001To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good evening. Next on our agenda is the public comment. Public participation is encouraged in the Laurel School District. All meetings of the board will be open to the public except provided by law. Scheduled meetings of the board may be recorded. Audience members may address the board during public comment for non-aggenda interest 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 information on the agenda. Complete the public comment card located at the room and provide it to myself or Mr. Torx to address the school board members. You may just stand where
002you're at, identify yourself, and briefly state your concern. Public participation is a right that carries certain responsibilities such as informing oneself in advance of the issues being discussed. Voluntarily being as brief and gerine as possible. Not unduly repeating remarks others or you have already made. and showing respects at all times for the rights and opinions of others, whether citizens, board members, school district employees, or students. Thank you for your involvement in Laurel Public Schools. Do I have any public comment for non agenda interests? Not seeing any. So, we will get moving through our agenda. Next on our agenda is correspondence. Um during this time we like to thank all of our community members for their donations to our school district and to specific items within our school. Laurel Rotary Club uh provided donation to speech
003drama and debate. The Laurel United Methodist Church provided to our career fair. So we appreciate that. Alana Federal Credit Union provided a Cumins Jet Scan currency counter. I have to pull that up really quick um for the staff with our um high school. So, we do appreciate their contribution as well. Thank you to all of our community members presentations. If you um Oh, few things. I apologize. So, we are going to have uh Shane come up and talk about our presentations of the owner's rep. If you've noticed that we did move our tour of West Elementary to the end because we do have some people who have um National Honor Society today that need to get there. And then if you will please note thatformational items of our student board representative report will be uh
004moved from this meeting to the next because we have three of our students that we need to make that um very important meeting tonight for them as well. So, all righty Shane, you're up. Good evening, trustees. I'll start off with the graph. We bid graph tomorrow. So, bids are due tomorrow. Um, we've included all the requested alternates. Um, take us probably a couple of weeks to get through the vetting of the bids. Once we get through that, then we'll bring it back for the the board to determine which alternates you want to want to proceed with. Could you let them know what alternates um are out there? We have the three. Yeah, with the parking lot. We have a park. Yeah, the parking lot will be a choice. Um concession and bathrooms. Concession and bathrooms.
005We also have the astro turf. The turf field. The turf field. Um we are experiencing a little high amount of questions on the turf field, which makes us really nervous from the standpoint of we don't know how the bids are going to come in. So it might have to might take a little more time to actually get a full answer on that one. We don't know if two weeks is going to be enough to get with them to get that figured out cuz a lot of questions are coming in on that which tells us we didn't communicate very good with questions from those from the contractors. Yeah. From the turf installers. Okay. Um so we do have to revisit that. So um hope we'll see what it comes in tomorrow and we'll know more but
006obviously we'll bring that back. Who was our company that put in the turf for the football field? Field turf. Who? Field turf. Field turf. Yeah. Are they one of them? Yeah, I'm sure that'll be one of them. Yeah, filters, sprinkers. Yeah, we'll we'll get a number of bids. It's just whether we can level them is what what our what we're worried about right now. It has to do with the drainage. Don't need to go in depth on that. I don't think we were very clear on how we were how we were expecting them to drain that field. So, okay. Um, South contracts were awarded. Um, obviously we demoled the boilers last week and we're just getting ready as soon as the kids are out. Um, they're ready to start construction that's out. Um, as best
007proposals are out. We should have those probably within a week or so. We'll schedule that for when kids are are out. There's not a lot. There's just piping in the bathroom and there's a couple of units that are on the roof that have some special surrounding, but outside of that, we're in pretty good shape. uh west. Uh punch list starts in the classrooms this week. Uh currently working on FFN with contract furniture delivery. I know that Bethy's up to her eyes in that schedule with making sure that everybody's putting stuff in the right place and that we have the right things. Um so that's going well. I know that we're also the the district's utilizing them because they'll have the manpower to help us move out of South. So, stuff that we are going to
008be keeping and moving over, they're going to help us with with that as well. Um, who did you say was helping with that? I'm sorry. Peterson. Peterson. Yeah, they've got the right people. Of course, Wayne and his crew are getting Wayne out. Okay. Um, so that's all going well. we see any hiccups there. Um, existing school renovations, we're getting prep for that. Um, most of the new lighting is in. If you go through the classroom, seen in the hallways. Um, down to boiler replacement. Um, we already demoed the boilers. They're starting on the new boiler systems. uh preparing for flooring, locker room demolition, the painting, which are extras that we had selected to do on the univer ventilator replacement, finishing the fire springs, that will all happen this summer. Uh finishing the landscaping once the
009kids are out and we can pull down all the fencing. We're on schedule, but there is a lot of work, but everything's going pretty well so far. We got a really good team. So, um Logan, we're classrooms. We're in the finishing stages of the classrooms as well. Gym equipment is completely installed. The gym floor will start this week, the subfloor. Um then the main the wooden stuff will be brought in and obviously it has to climatize the subfloor in. So we're actually getting ahead of that one. Um civil started. I don't know if anybody's been by the site, they can start seeing the the shape of that starting to to change quite a bit. Uh we'll continue continue that throughout the spring. weather independent. Every time we get a rain, it's about a week before
010we can get back and do anything. But, um, we'll we'll be fine. Schedule, we're on schedule on both projects. So, take questions. Any questions? I did have one question on the Bitsburg graph. Did we talk about I I had mentioned a while ago, but even if we don't take alternative number two, which would be the or can't afford it, the concessions and and stuff. Do we have like gas and water and sewer? We'll get the stubs in stubs there. Okay. So that we don't have to like tear up concrete. We did talk about that that we'd put sleeves in for that if if that wasn't selected. Okay. I I'm don't like going out on a limb, but I think we're going to be okay for that one. Okay. The probably the big ones I'd be
011worried about would be the turf. That's going to be a monstrous number. So, right. Okay. Any comments, questions from the board? Comments, questions from public audience? Easy on me. Yeah. Kind of towards the end. So, thank you. very much appreciate that. Moving through our agenda, I'm coming down to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion? Make a motion to approve the consent agenda. I have a motion to approve by Renee. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Chris. Comments, questions from the board. Kelly, um I just wondered on the 21 students that are going to be out of district to part C. Is that a comparable number to what we've had in years past? This is for next year. And this year so far, we've got 24 students. Okay. And I know it
012makes reference to the tuition if it's involved. Do they have any tuition for parts? No, they don't. That's state law. No schools can charge tuition now. Uh so what happens? We don't want to get into the whole shmear because they're not sure how it's going to happen, but trading. So So we'll be trading money. So they'll pay us for kids that we have and we pay them for like the schools will handle it and then it's permissively levied to the public. Uh so it's it's a little No one's quite sure. This will be the first summer it's happened. We're not sure exactly what it'll look like. But uh it's Yeah. Well, later on in the information items, you'll see the tuition count and it's got out of district one side and district the other. We're
013off like three three schoolers. So, we'll be paying extra tuition for three schools. Three schools, right? Yeah. And I was just thinking um you know, you had our numbers something we want to keep focused on. Donnie had asked me, you know, when you were talking with me my ideas on how to, you know, add more numbers. And so this all just kind of came into my thinking. So good questions. Good questions. Anybody else? Not seeing anything from the board. Any comment from public audience? All righty. With that motion to approve consent agenda by Renee, seconded by Chris. All in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. Motion carries. Action item um is a for the book purchasing of the high school. If whoever makes the motion, please note that glorious revives revival is not
014been released yet. So, um, take that off, uh, your motion. And when the world tips over and visitations, um, don't follow district policy. Do I have world tips over? Yeah. When the world tips over and visitations. Visitations. Yes, sir. Do I have a motion? Do I have discussion? Can I glass girl? I apologize. I missed the glass. Glass girl. Glass. Okay. Do I have a motion? Did I get them all? Do I have a motion? I move to approve the high school book list for purchase with the exception of those four books. Motion to approve by Jenny. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Renee. Do I have any comments, questions from the board? Not seeing any comments, questions from public audience. Not seeing any either. So, action item A, book purchasing number one
015for March High School book list. All in favor, excuse me, jeez. Motion to approve by Jenny with the um exception of the four um seconded by Renee. All in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. Motion carries. action item underneath the book the book purchasing for two graph elementary book list. Do I have a motion? I move to approve the graph elementary book list for approval as listed. Motion to approve by Jenny. Do I have a second? I second. Second by Kelly. Comments, questions from the board. Not seeing or hearing any comments, questions from public audience. Not seeing or hearing anything there. Action item for book purchasing number two, Graph Elementary book list. Approval for the motion by Jenny, seconded by Kelly. All in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. Motion carries.
016Action item three, adoption of the new social studies resource Mount Historical Society book. Do I have a motion? Make a motion to approve the adoption of the new social studies resource that is published by the Montana Historical Society. Motion to approve by Renee. Do I have a second? Second. Kayla, is that you? I'm sorry. Thank you, Kayla. Seconded by Kayla. Do I have any comments, questions from the board? Question. Uh, Donnie, do we know the cost of those sets? Yes. Um, 3250 a piece. Yeah, cuz there was a discount for buying class sets and I'm not remember. I thought you had free teachers. Yeah, you get teachers. You get some freebies if you order the whole class set and also if you order friendly from Montana and we were looking at buying two about 60
017bucks two class sets for fourth grade and it aligns with Indian for all and so it would come out. Say that one more time. It comes out the Indian ed for all funds. So it's not general fun. Okay. Thank you. Did you hear that? It's still out of the general fund. It's a separate. It's just a coding in the general fun. Okay. But part of that coding is out of the Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good comments or questions? Anything else? Nope. Any other comments, questions from the board? But it did go to leadership and learning and um Matt sent us the link and I went with the online stuff. crazy that we haven't had it. We haven't um and the social studies standards have been out for several years and we have typically just supplemented quite
018a bit in social studies at that intermediate level, but um looking at some different structures in how their grade level is going to be teaching social studies next year, we felt like we needed something a little bit more substantial for them to be able to hit those standards. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Um, any comments, questions from uh public audience. Okay, not hearing any. I do have a motion on the table for action item, adoption of the new social studies resource by Renee, seconded by Kayla. All in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. Motion carries. Action item four, the high school TI building bid, the ventilation/heating. Do I have a motion? A motion to approve the heating proposal provided by Norfac for the work to be done at the high school TNI building. Motion
019to approve by Chris. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Donnie. Comments, questions to the board. Okay, Matt. Let's talk about funding. How are we going to fund this this? Well, we're going to uh we think we're going to be okay with uh originally we looked at half of uh building reserve in the high school and some for multi- district, but we do feel like we've done pretty good in building reserve uh with money we've saved. So, right now, we could pay for all out of building reserve as of right this minute. Now, other things happen. Uh something was to explode at the high school tomorrow and we'd have to use potentially use that money for it. But right now, this minute, we could take it all out of building reserve. Even if we
020don't pass the building reserve in the spring, we still have the leftovers that we're trying to use as So once we dip into that, then what does our budget look like for the next year or two in building reserve? If the levy does not pass, Julie, I know we were sitting kind of good there for We still got likeund what did I say about 180,000 left even after this but then next year we'll have some funding from the state that comes in at state agency um off the top of my head I can't tell you how much it's no real big projects but we feel like we could do this and we've also talked about doing the uh parking lot we have to do that so we feel like right now we're in pretty good
021shape Uh we've Wayne's done a great job this year saving some money back. Uh we feel like we can make it happen. Comments, questions from the floor, comments, questions from public audience. All righty. Action item four. I'm sorry. Hi. Um I'm just curious, Julie, is that the same one that they were talking about for the that could also be applied to tech money, that maintenance fund, or is that a different thing? Oh, we opened up a can. I'm just trying to handle 550. Yeah, I think that's been it's gone through. It just hasn't been signed by yet, but there is some extra money. Yeah, I don't remember what it said about tech, but I think it did have some tech in there. Deon's already got it spent. Try not to. Oh, everybody's got their hand
022in the cup. Yeah. All righty. Any other questions, comments? Okay. Action item four, high school TI and building bids, ventilation, heating. Motion by Chris, uh, seconded by Donnie. All in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. Motion carries. Action item five, winter activities, coaches and adviserss. Do I have a motion? I move to approve the contract for the coach list attached for 2526 winter sport season. Motion to approve by Jenny. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Renee. Comments, questions from the board? comments, questions from public audience. Not seeing or hearing any action item number five, winter activities, coaches and adviserss. Motion to approve by Jenny, second by Renee. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose say nay. Motion carries. Will we breeze through that student body? Did you want to
023still try to do that? I mean, I I already moved it all. So, do you would you guys like to like I don't think we have long enough, so we'll wait until and that's fine if you guys would like to stay or you're more than welcome to leave. So, we appreciate that. Umformational items for 2024 2025 out of district enrollment. All you guys, we have just a little bit of time, so we'll stay in. Okay. Okay. I just did want to make sure you guys didn't feel like you had to rush out if there was plenty of time. Okay. Um, again, just looking. Anybody comment on kind of enrollment? I just want to comment. It's like K through 8 we have been lost, but then once you look into the high school, so it's just
024competition at the elementary, I feel like other areas. Interesting to see, right? Why? Yeah. Okay. Anybody else? Moving down to superintendent report resignations. Okay. Down to discussion items. Um I know last board meeting we had discussed on the goodbye of graph and so we thought we would bring it to actually set a date. I think that has given some of our admin time to kind of look at that what that looks like. uh prepare and plan for that. Charlotte, I know that was kind of on your task list. Do you have a specific date that you kind of were circling dates circling around for our graph school for a goodbye? I guess I was wondering like you wanted to you wanted to do it before school got out. Yeah. Well, if we're going to have
025to because we have to do that, but we didn't know if we wanted to do it the the last week of school because that kind of becomes a little chaotic and then I think there's some moving and some other stuff happening. So, looking at the the last week of May, um the 28th, oh no, that's Wednesday, sorry. Okay. um that Tuesday board meeting. I know there's a lot of activities that week. Yeah. Uh just talking with Andrew, there's a lot going on. Not that we can't do it, but just be aware there's a lot going on on those days. we look at the very last week, right, going into that that first couple of days of June. Uh Monday, June 2nd is actually open in the afternoon um or Tuesday. Um board uh what's going
026on Monday the 2nd. What does that look like for everybody? kind of sounds like it would work for what the times just afternoon or probably are we thinking like we're not going to open it up for well school hours so it have to be after so 3:35 you guys get out 3 3:30 we could do like a like a 4 to or well it doesn't matter couple hours we could open it up to the public yeah that would say like 5 to 7, but I think it only needs to be a couple hours and 5 to 7 would give people the work ability to come out. Whatever. For me, it doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter for me. I could if I'm going to be here, I can start opening up at 4 to 7.
0274 to 7. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'll be I'm going to be here. So, doesn't matter whether I'm there or there. June 2nd 4 to 7. Monday, June 2nd from 4 to 7. Um, how many people are we looking that we'd like at least within the building? Do we want how like staffing? Like do we feel we need a couple people just roaming? I'll I'll be there for sure. I'm kind of looking at the board as well. We have a couple board members. I have a lot of board members shaking their heads. So, we might just have to put it on as a because we can open doors to be there. Does that look Yes, sir. One conflict that we just got to keep in mind. Matt burners. They always use it on Mondays. They
028don't have it currently booked. I thought it was Tuesdays. I'm sorry. Uh Matt Burners, I think they're done. They're done. Okay. I I noticed that wasn't booked on Sunday. This this Sunday they have their banquet. Okay. So again, June Monday, June 2nd from 4:00 to 7:00 kind of a free flow of inviting. So we need to talk about how Charlotte and I can figure that part out. Wayne, you don't need to be there. We got a lot of things going on. You don't need to be there that late. I think we have enough board. Yeah. I'm pretty bored and starting and playing as I come. Britney, I was wondering, were we going to have the students go through and do something neat in the gym or something? And we talked about them like signing a
029wall or a memory or something. We were trying to get a a a date set first and then kind of what what does that look like? Does that look like we're wanting Sean and I could come up with some ideas or at least decide what we'd like to do? We we did propose it to the staff at our last early out and they like the idea of people being able to sign wall um like when the graduates walk through and do their grad walk if there was a wall or we're not sure what we what is leaving the gym if anything is leaving like some of like the purple mats on the wall and things like that. So if Wayne could tell me like this is a good this is a good wall that we
030need to I think I think we could have that conversation between Wayne and you and I and we could figure out what's the best place. Yeah. So really then you guys will work on students wall what that looks like. Yep. We need to then do we want to start creating something to invite people. I'm looking I'm looking at our I'm looking at our our our Oh, you're included in that too. Yeah. All of that for You want to do something, Kayla? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You guys want to do a video? Something like that for you guys? That'd be great. Okay. Then we'll advertise it in the paper. [Laughter] [Applause] Wow. Okay. Anything else on uh the goodbye graph? Did we miss anything? Just want to confirm you said uh June 2nd 4 to8 4 to
0317 47. Okay. I'm just putting a putting the event. Monday June second. You're doing the event. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. Um moving through if there's nothing else on draft. Yes, you're more than welcome. Um the students are reps are going to be leading. Thanks guys. Good luck. Congratulations as well. 628. All righty. Discussion on graduation 100 p.m. on June 1st. Um, just kind of wanting to know is everybody can use that. So, I have Kayla. Rene shaking her head. Jenny said yes. Kelly said yes. I'm a maybe still not quite sure. Donnie, yes. Chris, yes. So, Donnie, Chris, uh, Kale, Kelly, Jenny is Jenny. And Kayla, Renee are both of them. Oh, wow. I'm the only one that might not. Um, I have to look at Facebook. I'm sorry. That's fine. If
032that's the case, then Renee would be the vice chair would be the person. Okay. All righty. Um, with that, uh, moving along, I had asked at our last meeting for the MTSBA membership. I just kind of wanted to reook at that. Why were we part of them? What did they offer us for the amount of money that we received? Matt was going to kind of do a pros and cons of pro while we're there con. I know Donnie can probably share a little bit on what she sees and hears too. Um, but just really what what we get for the amount of money that we pay and is it something that you know would like to continue on. So I had a conversation with uh a couple people at schoolboard association. One was Deborah Silk
033and I had a conversation with um uh Sean Bub at MSGIA. So MSGIA is our current insurer. They ensure our property liability, our workman's comp and unemployment, right? Yeah. Yes. So uh MSGIA, I love working with them. They're they're more reasonable than what we've been paying in the past and they're really responsive to us as a school. I mean very responsive. So one of the negatives that in this conversation is is that MSGIA and the Montana School Board Association is interlin. If we're not part of the Montana School Board As Association, you're not part of the MSGIA. So I had a conversation today for about a half hour with Deborah Silk and I told her I would come back to her with any frustrations we have. Um but again, they like something that's more specific.
034I gave him a few very small specifics from me, but if we have something from the board, I I would like to take it back from them. They frustrate frustrate me at times for various reasons. I think they acquies. Uh they don't really ever want to not that anyone wants to go to uh you know some sort of a go to court, but they're very quick to well why don't you just give in? Why don't you just give in? So, those are some frustrations I have. Um, even if we've done nothing wrong. Well, we might it's not worth the money to defend it, let's just give in. Uh, so those that kind of general attitude frustrates me. Now, that's not we're not in court on anything, so that's a positive, but that does frustrate. Um,
035sometimes they don't get back to us in a timely manner. What I define as a timely manner is kind of that 24 hours. If I email you in the morning on Monday, I would like some sort of an answer within 24 hours. Sometimes it's 2 days, 3 days, 4 days or two weeks or or never. It's very rare that it's never, but it happens. Um or two weeks. So, in talking with with with Deborah today, Deborah Silk, she says, "Well, Matt, you can always call us." And I said, "Well, then what's with the email a couple years ago that said we you know the one that we can only email you. We're not supposed to call you." Well, no, that was just I said, "No, that's I can read it to you." I said, "That
036you you Well, we want you to know if it's something you need, right? Call us." And I said, "Okay, that's not what everyone thinks cuz that's not what you told us." Well, then if it's a critical thing, you can email us on the critical email. The super secret email. And I said, "So, you have a super secret email I don't know about?" What? What do you mean critical email? Well, you know, it's the email that it has to be responded right away. And I said, I don't know this email address. So, she gave me the super secret email today. Um, and again, I told her, I said, "You might want to." She goes, "I'm kind of hearing this. I'm we might want to send this back out." And I said, "Yeah, you might want to."
037I said, "Because I've done this for a number of years, and I've been telling everyone, don't call them. They don't answer. They only want email." And that was from you guys. And so they they said, 'Well, you can always call us. Don't ever think you can't. Um, and I said, 'Well, that's great because I don't like the emails. So, we're so there's some there's so many positive things we do get out of them. And even though I get frustrated at times, there's the trainings, there's the uh the the um lobbying that takes place, there's trainings that they'll do for us, there's the updates that they do for us. um they do a pretty good job with our with our uh uh our policy updates and such, but we can get that from another uh source.
038Uh Kella Law Firm over in Bill or Missoula does offer updates. Uh I I would as I sat there and started making my pros and cons list, it definitely came down on the side of the probe, though there is some annoyances that I have with them. Uh Deborah said, "You know, you just need to call." And again, I've been emailing and not getting responses, trying to follow the rules. So then she said, "Call and chew us out if you need to." And I will take advantage of that in the future. Um can we Okay, so the one example so leadership and learning was attempting to try to work through some a new policy on kind of how they were going to handle um was policy 4550 and the I'm sorry no the policy uh talks
039about one of the com one of the things in the policy is about how to deal with uh uh adults basically who have um they're on some sort of the pedophile list, right? They're on the sexual assault list and and they're on the website and all that. How do we deal with it? Well, we've had issue an issue with a student who was 17 and we didn't know they were on the list and they moved to us from a different town. They were here for a while. Then we found out uh well, we we so we asked the question, well, what do we do? We understand if it's someone who's out of school, we get all that, but what do you do if this is a kid in your school? What's the So, they sent
040me some law that said that the county is supposed to share information with us about it, but didn't answer my question. So, I sent it back and asked the question again and uh never got a response and finally got a response a week or two later that said, "Well, could you up could you refill me in on what you were asking?" Well, all you got to do is go back three emails and it's all explained in there. Um, so I got a little frustrated and eventually um uh I I got sent a very pointed email included uh Lance Melton. Lansancy called me and he said, "Hey, what's going on here? How can I help?" And he eventually walked me through some of the concepts and that they don't have a policy for this. And I
041said, "Well, I just needed to know that 3 weeks ago." and but unwilling to even help us build a policy. But but yes, they don't have that policy in place and there's really nothing they wanted to do really to help us build a policy or even somethingformational because we can't deny services to a kid even if they even if they're um so we just wanted some assistance on how we can word it and what we can do and we just didn't get a lot. So there's a frustration there that does that's the that's the exception. It's not the rule, but those kind of things do happen and and then for them to ask, well, what was this about again? Could you refresh my memory? You go back and read the emails cuz they sent you
042the whole change. So I was frustrated with that. I guess my frustration is I do remember that email that came out a couple of years ago, you know, by South when they changed um their structure and their pay structure and you know you could only get so much time and then once that time is lauded then you get charged over and above what we're already paying them. So what did we start doing? We started going directly to a local law firm just to answer those simple questions so that we could get answers in time and they charges the felt Martin charges this. But I know I can call them and yeah I'm going to get charged for 20 minutes or a half hour whatever it is but I got but I got a cell phone
043number and I get answers right away. But apparently today I could have been calling schoolboard association cell phone number. I just didn't realize that and I didn't have the super secret email. So, um, and I do know there's going to be some costs involved. I have Sean Bub stopping by the office on Wednesday and he'll have the numbers for us. He has the numbers. We know our renewal numbers. And I have Julie going and looking at there's not a lot of other options to ensure schools in the state, but I have Julie going to someone who we've worked with in the past. It's not Pain West anymore. It's now someone else. I don't remember what my name is, but Julie might remember, but it's the same company, just different people now. So, uh, there we're
044going to get a quote so I can give you guys some numbers at least to tell you that if we stay with them, we have to stay with schoolboard association. We know our cost. If we go if we have to go another route, here's our cost. And just from talking with a few people, I'm not sure saving 12 $15,000 from not being part of the school board association is not going to be eaten up. My fear is what I'm hearing just talking to some people. It might be eaten up twofold in other costs to be a part of other things. So it may end up costing us more to drop them because I already use felt Martin occasionally. I've called Beia Caliva law firm occasionally. Um, and so I'm trying to get a good number
045to give you. I just haven't put those numbers together yet because because if we drop them because we're frustrated, that's one thing. But it ends up costing us a bunch more money and we lose our insurance through who we currently have it through. I think that's a problem. They frustr me frustrate me as much as they do anybody in here. But I would like to take stuff back to them. So, if anyone has other stories other than what we already talked about, um, I would like to write them down. And they said they would be more than happy to. And I just told them, I said, "I don't want you to get defensive. I just want you to listen to what we're saying and not try to make excuses for everything we're saying." And they
046understand that and they'd be more willing to listen to us as a group. And again, anything you want me to take to them, I I would do it. I guess I guess from a policy standpoint on leadership and learning that's the frustrating part is waiting for them to respond and waiting too many meetings to get back to a policy that they may respond on and they're never if they don't have a policy they're never really willing to help us like create one or it's like that at that point it's just better for us to go to felt Martin and get feedback on language we want to include and then try to it's like they if it's outside of what they the box that they decided that all of our policy should fit in. They don't
047even want to touch it or talk about the real life scenario that we as a school district potentially could be in and we need something but they're not even willing to say hey let's let let's relook at this. Yes, these are the laws but this is maybe what you guys can look at. I mean, give something at least. We basically got the law that said, "Here's what you have to do. You're required to service the kid in school. Faith is always present." And uh there's really not a lot you can do other than keep an eye on them or something. So, I didn't get a lot of help. Like, okay, I get that. I understand what the law says, but now what? Let's get creative. What can we do to make sure our kids all
048kids are safe? Not just this kid. Let's make sure everybody's safe in the school. So, sorry. This is to acknowledge that there are things outside of the box that they've decided that we should care about. I mean, I think that yes, it's convenient for all of us to approve all of these form policies that they send us with our couple little changes, but they have to understand every district in this state is different and we all have different challenges or we've identified just because they're not the first ones to identify an issue doesn't mean it's not an issue. and they shouldn't like help us with it because if it's an issue here with that in particular, it's an issue at every other school district in our state. And it's like because it's outside of what
049they want to they don't even want to address it until it's their idea and then they send us a form policy that we can I mean that's not the only issue. I mean, when we came up against the uh bathroom use issue, they were of zero help to us. I mean, that's an issue every district is looking at and what do we do about it, but they don't want to involve theel themselves in anything that isn't politically correct and that includes their lobbying. I think that there is some great things that they do for school districts or school boards and they do for um as part of the coalition, but I think there's things with inside that coalition that they need to step back on um because it doesn't isn't the best interest of all
050of the school boards in the state or even in the best interest of what each school board would support in the state. and and I think there's an agenda there. Um, so I that's that's my feedback and that's why I personally vote against it every single time. I understand that the insurance portion of it and I don't want us to be fin if it's a matter of keeping them and still going to outside health, which we've pretty much done anyway, it doesn't justify us dropping them because we're getting so much cost savings on the insurance end. So, it is more of a um it's like a to me the point of it. They've lost sight. I think there's a lot of things they've lost sight of who they're who they're they Montana School Board Association
051who they are representing and I don't like that we can't have two different silos. I think it almost forces you to be a party to them just because the scarcity of having go outside insurance. I'm sorry. I have insurance. explained to me today. I had it explained to me today that they used and I don't understand all that some law 1990 and then you know they created I don't understand all the reasons but it is tied through their bylaws and I asked someone someone who I know that used to be on the board their uh MSGIA board simply said that they they they saw it as a problem years ago. and but they don't feel like it could ever be untwined. I asked Deborah today and I talked to Sean Bub about it and they
052don't feel like it will ever be separated. It's like almost golden handcuffs. Well, we can go other places. It's just it's just such a great the one side of their service is so good that um I mean it's just it's really good and then you turn around and okay, so the other side isn't as good. still has some service to us. I mean, it it helps me every once in a while, but there's days I get so frustrated with it and I don't feel like be nice if they just came out with the policy that we're going to be able to change our own policies cuz before we'd have to get them from them, edit them, then resubmit them, and it sounds like we're going to have the ability to do all of that stuff
053on our end, right? Well, we can right now if we we don't have to we don't have to pay for their 1,600 bucks policy service. It's like,650 or something. We don't have to pay for their policy service, which is just means they house it. They help us. We could we could put a we can do a make our own PDFs and do our own. We don't have to pay for that service. We have all the policies in a word document. uh we can collect all those and we can go through and deal with them ourselves. So what's the system? What's the system that is housed on them? So when we want to search for it, what's not our system? No, no, they they host it. But we don't have to do that. We could simply
054not pay for that. It saves us a few, you know, thou thousand dollars and we can uh we host our own PDF and people can still go through it and they can still search a PDF and things like that. So, how much do you know how much like that service? $1,600. 1650 through that's through the Well, but how much is it if we use it through Kella or whatever it's called? Kella law firm will help. Do they do policies? um there's not really a cost associated with it. She said we redo the policies and she said we would actually send them to you for free. They don't house anything which means you're kind of here it is on your own to figure out all the rest of the stuff and they'll look over them for
055the fees. That's where they start if they start looking over them for their fees. They will do that but they actually felt Martin does not do that. They don't they'll help you look over your policies but they don't create them. So does she push out policies like we're getting now though? So like she'll push if there's a new law, I push out a policy that then we can That is correct. Okay. Uh just like just like we get those emails from schoolboard association with here's the recommended here's the required changes. She does the same thing and she said she would do that for us and then uh she she doesn't really charge to push those policies out. Um but again we'd be on our own with it. And I'm getting I'm looking at you for
056like housing because it would be on um so you there's a thing called OCR that you'd want which is optical character recognition that makes them searchable for PDFs but that's doable. Um it wouldn't be all that much like we can honestly host most of it through Google Drive and as long as we process our documents correctly if the habs would be searchable. Um, so we just have to come up with a way to do it. That wouldn't be a huge cost, right? Would just be another tab on the basically it would just replace the exact same I believe. Didn't we used to host our own policy up until even 2 years ago? Um, it's probably no I think it was more than that. But when I first started here, we were it wasn't on the
057assembly. Assembly is relatively new. That was a new system they went to two years ago, I think. Yeah. Um, when Joe Brock was there. Yeah. So, it's something my first year is when they went to simly. So, it's probably been about two calendar years since we've been on it. Um, so I don't love assembly yet. Yeah, it's not great, but the once you know what you're doing on it, it's not bad. It's about like anything else. I'm fine with it. It's it's uh you know, they have to they have to process things. So, we make changes, we send it to them, they process it into assembly. We would just simply uh have to go in and process it ourselves. Yeah, that's kind of a big thing though, right? Like it's a clerical thing. Editing a
058huge document affects every single page and you know I've done it before. It's terrible. We'd have to we'd have to find a smart way to do it. Yeah. Okay. What we end up doing is is we end up creating we end up creating a large word document, right? You know, whatever thousand page whatever it happens to be word document. This is what I vision it. And then as we make changes, we're just making it page by page right now with word documents and we're sending it to them page by page. We would have a large word document that we would change making the changes. Every time we make a change, we just have to reput it in a new PDF and we'd have to reattach it. So it wouldn't be the end of the world.
059It just uh just have we' be something we have to keep up with. Right now that's what Wendy does. She will help edit those. She sends it to them. She just monitors all, checks that it's been done, and she's got a check off list of all that. My concern would just be that now Wendy has this giant job she can't actually keep up with, and it's a staffing issue, not we're paying for the service. Yeah. You know, like if it's possible for her to do it, great. But it's just a oh my gosh, it wouldn't be that much more work. It wouldn't be that much more work for that position because she's got to go through and do all the edits and send it to them anyway. So now she'd just be editing it within
060this big Word document. I I don't think it would be that much more work. Again, it saves us 1,600 bucks. It's not a ton of money, but it's per year. Per year. Is this Is this precedent by other schools? Do other schools do this, or would we be like only school in the state? No, there's some that use it, some that don't. I couldn't tell you numbers, but Donnie very quiet over there. Yeah, definitely. I figured I figured I would hear something about them from you. I am a strong advocate and proponent of any organization within the state that is supporting schools. Schools helping schools. I've worked with school boards association for 35 years now and yes they are frustrating at times and sometimes the things they say you're kind of in awe at but
061they provide so many services to schools and they have besides the insurance what in the policy what other services truly are they using in a general in an email or phone call besides your liability your property and liability insurance, your work health insurance, your unemployment insurance. I was saying insurance. Besides insurance, all those insuranceances besides insurance and policy, they legislative session say big lobby. Well, and not necessarily just the lobbying piece of it. I mean, back when schools when all those organizations that are part of camps all worked independently of the legislature, nothing ever got through the legislature because the legislature just saw schools as infighting among our own groups. Once we started working together, it's helped. It has helped a ton and we have gotten through the beginning of the session rather than the
062end. The fact that the stars went till the end, it was kind of held hostage, I guess, for other reason. Yeah. But it was about the money, not the fact that it's for schools. um the guidance that they provide to school boards. I you get out of an organization what you put into an organization if you're not willing to be receptive to learning. I mean it's like it's for everybody. Are we going to take the SAM organization away from principles because because it cost us money? Are we going to I think we also need to look into it too, Donnie, because at the same time if we are paying in and we don't feel bes So take insurance way because I'll be honest with you that I mean yes I understand insurance but you have
063to readjust and look is are are we getting out what we are paying yet? I think we are. Are there are there fees high? Yeah, they're high. But when I just feel with the services they provide with their what happens during the legislative sessions with um school boards trainings and and all the other advocacy that they do for school boards the insuranceances the the policy. I've seen a lot of districts struggle over their policies and yes there's other groups out there but when you've got one organization yes I agree everybody operates differently but at the core we're still schools I don't care if you're a Billings or you're a two dot basically the rules and the laws are the same well they aren't the same there's only one law book for all of us so
064consistency I think is huge. I just I'm a strong advocate. So that's why I sit on the quiet bite your tongue. I have a couple of thoughts too. So I just as an example like in my industry we have the credit union national association. I don't always agree with everything they do overall. I kind of like Matt like the pros way the cons. Okay well they can't help me with this so we have to do this but that you know. So I think every organization has a specialty and I do agree like so we had one policy where we maybe needed some custom help maybe that I mean maybe we just got to recognize that that's not their strength but the 99.5% of our policies that are sort of out there. It's easy for us
065to get through them and get them done because they're there to support us. and maybe we maybe we expected too much from them because they don't have the staff attorneys and people to make that decision. This is just my thought. Um and so then in that case, maybe we need a custom situation where Martin or somebody helps us create that verbiage um and that baseline policy for something that's very custom and unique to our district. Um but I do agree like I appreciate the advocacy and the other things that they provide too. So I feel like they like any association or any sort of coalition they have um strengths and weaknesses or or the things that they do best and the things that they don't do best. And I I would tend to you know
066lean on these two had a lot of experience with them that we probably do get more. I see the good that we get out of them. the fact that the policies can go through now I don't see him like from Rene's level that leadership and learning where she's saying you know there's some delays getting back and forth and maybe that's some frustration on the part of that um but the alternative is you know a $200 an hour or $300 an hour attorney telling us what they you know so they take a few more days so we might get back faster but at what expense and that's the but we only get an hour just let you know particular any subject you get an hour with school association if they feel like okay they feel like
067it's going to go over then they'll they'll pre-tell you I mean they won't just spring it out but again but I also get frustrated if I'm in if I'm 30 minutes into a 5minute conversation with Larry Martin and uh yeah you know what I'm talking about and uh uh there's always that guy at work that if you even slow down and and stop for two minutes you know it turns into a 30-minute conversation if you just said hi how's it going Well, you really want to know? So, so sometimes that gets frustrating, too. And I always tell Larry, Larry, I only had a 10-minute conversation. You only charge me for 10. You're not charging me for the whole 30 here. And uh they've been okay to work with. I prefer felt Martin or Via Kaliva,
068but for what it cost us, I do feel like it's again, my pros and cons started out very connish. And uh by the time I was done, I thought, you know, we need to maybe take advantage of some more of the pros. Maybe we need to push a little bit and get on that board, that school board had, you know, get get one of us on that school board or one of you guys on on that uh on that board. I mean, that might be a that might be a good point. Well, at that point, I mean, we haven't really ever given them feedback either. And so, this might be a good way to give them I mean, they're asking for our feedback, so we give them their our feedback and hope that that will
069make some sort of change. And not just because we're the ones complaining, but hopefully I got a permission to call now and I got the super secret email and that made me feel better today just going, "Okay, so I can just call you if I have a question." Well, sure if you want to. Okay. Yeah. Point, Renee. I mean, like we shouldn't discount our our swing because we're of the size of our district. Maybe, you know, we're not we're not a small district in the state. And so if Joliet's trying to have some sway with them, it might be harder for them to so we could act more maybe in advocacy role to make improvements. Be a little squeakier wheel. I think is helpful. Sure. Because we're we are a much bigger squeaky wheel than
070some of the smaller districts would be. Um I just want to also advocate for MTSBA. This last year I was part of the delegate assembly as well as Christina was uh where we actually got to help steer where they were going to push with the next legislative session. Um and things that I given them like it breaks up into groups. There's like student services directors, uh technology directors, and then there's like county superintendents, all these different clusters of people and you all kind of work together to come up with the top 10 things they're going to kind of actually push towards and you can help steer them that way. Um when it comes to the actual policy, it was really really interesting. I'm on it again this year. Me, too. Um, so that'll be fun
071again. Those things were meant to volunteer here at Life. It can be. But it's uh it's awesome because some of the actual things that I pushed to change as our group um that actually got like pushed in the legislature and there's language that I wrote that's being reflected in some of those. it does have a lot of value there and we we have had a lot of advocacy even just through that even though it's um not exactly not the same exactly but I just don't want to be part of a group that we've consistently just like no we'll just keep paying our dues and not ask the hard questions and we probably could be taking advantage of more of their um more of their programs and that's that's on me too uh you know whether
072it's board training and we haven't had them on this year for board training as an example we could take advantage more of their programs and we can get at them at a board level from grassroots. We belong to a region. We have a regional director who is in regard. We're not sure she's I don't know where she's from. She's one of the schools south but she's going to be the president-elect. We should have a lot with her then if we really have issues that we want to Is she in a super secret email address? Well, apparently if none of you know about it, do you even know what region we're in? Uh I don't even know what we So maybe Britney has a future discussion on it. We can brainstorm ways to get more involved
073in TSBA. Well, and I wanted to bring this to your attention because our contract comes up in we got to renew. Yeah, we got to renew uh uh by June. June. June 30th is maybe next month. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And um I would be interested in the numbers on that. Um, you know, there has actually been some earlier history in our district here when I was here where this same kind of question came up about the cost of it and the value behind what you get. And I know that Deborah Silk, she came and worked with us as a group, board and administration. And so I I do think they have some pieces that um if you reach out they'll do that piece for you and I think um not only the training but um
074some of the other things there is some good value in that but it is a lot of money and it's it's actually come up before I you know I can't remember specifically the money but I'm sure that you and I were both here um during that window of time where you know there was kind of a mix on the board. Is this worth it or not? And come down. Did he advocate for it? Oh, and we'll say our uh our dues went down just a little bit. So, are we adding that to the Is that is that a part of the program? Down like 700 bucks. Okay. I guess everybody counts. Yes, Kathy. I don't know. It's the same comparison, apples to oranges, but I was on the board. We got rid of after a
075lot of discussion the uh co-op that was on pieced pieced everything out. Kind of like what you're talking about here. Have the co-op, you have MTSBA. we can do ask these people and these people and pay these people for these little pieces that this one group has. So, I don't know it's a good comparison or not, but it's something to think about. How has breaking up the the co-op and what you put in place work for you? I was part of that change out of the co-op and I think it's been the best decision we've ever made. But that just came to me as you're discussing and what happens what are the dues at this point for MTSBA 15,000 you know it's it's might be 14 15 something with all the other uh with their
076with 12 something like 127 I think for their u general services and then we belong to two additional services which is the uh the the policy updates And then um I think $1,000 we paid for uh for to be part of their strategic planning process. So has inflation raised their dues? Like they go up and down a little bit. It's based on student counts. Right. So ours it's down just a little bit. I think we're 13,100 last year. This year we're like at 12,000 and something is our basic dues. Then the extra thousand then the extra is 1,650 for for those other two uh things. So we're right around that 15 grandish. All right. Thank you Kathy questions. Anybody else on a don can I just update that is Crystal Sentler. She is from Bridger.
077We are in region 9. So here's your mobile contact. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anything else? MTSBA. Okay, moving through. Uh, future discussion items. Anything that I missed? Anybody want to bring up the topic? Anything pressing? Chris, just one for before probably before summer. Just um about what are we going to do with the playgrounds? I know this one probably can't be open. Graph for sure can't be open, but I guess South. Yes. and and oh the south probably can't be open. So the only I didn't even think of that. So the problem will be playground open this year but maybe communicating that with the community the why that was the only thing I had we probably can't open m no we can't do anything on playgrounds at the new schools until they being
078cleared for occupancy. So we can't let anyone know there'll be stuff. So how will we do that? That's it. Okay, we can move. Anybody else? Future discussions burning in your heart that we want. Okay, I'm not seeing anything. Okay, with that tour of West, you're up. You're awesome. I mean, you can All right. You ready?