001uned States well I think that sounds amazing so thank you um going through our public um comment on our agenda 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-agenda interests or during the discussion of the relevant printed agenda item your attendance is welcomed if you plan to speak to the board please look over the information on the agenda complete the public comment card located in the back of the room provide it to myself or superintendent cours to address the school board members I kindly ask you to come up to the podium identify yourself and briefly State your concern public participation is
002a right that carries certain responsibilities such as informing oneself in advance of the issues being discussed voluntarily being as brief and gerain as possible not unduly repeating remarks others or you have already made showing respect 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 correspondents once again our community just uh continues to support our students and our districts so we do appreciate them we have our Laurel booster club which donated to our baseball program for some of their equipment um Alexis Christopher and Bridget larash donated to the Benjamin project Mountain View Painting donated exterior and interior paint for the Fine Arts and the industrial Arts Dynamic
003designs donated sweatshirts for our pantry and an anonymous donation came in for we the people so so again if anybody is listening thank you so much for all of your donations we do appreciate you um continuing your support for our students with that because everybody's here for the presentation and Cake Andrew would you like to start with the presentation of our state champions speech drama and debate team yes would like to recognize our speech drama and debate uh state championship team they had a great showing all year long um I'll announce um our coaches and then um coaches that are here can also talk about if they want to as well but I'll have every kid come up say what place they were in if they did place or at least what um events you
004participated in so our our coaches uh Liz Schwarz she was also nfhs Coach of the Year Doug Anderson he was just awarded this past weekend the MFA coach of the year for the area that's pretty awesome Daniel Johnson and Marie bwin and they put on a phenomenal state tournament um I was basically just there as a fly on the wall but they they did a great job ton of work getting all the judges um for for a great state tournament so with that coaches would you like to say anything uh Mr tenson took my speech so uh g go the play uh we just want to say on behalf of our coaches uh thank you for the support from our community and the board members superintendent admin and our whole community and their parents uh
005for our continued success uh this was supposed to be a rebuilding year and it was but we still kind of managed to um do our best and claim that fifth in a row for drama state championships uh we did have I'm going to let them introduce themselves we had um five individual no we had seven Sorry Seven individual state champs um and that's the first time we've had that in our school history so we're very very proud of that and it was amazing amazing season and we continue to drive forth and again thank you for all your support and we let them come up and introduce themselves and tell you how they did uh we do have some missing members they you know spring Sports started today so they're out their individual sports so we
006have some track kids and softball kids so they can't be here with us okay zero to that also I just want to thank uh the administration and board members uh speech um stay tourament what big this is the first time I'm on the stage tournament and it it it went fairly well but it was because all the support all the people the staff member and admin who volunteer we have 171 judges to be able to do that and uh especially uh Mr Torres we just kind of kidnapp him and his wife he was there both days judging every single event and it doesn't happen without you guyses also um I never said I would be involved on anything schoolwise after my kids graduated and I'm I'm hooked I'm so proud of this program so thank
007you for that this is not they're not just won this year and and stay here this is something that's going to follow them for the rest of their life this this is a skill then they will forever have with them thank you would the members come up here please all of you um okay I am Finley eastlick I'm a senior um I competed in drama I was one of those state champions in uh humorous theater it's a Duo that me and Logan did I'll let him talk a little more on that and then I also competed in humorous solo and I took second place in [Applause] my name is Logan vondell I'm a junior and I competed in drama as well I took first place at state in humorous theater with and I also took
008first place in dramatic theater six in humorous theater with my partner Sophie who is not here with us hi I'm Holly Banks I'm a senior this was my first and only year for speech from bit I did pantomime which I got sixth place and I got third place for classical theater with my partner Ali Krauss my name is River mcer I participated in two events this year I did humorous Theater which I placed third in with my partner Aaron balet who is not here today and I did pantomime which I placed four [Applause] in partner Matias we took first at State and public forum debates just like she said my name is [Applause] I'm Mia chatwood and I did classical theater with B WIS and we got second place and I did dramatic theater with
009Harper Anderson and we got uh I'm Chase mlan uh I'm did my partner is Brennan I'm a junior and we did public for debate and we took sixth [Applause] place my name is [Applause] bery six and then qualified for Nationals and public forum with fr my name is luuk I'm a senior I'm an exchange student and I took eight place at [Applause] Division and um two softball girls uh Brooklyn George was a state champ in m and Harper Anderson was the state champ in dramatic [Applause] silver thank you everyone thank you good [Applause] job okay well that's not it what's next our our next group uh state champions this is something pretty cool two years in a row we were able to do two firetruck parades within two weeks of each other so that's really
010really cool our next one is uh State Wrestling champions um coaches for that again I'll have the kids come up say what weight class they wrestled in um coaches want to speak at all and then what place as well but head coach Ted Hill Mark verlanic assistant coach Ryan Mae Cole Meers Mark Cloud um both of the wise um helped out throughout the season as well there's a lot of people that helped out with with wrestling which is really cool we have good shirt coach thought i' sport it out today anyhow uh yeah we had another great season um just a big thanks to community and everybody else and it made it all happen we had a lot of volunteers and a lot of people working together to make this uh season happen uh some
011highlights was we finished with 50 kids this year that's the most we've ever had in my tenure of last 20 years of uh Laurel High School 4 five boys five girls um and it went and we actually had to put up an extra mat in the depot so we had mats from one end of the depot to the other end just to make room for all 50 of the participants so it was really really great um we have a lot of the members of the state championship team we had uh Cadence isn't here tonight she had D's Ed but she was the she's became our first Girl place at State all girls tournament um which was quite exceptional so we we had five girls and we're slowly building into the girls wrestling but um anyhow
012I'm going to make it short all the boys can line up and give you their weights in there it would be more fun to see what weight they wrestled and then they'll tell you what their current weight is tell you what place they got or how the end hello my name is Aiden on real quick it's okay just so we can hear you we want to give you full recognition are you ready all righty Aiden I weighed 103 and I did place it state I'm Connor Heath I wrestled at 118 and I play second at State my name's Emerson NOS I wa I wrestled 126 and I played SPI at state I'm I'm Elijah NOS I'm a senior I wrestled at 132 and I got first to State my name is Sebastian Mogan I'm a
013senior I wrestled 132 and I got six that divisions my name is Matthew Mogan I'm a sophomore I wrestled 144 and I got sixday my name is Luke knob I roasted at 150 and I got third at state I'm Logan KOB I'm a senior wrestled 157 and I [Applause] got um Eli Hill I wrestled 175 and I took six at I'm Levi love I'm a senior I wrestled 190 and placed fifth at divisionals my name's Ty Brown I wrestled 285 and I got fifth at state any just say congratulations to all these other state champions uh pretty cool to see all the different accomplishments of everyone um I just wanted to we had a couple other kids we had 13 placers and some of the kids had track and some of the kids were gone
014and some kids are still at wrestling practice tonight so we had another state champ um this year and with 13 placers that's the most we've ever placed at the state tournament and that was gave us the opportunity to uh kind of push us above everybody else was just the depth of our team so all those 50 sure did help so congratulations the other team and Mr gatley get you up here man we'll eat some cake Mr gatle is next with We the People again they had a phenomenal deal in Helena he'll talk about a little bit more good evening uh thanks for having us Mr Hill actually kind of stole my thunder I think it's pretty awesome that we have these kids and this opportunity they could do so well in this community and the
015support that you guys give us um it's awesome uh a little bit about the program I know truste uh gray was was part of it when she was in high school uh they I had two teams I have two rostered classes and they for four months they go through a We the People curriculum and it's about the principles and foundations of the Constitution and how it applies to today um and they have they're broken down into six units so we break um each class into six different teams and uh they have three questions that they have to respond to and they don't know what question they get when they go to the state competition um and uh the judges this year uh had same as last year at the state competition in Helena our Supreme
016Court uh uh justice Clerks of of the court in Montana uh many are are lawyers in Helena as well so they kind they know their stuff um and after they give their response then uh the judges asked them a six-minute follow-up question to see if they actually know what they're talking about um uh the my my second period honor civics class they finished third um and then our seventh period of of finished first um in one state and had the opportunity then to go to Nationals uh the thing about uh the seventh period group is they also swept every single unit at the state competition um you looked at the results so that's pretty neat uh they did a great job um so that would that took place second week of January uh gave us
017the opportunity to go to Nationals and with tremendous Community Support uh were able to send these kids not out of their expense uh to Washington DC um so they they did a tremendous job so I'm going to have them come up here introduce themselves and just tell them what unit that they they are in so don't you guys come on up my name is Manny Alvarez I me Alex and Hannah uh we did unit one which focused on classical republicanism my name is Alexandria Monger I did unit one and three with Sophie Hannah my name is Sophia Matson I'm also in two units I did unit three and unit six with um other people so my name is Levi love still and I defended unit five with Aubrey Roth and Regan Nei my name is
018Bron Cory and I did my name's eron Larson I did unit four with Brennan Corey and Evelyn my name is ran Nei and I did unit five with Levi love and Aubrey Raw my name is Hannah Vincent and I also did units one and three my name is Abby Barnes and I did unit 2 with Xander and Brooke who's not here my name is Xander Bergman I did unit two with uh Abby and Brooke and I did unit six with Mason and Sophie my name is Evelyn gidy I did unit four with Brennan and Aaron my name is Mason mikkelson and I did unit six with Xander and [Applause] Sophie we appreciate you and we're surpr surprised supportive cake there's cake um trusty let's take a quick five minute just so we can let them
019grab cake I just wanted to add one thing I've only I've only been here a short time but I must say this is my favorite board meeting so far the best to walk in and I love it we'll do it again yes 620 5 minutes e e e we had did the board asked you to kind of give um a presentation on bus schedules and challenges and where we're at I know we've had some Community feedback and everything so where what's up you're on to give you an idea of what we do in transportation so we don't just settle so we have to realize that education and we all agree with that we are the Cornerstone and that your bus drivers play a huge role as participants with our education department and you have to
020know that as a provider for transportation they reinforce the rules they ex give some of the kids a very first expectations um they build positive relationships with their students so they serve pretty much as a role model so we really want you guys to understand where they are in you know everybody looks at Transportation they look at a bus driver he's just a bus driver and I think before we leave tonight you're going to understand a little bit more about transportation and about bus drivers before we're finish here tonight um so why do our drivers just don't drive so um Section 504 is historically known as a place where we have had more Transportation complaints and disputes those include access to transportation services so that means 504 is a federal law that says that we
021have to provide certain things for our students and they have to be equal for them that's out there so access to transportation services making sure they're getting to and from school as well as their activities they have to be on field trips so if you have a student that has a field trip that has a 504 or an IEP especially the 504 if you were to take them and we're going to use this as an example that we run here in Laurel when we take a group a full group so if you have a grade that goes to pom pillar and you go out to the pillar and you have to want to go and see the signature from Mr you know from William Clark right that's all exciting we want to but it cannot
022take a student that has wheelchair all the way out there because they're not Ada accessible so it doesn't say that we can't just not take that one student that means our entire class cannot go out there so we talk to them because we can't give more to one student and take away you know to everybody else to take away from them the other thing that we used to do is we used to take the kids out to the um leou and Clark Caverns it's against the law for us to do that if they're not able to get through the cavern so our students that were unable to go through there we were excluding them so that is one things we have to realize about field trips that we do with our students and so we
023check with those each time um the length of the ride in Montana we're not supposed to be on a ride for to and from school for more than one hour so if we do have students on for more than an hour which we do at this time in our district have students on for more than an hour the parents are made aware of that and they sign off on that if they don't want to be on for longer than the ride then we can offer them a reimbursement for that so we can do an individual contract um we don't have any students that are taking those individual contracts at this point transportation to and from extracurricular activities so one of the things if we're going to move we have those amazing buses and one of
024the things that we've done correctly here in Laurel is that we did purchase an OTR bus that is a wheelchair accessible one but prior to that if the students which we have quite a few students in our district that are in wheelchairs or sometimes are in wheelchairs and if they were to travel with a team because they can either be you know the staticians for them or they could be on wrestling you know they could be on any of our teams that are out there and if they're in a wheelchair we can't just say you as a student with a wheelchair have to be transported differently than the rest of the team so if the team was going to be on a wheelchair bus because of one students and the entire team needs to be
025on that so we just wanted to make sure that that was brought up and that we all knew about that particular one um reimbursement for transportation cost to the parents so if there's additional Transportation cost to the parents we need to reimburse those to them right now we don't have anybody that's on that so we don't have any reimbursements at this time um losss of instructional time so we cannot say we're going to run this route late all the time because we only have eight students on this special needs bus and run all the other ones there we can't take away from from their time so we have to make sure that we're all fair and Equitable across the line with that so we do make sure that we're make that they're not losing any
026of their instructional times for students with a 504 School Bus suspensions we have to be really careful because if we suspend them from school bus ride that's exes suspending them from school so we can't go over 10 10 days so we really have to know about those students and which ones have five for so that when we're looking at those for doing the general um Behavior plans that are on the buses which I do all the behaviors that are on every one of our buses we talk with them so we have to actually know that we're not suspending them from school with that 504 so and then method of transportation how do we get them to and from we can't change it and say we're only going to do one bus for you because um
027you you have to be we have students sometimes that end up um that are regular students that have surgeries on their legs or something like that and they end up in a wheelchair for six to eight weeks we can't if they have a 504 accommodation to go with that medical condition they have we have to find a way to transport them with their peers in their regular routing so we have to make sure that when we look at that we're not excluding them for any reasons whatsoever so method of transportation is really important for us to look at when we're looking at our students that have the 504s so integrating with the best with the children's with the least restrictive that's what we always want we want to make sure that we have every one
028of our buses are the same least restrictive forum and we have really succeeded in doing that and that's because we have the AIDS on our buses so we don't have any busing right now that we're least restrict you know that we're not allowing every student to be on there because we have been able to get our areas to the point and Staffing that we have go on there so the children's Law Center um so I just want to so the parents and guardians of children um in March uh 7th of 2024 filed a a a claim or a charge against um the superintendent of Education um out of the state because not here in Montana though let me just put that into the District of Columbia and so they provided safe reliable and effective transportation
029to and from school they were neglecting to be able to get their children to and from school on a timely ba manner so any student that had special needs if it didn't fit in with everybody else they were making them late for school they were taking away their instructional times they were um making them go three hours out of their way to get those because in the bigger cities we're pretty lucky here we kind of look at ourselves and wondering in Montana how we get to do this but there's lots of students that like we have right now that go to the elstone academy that they're in the larger cities they will travel three hours to get to a school such as that and so this is probably part of this one that they have
030here one of the sad things in the cases in this particular one was that they um had a student that was being dropped off and because they didn't connect it to their transportation the student was dropped off at their mother's house who had passed away two two years before and so the first day of school had no idea because Transportation was not made aware of what that they had moved so this one here special education student with effective function impairment was given an indivual ual education plan by the Victor Elementary School that included a school called curb to curb Transportation so this was ensuring that they arrived safely at school in the mornings and safely home in the afternoons this particular student here was on the bus they did not know the busing did not
031have any idea the student was on an IEP or 504 plan so when they were got a change of address that put them under the one mile to school they dropped his transportation the parents didn't say anything transportation department didn't know anything so this kid was walking to and from school and it turned out that Unfortunately they paid out $28.5 million settlement because the student was struck by a car and all because of the transportation communication between the IEP and the school never made it to Transportation so it's very important that we make sure that we look at these particular ones here so at the table as whole it's who you need around that table and transportation decisions are required to be based on the individual needs of a student in order for it to
032occur and so we need to make sure that we are at those IEP meetings and those 504 meetings whether they're the first ones going in or a renewal and the reason we say that is because anytime special education transportation is needed for a student we have to know how to handle it whether it's a behavior incident of why we're transport way whether they are medical reasons that we have to do that whether it has to do with he needs to sit in the front of the bus he has um sight he has um motor skills he has to you know gets overzealous on the bus because it's so loud so there's so many things that we have to know about each individual student and so it's important to be very successful for their day is
033for us to all have that information so it is the law um that came out here um for them it's they was again in not in our state but what happened with this particular one here um the civil rights of United States Department of Education has issued this original letter which found that the New York school district violated a students rights to failure to share necessary information to Transportation officials including disability Student Records so many times we hear oh I can't give you that because of of fura you know we can't we have to make sure that we don't change you know share information you don't it's a need to know it is a need to know and transportation needs to know all this information specifically in this particular one in March of 2015 before
034school started this student was diagnosed with diabet type 1 diabetes so they went through what to do he needed to have certain types of medication and how the medication was given to him they did not give it to the transportation department so when a student had an issue on the bus because he had his low blood sugars they end up half a Col the ambulance they knew nothing about it $15.2 million was paid out on this lawsuit because they did not notify Transportation so that's just something for you to have it so also so you know here specialized um student transportation for students with disabilities to and from school is not a special education allowable cost budget Authority for transportation of students with disabilities must be established in the Transportation fund this came out in
035May 24th of 2024 so it comes out of Transportation fund for that it's not paid out of any other thing but out of our fund so yearly requirements for drivers so they need to have their drivers run their driver's record every year to make sure that they haven't gotten any tickets or anything um we need to run a query through the Clearing House which is a drug and alcohol testing and then we have to do new and hire and random checks for them we have to do the medical cards so they get their Med cards every single year some will go two years it just depends right now I'm seeing the majority of them coming in as a one-year renewal at this time they run us here in the district about $107 per drive so
036um CPR and first aid is required it's given every two years um review the tr35 so we have to go through that the tr35 is with the driver's carry that says their driver's license is active they've had all the background checks that are done on them they cards are current everything that they have to have is done and noted on here and turn into the state you receive those Britney every time every month or whenever they change they come to you guys for approval so they have to be signed um new higher background checks have to be done and then review of the hours of service so the hours of service we'll get into in just a few minutes here and so the annual training hours or 15 hours a year each driver has to
037have it along with our AIDS and it just depends and when this the district set it up our district is set up from June from July 1 to June 30th so whenever we have a renewal we have to get all of our drivers in for 15 hours between July 1 and June 30th so if they're hired on May 15 by the end of June 30th they have to have the 15 hours of training in there that's up on that particular one and there are limits and requirements by the state of what we cover so the Clearing House was enables employees to identify drivers who committ a drug and alcohol program violation while working with another employee the employer basically because they could go work for Joliet have a drug and alcohol and then come to
038Laurel and not tell us so we wouldn't know we you know if we send in a request and they don't tell us about it that's what they they were missing so what they did was they answer in 2024 with the this is update here on the Clearing House here so they put it in law in 2020 um that we all had to start doing the clearing house after January 6th of 2023 we no longer have to do the request to the schools or the other places they're coming from so that they automatically so the Clearing House has now all that information so anytime there is any type of alcohol or drug related incidences on a CDL driver he doesn't have to be a Laurel Public School driver he could be anyone that comes and applies
039for us and he could have two years years ago had an incident in Indiana if he comes here it's already in the federal clearing house and we would automatically get that information we would find that out so the query so we have this one in here so the motor carry requirements a query record um anytime we have a new hire we have to do that there's two occasions the Cy is requested one as a CDL driver applies or transfers to a um safety sensitive position or an annual basis for a current CDL driver so we do the annuals anytime they come in so when we do a new hire it's actually a full query which means we have to get their consent to do the whole thing everything will come back and they'll run things
040for us if we do just the basic query if anything comes on there it's going to tell us that there is something that's there so the query represents annual alerts to employers so that we know if there's any violations if someone didn't tell us limited query carriers only told whether the record is the doesn't tell us what it is then we have to request within 24 hours what that is actually on there so if they have to go through Medical Reserve officer so if he has a you know we have go in he goes in for a a test and he comes back and there's some type of medical that shows up on there any type of drug that's on there the medical review officer will look at that and then he'll mark it down
041into the into the query for the Clearing House for us so who is a safety sensitive position those are all of our drivers anyone that's in the heightened risk involvements so it's our drivers it has everything to do with our dispatchers as well because if there is an accident or something they're going to have to work to get help that's out there so um anyone in the general public is certain um scenarios or positions so in our area right now we have all of your drivers and your dispatchers that do that so whether they're we don't have our non-cdl drivers in the query because they are not required because they don't have a CDL so our class E drivers that don't have their don't have a CDL they don't go through the clearing house but
042they still are on the random drug testing so testing pool includes employers um dot random tests so we have everybody that's on there so we can't have a do random on someone that doesn't have a DOT requirement so if there's an accident it doesn't meet the regular accident requirements whether it's like the vehicle has to be towed there has to be certain amount of damage to the vehicle or an injury involved we don't have that's not doesn't meet do requirements however it does meet Laurel's requirements because if we had anyone that has to be you know had to be towed or had anything that's in there will run a random on them particularly but it wouldn't be considered do it would just be a regular test for an accident test and then all of our
043class E drivers are not required to have a CDL we can't actually do the whole query on there for them but we do do all of their um background checks and stuff on there for them so and they're on the random and that's all part of the Montana bus standards that we're required to do this this isn't just something that we choose her here this is underneath the Montana bus standards it says that we will do this so hours of service these are important for us and this kind of hits everybody here especially it hits Andrew the most with us um hours of service is our maximum drivers are permitted to be on duty including the driving time so you'll see a lot of times in there these are all the federal requirements so FN
044CSA says other types of Transportation such as field trips or trips to sporting events are not exempt if you are a contractor they're required to do that per FMCSA however school districts are not required to follow the hours of service so that's through f in CSA so that would exclude us we wouldn't have to meet them however in our Montana bus standards in 2012 they adopted them and so since Montana bus standards adopted that requirement we have to meet the hours of service so a lot of times you'll hear people say well you know your transportation director is crazy FMCSA says they don't have to do it 100% right FMCSA tells me I do not have to meet that standard however the state of Montana Montana bus standards says I will make those it doesn't
045you know so that's why we are required to do it and you'll see a lot of that throughout the difference you'll see it differently throughout the state we still struggle with that quite a bit Statewide but just wanted to make sure that everybody here is aware it is required it's not just something that we're choosing to do a Montana bus standards hours of service U so we have to do those particular ones we cannot drive more than 10 hours um we have to be off for eight hours to reset our clock so if we had those long trips that were out there so you'll see we have 10 hours of drive time 15 hours total that we can be so you'll see that particular one you like wonder how in the world we ever do
046some of those particular ones and that's because in Laurel here we actually get our bus drivers hotel rooms especially if they're far away and the reason we do that is because it saves US money not having to bring a second driver so it is cheap to bring that one there so that we end up so that we're following our hours of service most times our drivers can go back during an event especially speech drama and debate which is an entire day trip when you're up there if they get themselves a hotel room the driver can sit there go back to the hotel room sleep all day his clock restarts he's fresh and we're always on Snowy icy roads it seems like when we're in on speech drama and debate so it's really a win-win for
047us all the way around so so um 10 hours of drive time on there 8 hours consecutively off and so no driving after the 15 hours so looking at that particular ones we look at those and we'll look and shift our clocks especially when we're going to H H is one of our hardest one Browning is going to be a very difficult one for us to do because they're at 5 hours already one way when time you do your pre-trip and you're you know up there so you're already 5 hours and if any reason our drivers are told that have to stay at the bus we don't have time to come back so when we're looking at that particular one we absolutely have to look to see what is the safest for our kiddos and
048our drivers on the way back so we look at those particular ones that are there and we work really diligently to get our time off you'll notice in the fall when we had our football teams that were going to H we actually flew our second driver up there because it cost us like $39 much cheaper to fly someone up there for our return trip excuse me they're rested and ready to come back so we just want it for safety reasons that are out plus it's the law too so we have to follow that one um extension of drive time you're allowed an extra two hours of adverse driving conditions um but you have to remember this is for hours that we aren't aware of so if they are forecasting a big snowstorm and we know
049it's going to take us an extra hour and a half to get back so we're looking at more than the 10 hours we can't use that because we were aware that there was a big snowstorm coming through we had to be prepared for that one what happens if there's an accident ROW construction things like that that we're not able to to have any control over we get an extra two hours so we can drive for 12 hours for that day um can drive up to 12 hours um not after the 15 hours on there so our on duty time um is when we are required to be responsible for the bus right um anytime they're in there on duty time is considered anytime we're doing pre-trip anytime we're having to sit there with the so
050that that um tracks people can come and go off of the bus we have to have someone on there at all times that's considered on duty they can also be on duty when we look at teachers that drive so if they're teaching responsible to students and then they get into a bus and start to drive if they had their CDL all those hours prior to that counts towards their their 15 hours total time so it doesn't mean they have to be on Transportation time but if they're already on time working so we are very very diligent about paying attention to what's happening with our subd drivers as well making sure they're not that they're getting the rest they're supposed to have out there as well so they're coming to Workforce so off duty time basically
051this disas want to say if they can wipe shut the doors walk away from the bus they're off duty so that shuts down their drive time that shuts down their time now they can still drive that bus they can use it what they call like a personal conveyance say they drop off this team they are completely done with the team and they want to go go back to their hotel from the time the they shut the door with the team they're off duty even though we're paying them to go back to rest that's totally okay once they get that rest they have that eight hours every clock starts back over so if they're off for that one they can start that entire eight hours back over so pay it doesn't make any difference whether they're
052being paid or not has nothing to do with this we can pay them 23 hours a day if we wanted to as long as they're not going over those 15 hours that they are required to be there at the bus so who is responsible for the hours of ser violations I just want you guys to look through this really quick here um these are our employers violation pertaining to an allowing um authorized employee um violations out of service this is the 2024 so we can get $38,600 um recordkeeping maximum total penalty 15,44 so say we totally screw up on their hours of service we're not doing their hours of service we're not trying to meet those these are all these penalties that we can pay um falsifying knowingly falsification of Records is 15, 445 so
053if we take a record and say I don't want him to work so I'm going to fudge and say that he was off duty when he was actually driving that and knowingly do that then that would be a penalty that would be to us um connect drivers licens CDL violations commercial driver CDL um 1,000 or $697 so if we knowingly know that this CDL is expired the Medical's not there something's not working correctly and we knowingly send them out there we can get that bit that's just for one driver so how well do you know our policies here in Laurel I just want you guys get a heads up 8100 is all the transportation services homeless in town busing so we need to know where our service areas are service areas anyone over you know
054three miles and over are eligible Riders on our buses um homeless what do we do with our homelesses that are out there we're required to transport our homeless students um knowing for homeless students if they become homeless in their junior year and they want to finish their senior year and they still want to live in Billings we're required to transport them Senior Year back to Laurel we've done that in the past just so you know that um in town busing we have certain things that we have to do we had some things that we said we were going to do so we have our Intown busing what do we have there for that one that's all those ones that are transferring from school to school um our 8123 is our driver training our tr35 is
055are current by the drivers so we have that policy that's in there um 8132 is our activity trips this is the one that people don't know about and a lot of times I have a lot of push back from our specifically from our coaches and those that are on there is that is because I have to have in my hand a copy of the seating chart before they leave or the roster before they leave and so we need a seating chart because anytime it's in there so we're getting them to give us a roster with their names all on it and just holler out what seat number they're in take a picture of it and send it back to me so those are ones that we need to have here um and it does that
056before they come home because a lot of times we don't have the same students on the way back home best practice suggestions how many teachers are alone in a classroom of 50 none I don't think it's anybody here that does that IEP has constant supervision this is a huge one that gets us in a lot of trouble IEPs that have constant supervision onetoone supervision or active supervision that's listed on their there we have to provide that on the school bus a school bus is just an extension of the classroom so anything that we're saying in IEP 504 to meet them for their education we need to meet with them at the bus something that can pertain there um parents complaint to their students being bullied on the bus we get those all the time and
057we talk about that and so the best practice that we have done right at this particular time is we put those Aids on there and that has really drastically went down because you can't have a driver with 50 plus students on the bus behind them having them drive on those icy snowy roads and then pick out and seat 21 when Bobby is saying mean things to Susie so it's just it's impossible to do and then U complaints that your driver is never never on time those are one of the suggestions that we get and I'm sure that you guys get those as well we get complaints all the time well your driver is never on time well they're on time you know they get 5 minutes before and five minutes after but when you sit
058out on wal Road at a at the train on there for 27 minutes in the morning yeah we're going to be behind so we do do our best at sending out information to all the parents to let them know what's going on um but we do have the issues that sometimes our drivers aren't on time and we're going to go slower when the roads are snowy and icy if we're having behavioral problems on the bus and we have to pull over and stop until they behave we're going to be a little bit later behind there so it does come into it because there's not a lot more that we can do we can't send the student to the office as we're in the middle of a of a of a route so we don't have
059the same options as they do in class rooms and then Aids on the buses have really made these problems go way down if you had looked before we had AIDS compared to now um we had 32 um um 32 writeups for the month of February um but when we looked back years ago before we had any Aids on there and I looked at the February and it was in 20 11 I think it was 2012 anyhow there was there was like 48 so they have gone down and then granted that's not a huge amount but considering the difference in what we're dealing with to me I thought that was stantial on there and they also helped keep bus drivers because we would lose a lot more bus drivers if they didn't have someone else to
060help them okay so routing current routing we have 15 routes six drivers and four Class E drivers um transporting every single day we have 563 students that we are transporting of those 563 187 of them are non-eligible or ineligible writers those are ones that are under the three miles to school um we have combined routes right now because we are short drivers and then we have transfer routes that are we're doing right now that are transferring students from from graph over to West and to South we don't have all of our buses going to every school so here's what we wanted to look at here this is looking at the Laurel element at West right now and if you look on here you can see where our current bus loading zone is at right there
061on eight correct what we're looking at next year if they're all getting out at the same time we're moving all the buses we can get maybe three buses over there in the winter time when we had the snow piled up we could only get two in at a time so I'm just trying to be proactive and looking at that south of that picture is where we're going to have our parent drop off Zone down there it goes through that one um around out there it might behoove us to look at suggesting moving our buses over back to the north side shutting that street off to our parents saying they can't drop their kids on that side at all they have to go to the south side of the school to drop their kids that would
062protect that one and then we could open up the front for Anytime a parent has to park really Qui and run into the office or something that's just a thought for us that we that I had for our Laurel Elementary School over there so looking there um the Intermediate School this is the only one I could find that was later um so as we look at that the um hot pink that's in there um we definitely want to make sure that that's a no school parking Zone No Parking Zone in there coming right down Alder between at least between the Middle School and the intermediate school um we want to make sure there's no because right there where you can see the crossing right down there I believe that is correct Wayne is that we're
063putting our our regular crosswalk it's going to be there so we definitely want to make sure um that when we're looking at that that we're paying attention and being very proactive about not having any parking there my thought would be if we did not have if they're coming down heading south on Alder we don't want them stopping to make a leftand turn turn over onto Elanor Roosevelt I don't know if there's any way that we could actually get that whole flow of traffic going where they come up through c um Cottonwood up to eleno Roosevelt because there that's a a full Street that's there um on Sixth Street that is one of the it is controlled by the stop sign so if they get up there and as they come out to Alder make that
064a right turn only that's pushing them north towards Maryland so then we don't have people all the traffic backing up behind us and then sending them straight up there and then when the buses come out of the bus loading zone which is on the front there um in the parking lot where you can see there if we can make sure that those are a right turn only for the buses as well up to Maryland and then dumping onto Maryland which is going have to have a stop correct so look at those on so we have a good flow of traffic right must yeah we should have that one there too as well as here at the middle school and high school these are pretty much the same they look great to us we're not having
065any issues it's going to be very easy we see that our actual pull through is probably going to be we usually drop depending on the the start times we're looking at the start start times be pretty much the I would assume the same as they are this year um which means we'll drop at high school middle school Intermediate school and then over to the elementary school so that will make it a nice kind of rotation through every bus going to every school we won't have the hindrance of of trying to sort students out at graph because we don't have we don't want want to get buses stuck on the south side behind the tracks with the railroad trains and stuff so you know this will work really easily to have all the buses go to
066all the schools and it should save time and get us out so our beste um routing here is we want 10 routes for next year so we want to increase those um these are just regular routes this is not the the ones we saw before we had 15 we had all of the ya routes in there and all of the Kinder boost routes and all those those would still fall in here but for our best scenario when you look at this I'm giving you guys ideas of town um moer Dome area which is south of town um was a route have uh Highway 212 and 310 which is that route going out there or the old going towards Red Lodge that's there south of the interstate which is behind the refinery south of the interstate
067is a route Highway 10 which is north of the interstate out to Park Cities line Southeast in um River Road so that is south of the refinery onto River Road and come backing in because we do have some areas that are out there that we have to cover which would be like field River Road those housing developments that are down there and realizing that we're going to need more up on the top Clapper flat still is a road as a route Northeast and so new that new Housing Development up there that's on 72nd Street those are ours we just haven't had anybody register yet but I think we'll see some more more that's coming in from that particular one um our sped routes the elstone an academy route and then our um our transfer routes
068which we need to kind of address those particular ones as we get going here um what do we need to accomplish this we need to have drivers we need five additional CDL Drivers to be able to accomplish what we're looking at um we need some classy drivers we have the three that are there I have a couple that I'm trying to train to be our CDL Drivers I'm getting them talked into coming out of being a classy and moving over to our CDLs we were trying to get some of those drivers moved around and getting them trained um special um special needs that we have down there we need some specific drivers especially those classes where we have some driver or some students that cannot be transported with their peers and that is written up
069the specifically for that so we have a couple of students that we are just doing a one-on-one transfer with them so we just need to make sure that we're hitting those um the Ben benefits for that is our our students are on time to schools um and for their classes we do have a tendency right now that we're running a little bit behind on our Yellowstone Academy which we're not the only ones we're not the last of us out there in the morning and or anything but we still would prefer them to be able to attend a full day school um we have to be um activities we want you know we want to make sure that we can cover all of our activities which would save us a lot of money here in the
070district um drivers have never more hours so they we be qualified for the benefit and it says and we know our Expo our exposures whenever we hire someone else we don't know what our exposures are for those drivers right so this our group so in a nutshell that's where we're Landing with Transportation right now there's a lot that's in there um but this is for our our thing that's out there but um our group works really diff really hard and works hard to make sure that they're providing for every one of our students but we have questions I kind of went through it really quickly and I talk fast I know but I didn't want to take up the whole night so yes this is a huge job so I appreciate it but one of
071the biggest questions that I get from the community is what will it take to offer busing to to kids in town because three miles is a large radius when you have maybe a middle schooler or fifth grader you know who can't necessarily drive but three miles is a long way to walk especially in the winter time like those are still our students and um and the question is you know when I was growing up we offered busting to everybody so why can't we now and so I I just would like to ask you that when I started 23 years ago we had 12 bus routes that's a lot of routes that we had bus drivers I'll be really honest with you if we had the drivers we could do that we right now are not
072able to provide like up here where Coyote Ridge and up past the Val you know Valley Drive and those areas up there we're not getting out to those the students that are living out towards the golf course on on 9th Street we don't because right now what we're transporting we're getting pretty full buses did mention some ineligible Drive Riders who were within the limit correct so that's another question I see the bus go straight by my house yeah yeah right so we've been directed um by the district to provide transportation for students that live on the south side and they go when we went to when we went to the grade level in schools so we said that they would provide transportation to those students that would normally go to South now they have to
073go to graph and they have to go to West and that unfortunately has just stuck with us um and it's a lot of it is quite a bit of students so we have pickups now over at West school that takes them across over to graph and middle school and then we have some on a byting park that takes them over to to West and to South school so we are providing those the other one that I was directed to do is we have the Alder rdge trailer court because they they didn't have if we don't have transportation out there we noticed that when we went to we had this issue before with no drivers and they had to have we shut down everybody that was under the three miles I don't know you guys remember
074all that it was horrible we hate to do that but um we saw a a hug huge drop for those students students didn't attend so we we do we do that one too because they don't believe there's a really safe way for them to get to school coming from Alder because Maryland doesn't have sidewalks on it a lot of questions I'm sorry we could maybe address this one another but um um what about hiring an outside contractor and you said the exposure was one thing you know like sarie or student first or that sort of thing would it be cost effective um this is coming from the Transportation fund not general you know the general fund so what about that whenever we use sarie as an example we use them some activity routes they are
075very expensive and activity routes come out of our general fund as an example so whenever we struggle with with finding drivers we try to get kids home first that's our priority is our routes so then we'll go ahead and and at her discretion she'll get a sarie driver but I mean the cost is they're $650 so normally they'll pay like if we're taking a yellow bus for sarie to go up to Red Lodge on tomorrow I guess Yeah tomorrow's they're going up skiing again um it's 650 a bus and if we do it's about a huge difference on that one one of the other things that happens a lot of times when you go to those is that you lose busing because most of them will want every route not just pick and shoes routes
076that they have have um years ago sarpi used to let us rent their drivers but we would just hire their drivers to fill those particular ones um they were getting $75 a route where our drivers were probably making 15 or 20 so big difference that's in there Union ISU paying some drivers more than what you're paying other drivers so it's kind of an All or Nothing composition for it's not cheaper to uh to go ahead and uh contract out it's not cheap it' be great if it was but uh it's and loss of several drivers this has been I mean it's been trying across that I don't think it's just our district but it's been trying across we're trying to do whatever we can to to pick up what kids we can transferring in in
077town where we can and Z is really bent over backwards to try to make those things happen but if we had five or six more drivers we would we'd be yeah we'd be in much better shape what's the primary reason for the shortage of drivers is it funding is it we lost three this year right within boom boom boom it seems like we lost three boom boom boom one was finishing it was just they they they had their other jobs it's not a full-time job and they don't get paid enough to you know to stay they don't get eight hours a day so and they have a family that they have to take care of so one had left to finish with their full-time job they had the second driver moved to Dobson so she
078had to move up there and our other one left and went some place where he made more money on talk about the split shift I mean that's yeah that's split shift so timing and everything is different it's not just you start at 8: a.m. and you leave at 4 I mean they get splits and dropping off and then they're but the same was true preo I'm assuming majority of ours have are older retirees and so once Co hit we saw a lot of them that don't want to that didn't want to be around the students we are building back up but because of that particular one we are lucky to have this the drivers that we have because in even though it seems like we're like really daunting we're actually better than most transportations within
079the state um to be very honest with you um pay is is a big thing um we look at it I mean if you look up at um um grass range um anyhow they pay $30 an hour um it's not our drivers are very are not complaining about you know you guys have done a great job with raising our rates since you know our pay and that has really helped out it's still below what they could go to Billings and work for First Student for um but they also know that we have a lot of good benefits that are there for them but they do they come in they work 6:00 to 8:30 and they come back in and work 3 to 5 so they have that split in in there they don't none of
080them not all of them make enough hours to be able to get benefits well other places offer some benefits some of them offer them automatically get four hours a day no matter what you know they have guaranteed hours so they automatically get those particular ones I know that some schools offer benefits for the drivers right away so they don't have to have the the 30 hours to get full benefits a lot of schools offer full benefits from the very beginning for bus drivers so it's just kind of of a different place that we're at um we've just kind of hit that kind we've gone last couple years we've been really lucky with with drivers and stuff and this time we just kind of got hit but none of them was anything that was you know
081yes we wish it wouldn't happen but we really couldn't stop it from you know from it happening you know people had changes in their lives so much for that time and information Z I do appreciate apprciate it oh oh um Zeta and I have been asked to present on special education and transportation and behavior next year at the um case legal law conference in Oklahoma City with um more than 5,000 attendees so I'm very fortunate to work with someone that is so passionate about their job and is really a pleasure to work with with in the special sh that very much Al righty moving through our agenda I do have the consent agenda whoever makes the motion can we please make a small change to February 24th in removing Chris bogle's name as he was
082not in attendance at that do I have a motion on the consent agenda I'll move to approve the consent or the consent agenda with the change to the February 24th minutes that included Chris Bley in attendance should be removed motion um by Donnie I have a second second questions from the board not seeing any comments question from public audience all righty I have a motion from Donnie to approve the consent agenda with the amendment to the minutes on February 24th and a second by Jenny all in favor say I I all oppose say nay motion carries um with the board's approval I would like to request that we move item J of the self removal bid up um underneath the first part of action item I know Shane is here and it would be nice
083to uh release him because I think he's still on per hour um if the board is okay with that getting a shake of hands oh he does I'm sure he does I'm sure okay I'm getting some head nods so I'm gonna move you up Shane so you'd come up um sell oh sorry excuse me hold on do we want have Shane come up and explain what's going on with South before I asked for that motion okay I just want to make sure come on up I'm just starting to boss everybody around so good evening trusty sorry for crashing the last board meeting I this is what I wanted to make sure that we were covering with you um we're here for approval of the the public bids we had those bid openings on the 24th
084of February um these are the low bids as we're going for award um we do have a bid old alternate that we want to maybe entertain would be removing the boiler uh plant to make some more room possibly for storage that's at the bottom of the page you see that's 35,4 or 534 if we decide not to do it it'll be that much less so it would be the 1,549 360 I can't let you know our bids were very good we did very well with our bids um a lot of competition um and we came in under our budget so we're very excited for that I think obviously it's going to help us at graph considerably but we would like approval to to move forward with getting contracts contracts out for the project action item
085um Jay being our first um item for South remodel bid do I have a motion can I clarify do we want to remove so that that was a deductive so do we want to remove it it will be adding that 35 back in adding the alternate yes we bid it as the base B and then ask for a deduct so do we want to get rid of the boiler set hold that hold that request so that's a discussion do we want to get rid of and have the motion I mean how far under budget did this bids come in hundreds of thousands I'm of the opinion to remove it then remove we would R and I would like it removed we not just because we'd have a little more storage in that room it removes
086an asbest issue uh it's may have to be removed down the road and we'll probably never be able to remove it it's a lot of money obviously but we'll never be able to remove it that cheap probably ever that is a fact this will be the cheapest you'll ever get it removed for sure and this was a reasonable pricing for removing this type of a boiler set all of the headers um all the piping you know it's cleaning out the entire boil we're transparent and this is not work that we can do with our maintenance [Laughter] V good question anybody else comments questions okay would you like to go ahead with your motion Renee or so we just want to approve the bid yeah you have the bid numbers there so that'd be the 1,549
087okay so I make a motion to approve the bid for 1,549 36018 for the South project do I have a second I'll second seconded by Jenny now that I have a motion on the table and any other comments questions from the board comments questions from public audience all righty with that Renee made the motion to approve with the bid on the 1 1,549 3618 seconded by Jenny all in favor say I I I'll oppose say nay motion carries thank you very much for your time sir for the rest of you no I'm just um action item we're going to go back up to the top for our action item a for mtsba policy recommendations of the first reading 1 through 13 do I have a motion do I need discussion first I have I have
088a shake over here yes go ahead can I just get a little clarification on the attachments there was some stuff highlighted and some in different colors and some underlined and some lined out which pieces are the changes that mtsba recommends and which ones did the committee I was just a little confused St the clarification uh Wendy has placed in there on this first set these were the recommendations coming from the Montana School Board Association so if I'm looking through them there was a good question why some some might have been highlighted because the committee had questions and we highlighted them to continue you're right right if I remember right those were ones that that we said okay we need an answer on a particular item so we left them highlighted they got answered and then
089just didn't get unhighlighted I read them as those were the changes they are the changes but some of them like I'm looking at they like 51 20 NF1 which is the first one that help you all that one uh you can see the changes were made just by Xing them out and the change of the wording if I remember right the others were open up policy 512p I guess I took it as the highlighted were those are the things that you guys talked about and changed and then wrote it in Cross it off and then just so that we knew what was either added or discussed and then and then like 2120 P1 um there's there's some whole sections there that were brand new that were highlighted that were totally new [Music] 521 resignation there
090were some that they recommended change that we then Chang to our own herbage yeah so remember I don't know if they were just 4340 is number nine [Music] line so on that one those were the yellow were added and the cross outs were their their recommendations yeah so we have a lot of cross outs like that sometimes there's black cross sometimes confused my biggest question I guess is on the changes recommended by DZ 4 number 12 uh section what reasoning first Devon is not here with us tonight so are you saying uh lines number 11 of the use of electronic mail okay that just because of procedures that are or specific to moral is why we're yeah he rewarded d That's the only one that he changed the only one he did correct he he
091read through them all and he just rewrote D so all the yellow School Board D was correct I don't think that was meant any message from an unnown should be immediately deleted or forwarded to the like could you imagine yeah was like I don't want to be doing that okay than you welcome anything else we for discussion there was a couple optional sections do we um want to keep if we keep that in there do we want to remove the optional word itself yeah um I think we wanted to leave that in there so that the board knew that that was optional language that mtsba gave us the option to include or not we chose to either keep it or remove it depending on which policy it was but we would take obviously take the
092word optional off of it before she publishes it right yeah that's what I was clarifying I don't want to keep the optional in the policy itself because yes the end end yeah they're not lined out correct yeah we can have all that removed good question any other questions clarifications thereis mud only one that I think we kind of discussed that that like maybe the board should weigh in on is the resignations one which is 5251 um the 10 um was the their suggestion was to the board authorized the board chair to accept on its behalf resignations from any District administrator and we felt like it should be from the superintendent and then the superintendent should accept the resignations of District administrators just so there wasn't a confusion there but their policy that they sent us
093did allow for both the board chair and the superintendent to accept resignations basically we changed it so that the board chair would accept the superintendent's resignation and the superint Tenant would accept everyone else's so I guess I don't know if anybody has big Fe feelings on that or I do too it provides a clear structure and I know that in the past the trustees have wanted to know that immediately yeah and that's it doesn't exempt the communication to the you know the board but it does provide the yeah exactly the clear form of communication I agree with this as to make a motion okay are you ready I was just making sure okay action items a mtsba policy recommendations first reading 1 through 13 do I have a motion don't move oh Donnie's making the
094motion um do I have a second second C me off guard I usually don't okay now that I have a motion on the table any additional comments questions clarification Claire is mud uh public audience any comments questions all right action item a for mtsba policy recommendations first reading 1 through1 13 um motion approved by Donnie seconded by Kayla all in favor say I I all opposed say nay motion carries action item B mtsba new policy recommendations first reading item number one policy 512f do I have a motion I move to approve the first reading of policy 512f approv by Jenny do I have a second seconded by Renee comments questions from the board Donnie is that a hand is that a hand up it is a hand and I'm trying to understand my note that
095I made on it so what's con what's attached is the dissemination log corre which I thought we couldn't disseminate because we use electronic disseminate to the people so for example if you do a background check on me you have we have to keep track if you give me the yeah now we don't disseminate to other entities but we have to we if you read 51 I think it's 5120 P or 5120 NF I have to go back and look but uh one of them makes reference to um 512f the criminal dissemination log and we're supposed to have that criminal dissemination log if anyone was to say well can I get a copy of my background check we're supposed to keep a log of it according to our other policies but we didn't have a log
096in policy so we went back School Board Association has one and this is what we're supposed to have and be keeping track of but we do not disseminate to other schools or other entities it's dissemination to an individual who did the background check they have the right to see that so are we approving policy 5120 NF or are we approving 5120 f0f the recommendations got both things written in it and I but they're two different things NF is uh 51 we already had the policy we didn't have we didn't have the Discrimination form so it talks about the policy and tells us what we're supposed to do we just need to we just didn't have the form that went with it the recommendation is approve 512f as a new policy first reading okay you good
097okay well it's already motioned so we're good on that any other comments questions comments questions to the public audience Al righty action item B for the mtsba new policy recommendations of the first reading of policy 5120 F made motion to approve by Jenny seconded by Renee all in favor say I I all oppose say nay motion carries action item C mtsba policy number change of of change of 5120 F1 to F okay did you okay that one has nothing to do with the dissemination log we just um it our privacy act our old one that we had is under 5120 F1 and uh Schoolboard Association has it under 5122 F they changed it at some point we never did so we just want to change the number as to not associate the Privacy Act with
098the dissemination log and the other disent background check stuff so it's just a numbering change do I have a motion I make a motion to approve the ruming of policy 5120 F1 2 5122 F have a second second I have a motion on the table any other comments questions from the board not seeing any comments questions from public audience not hearing any from there as well action item C mtsba policy number change 5120 F1 to 5122 F motion to approve by Renee seconded by Jenny all in favor say I I all oppose say nay motion carries action item d new activity Club account for baseball do I have a motion make a motion to approve the uh Club account for baseball motion to approve by Renee do I have a second oh don't be polite
099ladies second Donnie any comments questions from the board comments questions from public audience okay action item d new activity new activity Club account for baseball motion to approve by Renee seconded by Donnie all in favor say I I all oppose say nay motion carries action item e the adoption of the new high school environmental science resource is do I have a motion for baseball we're going to get there we're on E adoption of you're to ahead no okay you're you're trying you're you're trying to jump you're trying to jump the gun does it does you're okay I mean we did jump around this meeting I understand we did move some some letters around so okay okay I'm gonna go back to e adoption of new high school environmental sinus resources do I have a motion
100I'll make a motion to approve the adoption of the new high school Environmental resources approve by Donnie do I have a second second by Jenny comments questions from the board Renee I review the um resources um there wasn't anything alarming I think uh I do hope that environmental science there was a lot in the book regarding climate change and and I and to me it was presented more as fact than a theory and so I just hope that as a district we are encouraging our teachers to present both sides of an argument for our kids sakes to think critically about um topics which are not settled um there was a chapter on over overpopulation as well which that can be debated as well are we really overpopulated and what that looks like for um on
101a global level as where as well as um more on a local level or um country level so I I didn't really have a problem with the resource and looking through it or the curriculum and looking through it what was there um I just hope that we give our kids the critical thinking skills to um make determinations on topics which lend themselves to [Music] discussion class um anybody else comments questions from public audience Al righty so action item e adoption of new high school environmental science resources approve motion to approve by Donnie seconded by Jenny all in favor say I I all oppose say nay motion carries action item F the adoption of new science resource The Twig science one more and then we'll get to baseball Renee one more do I have a motion
102I make a motion to approve the twig science resource by Renee do I have a second second comments questions from the board since I have a motion on the table Renee say I looked at this one too I think there um lots of handson um opportunities which I think is awesome so um otherwise I think it looked really good comments questions from the board comments questions from public audience too much fun going on back there I'm seeing you action item F the adoption of new science resources for The Twig science motion to approve by Renee seconded by Kayla all in favor say I I all oppos say nay motion carries okay now here we go are you ready are you ready action item G baseball subas do you want to give the short version real
103quick yeah I will so when we when you guys approve the lease the month ago or three or four weeks ago whatever it was it went to uh it it was in the hands of the Laural Dodgers after it was approved by you they came back and said with Andrew and I and said hey we would like to add a few things you'll see those things in red uh Donnie they're not highlighted just red so those are in red and uh they said well yeah we know we agreed to that but could we go ahead and just make sure it's in there uh just just just so it's in the leas and in case something changes over it the district or changes over with them that we agreed on those things so I went ahead
104and and reworded those and sent it to them and they've approved this wording and all that so the things that are changed is we'll do our best strive to be out the little leak to be off the field by 6:30 every night which I think was no problem Andrew didn't feel like it' be any problem at all after talking with coaches uh to make sure little league has access to the field except for on Game Nights where we'll obviously be running Beyond 6:30 another one was um um oh and I will change it on here they did ask that on B During the period of March 1st through May 31st of each year the school district will assume certain duties on the premises uh one of those would be we'll mow some grass uh and
105we'll keep the premises orderly and clean by helping clean up um they have their own crew that they use and originally they asked us to pay their crew a certain amount of money we said well we don't want to hire anybody how about we just pay you a stien uh based on their estimates and then uh and then we'll just pay them a fixed stien every year so it's a fixed cost for us and then we don't have to run anything through payroll they can deal with it from their own side they they're fine with that wording as well uh on C uh we're obviously going to be responsible to pay any electricity and water bills things like that during the during that field time frame from that March time when we're using it uh
106to the into of the State baseball tourn uh we'll also be responsible for the replacement of disposable Goods you know if we use our gas we use field paint that we you know we expect to buy those things for sports so we would go back and and reimburse them if we use 10 gallons of paint then we'll use we reimburse them for that 10 gallons of paint wanted to make sure that was in there uh letter e uh we right now we we help store the L Laurel Dodger School Bus you'll see it in the parking lot of the high school sometimes you'll see it in the uh uh bus locked bus area there right now it's because we just can fit it in there we put it out in there so they've asked if
107we can continue to put that on and I don't have a problem with it we're trying to help them out work together so we're fine with that um they've asked to use the Laural School gymnasiums for their fundraising they run some basketball tournaments and uh again they've helped us out uh with that money as well so we agree to that uh and if there's G was a little bit and I'm glad they they they agreed to it but G was something for when major upgrades show up so I'll read this so everyone understands major upgrades to the field and grounds must be agreed upon by the Laurel Dodgers board the Laurel Public School Board of Trustees and the Laurel Little League board should all boards agree to an upgrade the cost to each entity will
108be determined by the individual boards and the entity's ability to afford the upgrades and I worded it like that because we don't want to remove the sovereignty of this board or some other board can say well we're upgrading the bleachers you us owe us uh $25,000 which is a third of the cost but what if the school can't do that so it must be agreed upon by all the boards so it doesn't give some other board to send us a bill for something that we haven't agreed to pay so the way I worded that was that we'll each agree individually and each board will agree to pay what they feel like they can't or they agree not to we don't want to be a part of that upgrade we think the bleachers are fine um
109if you want to go ahead and upgrade them then feel free to do that but you know so everyone's individual on that I worded it like that just because no board should give away their sovereignty to another board I don't think it would be legal anyway for them uh that's a big one then section four uh we only thing we changed in section four was uh 30 days was changed to 6 months uh we can terminate the lease for any reason uh with a six month notification which we would know well in advance of six months that we're not going to be using the field whether we're dropping our program whatever it happened to be building our own field we would know well in advance so those are the changes I want to bring them
110back through this board uh we're able to start practicing even though we don't have the lece sign just so everyone knows we they are named on our the cities and named on our insurance uh and the cities are fine with us using the field and the Dodgers are fine with us we're all negotiating in good faith here and City's fine with using the field as long as we're their named is it additionally insured on insurance which they are I've sent that to them last week and uh everyone's fine with it because we're all negotiating good faith and they all know that we don't meet every week and City doesn't meet every week and that's why we're back here as some of these changes we just they wanted us to put in I I agree with
111it Andrew I probably took away everything you wanted to say so you want to add anything well that was does pretty good um been talk with the Dodgers president and um went through all these talked in some detail and stuff and that's where we kind of ended up with the addendums in red a few times in here we reference in a and b we reference March 1st to May 31st and then we go into C where we reference March 1st through the end of State baseball tournament so should we for consistency's sake make those what whichever one make them consistent because that could be a different date I could change them right here just so you guys know I I can change I mean I think that through the state tournament makes more sense because
112it gives us flexibility I guess in case for some reason some year we play later only thing I saw that and I and I and I think that's probably a very good option I'll just make a quick change and I'll do it and suggest it that so you guys can see are we like going to be officially off the field by 6:30 every like practice to because this talks about um under Section A where it says the school district will strive to give the Laurel Little League field access by 6:30 p.m. on nights when there are no scheduled high school games so we still have the field until 6:30 for practice so we're we don't ever believe we're going to run over like you're not going to get a call at 6:31 wanted it in
113there just to strive to get off of it but I did talk with them about there might be a downpour at 3:30 and it's like okay we're going to do hitting in the gym and then hopefully get out to the field and and do some throwing we're talking with our coach and stuff he doesn't anticipate practice ever going past 6 o' just for consistency within the team um we've worked out a schedule people haven't worked out schedule talked with all of our spring Sports about we do have to go inside or get out and then um and maybe I missed it sorry if it's someplace else in the lease but does it talk about days so if we wanted to practice on Saturday and little league had games scheduled who who takes precedence over that
114field then I mean they would use the other fields because well unless it's the seniors but we didn't talk about days um most of the practice was talked about during the week so having most of our practices between Monday and Friday and games Monday and Friday we have a you know say over you know Easter break so we wanted to practice on Saturday which I don't anticipate we would um according to this lease we do have access to the field Priority Access between March 1st and end the state tourament we feel that we don't need to get narrow into the days because we just I don't I don't think so that'd be in a communication with the little league the only other one I have is um Item B and maybe it's just the way
115I'm reading it so maybe it's fine and it sounds okay you guys just tell me so it goes under where the school jistic will be pay a yearly fee of 2,4 years between 25 and 26 to 31 and 32 payable to the Laural Dodgers for maintenance excluding Mowing and then the the fee will be increased to 2200 per season starting school year 2032 the so like are we doing it makes it sound like are we doing per year like every year we're adding 22 or am I just reading it incorrectly no yeah you're reading it in correctly so the fee will be $2,000 district will pay a yearly fee of $2,000 for those years that are designated payable to the doers for field maintenance okay the fee will be increase to 20 fee will increase
116to $2,200 per season starting two 2200 per season right so it increase $200 so after for S years they they said $2,000 and then after s years they'd like to increase that to $2,200 per season starting the school year of 2032 beginning school year 20 [Music] see I wasn't the only one they're just trying to appease youly fee will be I put the yearly fee will be increased to 2200 per season starting school year 20 3233 does that sound good one word makes a whole difference as long as you're happy that's okay I think that's Donnie you're really going to love my comment then has this been run by legal yes they're actually answer they're actually the ones that started this whole yeah this is this was written yeah well it wasn't cremy language it
117was just the little things that they wanted added that uh no it was uh felt Martin who did it and they did a good job they set it all up but then there's like the little things that doesn't make sense to them they make sense to them but not to us okay anything else okay I do not have a motion on this action item G base Paul suble do I have a motion move to approve the sub least of the Laurel Dodgers motion to approve by Jenny do I have a second second by Renee now that I have a motion any additional questions comments from the board any additional comments questions from the public audience all righty action item G baseball suas motion to approve by Jenny seconded by Renee all in favor say I
118I all oppose say nay motion carries action item H superintendent contract we want discussion or I can call for a motion okay call for a motion action item 8 superintendent contract do I have a motion I move to approve the superintendent contract as presented approved by Jenny do I have a second second johnie comments questions johnie cont 256 isn't it actually 25 yeah it's in the in the in the actual contract it has 25 28 so but you're I oh you're right you're right so what I've done as you'll see I went in there and and xed out some of the things that were in the last contract and working with Julie obviously we want things fit within the budget but also that are consistent with other areas uh as far as you know it's
119just something we do want to do our best at so you'll see some things that we crossed out and I wanted to leave those in just so you see the difference from the last time it was uh on and I asset to be tabled at that time so hopefully it makes a little more sense I do have one more question and so and it's always bothered me in a superintendent's contract it says the holidays the yeah holidays per law there's only six holidays in law don't we give the holidays that the rest of our staff get I don't take all holidays that the rest of the staff get I don't take certain days I either take personal days for okay it's the stories kind of bothered me that read per state law and they only
120get six by law just let I comment on that comments questions comments questions from public audience sorry I had to take a moment I didn't couldn't remember if I had a motion on the table or not comments questions from public audience okay action item H superintendent's contract motion to approve by Jenny seconded by Donnie all in favor say I I all oppose say nay motion carries action item I for the heating and circulation of the high school TNI building do I have a motion discuss first motion to approve the bid for the ventilation and it's not a bid it's just a proposal proposal okay proposal for the ventilation improvements at the high school T9 building for approval do I have a second I'll second comments questions now that I have a motion on the table
121Donnie I saw you ready me paranoid um did we did we receive other proposals okay so what we've done is this is not a bid this is going to fall above the $80,000 quite a bit um what this is is we've uh and I don't I don't need board permission to do this little portion but I want to keep you guys because it's going to come back to you because we do need to approve some things so we've uh hired an engineer for uh what I'm AA able to do within the district as far as my cost goes um to come in he's helping us with a request for proposal that will go out to get bids for people to come and do the work so so this will cost us a little bit to
122work with an engineer we want to make sure that the scope of the project is properly written out uh so Shane said he would also assist us at no extra cost to us he said he just uh he will look over things and make sure it all makes sense and so we're having an engineer that we've worked with put it together and then it will go out for bid we anticipate or the engineer anticipates kind of in that one65 775,000 uh range um and it would be for two basic things and Wayne correct me if I'm wrong we need to look at obviously uh making sure the air is uh ventilated it's ventilated properly and moving out the bad air bringing in the good air but we have a lot of the times of the
123year where we have heating issues if you're bringing in you know 0 degree air or 10 below or 20 below air uh it's really cooling off that building just kind of having a fan on this end and an exit fan on that end and it's really cooling down the building so this would also include some heat uh temperament with if we're bringing in cold air uh it's it's working on a little bit on the heating system as well to make sure that that air is tempered so it doesn't freeze the building out as we bring in fresh air so that fresh air is um conditioned in some way so this is including both of those to not just put in a system but also work with the heating as well so this guy is putting
124together the proposal um and then that will go out to uh everybody for uh request for proposals and then they'll send us back bids and then this body will look at those bids and we will pick one of those people to work with hopefully we get multiple bids I would hope um and then uh we will get that work done as soon as we can it is something we really would like to get done this summer if at all possible um we can't it'll be done as quick as we can get it done just for safety of kids and staff that we have in is that D to screw up anything oh wow okay I was super nervous when about so I'm glad I didn't mess it up since I do any other comments questions
125from the board Renee that's what you're right 11, monly he'll he'll bill us it it won't take him too long to put it together then they'll bill us okay so we we're making sure everything's put together properly so when we go out there we're not just hiring people to go well we need this to be better what do we do this Engineers come in and said this is what you need and uh so technically I can spend $80,000 without your guys' permission but I wanted to bring this to you so you guys know what's happening and uh it's so we're going to look to try to fix the the the shop and the issues that are out there uh we've done a lot of work to remediate it and it's helping but it's not when
126it was cold it was a problem we were bringing in 20 below air just straight into that building that doesn't that wasn't super effective uh for for the way the shot works so this work would happen this summer that's what we're hoping to do if we can get this out relatively quickly and we think I don't know what how long it would take to do the work I don't think he really knows or told us but right I don't know if it's a twoe project or a one month project we're not sure yes our hope but we're not going to wait till next summer of 26 even if they're doing it this fall would be better than can't go another year comments from public audience all righty action on my eye Heating and circulation for
127the H for the high school TNI building motion to approve by Renee seconded by Jenny all in favor say I I all opposed say nay motion carries last action item is action item k out of District students attendance agreements for the fp1 14-2 do I have a motion motion to approve out of District student attendance agre approve by Kayla do I have a second second seconded by Jenny any comments questions from the board comments questions from public audience not hearing or seeing any action item k out of District students attendance agreements with FP 14-2 motion to approve by Kayla seconded by Jenny all in favor say I I all oppos say nay motion carries going to go through our informational items thank you so much for our Administration um putting their Department reports and our
128principal reports together as well as Julie for the financial reports as usual I will go through if you um need me to stop for anything specific on that item please let me know if not I will just go through okay informational items for Department reports activities curriculum director report facilities Food Services technology Transportation wonderful thank you very much for putting all those reports we do appreciate it Financial reports thank you Julie going through Bond expenses cash report revenue report expenditure report the audit draft so we do have a response and our our audit report high school activities middle school activities thank you again for those as well Julie for principal reports thank you principles South West R middle and high school thank you again do appreciate those as well committee meetings uh February 13th Capital
129planning meeting February 17th District operation yes ma'am n it's going to be a new nickname Z just a oh I'm not showing mine on that one where where at oh bus routes and Driver sordes underneath Transportation one yes Zeta yes oh yep and then traffic flow yep okay we just I know they're not very yeah see they're not smart at all thank you for that February 20th leadership and learning [Music] oh okay yeah Okay add that verbage as well thank you very much for catching that one uh committee meeting February 27th Capital planning all righty moving through for our informational items enrollment by grades okay uh superintendent report as well as the resignation report and job vacancies okay mtsba liaison report Donnie thank you for that did you want to comment on anything I was
130just going to say right now it's all things legislature but um I wanted to thank Matt for including that mid session report that came out that was a good report they did that that I thought i' better send that on to you guys butting at this point okay once again thank you for all of that um discussion we have the 2025 2026 year school year general fund budget this is a preliminary general fund any comments questions from the [Music] board Donnie so just looking at the prelim preliminary data sheets the way they're sitting and the fact that we've got declining enrollment so our budget without a votes down a little bit from last year but that is a lesser amount than the amount we could vote overall I don't know do we hang our hat
131on the Stars act going through or do we consider putting an amount out to vote that our budget dropped this year from we are we kind of two things are happening at once just so you guys understand well we have the Stars act which we're all fairly confident something's going to happen and then we we obviously have uh uh a&v numbers and declining enrollment around the state and we're part of that as well so there's two things going on simultaneously so let's say we do get some money from the Star at for the quality educator payment that's it's all great stuff that's that that'll be there but in the high school is our biggest worry because what we'd be taking in with the starzach is almost equal to what we're losing in a&v so it's
132almost a wash would' be coming out was it like 25 22,000 whatever it was 27,000 in the good which is good that's in the good that's always great um in the elementary we'd be up about 190,000 if everything the Stars act shows up the way it's supposed to and then with A&B um so one of the things we're worried about is we're going to have to do two things simultaneously we're hoping that we would we would just get this star act money um again earmark to try to help raising U districts you use the money however they want but it there's a there's a a talk about obviously trying to raise starting teacher salary up to a certain level to be qualified for that uh money year to year well that money isn't coming in
133to say hey we have these hundreds of thousands of dollars just to put towards that uh teacher salaries because we do have some declining enrollment so when you add it all together uh we we still have to look on this side and see all right what can we cut I've met with the administration uh we're talking about uh not for example as an example not um uh we have a principal who's retiring this year we not going to replace that principal for example so that would that would be a cut in the elementary budget doesn't help the high school but it' be a cut the elementary budget so um we're we're I'm having the principales meet with Julie this week and just making sure they go through line by line all the people that Julie
134has in the budget and so they know when we start talking about the cuts if we have to make any um just what that what that will look like because with this new money coming in it is great if we do get it it's not there yet but if we do get it that's wonderful but uh if if we have declining enrollment and we still need to continue to budget as we normally would and look at what our options are we cut about every piece of fat that was cutable out of our budgets and that included some really important positions like the instructional coaches for example and that's something the principles uh prize highly trying to get back uh with with new staff with uh staff who are provisionally licensed um trying to get those
135people back to help them with with the classroom um the teaching actual teaching this is something that's pretty important uh but again that's only money so I guess that's why we put discussion Item B on or letter B on there as well uh just just as a just as a conversation note because we've been talking a lot about building Reserve is an example so we are worried about the the if we do get all the money from the Stars act we're not going to go in the hole we're going to stay positive but it's not this big windfall of hundreds of thousands of dollars to start doing what we need to be doing with teacher SS so worry this is not the funnest month in the world frankly comments questions do we want to move
136it down to the operational Levy and open that up for comments questions I guess my question is when are we going to make the decision on the operational Levy and how much because that deadline's drawn near we've only got one more be done at the next board meeting it be the latest uh and that again I I have a worry that I've stated in this group before that it's hard to pass two levies in Laurel Montana with the current you know financial situation hopefully it's going to get better in the coming years but I don't know that so um but if we want to continue with the programs that we have and the people we have or or expand those programs um we've we've gone 2008 or s 7even since we've passed an operational Levy
137uh we're sitting right about 95 is% uh of our of our Max budget with a vote we're about 95% so we can ask for a few hundred, at the elementary and the high school um but we also are asking for 400,000 for building Reserve in the high school and 200,000 a year for five years in the ele and those are very important levies as well Plus you know we're talking down the road asking potentially for another Bond so I I will tell you guys right now I've cut about every piece of fat we can look at out of the budget and we've cut like I said 19 certified in the last two years have been have been cut um and and you know there'll be a principal cut this year as another example is this
138trying to make it work work not only that but we're trying to it's a negotiation here Jenny I just I don't I personally don't feel comfortable going for the I think it's very important but I want to be strategic and focused on the levies that we do go to so that we don't fail on everything you know so personally this year I don't feel comfortable going for operational we put too many on if we get one yes it'll be for the lowest amount we ask so that's the risk you take I mean because maybe people will be willing to do one I mean so that's the risk you take whatever that is and so I don't know I don't think it's we're in an easy position cuz I mean I I understand where you're coming
139from Jenny but at the same time um personnel and people are just as important as our facilities but we need our facilities to help with our students so we have to have people to help with it's it's but I see where you're coming from too Renee I mean a hope and a prayer out there it's kind of what it would be how do you guys feel voters how would you feel voters honestly priori forward then you need follow strategic however your strategic planning starting going from a to but if we're talking about the voters um I think that it's easier for them to vote for facilities because they kids are in it instead of voting for personnel for whatever their experience is and that's the sad part about it is because it's the people in
140the business that make it run um and so so I have a question Julie um because I know that because we have certain things falling off and if we put in the building Reserve levies and you know that information would we almost be even on that boat with all three of them is going to be less with the building reserves because you got the bond some couple bonds bonds are but at the but at the same time if we added the operational could we tell the public hey I know three looks like a lot but these things are coming off these things will be put on and I'll be honest with you it's almost going to be a wash might be a couple of different pennies it actually depending on the amount that this V
141vote uh board voted for for an operational Levy we could make it pretty much a wash could make it wash what would the operational Levy need to be I don't know I'd have to research it I don't I don't have the answer tonight but we could we could come up with a we could come up information num say to make it a complete walk here's what's coming off in July 1 here's what we're proposing to go on and we could make them a was because right now we're about with the for every $10 coming off we're asking for about $5 so uh to go back on so the the cut would be about 50% is if I remember my data that I presented right um so obviously asking for something the high school and Elementary
142that would be commen it with the the bond money you could probably but those to be right on the money and sell it it wouldn't be a change they'd get they'd get things for the school we could potentially fill our Reserve monies for potential items of concern and help our operational and at the taxpayers benefit maybe not even very closely not even change that I would vote for that I mean I'm just saying you still have to educate yeah you do not going to well that's the next item building resered Levy open house nights ice cream socials baby cake food they always come for food meeting the middle school they were sh us they that's the way to show them what their benefit is T pay for these amazing students look can all us be
143here today I mean that that I'm excited to see what all our youth are doing and not just holy support should we the people I mean it's not just our support I think that we we're so excited about um throw out a proposal because I know that time is of the essence for this information if Julie was able to pull those numbers would you guys be opposed to having maybe a special board meeting be actionable if we wanted to or just informational you okay with that can I ask everybody to look at their calendars really quick depending on depending on of course we need to cut 48 hours but we could do it could you Julie could you get us numbers by Friday the 14th okay I'm getting I'm getting a eek on that one
144Thursday the 13th you could maybe make Friday it's the only time I don't have available that day could you do morning I through at 11: a.m. or a 2 pm so are we talking 13 the 13th okay everybody look at their calendars on the 13th is that's okay it is actually okay but I have a I have a shake Donnie can you you oh you have nothing okay I I I'm going to tell this very nicely you don't matter um uh does Thursday work for everybody I'll be in laramy at the job fair but that doesn't like I said that's you guys are the ones so 12 or 12:30 12 or 1230 this will be Zoom this would be Zoom well you're still going to send it out but I mean if you can pop
145on that'd be great Thursday 12 does that work for everybody Donnie's a May okay that gives us 48 hours so tomorrow by noon we'd have to get it out tomorrow by noon and then do you want it I will do a potential action item and discussion does that work okay that gives us a chance to get some information and some items from Julie okay I was going to okay um quickly and then because I know that we're probably all uh building Reserve Levy open house nights we'll set some dates maybe we can share in that one or two board meeting uh board members join in and then hopefully we can have some other people okay can can we maybe just throw a few nights out and then we can yeah what I'd like to do
146too is I'd love to doy to do a night we have like hold on guys hold on guys hold on guys hold on hold on hold on like to do audience good thing also work why don't we throw some dates out and if anybody can make it let us know we'll just do it that way that work okay okay so future discussion items any future discussion items that's we've missed that I have fallen through the cracks that have come up that we need to discuss I'm not seeing any okay okay before you all jump and run out because I know it's getting that hour I'm going to do the executive session um next and as the presiding officer of the next meeting I may be able to I am able to close the meeting underneath
147the MCA of 23-23 because the discussion um is a matter of individual privacy and then if not only of the residing officer determines that the individual's privacy clearly exceeds the merits of public disclosure so I'm going to close this next session trustees let's do a uh can we do five can we do a five minute so we can move forward okay so 8:20 we will be back in at 8:25