is the poor soils

047um just the nature of the existing conditions. These are unforeseen. The contractor could not bid and neither could the design team find that before they put together their final design. Uh the next item there, the dump fee increase. This is a pretty standard. This is a municipality based fee. It's really hard to guess based on each municipality what those are going to be. So when you're bidding on a project, you see what the dump fees are currently. That's what you have in your bid. So that increase here in Laurel, that's another unforeseen. It's not fair to have the contractor beat that. That's our own municipality that we would need to pay for. Uh the other two items are fairly small. They're just ads there for uh sports events between the discus pads and rings. uh

048and that subtotal carries down to their profit overhead insurance all those uh there is contingency that went back uh the total contingency currently at graph is just over 170,000 so we still have that much to mitigate risk now we're out of the main risk between all the earth work that that's really the large portion of the risk on that nature of a project we most like they're not going to spend close to that, but we do have that additional 170,000 after having a net deduct from the other projects. So, overall, we're in great shape. >> I'd like to make a note though, and I like your confidence about not spending the money, but my ad will find a way to spend that extra money. So yeah, on that yeah, on that note, we're also going

049through a lot of wish list items and determining because obviously we want to spend as much bond money as we can by the end. It's it's better for you guys. It's the cheapest money you guys are going to have for a long time. So that's always our goal is to cut it at the end with wish list and get as close to that as as possible. >> So it's nice that you guys get a vote on this. That's wonderful. But uh this this is this is stuff we got to do. And just so you guys are aware, >> right? It's Yeah, it's this this work is a necessity for the success of the ground field to you would in essence have all the finishes, the turf on bad subgrade. It just you you need to

050get the the found the subgrade that needs to be tight. We added 12 in of gravel and road mix and for drainage >> and we just need to make sure that that field drains properly and we're not sitting in a swamp every time there's a rain over there waiting for it to dry out. That's why you're putting in turf to begin with as a board. It's >> a swamp. Well, I'm just telling you, >> we have a big rain anywhere even even in great places if they don't have I just was walk looked at an article the other day UCLA's practice facility beautiful football practice facility for in their football field but they don't have great drainage under this beautiful turf field and under a big rain it's just sitting in water and what's the

051point of having the turf field so we're going to make sure this is drained properly and process a little bit more, but we're going to try to do it right. >> Uh, I'll touch base quickly on progress considering the other three were successfully delivered. Obviously, minor items always happen. Uh, layless was fantastic as a contractor. Design team was great. Obviously, the owner fantastic, great team effort. Uh, graph is flowing the same way. Uh, great progress here. They're going to have all the concrete poured by the next week. They've got the utilities for concessions. They in essence should be done with the vast majority of the work by the end of the year other than the turf install. Now, that is a 50° and rising installation with the adhesive. So, rather than fighting with the manufacturer

052by torching them and install at the wrong time, we're going to mitigate our risk, install that in the spring. There's a second field that can be used, so no issues hitting those gates here in the spring. that turf is actually on order. I believe they'll receive it end of the year. So, bleachers are already in hand. Everything's looking good to go. We'll just be waiting for mother nature. >> You know, when they start putting down sod and that's officially started this >> should be this week. I mean, that's that's the goal and everything for now. So by the way major catastrophy any questions for audience questions great sounds pretty cut and dry I think I think so. And I've got these ready to go out on this over. >> So if there aren't any other

053questions, then I would entertain a motion on action item A. >> I move to approve the graph field amendments. >> Motion by Renee to approve action item A. Is there a second? >> I'll second. Seconded by Jenny. Any other board discussion? Audience discussion hearing? None. We'll move to vote on a motion by Renee to approve action item A, the extension of additional funds for the Graph Fields project. Seconded by Jenny. All in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? >> Motion carries. >> Great. Well, >> Thank you very much. Thanks. Thanks. >> Moving on to action item B, theou for certified member updated stipens list uh 2025. >> Yeah. So, what this was was during the negotiation process, and Peggy uh will jump in if I get any of this wrong. Um, we pay for

054every year a person's been in a particular uh stipen position like basketball coach or whatever, we get they get an additional 1% every year they're in that. And uh the way it it reads, we miss some stipened positions that we have been traditionally giving that 1% to. So this just corrects the error in the uh CBA and is the proper language that we are giving this 1% to these other positions that are that are named here. Um it's about as simple as that. um we just we just missed it and it was something that the the union probably wasn't uh totally aware of and uh we weren't totally aware of but it is something we have been doing and we want to continue to do that like we've been doing for our long-term coaches. This

055just fixes that wording and and we'll address it more formally when we do negotiations uh is there anything to add to that? Oh, you nailed it. >> Any other board discussion on that? Questions. >> So, we're fixing it. We're fixing the language to make sure I understand, but we're not going back to then correct the amounts like the actual money amounts. Yes, we will. So those individuals that were left off, their contracts will reflect the correct amount. The way it is written and the way it was uh done in payroll, they would have actually received a lesser stipen than they would have last year. Okay. So yes, we'll correct their their amount as well. >> Okay. There are no other comments. Well, I would entertain a motion on action item B. >> I move to

056approve theou for the third member um with the updated site list. >> Motion by Jenny to approve theou >> seconded by Britney. Any other discussion? Audience discussion hearing? None. will move to vote on the motion by Jenny to approve theou action item B seconded by Britney. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries. Action item C, policy revision, second reading policy 1700. Do I have a motion? I make a motion to approve the second reading of policy 1700 and policy 1700 F number one. >> So a motion to approve action item C as constituted. Do I have a second? Seconded by Donnie. Any other board discussion? Audience discussion hearing? None. will move to vote on the motion to approve action or action item C as constituted by Britney, seconded by

057Donnie. All in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Action item D, DPA approval recommendation. Do I have a motion? Kevin, do you want to talk what DPA stands for? >> Yeah. So, the DPA are digital privacy agreements. Uh, Montana Pop IPA uh it actually makes us have to have specific agreements with each um person that we give PII, student private um student protected data to uh to make sure that they're they're handling it up to our their standards basically. So, these are just ones that we we either had that were expired or that um this all happened back in 2017. So, they were usually 5year contract or started in 2017, went to 2019, kind of got pushed back, but um they all kind of started expiring again last year. So, or beginning

058of this year. So, we have been going through and making sure we had everything out today and we're confident. So, we've got quite a few that we've got here and we've also got more coming too. So, a lot of them we can actually just sign on if they have an agreement with um other school districts, which we wind up doing for a lot of them. But these ones we'll actually be signing on to so other school districts can sign on with us, which helps us. >> It's a pretty good We finally kind of got a good system. >> Any other questions on that? >> I do have a comment. >> Yeah. So number six just like Montana DTA. >> Oh yeah. >> We already have an >> extra one. >> An extra copy that got

059stuck in there. >> Are they one and the same? Six and one are the same looks like >> and there's so there's not a missing one then are we understand that correctly? >> I think I'll check and if we are next agenda too but that should be >> okay >> good catch. Thank you. I make a motion to approve the DPA approval recommendation um from 1 through 11 except crossing off six duplicate. >> I have a motion by Britney to approve all items under action item D with the exception of number six. Do I have a second? >> Seconded by Donnie. Any other discussion by the board? Audience discussion hearing none. We'll move to vote on the motion by Britney to approve action item D. All items accepting number six. Seconded by Donnie. All in

060favor say I. >> I. Any opposed. Motion carries. Action item E, personnel hiring background check. not pending background check. We got it back today. So action item B does not need to include that verbage. Just to be clear, >> I move to approve personnel hiring of the middle school secretary. >> Have a motion to approve the employee under action item E middle school secretary. Do I by Renee? Do I have a second? >> Seconded by Kayla. Any other discussion by the board, the audience? Hearing none, we'll move to vote on the motion to approve action item B, the middle school secretary hire by Renee, seconded by >> Britney, >> Kayla, >> I know you would I know you would say that. I know. I know. But Kayla, she did. She got it. She's rocking it.

061by Kayla. >> Any other audience discussion or board discussion? >> Audience discussion. I'll just redo the whole thing. So, we have that motion to approve actionable secretary by day seconded by Kayla. All in favor say I. I. >> Thank you. Motion carries. With with that in mind too, uh, Miss Laura Thomas is here. We'd like to introduce you if that's okay. >> So, if you wouldn't mind, please go ahead and stand up for a moment. >> All right. >> Laura will be joining us as the new middle school secretary, and she's already bringing her strong ties to the Laurel community with her. Once she steps into her role, which is tomorrow, she'll help keep the office running like a welltuned instrument, something she knows plenty about. A talented musician and songwriter since the age of

06212, Laurel will bring creativity and rhythm to everything she does. Fun fact, her father is a biochemist, which technically makes her the daughter of a scientist. So, she's got both the artistic flare and the analytical mind to handle whatever middle school life throws her way. We're excited to welcome Lauren to the team where her music, creativity, and local pride will soon be part of our everyday harmony in Laurel Middle School. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you. >> Welcome. Thanks for hanging out with all those middle school kids. They >> That's great. >> It's a pleasure. >> Oh, that's nice. >> All right, we'll move on then to action item F. And just to clarify, this is because um this person was already motioned and approved, but uh Jenny did not abstain. And so

063we're going to just reertify that hire now. just to give some clarification for why it's back on the agenda. So with that action item F, I would entertain the motion. >> I move to approve the hiring of K. Bellamy on the sub list. Correct. >> Sub list. Correct. So a motion by Renee to approve action item after the reertification of iron and K val. Do I have a second? Second. >> Second by Donnie. Do we have any other discussion by the board? >> Audience discussion. Hearing none, we'll move to vote on the motion by Renee to approve action item F, the reertification of the hiring of Dave Bellamy to the sublist. Seconded by Donnie. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Please note that Jenny abstain. >> Yes, please. Please notice

064she did not move her head. She looked away. >> She dumped her head. >> She's fine. >> She abstained. Motion carried. Thank you. Action item G. Assistant high school baseball coach John Canab. Do I have a motion? >> I make a motion to approve the assistant high school baseball coach of John Canab. Have a motion by Britney to approve the assistant high school baseball coach John Canab. Do I have a second? >> I will second. >> Seconded by Jenny. Any other board discussion? Audience discussion hearing? None. We'll move to vote on the action by the motion by Britney to approve action item G. The assistant high school baseball coach John Kab. Seconded by Jenny. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Action item H. Resolution regarding obsolete, undesirable, and unsuitable

065for school purposes. Do I have a motion? I make a motion to approve the list as presented regarding obsolete, undesirable, and unsuitable for school purposes. >> Do we do you want do we have to add all that other stuff in that date, too? >> I don't know. Do we have to say that? >> I guess I can add I apologize. Can I back up really quick? Yes, >> because you do have two public comment cards. >> Oh, certainly. >> Baseball. Would the individuals like to comment publicly? I did call and if you did want to still comment. >> Matt Craig. >> I don't Matt. Um, yeah. Thanks. I appreciate you guys getting John back on board with us. is a really good coach and it's harder and harder to find good coaches lately. It's getting

066tough. Um, he knows baseball, really knows it, and he loves coaching the kids. Um, I saw the growth that our pitchers and catchers made last year and made a huge difference with our program. Um, so I appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you. So returning to action item H. Do you do you want us to include that verbiage at the bottom, Julie, of the recommendation, the specific verbiage about on that recommendation? Should it be included? I make a motion to approve the um recommendation as noted on action item Herald. >> All right. I'll motion by Renee to approve the resolution regarding obsolete, undesirable, and unsuitable for school purposes as constituted in the recommendation. Do I have a second? >> Seconded by Jenny. Any other board discussion? Audience discussion? We do advertise this. We don't advertise

067all the pages. Julie's got it set up already to have like a >> QR code so people can go and look at anything, but you used to have to print all it and print all of your disposal list, but that's a lot of money. So, we do a QR code. They can go and look at the whole list. >> So, uh we do have a motion. Any discussion further audience discussion hearing? None. We'll move to vote on action item H. The motion by Renee to approve as constituted in the recommendation seconded by Jenny. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Action item I. High school library books for purchase. Do I have a motion? I will move to approve the high school library book list for purchase. >> A motion

068to approve the high school library books for purchase by >> Jenny. Thank you. Do I have a second? >> Seconded by Renee. Any board discussion? I have one item on discussion I'd like to bring up and that would be that I have noticed and I don't know if the rest of the board has noticed and I could be wrong but there's an awful lot of fiction going into the library not a lot of reference or um other non-fiction type books going in and so I would like to have a discussion with the board about their feelings on that specific specific thing um because I feel like we're becoming more and more like a public library and less like a reference library that belongs in a school. So, I just wanted that discussion. How do we

069as like to prompt the discussion of that? >> You want to discuss it now? >> Yes, please. Yeah, it's part of the motion. >> It's part of the discussion of the side. >> Okay. Yeah. I guess I never thought of that in that terms like that, but thank you for bringing it up. Um with the prevalence of the internet is do we need print? Do we need so much print nonfiction? >> Right. Non-reference non-fiction. >> Yeah. Well, I know they have pretty extensive online resources they get through the live like they're not just you can Google these resources. They're databases that >> you're available to us, right? >> Available to us through the school. So, that would be my take on that as well like through the internet and what the kids are reading, right?

070Like we want them to read they're reading them, you know? Does that make sense? Would that go into like true history? What do you mean actual like history books? I mean just that way include those too. I mean I know we haven't referenced but we actually reference history books of certain events. >> I personally think that some non-fiction books because I had read a non-fiction book this past summer. I think most of them are pretty gruesome. So most of them were approved by the school just based on the content that's in there. You're you're correct. I think you're right. Um to a degree. Um it's still though we still have to >> watch those things. Um some of that uh is true. Um >> but our policy has a has an exclusion. >> I was

071just going to say there's an exclusion for that. >> History isn't always wonderful. when >> you're not hiding, we don't want to hide history or like the course of World War II for example, right? And historically accurate reference book or something other work of non-fiction that that would be acceptable under the protocol. Yeah, Chase, >> I think on the topic of more non-fiction or sorry more fiction books than non-fiction books, um with non-fiction, the uh how do I say it? the science, say it's a science non-fiction book, that changes as it happens. So you you purchase a non-fiction book and next thing you know, we're on to the next breakthrough or the next subject. So it's almost easier, especially with these databases that are paid for um to have those resources online. And the students

072use the library um as a place to go for material that isn't required in their schooling. And I think it's important to keep that specific non-fiction section or that fiction section because they go there for that. They often times aren't there for the non-fiction because they are told like use these databases, use the internet cuz that's where you're going to get your most up-to-date current resources. And so I don't really see an issue with there being more fiction than non-fiction going into the library, especially now in a time where everything is accessible online anyway. Um, and we also have the online uh Sora that we share, the Montana shared uh Sora library. Um, so a lot of the non-fiction books go through there anyway. Um, and I think a district like we have with onetoone

073devices in the high school, every student has equal access to that. Um, and so I don't really think it's a big deal that we have more fiction than non-fiction going to the library. And I and I I understand where Chase is coming from, but I mean autobiographies and stuff like that. There's just something to say about reading it from the book. >> Yeah. >> I don't know what it is. The smell, but I'm a book reader. I love it. I would rather have a book than But I don't know something in regards to those items, too. But at the same time, to his point is how many of these books do we have in the library that have never been checked out and we continually keep buying? So, I know that we've asked our librarians

074of where we're at with how many we've bought books 10 years ago and they've been maybe checked out once in the last 10 years. So, are we continuing to purchase those types of books that are not being checked out or were popular that year and no longer popular? >> Frankly, the non-fiction might be the ones that aren't checked out. So, that might be also the strategy. I can't speak for the strategy. business, right? >> Well, that's why I would draw a counter to Chase's argument, which is the references are available readily online, as are the fiction books. >> Well, what's easier >> and bad available through the library alone? >> Deal. >> Um, so that's really my question is is the library space and its use being effectively um used toward education or are we

075trying to create a public library, >> you know, which this is not about a library to be clear, right? So, it's it has a different intent and purpose. >> The only thing I would say to that is that once these fiction books are written, they're not changing constantly like these non-fiction ones are. Um especially um books. Again, our library is supposed to be um informational, but also a place where the students can go to find material that they would like to read. Um, and I think being in a school like they're always being given this material that they need to read anyway and would rather go for that fiction material. Um, which I think is important because whether they're reading fiction or non-fiction, it's important that they are reading and I think having both types

076available is most important for the students. >> No, those are fair points. >> Yeah, Don, go ahead. Um, with non-fiction books like you can actually use like computers are very good for that because you scroll up and you can search for specific things instead of for books with with fiction books you want to do from cover to cover right so to me that makes more sense with tables are great but a page and not fast enough. My question too is how can we provide these these fiction books as a digital resource versus a um even fiction books. >> Oh yeah. >> So that that's just a question I have is >> how how can that this space be utilized? I I maybe this is coming up from me too just because we've been talking about

077the um high school bonding and how where does where do these things fit in a modern school. You know when I was in school back in my day the internet didn't exist. Well >> exactly >> kind of well it didn't espe when I was in elementary school the internet literally didn't exist. Um and so the the the library was our window to the world. Here's your window of the world, right? So, are we thinking about libraries the right way as a resource to students for the greatest good? Should they be more digital versus more paper? Should they be more, you know, should you be able to go and pluck out a fiction book or a non-fiction book sort of like that? You know, should we have to go through this ordering and buying process like

078we do now? That's really what I'm wondering. >> I think there should always be a library. We should always have that space available to the kids, >> right? >> But to the extent, >> what does it look like? That's kind of >> Yeah, that's a great >> Yeah, >> a great >> Well, I think our kids model that too, right? Like if a I don't specifically know the job description, but if you know your students, you're ordering books that they're hopefully going to be reading, right? Like I don't think librarians are trying to waste our money. And so, and then I just think of all the literacy stuff we've done the last however long. And like literacy is being able to read and comprehend what you're reading and then communicate it. And people are reading

079fiction novels and then summarizing them and giving presentations on them. That's literacy. And that and so getting them interested in it is the biggest battle as educators, I think. And if they can find something they like and they're interested in and they're reading and understanding it and excited about it and then they read the whole series, that's the point in my opinion. >> And it's as an educator, it was rare to see that excitement and then when they found it, it's really exciting. So I think fiction's good. >> Oh my my daughter's true books. Our whole house does at an alarming rate. like >> it's a it's a struggle to keep up to the point where even at our house we're switching to more digital because like the library is like filling up an entire

080room now and that's probably not good just from a space perspective. So I'm even thinking about this at my own house. How do we how do we use the space better? How do we make these things accessible more readily? How do we merge that this into the 21st century? And what does a digital library and a physical library look like? Yeah, Devon. Um, so when I was at Kos, we toured a bunch of schools and in Washington and one of the things that they had in their library was extremely jealous of is good maker space too. They had a place where they can students projects printing things. We have like a small one and it's awesome. I love it. Um but that would also be one way that we could look at improving that space

081is space adding machines like posters but uh signing or cutting machines things that can be done in a clean space like that you can't do in a normal trade shop um printers printers and awesome way to see our library space bro >> they're awesome I love We we were actually in the library. So >> you have your 3D print. >> I know I got my box. He doesn't know this yet, but this is coming home with me. >> Um, so that that's what I just wanted to bring up. And I think it probably we need more discussion as a maybe a separate discussion item on a future board agenda about some of that direction and get input from our librarians on that too of how if we're going to be approaching a new, you know,

082way of thinking about career technical education in our district and and maybe reimagining the high school pretty broadly as far as how it's laid out and how it functions and where people go every day and all uh that this is a big relevant piece of that discussion so that it we can make it really relevant and in good in a good space for the students. It's kind of my thought behind bringing it up during this discussion. Since since we're bringing up stuff about book lists, um, one of the things that uh I think needs to be thought about, I don't know how the board wants to handle it or if they want to handle it, but as we uh, you know, as as the book list goes up through it's it's we have librarians that

083suggest book lists and then goes to the principal, the principal may or may not delete something off there, sends it to me, I may or may not delete something off before it gets to the board. uh and the board may or may not delete something off there when they agree to purchase it. Um, one of the things we've never really talked about was let's say let's say there's I delete off a couple books or the board does. Is there a is there a a method or a system by which a a librarian or principal or superintendent could could come back to the board without just putting them on another list and going for it again. Um specifically come in and say these are two books that I really like that I think we should have

084in our library. Um and then have a have an open discussion as to why the board obviously doesn't have to. they can say, "No, we just don't want it." That's the way the world works. But there may be good reason why I approved them or maybe good reason why the librarian wanted them or the principal wanted them. Um, and I'm not sure we really have ever really talked about that, bringing something back and maybe that why. And again, board's not obligated to do that, but um, just something to think about. What does that process look like? Does it come back as an action item? Does it come back for discussion or I don't know I don't know >> I think that probably has to be its own agenda item on another I mean that isn't

085covered under this agenda item I mean I think we should can discuss that maybe it needs to be added to the policy a time frame at which a book can be represented to the board that's been I mean I think as far be before it comes to the board that's a whole other discussion because that's an admin administrative process where they can have a discussion with you on why you pulled that book or why the principal pulled that book that we wouldn't necessarily ever know about. >> Right. We line items up. We >> I think as far as the board action on that, it needs to be a probably a discussion at the board level and it would be a change to policy if we want to put a time limit in there or how

086that process works. So, I'm not opposed to it being on the agenda, but I don't think it falls under this agenda. I know. Fair enough that that as a future discussion discussion great good discussion I think it was good and just get your mind thinking about that because it's going to be coming up more and more as we move into this bonding process I think so any other board discussion on that we do have a motion and a second audience discussion Miss Warren. >> Um, so with the motion, I'm a little confused and I I question Mr. Tors today. So the recommended is recommended the board approve the books as presented, but the books as presented tonight are different than was presented two weeks ago. So, that's the part that concerns me, I guess, because

087in the recommendation rationale, I think that needs to be part of the motion as to why they're being removed. I This shouldn't change from two weeks ago to tonight. >> Well, it can because it was anformational item last time and it's an action item tonight. So, we are only taking action on the list that was provided to us on this agenda which is provided. So that's what we're taking action on. We didn't take any action last. It was onlyformational. So we don't >> but we didn't that was give us any information as to why they I mean >> in a mo I mean you have the right to remove them in a motion and and we had presented the list to our principal. She did take some off. So we didn't present those Mr. Tors.

088And so they had a chance to be removed three times and now they have a chance to be removed through the vote, >> which I think is what he's bringing up with the next that we would discuss how you would find out why, >> but we can't >> because and we've we've tried really hard to make sure they meet policy and for you guys to just say, "No, I don't want this book," >> even though it meets policy, does not help us. >> Well, I think you can talk to Mr. quer about that if they're not on this list because that's his prerogative to remove the four books that were on wasn't ours purchased >> the two yes and thank you we have so many list going because it takes us forever now this book

089was this list was submitted on September 1 so we are taking forever that's another question with your non-fiction and I think that students because they do change so frequently that we're going to have to purchase faster than we're doing now to keep up um with the non-fiction Um, but that is it's something we look at every time, too. But no, the other two that had already been rejected, that's his question, too. And I and I sent you guys an email way back in July. I I hope some of you read the book to see the two that they do meet policy. I mean, I gave you three over three months to read them. And so that that's our frustration. They may meet policy in every way, shape, and form. You're just using your personal bias

090and personal beliefs to say no to them. So I guess that's our our frustration is we pick them regarding policy but I don't know each of your personal beliefs and opinions. >> So that >> ultimately it's the board's decision. I mean it's the board's decision by law >> policy. I do. >> Yes you do. You have to follow district >> but you're not following policy. >> Well that's your opinion. No, you're you're not because you didn't follow to present the same list and you did not. >> Every book that was on the list last time is on this list, is it not? No, >> it's not. Not every book, but every book that's on this list was on the list before. Correct? >> Yes, but with some reduction. >> And that's >> So, is it

091not incorrect to state that for every agenda, the board, board chair, and superintendent go through what's on the agenda items? Correct. That's correct. So you you can set the agenda as board chair. >> I do >> including this recommendation in this book list. >> I do. >> So that is policy. >> That is the policy. >> This particular this particular list was selected by the board chair. >> Correct. >> And it is our duty as the board to >> the list was picked by the recommendation of the superintendent. >> Right. The recommendation came from the superintendent and in our meeting we confirmed that the agenda is correct. Yeah. I don't I'm not like every jot and tit saying no no no dank this off don't do this right we it's a collaborative effort and Matt

092is generally the one presenting all of the do the documents >> I think the best way to this I guess that was my question earlier was if we're going to present two books I said we don't need to bring we've already purchased them we're purchasing maybe additional copies once they're approved they're approved the other two I I took off because they had not been approved back in like April Correct. >> So, so if they they if we want to relook at those books, then I think they need to be on a different action item or a different discussion item and not put back into a list. And that's not I don't think Lory's trying to sneak anything by the board. That's not what she wants to do. She's open about the books being back on

093the list. I just feel like they they need to come back to the list. They need to come back. We can do it this way if that's what the board wants. We can make an asterisk saying that these books were already presented and rejected. So that automatically alerts everybody to that there'll be more of a discussion. Be prepared for that. Or we do them separate as a whole separate action time. Doesn't matter as long as it's easy to monitor and easy to uh keep track of because I I don't always go back and look at the what books have already been approved and not approved, right? That that's a process. So, however you guys want to do it is fine with me as long as >> I have some consistency. >> Yeah, I think that

094would add some good consistency if it was sort of asterisk as a returned book as far as >> previously. I'd like this to we're going to bring this back up as a as an agenda item >> as something to be revisited. >> Miss Hodes is asking for a why though so that they can understand why. Do we state that what concerns there were to the book or and and what >> well I think in a separate if we separated those out so they would come as an information item asterisk as these were already presented then we would know that there's going to be a separate action item for those on the next agenda and then we would come prepared for to reiterate why we didn't want them in the first place and then the board

095the the board could act on them that would give a forum for the librarian to discuss the book. Um, so I think I I think that's a good I like that. But yeah, Britney, >> so if any one action item is not voted on, it's denied. Do we express why we've always denied it? >> No. I mean, it could be a person. It could be. In fact, I would tell you not to discuss uh in certain situations, you should not discuss like personnel. So, no, I'm just saying if there was any action item, any topic of an action and the board talks about it or has it as anformational item and is able to review it and then comes and it's voted on and it's turned down and it's denied. Is it then pulled to

096the to everybody that this is why we denied it or is it that the board's decision to make an approval or a denial and that's it? I'm just making sure that we're following how we we do it in other instances. >> This is a fairly new policy. I'm new obviously. So, this is new to the this board >> in general, right? So, we kind of created it as we've gone more >> a little bit and maybe followed up districts or whatever. But >> I think I think a good relationship is great. Clarity is great if we can help her do her job by saying like there were reasons we found probably even written down we can just communicate like communication can be opened I think about >> but we've given that answer Kayla and you

097said it's against policy and it's not good enough. >> So but like a policy is a big is a big statement like I've read the policy and it's like okay that's a lot of a lot of things. So which one are you communicating here? I think to me it seems like it's we don't we don't have to fight this hard. We can just be communicative. >> Well, and I think that the other point of this is these books were pulled off. I mean, these books were pulled off. This is a recommendation from the superintendent to the board. >> And so, anything that's pulled off before it comes to us is a discussion with Matt, not a discussion here. So any questions about why the four were pulled off is a discussion with Matt. If there

098if there's something here that's that we decide not to, you can always have public comment. We can choose to comment or not as a board and we do that on every item that we vote on. Sometimes we have public stand up and comment. Sometimes there's something to respond. Other times we never respond for whatever reason that is. And so whatever that is, the decision is of this board and so that has to be respected in the end as well. >> That's fair. Um and and to the point it's not and I I mentioned this I think today in you Lori too was it's not a first reading second reading situation where there's a there's a continuity that has to be adhered to since it comes as an information item that's subject to change. It's also

099subject to never coming back to the board. So because it's not it was there's no expectation um of it because it was not set as an action item per se in the first presentation. >> So I think our understanding of the policy was Mr. reports had the right to not put them on the list the first time because it states and we read the policy the steps us principal superintendent the board and he did remove any that first time so we don't feel the militia changed and that's where that's where it changes the vote so let's say board member A makes the motion um I approve the the list as except for title blank and blank for this reason and then the seven of you get to vote. But for one person, especially a board

100member to email Mr. Taurus and say, "I take off shadow and take off." They didn't get a chance to go to a vault to the seven. >> Well, he could always send it to us. >> That's Mr. Torx always has the ability to send it. If if we send something a concern about any item and he still wants it on the agenda as that way, then it's up to Chris because Chris manages the agenda. So Chris could say, "No, we're not going to look at that. I mean, we're just not going to look at that whole agenda item, but it's always within Mr. Torx's purview to send what he wants to be approved to this board." Right? So that can change because it's if we haven't it's not like we had a first reading of

101a policy that now the second reading has changed then we'd have to go back and have a first reading again and then have a second reading. It's anformational item that item can change. I mean as long as we're not if we were adding books to this list then we would had to have it as anformational item again this and then move to an action item next meeting. Things can fall off that list. they just can't be added to that list and that's a discussion then with Mr. Torrance that has nothing to do with this board. >> I would also add too that if the if the for for example if it they had come and a board member decided they would like to include in their motion the exclusion they don't have to provide a

102reason why they're excluding it >> and that we understand okay >> but that's where we think it should have come as a vote because like I said board member A said with the exception of this in this book Then the seven of you get to vote. And five of you might say, "No, I don't agree with that. So I'm voting no to that very new motion." >> It's Matt's list, though. It's not your list. It's not our list. It's Matt's list. So if Matt takes the books off, we have no action to take on it. >> Then we need to look at the complicated policy that Miss Gray was saying because in our when we when we looked at this this week in high and low, it states the first time for information. I don't

103think once it's once it's your information, I don't think that list should change because it was presented and now said somebody has the power to take off books and change it for you. It's Matt's list. Matt can do whatever he wants. >> We'll go ahead and we'll we're going to revisit this. I think >> I got his own discussion. >> Yeah, I think it bears merit to revisit and one thing that we need to be careful is that is this procedural or is this a policy that needs to change? To me, a lot of the discussion seems surrounded in procedural and not so much that the policy needs to change. That's just at first blush. So, I do think it needs to be revisited. I think um there have been good points made um by

104massages and by the comments of the trustees. So, we'll revisit it. Um it's a little more complex than I think we can probably address in the evening tonight. Um but I do think it should be reviewed again. So, Great. Well, we do have a motion on the table. I believe that was by Jenny. Tell you who it was and seconded by Renee. >> So, thank you so much for that. I can't believe I remembered that. Do we have any other board discussion? Audience discussion. Hearing none, we'll move to vote on the action. Item H, the motion by Jenny to approve high school books for purchase. Seconded by Renee. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Motion carries. We'll move on now to section seven, the superintendence report. Please stop me if

105you have anything you'd like to discuss further. A resignations. Moving on to section eight, information items, curriculum, story shares, books, short, storyshares, book synopsis. These are the ones that were on there last time. We didn't have the synopsis on there, but uh that was just didn't attach it properly, but it is on there. These are those ones if you remember right where the lower higher higher uh interest level for older kids lower >> en roman for October 2025 >> those are frankly scary numbers I'm just going to tell you ahead >> yes I'd like to just talk for a minute about the scary numbers um I'm wondering just in the decline and if we've pondered reasons for these numbers um and if there's anything we can do to try to I know in 20 you

106know we were the largest class A district in the state. I'm not sure if we still are. Um the I think so >> informed on that. But I guess when I look at this, it it it is concerning because of how it's tied in with funding too. And I don't know if >> well we thought about the reasons for why this has happened. >> Isn't this the first full year of school choice where the money follows the student? Now it's >> true. And second of all, I know that our high school and I'm going to use high school because I know that we've asked the high school multiple times asking when a student decides to transfer either transfer, you know, homeschool, transfer to a different school, or simply drop out, are we asking to at

107least have some idea of what they're doing? and I wish she was here tonight. Um because I know and I believe and I might be wrong, but I believe they were trying to track that a little bit better so that we could answer some of those tough questions. But I also have a firm belief it's a school choice. We now have parents who firmly believe they can pick where they want their student to go. >> The bulk of our high school students are going online. The bulk of who we're losing at the high school is going online. One of the things that uh in fact I have a meeting uh can this week or next week with a school who's just starting up a program. Uh they're actually in Washington and we we work with

108them as a sister school on some things work with their administration to help our administration out and uh they are about a year year and a half ahead of us. We're trying to figure out how we can offer some of these online programs kind of like what we were talking about through the charter school applications. How can we offer those things without being a chart official charter school? So, I'm working with uh Edenum uh as an example. Uh they're willing to put off our bill. Well, it's $2,500 per kid for unlimited amount of classes for them to take per year. They have there's a teacher on the other end of that. They have some counseling services. They work with us. We register the kid. They work from home. Uh they might be going half day

109to school, half day at home, but they would still be our student. We pay for that program. Um but for us to pay for that, we really need to have additional kids, not kids who are currently going to school here and then want to go online. Not that we don't want them to be a part of it, but I got to get more A&B money so I can afford this. They're willing they're willing to not charge me a dime for a program that starts next fall or even this after Christmas. They're willing not to charge me a dime until July of 2027. Um but then that's when the big the big uh bill comes due, you know, and they've told us if you have about 25 or 30 kids per year, the bill is going

110to come out to be like 185 grand. That'll be due in July of 2027. But I have to be able to give more kids and up those numbers. So chicken, do we have to have the program? Do I have to sign my name on the dotted line and commit to this bill and then start collecting kids or what? So we're meeting with the school from Washington and uh they spent last year trying to recruit kids. the same problem we're having trying to recruit kids um into this program and bring kids who are out of district back or dropouts back or homeschooled back or doing stuff online back and uh we can actually do this all the way down to kindergarten if we want to with this program. They're doing it I believe just middle school

111high school right now but they're looking to go back to kindergarten too if they need it. So, if a parent gets frustrated or their kid has issues and they want to take a third grader out, we still have options for them. They don't have to truly go to homeschool. They just go to online. There's a teacher on the other end. There's interactions. There's tutoring. There's all those types of things. So, that being said, we're we need to start recruiting and seeing if we can get enough kids and make the numbers work. Um, you know, that bill coming due in in a year and a half sounds like it's out there a long ways, but it's it's a bill we have to be able to pay by having increased A and B numbers. So, it's not

112something we're ignoring or something we're just kind of trying to figure out. Um, I agree. Have we been looking at? The answer is yes. We've been freaking out about at least I have since uh at least the last couple years. That's why we tried doing what we're doing so we get some funding. So, it wasn't going to be a big uh gamble with the u the charter school application, but we I even forgot about it. And we're meeting with their admin team to find out just what they did to recruit and how successful was it and how they started the program and who they doing the program with and all that. So, I got the middle school principles counselors, high school principles. We're going to have that meeting. So, we're we're we're it's scary. It's

113we're scared to death about it, but we're seeing again not something I like, but we're seeing very similar percentages all across the state and uh and we're trying to do something in Laurel. Maybe other people aren't going to do what we're going to try. >> Would not giving up. Would the sort of preempt to go and get this program contribute to our case with the state court charter? Do you think >> I think 100%. We can show that we have yes 100%. I think that's >> destiny in place. >> I think if we can show that we are doing this and we would like to expand it then I think we have a much better argument for that. That's kind of plan B on that charter school is if I think we can get this

114done then a year from now we can look back and say we're doing this but we need more help. We need we got these we have a demand but we need more help. we need that >> Charlotte during our application for that >> wasn't that one of the things because we didn't already have something in place >> and that was one of the kind of the negative markings that we received off not like bad but it was >> well it was uh >> yeah that and they also said that what we presented sounded like what we could do already without their money >> which is true if we have the starter money if I have that $250,000 just sitting there and I year mark for for this project then we could get started and their

115willingness to put it off till 2027 it's helpful >> is helpful but when that bill comes due I have to have enough A and B numbers increasing that I know I'm going to have a be funded at a higher level than what I currently have and I can't do that minus 39 over K through 12 >> but we could potentially talk about the contingency of the admin building Hopefully by then it's selling. Yep. >> And using some of that as a funding source to back fill. >> We talked about that when you were the chair. We talked about using the so if we sell you know that building for you know $500,000 or some number that gives us the seed money. Uh and then we can then we could do this for a year and

116find out at least we're not going to be in the hole. We'll have that money. Uh, we also, uh, I mean, not that I ever want to use multi-dist stuff, but we have some money sitting in the multi-dist. It's a gamble. Um, and and do you roll that dice and and and lose? And I it's not in my personality to, you know, I don't go to Vegas and gamble and then I'm happy about losing. I don't like that. And um I don't like to play with this district's money like that. I I just have to feel like I'm going to win this. Um, and and So that's why I get a little hesitant. I want to measure twice, cut once, I want to measure 40 times, and cut once. I mean, I'm just not ready

117to pull the trigger on something. Charlie, did you have something? >> I have two things. So, um, I agree with all of that in the conversation about what we're doing for the high school, but we also lost quite a few kids at the elementary level. um that that class went from 134 kids down to 128 in second grade. So that was a smaller class coming in from first 113 down to 108. So I mean they both went down, but what are we doing at the elementary level to ensure that our class sizes are small, that we we have more and more kids coming in with fewer and fewer skills. Um, and so interventionists, you know, that that instructional piece at the elementary level, I think hinders our members. I think parents sometimes look at the

118behaviors or the lack of intervention or support academically at the elementary level and think maybe I can do it better or what other programs are out there for me. So, I think that there's another side of the conversation that we don't tap into very regularly, which is at the elementary level. um not all 39 of our losses were at the high school level. We're losing kids at the elementary level, too. Um the second thing I question the Kinder Boost number up there uh at 22 because we get a half of an A and B for each of those kids which would indicate that we have 44 kids in Kinder Boost and I know that's not the case. So, so I think that that is probably 11. Um, full FTE or full A and B, not

11922. Um, because we just get the half and the the 14 and 1/2 and 15 are what I'm typically used to seeing up there. So, I just wanted to point that out. I don't have any answers as far as what to do at the elementary level other than we got to keep class sizes small and we've got to do everything that we possibly can to have high quality intervention support. And I'm looking at numbers of like I think one of our title teachers last year had well over 50 kids that met criteria for title services in literacy alone in one grade level. And then that one teacher is trying to service support for three grade levels or two grade levels for literacy and now math. And it they just can't do it. the capacity of

120one individual, it's ridiculous to think that they have the capacity to to service on that. So, I think everything that we possibly can do to help support that. And then I look at the teachers that we get at the elementary level, um almost every single new hire that we have at the elementary level this year is brand new right out of college or under an emergency authorization or an alternative lensure. And we have nobody to help them. Well, let me take that back. We have minimal support to help them. Uh principles can only do so much and they are going 100 miles an hour from the minute they step foot in their buildings to the minute that they leave at the end of the day. And um yeah, I just feel like that there's a

121whole elementary conversation up there with those numbers as well as what we're trying to do at the back end. But if we don't frontload the work and get a solid start, then we're constantly playing catch-up. And then we have kids who are disengaged by the time that they hit nth grade. They don't want to be in school. They're looking for alternative options. Then we have attendance and behavior issues. And it just snowballs from there. >> And the alternative options were really prevalent. They were hard. They're more expensive. Right now, that's one thing CO did do is it it it pushed that whole entire industry uh to the to innovate quite a bit which has helped parent choices which has helped u I mean so I think those are all factors I don't think it's any

122one thing but I do think it's a lot of things put together we're seeing more social and emotional issues with kids uh sharing your head we're seeing more things um in the last probably five years than I've ever seen in my entire life all put together. Um, and it's not just Laurel. We're it's we're seeing these problems. We're talking about it nationwide. It is it is absolutely overwhelming the social emotional issues we're seeing. I mean, I have all my own theories, but we don't need to talk about them here. >> Um, just in looking at the numbers, I wondered um I see, you know, the negative on kindergarten. Is that possibly because some of those kids fell into the Kinder Boost program? >> No. So, Kinder Boost is prior to kindergarten and so those Kinder

123Boost kids are before the age five. >> So, that's like a not it's not preschool but similar to um but yeah, our kindergarten numbers are are way down this year. Um, Kinder Boost, our numbers are down and I know, uh, Mrs. Fuches has done three screenings. She did two this fall and we usually do one in the spring and then one in the fall and she's done two this fall to try to get those numbers up. Um, I really don't know why the kindergarten numbers are down. Um, except for the fact that Montana doesn't require kindergarten. It's not a required grade for students. And so, um, socially and emotionally, the development of our kindergarten kids is coming in where a lot of kids don't have basic number sense, basic alphabet knowledge. And so, we're doing

124a lot of the stuff in kindergarten that a lot of kids used to come in with that skill set. I mean, their skill sets are much lower. We're seeing now that we've gone there was one year where we had two interventionists over at West Elementary and we also had instructional coaches at that same time and our title numbers went way down and now we're starting to see it go right back up because we don't have the support in the academic interventions and then the classroom teacher has content that they're trying to get through. I mean that's my personal experience and I look at the data and the data matches it. >> Yeah. Um >> we we had we had eser money. We're supplying the interventionists through ESR money. >> That ran out obviously. We had

125the literacy grant. We're supplying our coaches through literacy grant. All very effective programs. >> Yeah. >> The manpower was there. >> The manower was there. >> And there were two interventionists and they and those positions had to be drawer money. >> Yep. So we had we had the second interventionist and that was paid for out of Esser money and we had a full-time title teacher. Well, yeah, full-time title teacher and the interventionist. So we had two people in there and one was paid for out of Esser and so that one dropped and at the same time that we had those two, we had Katie Thompson as our elementary coach. So she was working with them as well. Um just I'm very directly working with them every day. So now you go down from three people

126directly involved with kids down to one and then the skill sets also being exacerbated with not having those skills coming in collectively as a group. So the differentiation in the classroom gets really spread out and there's just not enough people to go around. There's I mean you can like one title teacher can only run so many groups a day and so I mean the conversation even around curriculum is changing where it's not just here's your core curriculum go teach this it's here's your core curriculum and you're expected to do small group rotations in core in regular classroom as well as do some small groupoup intervention tier 2 type of stuff but in tier one in your core classroom. So get that all done. >> Oh, don't don't forget we should be extending for GT. >>

127Yes. Yes. At the same time. So I mean our teachers do an amazing job with their win schedules and their intervention times and they are using all the skills that we've taught over the last six years with the the literacy grant, but we are running very thin on just the staffing to be able to deliver on any of it. And then class sizes are going up and the numbers are going down which is tied to the funding and just it's it is tricky. But I I just want to bring up that elementary perspective because we we do talk a lot about the high school and the alternative programs for high school kids to get them to graduation. And I I know that that's the end line. I know that that's the goal, but there's a

128starting line way back before that. And we don't talk about it. I'm curious that that second grade number is that an anomaly or >> Well, it went from 113. If you if you look the the ones going diagonally, there were 113 kids in first grade that should have moved up to second grade and that went from 113 down to8. So that's five five six kids, right? So last year's group that was at 134 in second grade went to third grade and that group went down to 128. So we did lose, you know, a handful there as well. So when you're losing six kids and six kids and six kids and six kids, it all adds up. And especially when you have a really large group like 134 kids and that I mean that's a pretty

129large that's a large class now. That was a pretty typical class 11 years ago when I first came to Laurel having 135 140 kids that was pretty typical. So well and I, you know, with the high school, I can understand the draw for the online. I mean that with their ages. I think with the younger ones, it's hard to see those numbers go down because I remember when CO hit and we were trying to do technology with kids and it was crazy. >> Yeah. >> With the young ones. >> I think there's a lot of digital programs out there for littles now. Like it's not just the online programs for algebra and geometry and literature. There are a lot of online programs out there for littles >> that are giving parents that option is that

130it's like they are in school with an hour and a half school an hour and a half. >> And and I don't know that that's where our kids went. I mostly know the kids who have left cuz I see them. And the majority have moved because their parents either um got different jobs that took them further away or their parents made the decision to move into Billings for whatever reason. Like most of the kids, those six kids, I can probably tell you exactly where they went. They're not going online. It's just a difference in their families and what's working for families. Some of them ended up moving in with one parent versus another parent or else we had kids who were in um more transient situations. So they were moved back to where they had

131come from before their parents had come for work either at the refinery or um the mines or something like that. And when those jobs ended, the kids left. So I don't think the elementary kids are choosing online options. They just don't have much say in where they go. >> I think a lot of kids aren't entering the schools at all. >> Like we have a huge I think 10 years, right? There's just numbers loss and it's not cuz the community is smaller. And that's kind of I mean I hang out at the park very regularly and talk to moms and hear about that and hear about well I pulled my kid out of kindergarten because frankly not the teacher was amazing but the other kids it was like what we're talking about are so social

132emotionally so far down or and I can't send my kid to that and like when you're thinking about these things for your own little kids you know like this is a thing we talk about regularly at my house frankly. And so it's like what do we do with the society problem? Like we can't fix that part of it. >> Let us know. >> But since co too I mean you look at the number of private schools with either a hybrid model of homeschool in that have >> um came to fruition in our area >> and I can think of six to eight just off the top of my head. So, and those schools, many of them are full. Um, there's one in Billings that's expanding because they don't have room for the kids that want

133to go there. So, I think it is a matter of we're losing them in the beginning. Um, because, and I hear that a lot, is that it's not that the teachers aren't great, it's not that the principal isn't great, it's that they don't want their kid in a classroom where a kid is hitting and biting and punching. and them, the teacher, whoever, they're being removed from a classroom to go to another classroom while that kid gets to take over a classroom. I mean, parents and as a parent, I wouldn't subject my kids to that. Luckily, when my child was we didn't I I never had that experience, but if my child had that experience every day, I would find another option, too. And so I think we have to figure public schools have to find

134out a find a way to do it different. We can't just keep doing what we've been doing or this trend is going to continue. >> Deb, did you have something too? I said you raise your hand. You're good. >> Okay. >> I just also want to add there's also a large decline in the birth rate in >> in America and it's it's large like when I was I pull it up real quick. I was born in 1893. Um, we had birth ratings above our planet. >> Let's just throw that out. >> Hey, you think you're born before the internet? >> He was born before the internet. >> Uh, I was at 2.02 for mine. Now, as of 2023, it's 1.62. So, that's pretty huge. Just an extra even like population, but we have an old

135community here. like you don't you don't get more younger, you get more older, right? So, as we hear >> Yeah, that's true. That makes sense. >> I It'd be interesting to see this like I might pull some numbers and chart stuff and but it'd be interesting to see like year to year comparison for cuz with this chart we're never comparing like apples to apples your birth weight change. You see your the size of your pool change each year? >> But again, proportional pool with like the population of the time. Yeah, the census. >> Yeah, it's a lot more interesting. >> Well, a lot of kids are waiting to get married or to have children. >> They're not having children. >> And I'm I'm glad that my 20-year-old is, you know, not wanting to, but she

136has literally told me, "I don't want to." And I said, "Why? Why would I bring him into this world?" That was honestly her her comment, which is scary. So, I think Laurel just has to find a way to be competitive in this environment. It's tough because there are so many options and so I think we need to find a way to serve all the kids. It is public school. We can't turn anyone down and it's going to be a heavy li I mean our teachers do so much. They have such a spread in the class and I don't know how we're going to address it and it's not on the teachers only. It's on us as a board admin. you know the like we just have to get creative and I don't have all the

137answers but we have to start thinking outside the box cuz this is what the trend is and is not stopping and co just put it into high gear so we have to be competitive or else this is going to continue >> a a little positive spin to this uh do your best >> this festival of sadness that we've And um I do think that we've taken some of some great steps. We're sitting in one of them right now. Um that will go towards improving improved ed you heard an educator say that tonight that this improved space, energizes the staff, energizes the students. And you can it's like it's palpable. You can feel it. And that won't last forever. So, we need to learn how to carry that momentum into next year and the year after

138and the year after that when this building is, you know, not is still new, but not shiny like still smells like paint in here, you know. Um, and I think you guys are doing a great job just from what you've talked about tonight of and my kids love that by the way. the same thing, rotating around and sort of giving the teachers some space to specialize a little and and the kids are you can split those groups up more when the teachers not having to teach all everything all the time. It feels like we are taking good steps in that direction. And I'll be really curious what our retention is with these new buildings because I I I would venture to say that there's a similar feeling. We haven't been over there yet and I

139don't have any kiddos at at West anymore. So, but I'd be really curious if they have a similar feeling about being energized in that building that's new and that's got a lot of um excitement around it. And if they're doing the same things that you're doing here with rotating kids around and kind of giving teachers new opportunities with new kiddos and kiddos new opportunities with new students and those kinds of things, that's the kind of innovation that I love hearing about and how we do more of that. And can we leverage this online class stuff? Can we leverage that technology into our these kids are like born with these in their hands now. You know, my my eight-year-old knows how to use basically this the whole phone. She'll take ours and just be like, "Okay,

140this is what I'm going to do on it." It's just natural to them. How do we keep and that's just the way the world's going. How do we feed into that and leverage technology? Just like you know in my industry we think and all industries right now we're thinking how can AI and other technologies give our staff back more time to focus on the things that matter and less time focusing on the things that are like oh something else could handle that for us. So there are there systems that we can implement at the district that give our teachers more time back. >> So that's that is a lot of that rethinking. I'll just say one more thing because I know that we've got a few other things left on the agenda. But to your

141point, Charlotte, I guess as a as a young growing family with children, if I know that my student will be in the longevity and I know that the goal is to get into high school for life and we started with high school. Well, no, just hear me out cuz I know that the elementary is is important, too. But if we started with high school to envision what that looked like for the longevity of the student across the board, would that help with our younger members? >> Working backwards, >> but we started that work. So we start as you said the graduate >> so we just have to get through it. So we started that work with the graduate profile building out what our vision for a graduate world looks like and that's some of the

142work that the district leadership team is. >> And I'm not discouraging that. I'm saying like do we need to now kind of do this additional online to help with that? I mean, >> I I feel like Britney, I feel like we we feel like a medic out on a battlefield. The triage the triage right now is the high school. We got to stop the bleeding. Get kids to be graduating and then let's move it down and start fixing the other things that we're seeing. But we just right now I think we need to stop the major bleeding first, which is middle school and high school. You're right. There's there's elementary things, too. We'll set the bones when we get them packed to the hospital. >> Yeah. Sometimes you do have to step over the bleeders

143to go those that are >> step over the criers to get to the bleeders is what we're trying to do right now. Sorry. >> Just a quick comment and I heard from some people that were that were moving and they ended up going to buildings. Our website is not appealing and that's what they said. We couldn't find the information we were looking for and the pictures are outdated. the kids on the middle school have graduated four years ago. They're still picturing the middle school pictures. And so I think that's another thing. It needs to be we need to draw them. We've got these brand new beautiful spaces. We've got, you know, kids doing more innovative things than what they were doing in that picture eight or nine or whatever 10 years ago. I think because

144they said and LG got and school choice now we have school choice option they can go within you know 15 mile radius to lots of other elementary schools around us I just think they just said if we couldn't find what we were looking for it wasn't appealing and they ended up >> I did want to add like I agree like we can take some steps to update our website and that but the new school pictures are up as of today so >> um but you about >> as like as of today I've actually begun going through and I've been I have this list that I started today of outdated content on the website um and we're going through to fix that and whether we change um where the website is hosted how we can build

145it that's going to be in a long run that's going to be a handy problem um >> but like we are taking steps to go through because we do realize um a lot of the information on there was put up um especially There's a lot of information from co cuz that's when we really hit the you're not getting this information in school, you're getting it online. So there's information from 2020 everywhere on the website. So I've gone through and I've started a list today um of stuff that needs to be changed. Um and then west and intermediate school and high school actually high school and intermediate school have new pictures. Um and then we can get some other ones off as well. Sounds like a total >> to know what to post like >> I

146got to each building pictures of things getting >> it's hard to have a social media presence without being social media like that is a full-time job >> and it's you guys can't be at each event taking pictures of things or get students who are involved in those kinds of things. So I remember when I was a student, we actually had students kind of taking care of high school website. Um, and that might be something we look at too. It's maybe part of like a graph design class thing. >> We can also as part of board representatives, we can go through and make that one of our things is getting videos of the school, pictures of the school that we can post because that hasn't happened and these beautings, these buildings are beautiful. So, it's important

147that we definitely get that out there. Um, so I think that's something that us student representatives can do is go through and make videos or take pictures of the school and get them out there. Um, student council has been looking for lots of stuff to post, so they'd be excited to get to do that as well. Um, so we can go through and discuss getting our new and improved stuff out there. >> Yeah. I just have one final thought. I think the answer to most of this is the community. If we can take our CTE programs or our students and have we have a small engine class and have a lawnmower clinic, you know what I mean? Or if we can do anything that we can get the community involved, that'll translate into levies and

148support for our schools. So the more we have open gyms in these beautiful buildings, the more we have, you know, just open you just open our our buildings up for just community things like a garage sale or like a a craft show that the kids can create their their crafts in. The more we can get community involvement at any level, any and all level, middle school, elementary, high school, I don't care. We want them, we want community involved. And if it can translate into CTE programs and VORL can be known as like a CTE hub that can make us competitive and that translates into levies and bonds and that translates into success for kids and support for teachers all the way around. So we just need to get creative. We just need to get competitive.

149>> Great. Well, she's wandered a little far in that conversation, but uh was well spent. So, I think that was some great conversation. Thanks for starting that off, Kelly. So, we'll move on then now just to the discussion items. Uh just an insurance committee update. We'll talk about that here. um about the presentation we just received and then um anything else that Donnie or or Matt would like to talk about from that last meeting in >> um so the committee met for the first time really last Wednesday on the 22nd and we had a presentation from John Doran who we saw night and he has another person working with him who is basically an underwriter and they provided a ton of information and we had how many staff committee members we had a >> handful

150we had some online too >> well that's true we had some online um Lisa was part of the group that was online with us um we had. It was great information, but I just had the feeling as we went through the whole thing that there were gaps. Not everybody was up and up to speed with what was really going on. And I didn't want to see that meeting last Wednesday come as a recommendation to the board tonight and have you feel last minute, rushed, uncomfortable, what's going on. So, that was why I requested that we have some discussion tonight and a presentation to the store if he could actually um squeeze those in because he's one guy covering the whole state for this thing. >> And they don't have a working budget, meaning they're they

151don't have this, okay, you have so many hundreds of thousands of dollars to get this off the ground. It's really >> It's really trying to get this kind of >> Yeah, it's they're kind of >> Yeah, they're they're they're trying their work just to get this going to value funds because they really can't they don't have any funds until it gets going. So this is all business. >> I also didn't feel that the committee itself was comfortable with the amount of knowledge that they had and so we scheduled a second insurance committee meeting this week so that the staff members could go out to their constituents and kind of spread the word, get some input, get some more information. Um, if you look at the document that was in the presentation that showed how our

152rates compare with bridge to what we're currently doing, um, we just felt like there was some gaps in the information. So Peggy is going to collect information from our pharmacy program and send it over to see make sure all the drugs that our people use are covered by the program and just just gain a little bit more information before we really brought this to the board for approval. And so I thought John did a great job tonight. That was the the most impressive presentation I've seen him make. I've seen him several times since he's >> told me like 20 minutes. So, >> he really >> Yeah. narrowed it in. And I learned again tonight for this presentation. I think between this to kind of help bring you guys up to speed and meet the committee

153meeting again this week, I just feel a lot more comfortable with the group making a decision with a little bit just that much more information. >> We don't know right currently with JPT joint powers trusting. We don't know what our renewal will be. We won't get those until Aprilish. Um, we do know what our current plan is, of course, and they're they're coming in below our current plan. Um, our current plan, they ballparked our we capped them out at 8 and a half% for JPT for our renewal last year. This year coming up, they said we need to be ready for a 10 to 20% increase. So whatever numbers we're seeing for our current JPT, I would imagine if we have another struggling year, we could be at that 15 20%. So So we're not

154only a little bit lower on this year's plan compared to the bridge plan, but we also need to be looking at 10, 15, 20% increases in our GBT. And they did give us numbers and those are on there. They tried to pick plans that were were uh yeah, basically matched up to what we currently have uh as best they can. There's nothing perfect, but they tried to match us up as best they they could. Uh they so they picked uh three plans, a high deductible and two others that uh were a little bit closer and kind of gave us an idea of where where we fall. We did get all 15 plans that they prices out on and they are all over the board. All over the board. Some with $10,000 deductibles. I mean, that's

155just not even easy. >> Well, that's why we Yeah, we just did they they just picked stuff that's as close to ours as we had and then one with a little lower deductible than we currently have. So, um, I would like to see, you know, more of a comparison of all of the those things on there, but in the end, healthcare, anything we can do to get ahead of it a few years is what we got to look at. I mean, because you can't we just can't take keep taking 10, 15, or 20%. That that's that's that, you know, growth. We just can't keep up with. >> It doesn't. We've had a couple of those tough years that we're everybody's >> right. But but when but when we get to the point where well you

156only raised you only went up 8% you know awesome good job. How many years can you do 8%. You know um we're not giving you know 8% raises every year and we're not giving 20% raise. So so how long can we continue that? It's growing exponentially in the future. It's it's un unsustainable even at 8% let alone 15 years. >> Sorry. As a committee member, I'd really like to know if any of the other trustees have concerns over what's being proposed that we can take back to this committee meeting and maybe get some back to bridge and maybe get some of those concerns answered or if you are totally on board and think this is the best thing since bread and My uh hot take on this is a couple things. I worry that that

157insurance pool is too small. >> I do think that too small,000 >> the foreign money. >> Oh, >> sorry. Sorry. The reserve I I apologize. >> Yeah, it'll grow. I'm assuming it'll grow through premium >> starter money, >> right? So, it's I it's certainly going to grow. So I what I do think is by when I say that I don't while I appreciate that we can get money back I don't think that that's reality is the reserve has to grow as they actually get actuarial data on this insurance pool and understand what it will cost every year I think that it's going to keep growing. So that that's one thing that I would that I just like e4 million is great but like he said if it's 50 million they got to add 10 million

158to that pool through the 12,000 enrolles or to that reserve that's going to take a little time to build that up we should not expect any money back or that or that are or that these are going to stay >> that these numbers stay static >> right you don't so I just want to hit that in the board's mind that like it was a great selling feature but selling are you going get that back. Um, we have a self-funded insurance pool at the credit union and that just doesn't happen. Um, very it's and if it is, it's like, oh, great. Thank you for that $20,000 back. It's really really been a big dent in our bottom line. Um, the other thing uh that I I like about it is that it feels like we would

159have a good amount of control and transparency. You know, it as far as understanding where we're where we're at and that it's local governance is in the state of Montana. Kind of highlight that. Um, I like being a part of supporting something innovative potentially seems innovative or refreshing at the very least refreshing. >> I think this will be a one-time opportunity. I don't see this coming back in 5 years if this fails. >> Yeah. >> I don't see this 5 years from now, 10 years from now. I I really don't I don't see this being something that'll ever happen. I think it's nice having the support of the A's to help the C's and the B schools double. >> So they think they and the doubles. I think it's incumbent on our these bigger districts

160who frankly we can have a little bit more flexibility than you know Park City does >> um to kind of pull together as a as a community and help too. So I I like the aspect that aspect of it as well. So I think in leaning overall I would be probably in favor of this not just because of the savings in this year maybe next year but the fact that we are supporting something innovative and that will help uh education across the state. So I I think I just do worry that that reserve is too small for the pool. Yeah, >> one thing and I don't recall her mentioning it today, but we don't have to get on it this year. We can avoid being the guinea pigs if we can join next year if

161we would like. So, that was one thing that he he shared with us in that meeting. So, Laurel doesn't have to we can let Boseman be the guinea pig. We can let Shephard be the guinea pig. Laurel doesn't have to be the guinea pig. Um, but again, it it depends on what JPT comes out with. We did send out another email this yesterday to or Monday. No, today's Monday. Uh today uh to JPT to see if they could give us something, anything um at all and they were going to get back. Hopefully, we'll have it before Thursday's meeting, but we'll see what they can come back. >> I I have had those exact same phone calls already. Not that you guys can't duplicate it. Um, but I they just told me they wouldn't give me

162anything. >> And that's not the response we got today. They did respond to us and say that they will put something here. So maybe they're panicking and they're saying, "Well, maybe we need to pony something up for people. If they lose all the schools in their trust, that'll be a big impact." >> Sure. Well, they they'll cease to exist, but I was I was specifically told they cannot give me anything. >> And I can send it to you, Chris, but if you Google just House Bill 332, they have a whole quarterly review and planning meeting that actually has more than the pamphlet we have. And it does go over everything a little bit. I mean, there's bullet points, but it does go into a little bit more in depth like underwriting goes over the guidelines

163on that. And then it does kind of break it down almost to districts. So, this is the way I'm reading. So, make sure that's what you're reading. Um, but like double A schools that we at least need 16 of the school districts and I don't know if that's how many we have here. >> That's what that's coming. >> So, they will need So, that's what they would need. And then 217 um school districts approximately 4,500 non right >> that are in the program. Yeah. >> They need at least 12,000 employees doesn't count spouses. So So even though we'll have 12,000 employees, we might end up with 30,000 with kids and and spouses and we you know there may be a lot more but they need 12,000 employees and 150 schools. It goes back to Chris's

164only main concern is 40 million sounds like a lot, but is it? >> Oh, it's not. It's It's literally in a month or two. It is. >> But I did ask you I specifically asked >> I asked if they're using any of the 40 million to kind of lower rates going into this and they said no. >> That's good. >> 100% no. They're not going to touch the 40 million. Has nothing to do with rates. So they're not using it to try to lower everyone's rates on this initial year. They must have some preliminary actuarial data that surmise that that 40 million is an adequate seat. Do they have that? >> The double schools went together pulled their funds to hire an actuary to do a study for this insurance bill. So that >> so

165the doubles are pretty much all on board it seems like. Then is that here? >> A few a few a few have committed. U >> the fact that Boseman is >> Boseman's committed. >> That's the baby. That was kind of the typical >> SD2. >> They haven't committed yet >> formally, but they feel like I said car pretty good. >> Well, they're really >> I don't know if they have a choice. I don't know if they have a choice. >> Well, they need the savings. >> I mean, and they need the savings yesterday. They'll do anything. >> They spend $8 million more than they have in their bucket, I guess. So when they say 150 districts, so like cuz there's like 400 districts in the state, >> right? >> So if we like seven and

166seven is that considered two districts joining the 150. >> So our seven would be two joining and so any of them that have a split district would contribute for the two. Okay. helps with 150 which is is this common I'm sorry is this common >> the way our district is set up split >> so so 150 is really like >> okay that makes me feel better >> we are normal >> this is norm sure >> except for that >> we're going to bring that up >> I do have to say I think it's from my perspective of everything that everybody else has said, it's pretty much been like I mean it's always scary to be the guinea pig, but at the same time it's um we got to do something different because having rate increases

167like we're having >> isn't going to be sustainable either. Um, I guess the only thing I would add to that is I was glad to see that they're going to use Allegiance as their um, administrator because as someone that used to be with Allegiance and now we're not, I would go back to them in a minute. They're great to work with. They're local. They're like you've actually talked to a person. So, I think that's wonderful. And that yeah that cost there's not a small thing but to be basically cost stabilized this year but we're already looking at budgetary >> five years people I just hate being locked into any contract for five years ever. I try to do all of mine at one >> I do mine at one three at the most. I never

168do any contracts at five. It's scary. I don't know what the heck's going to happen in 5 years you know. So I get I that is the one thing but I also understand in the start of the phase why they want that stability from the districts. >> That's all that's all. >> So I wonder I could imagine that maybe once it's stabilized they might reduce that contract period. >> There is no there is no nothing in the statute beyond 5 years. So he said that um so what does this mean in 5 years? You set it for another 5 years and he said >> who knows I guess that's >> we don't know. It might be year to year at that point. depends on what that board comes up with, >> right? Well, that or

169it might be legislative. Sure. >> So, we don't know. >> Is that our other risk in this legislative risk? But enough for 5 years that if it takes off, >> well, they're going to they're going to have to give us an hour. So, let's say in 5 years, well, the state decides to do something different. So, they they can't say, "Well, you got to stay in it." They can't >> like to know my piece. I'm totally for it. I think that it's a chance for us to be part of something bigger and having talked to people from small schools um where they were looking at one person, one company, we even talked to them and they offered them like these ridiculous deductibles for this ridiculous price. Like it's more than just us because our students

170are coming from families where their parents are working at those schools. Not all of them, but some Walmart. And then just even our own costs looking at where we would be next year. I'm not even sure you would get the same offer from the same type of policy that we have right now just because that's not something you can even guarantee based on what I've seen over the last however many insurance carriers we've had over 13 years that I've been here. They always are changing. >> Yeah, I like I I like that presentation. I like the idea of helping these other schools and being a part of our bigger broader Mont >> and really be kind and help ourselves. >> Yeah. I mean, yeah. In the end, you know, altruism is very rarely like pure,

171you know, it's it usually has a benefit to the to the giver as well. So, um I do like that. We are going to discuss that at our meeting on Wednesday. So you'll get more >> Thursday. Oh, you have a meeting Wednesday. Okay. Okay. >> Okay. Any other comments on that? >> We'll be take it there'll have to be a board action item. Uh unless the committee decides not to take it to the board, but it be a board action item at the next meeting. So we if that's what everyone chooses to do, >> we have to get And that's this >> meeting. >> Correct. >> Were you maybe you're going to get that? Okay, >> awesome. All right, and we'll move to B the calendar committee. >> Britney, are you going to be at

172that meeting? >> I did. I I >> Yeah, Britney. Britney and Donnie will be there. >> Okay. >> So, so calendar committee is starting. We're probably a few weeks behind where we were last year. Uh last year I had the board chair at the time was Britney and I think Jenny was on it. So I've uh asked uh Chris, we probably need a couple reps again. >> Yep. >> Um to be back on that board so I put it on here so we could get somebody assigned. Uh just >> I'm willing to do it again. >> I cannot make the November 19th meeting. If there's others who want the lovely, >> okay, for their new trustees, this is what I'm going to say. This is one of the committees that really does open your eyes

173to a ton of things that the district needs, but it's an easy I'm not saying easy, don't that's not like what I'm saying. But it's a it's a good starter committee to understand and really and Kelly I think you would know this because of your admin level and stuff like that and understanding stop and go where we have to do the days and the counts but I really do firmly believe our newer trustees this is this is a good committee to be on to understand those kind of starter things and then kind of grow. So I would love to see some of our new trustees enter into that comm. I I honestly I learned so much being on that committee. It's like amazing. >> It is informative. I did not >> but but it's it's

174not so much that you know like the insurance where there's so much it's like oh my gosh where are we at? What's the history and all that? So anyway I >> the last two years of calendar committee has been frankly easy because of the construction. >> Yeah this year's going to be trickier. This year we'll have well >> now. >> We're going to have we're going to have people who want to start late like we are and some who want to go right back to August. >> Well, we have not voted in the public for the last two years because of that. So, this will be going back to the public to vote for the first time in a couple years um without all because of construction. So, it'll be a little >> It's nice

175to have like the admin mindset, the teacher mindset and the parent >> about it like relentless. I would be open to >> J right now. So you had free time >> return to that committee but I also was very open to like it's not a burden. >> Well we want to invite point >> frankly. So >> Kayla or Kelly either of you like to join that committee? Would you like to join that, Kayla, or you just say no? >> I would if Kelly wanted it, I would I would let her I would gladly let her have it. If she's like absolutely not, then I will be >> Well, as long as we don't have four, >> you can check and we don't have three on there. >> Yeah, I agree. That's >> And I think

176that would be great with some different perspective admin, teacher, parents. Great idea, >> man. If somebody couldn't be at a meeting, I'll set those dates. >> That's actually helpful, too, because if like if Jenny can't be at that one on the 19th, >> so I'll I'll set those. I think did I already set up Did I already throw dates out there? >> You did. >> Gosh, I think I saw like I'm not that. >> So, >> I could probably make it work. >> I will go ahead and send calendar invites out and I'll invite you. All right. I worry about it. >> So, we'll put the three of you on that committee. Just >> And if you can't be there, it's okay. Don't Don't sweat it. >> Yeah. >> You will be banished, but it's

177fine. >> You will never serve on a committee this morning. >> You can't do calendar. >> Darn it. >> I should have promised that. You'll be on every committee. >> Sorry, I didn't mean to. I'll send out those invites tomorrow, I believe. >> I need to volunteer for my time with this. >> Yes. >> Okay. Any future discussions that we should have? We have a couple jotted down from the meeting today. Any other future discussion items? >> Any discussion items from the uh audience here? Great. >> Thank you.