001next I would like to invite our wrestlers here our state um state placers in wrestling up front and you can face the board this way okay we're going to start with our girls wrestling um as Bryce mentioned earlier girls wrestling is combined for all classes in the state of Montana and out of 69 teams our girls wrestling placed 14th at State the um the premier person in girls wrestling is Kylie Lindsley and she is a third time state champion she won once again this year she also had an undefeated season and really has set the bar High not only in her own performance but as a leader and a mentor on the girls wrestling team so congratulations and we'd also like to recognize Charlie Lund Charlie got third place at the state tournament and this
002is especially impressive because she is an eighth grader so she is holding her own much as Bryce mentioned amongst high school students across the state and really earned her place and we can't wait to see what she does in her next years at Belgrade for our boys wrestling overall Belgrade Place eighth in ablea out of 15 teams uh there were only 15 that qualified wresters first state we have uh we have five boys that placed we have Cody weslake got second place Nolan Brown got second place Carson worthan got third place Mason Watson was in sixth place and Luke pla got sixth place congratulations you want to have a seat we'll take pictures in just a couple minutes if I could invite the swimming placers up front please as you know our swim team is
003a newer program at Belgrade high school and the Belgrade girls swim team was small but Mighty this season the girls were consistent meet after meet in their races three girls raced at State and all three girls made finals and placed uh Dylan Flicka is our very first state champion in swimming for the Belgrade Panthers she won uh the state championship in both the 200 individual medley and the 100 backstroke so she is a force to be reckoned with AJ Lily Quist is uh on her second year placing at State this year she got ninth in the 100 freestyle and Ninth in the 200 freestyle and our third Placer for the swim team is Maya lilyquist who got 10th in the 100 butterfly and 12 in the 500 freestyle and if I could have the robotics
004club step up front please thank you the Belgrade High School robotics Club had a successful performance at the state Championships held at MSU Boseman they brought home medals and two trophies teams spent a SP significant amount of time designing building and programming their robot and learning what it takes to be part of a team for many teams competitions are the reward for all their hard work throughout the season however this First Tech Challenge is more than a robot competition in addition to robot matches teams are also eligible to win judged Awards the Belgrade team won first place in the design award this celebrates the team that demonstrates industrial design principles striking a balance between form function and Aesthetics the design process should result in a robot which is efficiently designed and effectively addresses the game
005challenge they the team also won second place they were the state runner up in the championship bracket this award is given to the finalist um Alliance representative of the final match of the playoffs in a single division tournament or championship event due to the advancement criteria they just found out they get to advance to a premier event on and are assigned to Chicago this July so our team members of the robotics club and we have adviser Rachel white she's going to help me with her certificates I have Payton Pitman to go work okay uh Parker Pitman Gavin Jacob Megan Jacobson Jessica venberg lonus McKenna Aiden Fier Silas Scott Jesse Ami Rebecca Henry and Riley Westbrook we also have some volunteer mentors uh we have Jay Colin and Tyler who are ALS who are volunteer mentors
006for our robotics club and Colin is alumni and he's an MSU engineering student and he volunteers a lot of time so yes congratulations we can take just a couple minutes we'll do the photos we have just take a couple minutes to take some pictures and then we will continue with the meeting e e e call all right ready let's continue on with the leader reports starting with DD all right um we uh did some number crunching with our when we had that cold weather snap and we're very proud to say that of the three days that got colder and colder our attendance actually grew so good job montanans for getting out there getting your kids to school uh 86% 87% then 89.8 one% on that last cold cold cold day so um great job with
007that our district average for September to December was 91.8 eight so we weren't very far off of of what our our average is so we just appreciate our bus drivers and our parents for um getting kids to school school um the land exchange just an update on that the teams from the district and the city met last Tuesday to um discuss some some more specific initial steps with the land exchange that the team those two teams will be working together on a shared document that then we can share out with folks um that about a timeline the action steps we need to take to get ready and the city does um and the legal and practical issues that we need to address us um we're anticipating the legal transfer of property in May um and
008then lease agreements to keep us in our places until we're ready to kind of start shuffling the decks there um the first step will be to move um the staff that are in the heck building into the old library once we have that I think once they clear out at the end of this month we can get in there and um just do some paint and new carpet and and um get some people set up in there that opens up this building that they can then start to renovate because this will become police and courts so they have some work to do here um a little bit of work to do here um we are anticipating needing to move the school board meetings to either the current city hall because we have opposite meeting days
009or to the new library probably by next summer um either space is has a really good space for us and plenty of room for people to come um attend the meetings and the ability to record them which we required to do by law so um yeah so we're excited about the land exchange and it it's moving along that's all I got okay any board questions for DD okay seeing none we'll move on to the student representative Report with Piper good evening um last week at the high school Montana Special Olympics was hosting a spirit week which Belgrade participated in um it was the whole week Monday through Friday um with different dress up days there's also activities that uh were occurring during lunch or just during the day um our spring Sports started today which
010I believe is track softball baseball and Tennis um so whether they're doing tryouts for those or some of them just jumped straight into practice um our Juniors have been prepping for the ACT which they're taking the week after Spring Break um not very excited about that one I've heard but you know something that I think is going to go well their prep that they've been doing during IG periods has been um very well from what I've heard um and then our NHS our National Honor Society is doing induction this Wednesday um they're the top leaders in character and service throughout our school and um they're inducting current sophomores and juniors and I believe this is the largest class that they've ever inducted um at least in the past few years um which is exciting for
011Belgrade and seeing all that leadership grow and then everyone's just getting excited for spring break um it's the last big break before the final push of you know only like three or four day weekends before the end of the school year but excited for that okay any board questions for Piper what day is the NHS induction um it's on Wednesday evening thanks Piper as always you're welcome to stay or leave if you feel so inclined uh district clerk Carrie um my report is mostly uh has to do with the upcoming election we have the three three three-year positions and the one one-year position still open and no one's filed yet yeah yeah she's going to hopefully file tonight but she spilled juice on it so we're going to get get that taken care of [Laughter]
012tonight uh but the last day to accept those candidate F filings is March 27th so if you know anybody that you're trying to get to run for the board that's the deadline uh our election day is May 6th and uh tonight you'll be working on the ballot language uh for mil Levy so we we try to get that done because the county needs it before everyone leaves for spring break because they have to get ballots printed so um other than that tomorrow in here is the Region 4 School business official uh Regional Workshop so we're going to host it in here tomorrow for the day and it's going to be fun and informative so any questions for Carrie I had one for you Carrie so after the Food Services the nutrition director's uh presentation last
013meeting I decided to go eat it to high school and I forgot my cash it was delicious by the way but I was wondering if you're planning on putting those Clover scanners in for the high school at any time I thought we had ordered them actually I thought the card scanners were already ordered we just had some issues with it talking with Infinite Campus our student information system so that's kind of been in an issue with with that okay we were we were prepared to go but we just didn't have the they weren't talking with one another you have an ETA when it might be ready uh we're still working with Infinite Campus so uh if any progress would be made it wouldn't be until next fall okay thank you any other questions for Carrie
014okay comes back to the board board report any board questions or comments um there's some upcoming trainings um through uh mtsba um I believe there's one in April um there's also some that are are going on but then there's an in-person one that you can elect to go to in June that I'm going to if anybody wants to join me um but you can also do it virtually I had a question for you Dei uh we had uh when we implemented our public information officer position I know Leslie's responsible for the main content of our Facebook page but we had also decided on stiens for the other schools and I just don't see any updates being made by the schools I was I guess there's two questions I just wanted to make sure we weren't
015paying somebody for not doing anything and the second is if they're not being used what is the plan so that we can start spreading more information about the other schools yeah um I've been hearing about updates so let me check into that and then I'll get back to the board on that okay thank you thank you uh any other board comments questions okay guess we will bring it back to student achievement with Matt and Amy good evening everyone uh Amy uh has been working pretty hard on our career Pathways uh through from middle school up through High School uh most mostly primarily um so she's flushed out a lot of information that we want to present tonight um uh it's still a work in progress there's a lot of moving parts to it and then
016we're going to focus in on one particular area that we're going to start with so she's got a a wonderful presentation to show you guys right um all right well my name is Amy um I'm the stem coordinator here and uh I've been working on Career Pathways as they relate to um stem Fields here in Gallatin Valley if you've ever walked past my office you may have noticed that there is a surfboard kind of precariously propped up on uh one of the shelves and I keep that there as a reminder that um if you want to surf wave you've got to have the right board and um so that's kind of been the backdrop to this whole project um we've got a really exciting wave um here in Gallatin Valley and I'll kind of go
017into all of the the wave characteristics and things like that um but if we really want to surf that wave we've got to have the right board and um and so it's a surfboard it's the surfboard Rocky uh but also the school board um so you know as as a lifelong Surfer um that's kind of the the metaphor that I use I'll go ahead and kind of take you guys through it so kind of the purpose of this of this whole thing is to facilitate students seamless academic transitions through stem courses um and to eliminate curriculum gaps as well as redundancies um of course we can extrapolate this formula out to non stem Fields um but stem is is where we're starting this is what our current stem ecosystem looks like it's kind of like
018a hopper um that we have our our elementary school students and we want to kind of help them uh focus and create awarenesses of things that they're really interested in as they relate to what's offered here post-se secondarily in Gallatin Valley um Gallatin Valley supports several stem career Pathways that are vibrant and have significant employment projections over the next decade um we use Gallatin College as kind of a guide because they've got a very robust um Workforce Development program um but that's not to say that uh other facets of uh post-secondary and higher education uh are not involved in this research they're just gon Valley is or gon college is really convenient so this is kind of what stem learning looks like um here in Belgrade right now um a really awesome thing is that
019stem learning is happening at all schools and there are little bits of stem opportunities that are going on um K12 which is is outstanding and but there's a decided lack of intentionality and alignment with what happens post-se secondarily um so we're not saying we want to just create like a Workforce uh do Workforce Development here um but we want students to be aware of what their options are after they leave high school after they leave Belgrade so what we've learned so far is that in terms of um kind of our top uh areas that we want to focus on Advanced manufacturing it and cyber security Quantum technology photonics and lasers as well as um the medical pathway are ones that we've identified as um not only being extremely viable here um but uh in the
020long term and Nationwide um we've also observed a siloing of subject areas um there's minimal cross-curricular collaboration um we've got some Project based learning going on in schools but we would love to see language arts teachers getting involved with science teachers getting involved with economics getting involved with Civics and history and all that stuff um so we would love to support teachers um in kind of that cross-curricular development um there are certainly some sub some subject areas that are offered based off of of teacher interest and it's not to say that Jan wants to teach tap dancing so that's what we do um but there is there is um kind of a focus on what teachers are like wanting to do um and and we want to focus a little bit more on what the
021needs of students are in terms of stem Pathways um because this leads to inefficiencies in enrollment um especially those higher level courses we've also identified that the middle school is the Keystone um coming from a science background keystone species are like a really big deal and uh and if we don't kind of support and cultivate our students in the uh Middle School area um there are drivers uh the middle schoolers are driver of student interest throughout that K12 academic career um and they are foundational to success in high school and uh it kind of ties in really well with uh our portrait of a graduate success metrics um so you know it's really easy because Middle School is kind of like the middle child right but we really do want to to focus on um
022making what they have robust so in order to meet those needs um we uh decided that intentionally designed career Pathways uh and this is you know based on like hours and hours days of research lots of research um contextualized instruction um appropriate scheduling and school year structure um and so that definitely means we need to talk to some building leaders and see what you know what their needs are um informing our counseling staff and then developing and leveraging Community Partnerships um we've got a lot of wonderful folks here in Gallatin Valley that are excited to work with um with Belgrade uh and so kind of getting them into our classrooms or doing field trips that sort of thing um is something that um the community is excited about so this is kind of what a
023proposed alignment looks like this is not obviously set in stone it's a fluid document and uh you all will have like access to all the links and everything so I would encourage you to to dig through it um but a proposed alignment introduces students to the many STEM related career Pathways that Gallatin Valley offers um it aligns K12 curricular efforts um to prepare students uh for success as defined by portrait of a graduate and so it's taking what they're doing uh what's happening post-se secondarily and building a foundation for that from the ground up um and it really positions us well to take full advantage of the Stars act which I'm sure you all have been have been following so when we're talking about portrait of a graduate everybody kind of got this survey in
024the beginning of the year um I would really like to draw your attention to confidence and the creative characteristic those are things that are students are asking for um and and you know quite a strong ask if you look at the numbers um students want to leave Belgrade confident um that they can make the decisions uh that they need to and have the creativity to problem solve uh as they as they make decisions so again kind of going back to our Stars act um the Stars act as you know expands on and enhances the teach act which addresses um the cost of living and teacher pay kind of conundrum um this encourages schools to get students what they are calling Future Ready by creating a 100% state funded component um characteristic of this component are
025that you are we offer dual things like dual credit as well as sa stackable CTE credits um so you would qual those students will qualify as course completers um or program completers rather so this funding aligns with the State University system as well as the as the State Workforce uh initiative board uh outcomes so those were kind of the two like main um folks who worked on this depending on the goal level achieved so there there are definitely goal tiers um Belgrade students uh can earn up to uh $2,400 per graduate and everybody's like oh that just goes to the high school but I'm kind of digging through this um K8 uh schools are eligible for this incentive as well and so you know not only does this kind of effort help our students um
026but it incentivizes uh our district and so you know that's in in a time where cuts are inevitable um you know this is a a great uh Branch so we're going to kind of roll a little bit quickly um through the economic data and how that works with um our what we want to offer curricularly so Advanced manufacturing we lumped CAD CNC Machining and Robotics into that um it's basically just the use of new technologies uh and knowledge to create improved products and processes so that's everything from your kind of your your basic manufacturing to uh manufacturing on a nanotechnology level uh which is growing here especially in Gallatin Valley um the 10year projected growth rate on this is 1.8 to 2.3% which is solid growth um and we offer a lot of things already
027but there are some ways that we can make it a little bit more robust it and cyber security um this is going to be a big one for a long time um but if you notice it's got negative projected growth and that's because there just aren't enough people who are qualified to do the job um students and talking to folks in Industry uh students who graduate with a Proficiency in this area can name their price um they can go anywhere they want to they and have a a viable income um so if they want to stay here which is what we want them to do um they can afford to do it oh kind of going back to this one um sorry uh this is an area that I would love to see um you
028know talking about kind of building a foundation for our upper level classes um we Courtney walliser offers an AP Computer Science class it's something that we need to consider building a foundation for and that again starts with computer literacy and in the elementary schools and then on through um Middle School this is the one I think is the most exciting um is the Quantum photonics and Laser effort um Quantum is is is the study of light at a very very small level um and it uses lasers to generate and manipulate uh photons for applications so basically our whole Computing system is about to change um and this is like this the big wave that's coming and um and this is going to impact everything from the medical industry to uh it to manufacturing everything um
029and uh the Department of Defense the NSA and NSF just granted I mean this has been a little bit now um Gallatin Valley the Montana photonics and Quantum Alliance um 57 million dollars to build the technology in partnership with MSU um that is a huge number um there is a German company who uh bought land in Lewistown and is uh constructing a campus there to do to build semiconductors and do um a vertically integrated so building the conductor all the way to Packaging um so this is growing and it's growing specifically here in Montana Montana is one of six um places Across the Nation where this is expected to get over a 20% job uh uh growth uh in the next 10 years um that's a huge number and so if we if we ignore
030it um we're we're being foolish quite frankly um and kind of where we're thinking our lwh hanging fruit is is in the medical industry it's a stable industry and it's not going away um which and we don't want it to but it's got really steady growth and uh and and as technology kind of evolves we want our students to be um prepared for that we've already got a really wellestablished um Medical detectives program at the middle school and so we're looking to build off of that um the paper that uh is being passed around to you now um kind of showcases three different options that we can um play off of and Compares uh what we offer science-wise with what kind of the CTE electives might be um so just kind of gives you an
031idea those are in and the QR code takes you to more detailed Frameworks so if you're interested in kind of parsing out um the details of the Frameworks you are welcome to scan that QR code and you know get get after it so what research says about career pathways is is that um it increases graduation rates um because we're hooking students early on um we can increase graduation rates of up to 21% especially our male students um and what that means um improved attendance which we were just talking about that we students want to come to school because it's important and they see why they want to be here um and then the broader impact if students want to go to college they feel prepared and confident to do so um but if they want
032to enter directly into the workforce they have the skills and the credentials to do that as well through industry certification um what this means incentive wise is that we could potentially earn up to $488,000 um a year through the Stars act so um while yeah you oh maybe we just graduate you know 18 to 20 more students but um that's 18 18 to 20 more students uh who could have viable careers here in Gatton Valley so kind of circling back um giving our students career Pathways to follow um helps them be more creative and helps them be more confident um and that's who we serve and so um career Pathways speak directly to this desire and this need and so um industry uh wants to help U through mentorship through internships through job shadowing field
033trips um guest speaking you name it they want to be involved um that soft skill devel velopment that is is really hard to grade and you know but but the students develop it naturally through um these Pathways and then of course Hands-On learning and relevance to what students are actually wanting to do so next steps um is to adopt a middle school stem Frameworks it's uh linked to this um this slide deck and then provide appropriate support for Staffing and scheduling so if that means that teachers need a little bit of extra time um kind of worked in there we need to figure out how to do that or whatever support um that those that these conversations lead to um and then at the high school it's our loow hanging fruit here is to adopt
034a medical career pathway um we've got like I said we've got a great Foundation already built for it and um and we've got an opportunity to kind of build uh a biomedical uh technology identity uh kind of through that if that's where we want to go um of first we need to inform our counseling staff and uh and then utilize industry and higher education to inform um the alignment process and how we build our Frameworks um so all of these are links um the the research documents the folks that I've spoken with um that is all here uh our data from portrait of a graduate um we spoke about Middle School stem Frameworks and then here is the medical pathway framework works as well um any questions anything like that um if you'd like to
035have further discussion on this and this is my contact information um so and I'd love to meet with you probably not now because I know you've got like a time thing going on um but I'm I'm available to meet and field questions and concerns about this did anyone have questions for am I just have a brief question um I saw counseling was kind of brought up a couple things I mean that's obviously going to be important we want them to understand how to meet with the students and guide them on the correct Pathways Who currently is working with the counselors on educating them on these current Pathways that we have we've we've not brought counselors um into the nuts and bolts of the conversation yet um we they they have a lot um on their
036plates and they're stretched pretty thin um we are looking to have this built out and be able to just give them um what is available and create awareness um we also want our teachers to be aware of what's going on so that they can um kind of Market stem Pathways um as as well so it's there's going going to be a team effort we're still kind of in in the infancy stages okay Dei I guess that's something that I would want um you guys to kind of be looking into of of what they're currently getting for educational and support and resources what that looks like and and if you could bring that back to us that would be great to know what that plan is any other questions had I guess maybe it's too early
037in the game is there a plan to how to use this to hook the parents in the middle school I think that's where we lose a lot of kids is not the kids but the parents aren't involved in the school what's going on you're going to go take your you know for mandated classes and two electives and is there a way to focus it or is there given to that yet yeah um so part of what uh what we're doing some Community the community effort so things like our stem night and and just celebrating our students um that's really where it starts um again we're still in the infancy stage here so um hooking the parents at the moment has landed on our stem night as our community outreach which is May 8th um so
038you all be getting information on that I think ultimately also uh we would like to the counselors at the middle school are going to be a key component to this uh the teachers at the middle school and then down into the elementary schools as well generating interest at the elementaries that lead to the Middle School classes that lead to the high school classes so it's seen as a K12 system and not just a high school thing or a middle school thing um and then what we want to do once we get more of these pieces in place is like brochure it out so we can hand that brochure out to families during like stem nights or parent teacher conferences and really Market it that way but we we're still flushing out some of the the
039ins and outs of it any other questions I did want to compliment you the district on the Gallatin College night um I know Rocky and Jesse and I were all there did you two want to say anything about it before we get too far things that I saw the this starting Sal you know six figes to um you know I think they did a great job one session all the ones that I did see and a nice job not just the kids but also to parents connection um you know I get uh Randy U you know gets a lot of credit what's going on there and U you know G college did a good job recognizing this connection between F High School and them and even MSU has potential further yeah I think our our
040collaboration with gallon college has been huge uh they've got some great CTE Pathways already in place this is more in the stem real stem realm but there'll there will be some crossover but what the work they've done with CTE has been pretty impressive as well so this is just a different branch I guess of that same tree um I also want to say thank you to Randy and the whole CTE team um I know we've got stem going on there's other stuff um it was just really well done it was really cool to see the involvement from the community the parents showing up with the kids um I got to go as a parent and watch my son light up in a way that really excited me because that transition from eth grade to high
041school I knew what he was going to like right um and he did Shine to that but then he was also um he got to sit in on one of the cooking classes and we left and he was like yep I want to do that too and I was like all right sweet I don't have to cook dinners maybe next year but at the same time I do see what um having that uh potential pathway for Success um is really going to be setting up a lot of students for great opportunities one of the things that um the pathways and as well as what Randy is doing um is kind of building things industry certifications um have become huge and that's one of the things that the Stars act speaks directly to um so uh
042you know like industry certifications and again the medical pathway um ry's pathway um those all have potential for industry certifications that students can take advantage of um part of that is working with OPI as well as the different Industries to detail out what specific classes and proficiency students need to be um you know capable in in order to to receive those so um yeah there's there's been a lot of of stuff that's like we've got a great Foundation we've got a great starting point um so now we want to utilize that and kind of F off it sure I was going to just comment that it's always been kind of unclear to me like whether we should go the college route or the CT route and I've been kind of waiting for something to materialize
043and I think based off your comment the hook you could see the parent involvement there I think people want their kids to go into this and you kind of found a sweet spot here because the repeated theme was my kids going into this or there's kids that have been into it when I was talking to the instructors and they were necessarily sure what they wanted to do but they could complete a two-year degree and get a good job and go that route without losing anything or in a lot of cases they continued on to get a four-year degree so it's something that fits a lot of the kids I mean it seemed popular so I think that's something we should push as a district hard and I hope you all reach out to constituents and
044and see what they think I want to make clear that I'm not against CTE or College Prep but it does seem to fit a lot of our kids I think I think that they work really nicely together um you know I'm I'm a product of a CTE program and uh and I and I went on to a four-year College um um so there is a lot of um you know it gives our students choices and I think that's kind of maybe your point St that um the more awareness and proficiency our students have the more choices that they have yeah yeah and if they only go with twoe they're not losing anything either that's one thing that Dei and I were talking about too is how many kids because we're so close to Montana State
045go there just because they want to go to college but how many of them actually finish their degree and you know at least if they finish with two years and get something that's better than just dropping out but that's hard dated to to obtain from my experience those kids you know like you said they go because they're like well I think that's the natural path but nobody's talked to about career paths because when I teach my class the thing I say what's your degree and why did you choose it and people say I don't know I didn't know what else to do right it's the number one answer I get you know and I've T taken these surveys over 10 years and you know I think this type of program is going to be the
046thing that go I really like this and that's why I chose that not because they're like well I didn't know what else to do right because when those students those I don't know what else to do students those are tend to be the students who also don't come to my classes or don't you know aren't super motivated because they they don't feel a passion for it so I do think this is going to be massive for our communitys that have a a bit biology have a bit the moving a career that direction I mean I see I mean obviously the health thing one beyond that what are we doing invol so so kind of speaking to to that um stem is we're identifying stem as cross-curricular so so um the medical Pathways um we have
047three different options one is extremely I guess stem or technology focused um it's called the biotility aptitude um and that focuses on biotechnology inside medical field um so while yes the medical pathway is low hanging fruit it's not necessarily Allied Health that like as we know it um it's it's higher level um competencies um that involve Technologies that are anywhere from kind of forensics based um to chemistry uh to biotechnology on a nano scale so um we're marrying that stem idea with a cross-curricular um you know with the medical piece yeah I just don't think a lot of people that are in into chemistry or have a desire to be in the engineering field or something like that overly interested in medical have a different sure and I where they fit into this program um
048well they might not fit into the medical program right they probably don't fit into medical program I'm just saying they might yeah they they might fit in more with the the advanced manufacturing um or photonics and Quantum and lasers might be their jam um you know so these are these are the pathways that are identified as as viable here in Gallatin Valley um and it's not to say that that chemistry and um you know Advanced physics and things like that are not important because those all work towards um building competencies within those Pathways um so that so maybe Medical's not their jam and if and and you know if there are further thoughts on what might be a a viable Pathway to explore would definitely love to pick your brain on that like if Metallurgy
049is kind of I think know you're was looking at this I'm thinking you there's three Engineers up here at least right so we're all looking at this from a well there's a there's an industrial management function in two of these but I don't see calculus up there and that's necessary for that so that's probably I understand why it's not but I get the point well yeah part of that part of that is we need to to build out um we need to build Foundation for our advanced math classes um so we need to kind of you know and that's a larger conversation obviously but yeah agreed I mean we need opportunities and application for um Advanced ma within the pathways could I ask a follow-up question to that what's the time frame you feel for
050implementing this fully like class of what would be the first one if you were if you were to let me go we would have done it like [Laughter] yesterday right now uh we're changing the the Middle School class from robotics to stem to make it more exploratory um to generate that interest um we have some more flushing out to do with the biomed um path that we want to implement at or thinking about implementing at the high school um they've already registered for classes and all of that for next year so we're hoping to get more in-depth and more detail flushed out by the Fall so that they can register in the spring for the fall of 26 is our goal okay as we've been diving into it we're like okay we need to think
051about this we need to think about this so there's a little bit more Logistics to work out okay so I interrupted you Rocky did you have a question yeah well our goal is we're going to do it we're going to do it right so not you know halfway so we need to make sure that it's as detailed out as we can I had one last question on like the extracurricular they said like American mathematical that is one of that's an option um that's something that when I was talking with Mark Craig actually at Gallatin College um who is the guy who did the photonics uh and lasers thing at um uh the Gallatin College night um he recommended uh American mathematics it's like an extracurricular club like Science Olympiad but math um and so he
052recommended that as something that you know um a way for students to continue to be engaged is it through American mathematical Society um I'm actually not sure there's another one called Mu Alpha Theta with math and it it starts students in like Junior High and gets them like like into like math-based like interests okay so that's kind of uh why I asked if it was AMS related but me Offa is another one that would probably be really good yeah if you wouldn't mind if you yeah I'll send yeah that would be perfect thank you yeah all right thank you for this presentation and for putting all this together it's pretty impressive to see the opportunities very well done thank you yeah and please click links pick it apart do all the things and I guess
053if we have other thoughts on the curriculum be sure and talk to these guys offline we do have a lot of Engineers here so if we could help we'd be glad to you better thank you not a lot of fun toang than you yourself yeah all right on to the principles Elementary with Lori um I had the opportunity to talk about our Ela English language arts we've been doing a lot of great things and I to thank all of you for turn on your microphone Lori thank you sorry um I want to thank all of you for um going through the vetting process and helping us get really quality um Ela materials amplify cka has been a tremendous um upgrade for our district and we're reaping the benefits already of it it's a it's a
054hard lift the first year um but it's nice that we''re being able to talk to other districts who have stuck with it and the gains that they're seeing um and and I have no doubt that we're going to be seeing the same types of things here um all of us you know are showing growth in all three of them elementaries um what I'm really liking is how the mclass part of the c um kind of Deep dive so of course we want to look and we want to celebrate everybody who's proficient or above but we really want to look at those kids and see what their growth rate is and see who are we who are most at risk and are we growing those kids um and getting them closer to proficiency and trying to
055close that Gap um ccla the mclass part it's computerized and so like every I might get this messed up about every 10 days they have to do some progress marting I think eight to 10 days um and then depending on how they progress Monitor and it kind of goes by skill base the computer does its thing overnight and then it'll help you with an intervention plan and so um you know it's new new it's little intimidating and all those things for our teachers um mostly our intervention special ed and title teachers are using the mclass program but um it really gives you a deep dive into what that those groups of students really need as a diagnostic to where their holes are and how to fill those those holes and so um that's been really
056fun to see um you know I've got well he didn't go to first grade because he traveled the world but he went from um he's in second grade now he was able to read five words a minute when he started second grade this year by midy year he was up to um 43 now he's in the 50s so um he probably could have done that if he was in school last year I'm not sure about the middle the homeschooling part we're all experience though um but does anybody have any questions about what's in your board packet yeah that's due to the curriculum like that's a lot of it well I have some you know great teachers and people who really look at the data and really want to um they want to have great growth
057and you know with and we progress monitor um all the kids that are um below proficient um we use fast Bridges our our bench marking tool but then the mclass is more specific and it D Dives in more um and so um if you have about a two word a week growth rate for a student that's pretty ambitious and we've seen even some students outperforming that so that's good um and these teachers learning it uh you know um implementing it with Integrity um you know it's rescheduling our schedules and things like that to make sure that we're having time spent on it collaborating with other teachers um we're in a unique position having so many teachers in one building so you're not on on an island for all of that so any other questions I
058just appreciate your dedication the um knowledge piece of the amplify sorry the knowledge piece of the amplify is really it's pretty incredible I was um happened to be in some different observations recently and they were all happen to be into different grade levels with the knowledge piece and I can see where it's building from year to year um with the units and it'll reference things like once we have it more than just you know one year things that they have would have done in the past and making those connections in the vocabulary that those kids are using um and as still you know this science of reading and doing all the phonic stuff and things like that but I think that knowledge piece is is really a nice aspect to the program I have a
059question for you Lori are you getting um uh feedback I mean are your is your teaching staff open with you as far as like the things that they're liking the things that they're struggling yeah they get excited a lot and say hey come see this you know um that they're seeing the connections and things was some of it hard sure um do they like some of the things they've done in the past of course but they're using some professional um judgment too but they're really liking the program overall at my building anyway so all right come on up Jessica thanks Lori hi there I'm Jessica Christensen the assistant principal at the middle school and um in your board packet were our um primary focus areas for ELA but I want wanted to talk mostly about
060um some stories I got from teachers in the last couple weeks about some success in their classrooms um one teacher shared with me that one of her special education students had remarkable strides increasing their fast Bridge score by an impressive 51 points from fall to winter um that success she says as a testament to her collaboration with the special education teacher at the middle school um they have worked together with the new programming in that and this is a fifth grader so in that block or that scheduled 45 minutes time she has those students and then they go and work with that special ed teacher every day for 45 minutes and the two of them work closely together to ensure that all those gaps are being filled both in that core time and in that
061pull out time um I had a sixth grade teacher that said she wanted to share about a 30 30 point increase from fall to winter on the fastb assessment and this was remarkable to her because this was a student who was already at Benchmark and we know that sometimes those students who are at Benchmark and higher don't make that kind of growth especially in a fall to winter um she said when she told the student the growth she made the student actually cried and hugged her because she was so excited about how well she did um and then I had some seventh grade teachers talk to me about their elll students um they said one elll student had increased their score by 22 points while another by 20 and they said these students have just
062worked so hard this year on both their Ela skills in class and just developing English skills throughout their day and they were really proud of them um I also want to talk about just some things we've had going on in the middle school we just recognized some December and January students of the month um those students are selected by their pod teachers and it's only two St students per month so in the year only 18 eighth graders all the way down get selected for student of the month um they get a certificate and then something special like ice cream or something each month um Miss newson's art class transform the East cafeteria if you haven't been in to see that you should come in and see the murals painted on the wall in there um
063it look it just looks so much better in the cafeteria was just blank White Walls I think there's four murals now two on each side and they connected all of those together so it kind of just flows in the cafeteria um and then we celebrated read Across America last week and we five of our ELA teachers offered to dress up in costumes and they were those like blowup costumes and we did a masked reader so we videoed them they read one of their favorite books and then we put those videos out in advisory and the classes got to guess who the Mas reader was we have those videos if you want to see them they're pretty funny um we're going to use those blowup costumes for a couple different things here coming up um and
064then the middle school carnival is happening this Thursday and Friday so if you're feeling like getting some cotton candy or jumping in the racing in the jump thing or just like the smell of dirty feet then that is where you should come this week um any questions for me all day so you can come anytime yes all right thank you thanks for the updates and last but not least Tyler with the High School uh Tyler Miller assistant principal at the high school uh we also had information on the ELA stuff uh in the board book but I was going to talk about just some things that the high school are going on and some announcements shout outs uh the first one is that our nurse car poppleton we just found out that she is a
065finalist for the state school nurse of the year so something that we're excited about and keeping our fingers crossed for that um you guys talked a lot about gon college so I won't go to there but one other piece kind of going off of gon college night um and and also a testament to Mr R Radke's work is the growth in Panther trades so uh we have two new students starting in this semester in in brand new Industries to Panther trades one of them is custom 2 manufacturing which is a combination of like Welding and Fabrication and then a second student who is doing a video videography and is working with Montana PBS up at MSU so um just a a program that's continuing to expand and you know trying to balance that flexibility of
066exposing kids and and kind of being open to all comers um and then lastly uh we're wrapping up with our registration so that we spent the month of February working on registration uh class registration for the um our current Juniors sophomores and freshmen uh we've had staff members heading over to the Middle School uh last week um kind of promoting their programs and some of the electives that are available the middle school students at the high school and so we'll be wrapping up with the current eighth graders registration and that kind of culminates with our freshman orientation and open house which is going to be uh Wednesday at 4 o'clock um it's kind of uh there's going to be two pres presentations by the counseling department so one of those will be at 4:15 another
067one at 5:30 and then um also that night we have the National Honor Society induction ceremony that'll be at 6:30 in the auditorium as well so any questions no good thanks Tyler and thank you all for uh addressing our covid deficiencies with math and reading I know the community really appreciates that um onto the consent agenda board action we have a motion to discuss the consent agenda thanks Viper I make a motion to adopt the consed agenda items one through six listed on the agenda and the board packet authorized necessary action for these items to include the same in the minutes I second it we have a motion on a second do we have any public comment on the consent agenda coming back to the board any board comment I had a couple questions um
068I noticed one of the uh academic interventionalists was leaving do we still it was Sam basically you know the two that we hired um three years ago instru instructional coach thank you do we still have that program we did okay or do you still have the same number of heads yeah so we have two um we actually have one more this year because we have two at the elementary level and then we have one we added one at the middle school this year okay um so yeah she's just moving out of state oh I was just there's some big L there there are big losses there we agree and then my other question was since we're getting near negotiation time I saw some training that was done I was curious um what was done there
069I saw Matt had taken some and Becky had done some as well from the Ed genomics what was that all about so um Ed genomics is a program um that uh it it's a certificate program to learn more about um educational economics basically um and so the approach is really from a it's a student centered approach it's a um course it's a kind of a Rapidfire course of of undoing some of the things that we always think and believe about school finance and repackaging it as how can we think about this in terms of How It's impacting students how can we get rid of some of our ideas about education finance that might be limiting us um and how can we kind of break through those barriers to be really Innovative in our educational Finance
070thinking all right do you have a question Frank who attended that Becky Becky Thomas Carrie has taken it and I have taken it and Mary okay y all right any other questions regarding the consent agenda seeing none it comes back to a vote all in favor of approving the consent agenda say I I I olly I motion passes s to nothing uh new business High School field trip to New York who do we have Tyler yes so uh this is uh a field trip that had taken place uh last school year um same advisor and uh same trip through the same company so I think it's as far as I know everything is the same that happened two years ago with this uh particular group um so they're going to New York um New York
071City and see the site do we have a motion to continue I'll move to approve the out of state field trip to New York New York in March of 20126 I'll second we have a motion in a second do we have any public questions or comment for Tyler see none comes back to the board any questions who are these kids I looked to see and I could not is it a club it it's part of the drama club so there's a um that's primarily the group of students I believe there's also some uh it's uh the the teacher who is uh leading the trip is our Drama teacher and is also a member of The English Department so I think there's a a little bit of crossover there but the primary um student group is
072drama so it is a club not a class uh we we have a drama club and then we also have a drama class as well it's nowhere not listed anywhere just gives Kristen's name I I would thing I would say is uh my granddaughter went on this trip on the last version she was a part of the drama group okay and um I think they had a really a good trip in that they first of all got to see one of the largest cities in the world and second of all that's an eye opener just do enough itself uh traveling by sub but they had a safe trip and uh enjoyable they got to see some shows so from the drama perspective I think they got some value out of that uh and uh I
073actually got her to say more than three words so I thought it was a success yeah perfect are you having good uh demand for working concessions now to raise money for these trips yeah as far as I know I think maybe Thomas could probably speak more of that we have all the internal clubs lining up out the door one thing I noticed from the consent agenda was the amount of money that was paid out and it's nothing to sneeze out so I hope that continues to go up especially with in-house clubs okay any other questions for Mr Miller comes back to the board for a vote all in favor of approving the out of state trip to New York say I I motion pass seven to nothing thanks Holly thank you the recommendation for the
0742025 26 Calendar do we have a motion to continue before starts talking I move to adopt the 2526 school year calendar option A with a student start date of August 27th 2025 and an end date of June 5th 2026 do we have a second hi sec I have a motion in a second Matt do you want to give us the rundown please uh sure so um I'll just pull it up real quick we had a couple different calendar options that came out of the PD committee uh sent to staff for feedback uh we were very clear it wasn't a vote it's a feedback and that's exactly what we got we had a less feedback than I would hoped um we had 157 responses out of the total number of staff that we have so not
075a huge turnout but um it was some good feedback so what we've developed this at least calendar a option is a good compromise uh some of the key components that came up was the weekl long break in uh Thanksgiving um you know some people said they liked it some people said they didn't need it uh the classified staff uh was very um vocal about losing two days of work uh that week which we took into account um and then the last the other piece of feedback was uh not getting out on June 10th but trying to get out on June 5th so the other piece that we looked at from last or this current Year's calendar uh was the 12:30 early release days um you know which school's in session which ones aren't which teachers
076are coming which ones aren't so we simplified this uh all the way down we just got rid of the 12:30 early releases and went just you're either in school or you're not uh the only difference is the high school doing one set of conferences in a freshman orientation day they get one trade out day where uh speaking with Julie at the middle school she's interested in doing two sets of conferences so that could be um the April 17th trade out day could be K8 uh for conferences instead of just K4 so the high school would be in session that day the teachers would be in session that day for PD um and that gets us out June 5th uh the other option that's in your board packet is option b um which takes a week
077in November for Thanksgiving and then it's not moving here um the two weeks at Christmas spring break and then we would be out June 9th because we picked up a couple of days of days off of school and then we're it pushes us out another couple days okay we have any Community questions or comments for that say none comes back to the board questions which one are we voting on a the recommendation from the committee is the compromise kind of contract which would be when it is what was the percentage vote on the on the committee I think coming out of the committee was pretty well received that we needed to do a compromise yeah I was we didn't do a hand raise vote but I was glad to see no half days was there
078a thought behind that or did it just work out that way just the effectiveness of it um you know it and I think the confusion uh amongst parents teachers you know and and trying to it's a lot of logistics when you're dealing with that kind of stuff um we just we wanted to keep it simple um for next year and then our goal next year in the PD committee is to develop a two-year calendar any further questions for matth not ever voted start I thought last year's experiment of the whole week Thanksgiving off had some value because my kids weren't sitting in class watching movies they W in class with half the kids watching movies so and personally we liked it just from a family perspective and that was that was brought up at the
079PD committee the attendance and and things the two days before Thanksgiving break um but also weighing in you know quite a bit of your staff is losing out on two days of work um so we we weighed all those options and we thought thought this was kind of a fair compromise between it all classified Frank really Pi up the two days when they work in June so it's not lost it's just yeah paycheck right heading into the holidays your holiday check is a lot lower for those which is a big impire yeah yeah they don't pushed off yeah we didn't want to ignore that voice so no and I think you know expectations around attendance on those last two days of school if they're pushed to the next week in June we could probably presume
080we'll have similar kind of attendance issues so that was another consideration all right any other questions comes back to a vote I guess we'll ask Holly first oh you have another question I would like to just make a comment here okay I said on the the committee and I am in favor of this the only thing I'd like to leave you with next year I'd like to have you really consider having parent student conferences during the day and not have our teachers do it at night and I think next year we talked about it and I'd like to have you really put that on your agenda for next year I think it's unfair to our teachers to have them teach all day and then be here until 9:00 at nights [Laughter] like Matt Matt will
081take care of it that is on the agenda for next year to try and figure out how we can do conferences during the day all right good Holly I guess all favor I'm sorry Holly hi all in favor say I I motion passes seven to nothing all right next item on the agenda is the course proposals I think is that you matters all right so we have a couple of course proposals um Mary has one of them through the special education department uh this one is through the Spanish Department um Spanish for Heritage Learners uh and Grace is here to maybe kind of give you a little bit more in-depth idea of what this is for other than what's in the before you start Grace let me just uh ask for a motion so that
082this is recorded I I move to approve two high two new High School courses Spanish for Heritage Learners and Pier mon mentoring to begin the 2025 2026 school year I'll second okay we have a motion in a second please proceeded than great I'm Grace madok I'm the head of the World Language Department which is just Spanish right now which is totally it's all good um so this Heritage learner course I was inspired after going to a um Montana language Teachers Association conference so Gallatin High started this a few years ago as we all know in Belgrade we've seen like a large influx of Spanish speakers in our student demographic and the Heritage learner courses geared towards those students that maybe Spanish is their first language or maybe they grew up speaking it in their home
083or around their grandparents or parents um but they never got that literacy base in their first language or in um Spanish so as we know we give our um English speakers native English speakers uh literacy classes K through 12 right they're learning how to read and write in English um so this is geared towards those students that need to build the foundation of those literacy skills in Spanish right now those students are just in our normal like Spanish 1 2 3 4 AP and it's not serving those students or our students who are trying to learn Spanish um from Ground Zero because those students that are fluent in speaking Spanish don't need need that um basis of learning vocabulary from scratch but they do need to build their literacy skills so a lot of them
084have gaps in education or maybe just never received literacy um education so to help those students and then hopefully our vision is for these students to be in the Heritage learner course and then eventually go into AP Spanish but it's not serving those students to just plop them into a 4 AP Spanish class because it's actually quite Advanced um they're writing like five paragraph essays and argumentative and they are trying to have discussions um that are just they're higher level so yeah that's the the vision around this course Gallatin High has had a positive feedback that they shared with us and encouraged us to look into a course of that nature so yeah than did you want to talk about the uh peer mentoring now as well or yeah Stacy bnco here to talk about
085that hi I'm Stacy Bunko special education at the high school and I had along with Stephanie Lasher we propose the pure mentoring um as a class instead of more as a club we have more interest in the panther peers and they're loving it so we wanted to expand it to have more training which I um collaborated with Christy sophianic from the MSU life Scholars Program and she was kind enough to share her programming training program with us and so we'll be utilizing that to our situation here at the high school so they'll be able to um the students will be able to get training in the confidentiality part of uh working with the students and whatnot so and learning about disabilities and then it'll also help with the uh inclusion part of our classes so
086okay it's really exciting maybe before you sit down we'll ask for a community comment and then board questions so why don't we uh ask does anybody from the community have a question or comment for Stacy or Matt we come back to the board my one question is is what will be the um number that they have to have to have these courses yeah that was going to be my question so um we're because we're are just finishing the registration process we haven't looked at class size yet we know that we're you know working towards making sure that our number of Staff balances with our number of students and so that's all part of this um what the board is doing is approving these so that they could be courses at the high school if it
087doesn't work if we don't have the numbers to offer it one semester or one year then it it it it's still in the mix there to be able to be offer off when we have the student population to warranted so if we approve it and there are only 10 kids that sign up for the Heritage class then it will not be offered we haven't set numbers yet we haven't set Baseline numbers yeah so we have we haven't done that for any class yet so I I I wouldn't be comfortable saying we're going to do it for this class and not for any others every class falls into the bigger picture and so we need to see what the bigger picture is and to answer that question have we got have we done any um reviews
088with the students that might be of having an interest here what they why don't you let's ask uh Stacy H first Rocky and then we can bring Grace back up so we don't sure I figured these would be kind of separate there's quite a bit of interest um there I there's dozens of questions that apply to the disabilities of the of my students right now so and some of it I can't reveal but during this class they will be signing confidentiality waivers and whatnot to be able to have some access to this but it also dovetails into the education part um if they're interested in education they will be able to um get access to the curriculum they will also be able to um they'll be presenting and whatnot too so at the end of
089the year uh or at the end of the semester if they continue on to the second semester there will be an extended project for the them to do um but yeah they've been very interested and very positive and I have some excellent P Panther peers this year how many how many kids do you think expressed interest or what is your well I've got my numbers right now are six so okay yeah so I would assume that number would could be lower to offer that program right yeah and right now the prerequisite is Juniors and seniors who have a certain GPA so they have to right up there okay um okay any other questions for Stacy associated with the teaching profession longer term it can be definitely it can de into Miss Young's education classes as
090well that's kind of the group that you're is it Target kids that are like system yes yeah they're the me they're the mentors it's it's just like I don't know if you're familiar with the life Scholars Program at MSU yeah it's just like that yep and they have training their training is much more extensive than um but we're going to be using that so right I think the same question for the other group as well okay yeah if you want to step up Grace go Serpentine I was figuring there would be some targeted questions here I have start broad question I make sure I understand this so this is for like English second language for primar I mean I know that's generalization but for kids that raised in Spanish home that or I gu foreign
091language speak and all but that didn't learn language structure fundamentals in there along the way now we're trying to pick that up I'm or did I get lost yeah it kind of depends on the student a lot of them might be English as a second language Learners or Ells but some of them might be students that tested out of the ESL program or maybe were raised bilingual but they never received any Spanish literacy education um I sure so somebody raising this South lest where it's common to have both languages spoken on but maybe not have the taught the same structure you would be taught English because you went through school K8 here so we're trying to catch people up and that the general purpose of it um well we push being biliterate so in order
092to get like a seal of biliteracy that's being highly proficient in all modes of communication and most of these Heritage Learners have a high proficiency um with listening and speaking and but they don't they lack the literacy skills in writing and reading comprehension which in turn is probably directly impacting their English proficiency scores on our state testing and acts um so by like providing that support in their maybe more familiar language or their first language or language they grew up around it's building that Foundation to be biliterate CU right now we are offering right to our native English speakers English courses K12 to build their literacy skills and then we offer them four years of a foreign language so they have that literacy education in both languages right now we have these students mixed in
093with our Spanish courses and it kind it's causing a bit of a clash because it isn't serving either group in the um correct way so a lot of these Heritage Learners right they can speak all day long right they they know all the vocabulary words um and but they struggle to read a book and answer reading comprehension questions or write an essay or write an email and they like spelling and grammar is kind of um not where it should be for the high school Spanish or both um it depends on the student um but yeah I would have to look at the scores of what their English proficiency is but we do see this um we have some students that were raised in Spanish speaking homes that are in our Spanish 2 classes right now
094and really do struggle with the reading um comprehension in the writing like their Spanish grades are actually not super high even though they're fluent speaking wise so fluency it's in literacy right there can be a really highs spoken proficiency but a lack in literacy skills just like if someone was to miss you know maybe they um didn't receive or had a gap in their English literacy education and they might not have a highw written proficiency which does cause issues or reading down the line right so right now I I hear a lot of talk about Ela and all different grade levels and a concern for literacy skills and I think to be fair to this demographic to offer them a class and a space for them to grow their literacy skills in their first language
095um but this wouldn't add to our Department's FTE at all all of these students are mostly dispersed in our Spanish 234 and AP class classes so and a lot of them are discouraged from taking these Spanish courses because they clearly do speak Spanish so right I'll ask a question to the group like class like oh what did you do over the weekend we're learning better at tents these students they'll raise their hand they'll obviously like go on and on about what they did over the weekend in Spanish and the other students will look at them like what are they saying why are they in this class they already speak Spanish and like why do they need to be here like the needs are very different that student that is the native Spanish speaker or that
096Heritage learner that's why it's a Heritage learner class it might not be their first language primarily they need a space where they can improve their reading and writing skills somebody ENT this program and just be in the Heritage class or would you also have them in one two three AP or yeah simultaneously that's a good question so our hope is to have them first in the Heritage learner class and then depending on where that student is at we could have them in 4 AP or three it it I mean all of these students come from very different backgrounds and situations so it's hard to say like they'll be in the Heritage learner class and then 3 4 AP some students might be depending on all also what year they are in school and how much
097prior education they've had I mean some of these students come from excellent um schools right whether that be in the US or out of the US and they do have excellent literacy skills while other students maybe had a gap of Education maybe they missed like two or three years of school or like pieced together because of so many different moves and reloads so it's you know some of our students have very low literacy skills and others don't so would you have people Tes in and out of this or just um yeah so as in Spanish 3 and four we give a test called the stamp test um which tests them for the Montana seal of biliteracy and it's on the ACT full scale from the American Council of teaching foreign language so if they are
098at an intermediate mid level throughout all four modes of communication um I would say that we would test them into a higher level and we offer that at three or four so we would hopefully look into offering that to the Heritage learner class as well um and that would test their mode of communication and interpretive and presentational like listening Reading Writing and speaking so do you have a idea how many kids are going to be interested in doing this train yeah so a lot of these students like I said are in these Spanish classes already and I think would easily make up a a section um across three the multiple sections of three and four in AP and there's a few sprinkled in two right now but like I said I think a lot of
099these Heritage Learners are discouraged um from joining our Spanish 1 two 3 4 AP courses um because it doesn't feel like a good fit for them or maybe really where they need to focus their energy or maybe they're discouraged for social reasons so I think it would be a positive community space for them to be like okay yes maybe Spanish is my first language or I grew up one of my parents spoke Spanish and I am able to speak with people at a hyper efficiency but yeah what's the section um I mean our Spanish sections are I mean it depends but I pretty large I mean what is your proposed demand what do you think this will uh I would be excited if it was around like 2025 I mean we have a I don't
100know right now in Spanish 3 I would say about half of our kids are Heritage Learners so we could kind of in high school do you think have this kind of um I know that our ESL numbers are extremely large I mean we just posted another part-time ESL Spanish teaching position and we have half a we have a large demand for ESL like legally we need more ESL support at the high school so therefore we have you don't know off the top your head I was just wondering how many kids are in English Spanish Purgatory I think a a good amount and it's increasing like I feel like each quarter semester I've had kids added to like my Ig class that I takeen a lot of the sophomore ESL students it's it yeah so the
101minimum number to have this class would be answer right yeah same answer I mean we're looking at you know 25 for our classes okay so um you mentioned that the literacy capacity that they would be gaining would then car forward into their English literacy and I'm curious how that how that happens yeah I mean I see this as a Spanish teacher on the flip side right so if students are high Achievers in their Ela classes they are way more likely to succeed in my Spanish classes because they have that basis of reading comprehension and understanding of like sentence structure and spelling and um so when you learn one language it supports your learning of another one and also when our students are in my Spanish classes it reinforces their English literacy skills right I'll say
102okay this is a jend what's a Jaren everyone and then they go back and relearn that so what when you're learning two languages at once and building those literacy skills it supports both of them very nicely okay any other sure yeah um how do you how does this you uh it right how does this not work to the detriment of our other classes you say we have enough bandwidth to teach this class then are we teaching too many Spanish classes right now or are you guys going to have to pull away from one period have bigger ones than the rest of them and not It just strikes me that Spanish is one of those areas where it's nicer to have not 28 kids 20 like how do how does that work where the math work
103yeah well I do think again because most of these kids are already in our program it' be more of like a reshuffling of where these students are in our program um so we wouldn't be necessarily taking away from the other classes I think it would be just a different curriculum or space for that group you're still offer the same number of Spanish on one two oh I don't think we would offer the same number okay yeah because again those kids are already dispersed so and like Spanish 2 and three is kind of the demographic for this more so so instead of maybe having three sections of Spanish 3 maybe we'd have two sections of Spanish 3 and then one Heritage learner course I asked that H couldn't be in Spanish this year because they didn't
104F the schedule I was really bummed about that I keep telling them but take it next year let see if he does but yeah any who so hopefully it wouldn't uh like minimize opportunities for anyone to take Spanish it would just be more of a reshuffling um of our courses is that likely different topic are you guys next year or we uh I have not heard talk of bringing back the French program I would love to offer more languages at Belgrade high but I um it has not been made a a priority I'll make a note of following up with DD on that uh one last question I guess how many students do you have in Spanish in the high school now total for grade like roughly grade howed in the demand oh man um
105well we have Let's see we have about eight sections of Spanish one and including a advanced Spanish at the middle school which we have been hoping to get high school credit for them but that's another discussion um so8 slash n depending on how you look at it and then we have five sections of Spanish 2 right now and then I think um two of three and then one combined for AP okay currently and so I think all of our language teachers have around like 130 to 140 students like we are packed in the there's only um three of us fulltime all together at the high school serving the high school yeah it's a lot all right should bring it back to a vote all in favor of approving the two new High School courses Spanish
106language Spanish for Heritage Learners and peer mentoring say I I I olly hi was that an i yes I didn't she gets an A and you said yes to marel I didn't okay perfect passes seven to nothing thank you next item on the agenda transportation Transportation Route mileage change Scott good evening um I failed to print that copy because I thought we were going to have a contract to talk about the family is in transition and wanted to have bus service instead of a contract so um that's what the new mileage is on one of those routes and then when we got to doing that we forgot that I didn't see an approval of uh a student that were taken to Boseman every day and picking up so we've added that on there as well
107okay do we have a motion to continue I move to approve Transportation Route mileage change I'll second Motion in a second do we have any public comment or questions for Scott comes back to the board any board comment or questions see none it comes back to the board for a vote all in favor of the Transportation Route mileage change say I I I I hi poose same sign motion passes 7 month thanks Scot I'm staying bus purchases hey um so we're looking at uh purchasing some activity buses route buses and a 14 passenger bus but we're going to put the 14 passenger off for the side for a while um unfortunately the the normal buses that we purchase International doesn't uh offer an activity bus to our our liking we like the undercarriage where we
108can fit what 46 football pads underneath and international would just have little caros here and there so um Thomas didn't give us a bid but uh blue be did for 269,000 okay do we have a motion to continue wait take them off is that the last two okay no yeah there's we'll talk about I moved to approve the purchase of two route buses from the Transportation fund and one activity bus from fund 282 I'll second we have a motion in a second did we have any public comment or questions for Scott seeing none comes back to the board board questions comment yeah lot of money the plan though for a while yeah I guess I talked to Trey about this a little bit too I don't know did you want to say anything about bus
109depreciation Carrie no I don't care I don't think it's necessary nobody's interested okay well we went to the meeting on three of us were there Friday morning I did have one question for you Scott I was wondering if you're angling towards gas or a diesel powered field um R buses we would like to go with gas and Internationals told us hopefully in the next year we can start ordering gas buses okay I'll be I'll be back next month with 14 passenger with okay real bids Apples to Apples okay comes back to the board for a vote all in favor of approving the bus purchases as stated say I I I motion pass is seven to nothing thank you so why did we take the why did we take the 14 passenger off so the 14
110passenger we had three different bids they weren't Apples to Apples um what when we got into it and started looking at it okay it wasn't all the same stuff only one person quoted us the bids that we actually gave them the spec store okay so so it'll come back we'll talk we're gonna come back next month with the proper yes yeah yeah the Thomas bid was uh a regular seat with the arm swivel and that was the one I recommended but I didn't know that's until I got into it that's what that was okay are you going to order them right away the uh Bluebird the activity bus the root bus that is that we just approve because you have to do it by March that is the it's close to that yeah yes so
111okay okie doie right thank you thanks on to the next item the dean of students position speaking to that you wanna you w to make a motion make a motion let's make a motion I moveed to approve the creation of the Dena students position at the high school should no Justa student position okay I'll second have Motion in a second uh D do you want to give us so this is one of the board's responsibilities is to approve all new positions I think we've actually had a deem position in the district in the past but since we haven't had one for a while we brought it back up so we have a um a um job description a draft job description listed there um that um basically talks about the dean of students working collaboratively
112with the building Administration and staff the dean is responsible for assisting the administration with student discipline student attendance extracurricular and Student Activities campus security and other responsibilities assigned by the building administrator um so a dean of students is a position that is used in schools across the country um it is it would be on the teacher contract um with an an additional 10 days assigned to it so the dean could be there before and after school to or before and after the school year to get things ready wrap things up um and then would have a stien the tosa stiped attached to it um to um compensate for um providing security at night events and and things like that along with the other administrative staff okay any public questions or comments for Dee comes back
113to the board you need public comment first he did oh you did okay um so the tosa stipend is we have that in place for like our instructional coaches our 504 coordinator the special education building coordinator so it's people who routinely have to attend after school meetings need to be here maybe to for some trainings in the summertime so it's that um compensation for really a little extension of their contract um during the year yeah I just I mean I want to make sure that we're what we're saying here is basically taking this position as opposed to another assistant principal position yeah so you're just approving the position so then we would apply it to a building right so potentially we could apply that you know use this position at the high school that's where
114you foresee it will start or will there be some crossover to the Middle School um we're anticipating just looking at it for the high school today right here right now okay have we in the past ever had Adena students in Belgrade somebody said we did anybody know Randy we've have we had it when you you've been here have we had a Dean before I was told you don't remember it I was told at one point we had one but I brought it to the board anyway because it feels like a new position whether we had it or not if Randy can't remember it's a new position I have worked in a in a school district that had AA students and I thought it was probably the best thing we ever had so what's the day
115in the life um it's um so they could be doing s you know working with students who are on in school suspension probably most of the time you're not going to have a student on in school suspensions so they're going to be working on those what we call tier 2 behaviors so behaviors where the teachers worked with the student in class but maybe they need we need to up that a little bit but it doesn't reach the level of a of a building administrator at you know higher level Behavior so working with students to remedy those make sure the student can um get back into class and access their education y yeah because it pulls off that responsibility of and then they can run attendance data run you know work with kids on attendance contracts
116things like that yeah serving that you have a lot of interest for this I think someone be a teacher to be a teacher be a counselor to be a counselor but not be a teacher to be a there actually um it's pretty typical for people who are interested in becoming administrators to use this as an opportunity to have that kind of quasy administrative experience it's a teach the way we've written the job description it's a teaching position so they would never be able to suspend kids they wouldn't be able to um you know provide super evaluations for other teachers because those things only an administrator can do so but it gives you the experience of working with teachers and students and trying to solve problems and and you know communicating about issues and um the
117[Music] principle and I think as a student many times the students feel Freer approaching a dean of students than an assistant principal or principal no offense coun I was students in college a couple times keep thinking of Animal House same at College puts you out of school not not in college experience in my oldest son currently okay any other questions I have one okay thanks Holly ahead um what will be our requirement of when we decide to actually Implement what are we looking at to say okay yes this is what we're going to want and need and um and actually putting that this position into place good question um so obviously we've talked about you know that this would be a potential position to start with at the high school um and um so once
118the position is created it opens up the opportunity to have conversations about what's the best way to um staff our high school administration or support um now that um Tyler is leaving us um so the next step is once this is approved then we can actually consider it as an option that answer your question yeah thanks okay you're to start using this year next year yeah I mean if that's the decision that's made yeahuh it would be for next year that would be effective June first July 1 yeah I mean beginning of school okay up to five days before the beginning of school okay any other questions comes back to a vote all in favor of approving the dean of students position say I I I motion is 7 and nothing you danan how are
119you doing yeah Rocky pardon me does anybody need to take five um I could take five mind if we take five real quick thank you e e e next Adam item on the agenda fortunately is the uh recommendation for selected vendor for e c to with Mike motion why don't you just give us a quick summary and then we'll have a motion hey we P published an erate RFP back in uh when November uh so this is for category two services this is our Network infrastructure the switches and wireless access points okay do we have a motion to continue Rocky you turn on your microphone please thank you please make a motion and erate RFP proposal for the 2526 school year to replace outdated Category 2 Network equipment was issued in November we uh oops
120I think you want to up two two paragraphs have it up I'm on the wrong sorry let me start over with that motion no details just the motion so no details just the motion I make a motion to accept the net diverse e rate bid for HP Aruba Network equipment for published 2025 2026 funding year Category 2 RFB I'll second okay we have a motion and a second um do we have any public comment okay it comes back to the board do you have any board questions or comments switches on the network or catatory to RFP it's Category 2 Services RFP so that covers category one Services is the act our actual internet services category two services are what they call internal connections so it's our switches and our access points but not just Layer
121Two correct not just Layer Two any other questions for Mike I I had a question about funding Mike this will probably go to you and Carrie and Dy like I know that we don't pay for it all and part of my question was answered by the board book noticing that it was partially paid out of the general fund and part was out of the tech Levy is that right yes I believe that's what car and I not the te is it the tech Levy the tech fund the 625 that we get every year that's the tech Levy that we get from the school so how much would we be paying out of pocket for the general fund to make this happen well it would happen at the end of the year when we're trying to
122figure out how to close out the books but I um I anticipate most of it will come out of the technology Levy we've been trying not to spend that money for a big purchase like this because we know that it's there so we've been building it up because 62,5 00 a year really isn't anything to help us with projects like this so we do have to hold on to it and build it up and that's what we've been doing for something like this um I think our portion is going to be close to uh I want to say our portion is close to 300,000 that 285 286 and that would be split between Elementary in high school and that's dedicated Tech funds that's not something that could be spent somewhere else that answered a lot
123of my question have general fund money available at the time I would use it um and try to save our Tech money more but I no you'd want to use the tech yeah you could do that too I need some clarification e- rate we apply for e- rate we got it we had to give it back one year so how does this work with eate well eate is a rate is a program that is funded by the universal service fee that's on Telephone bills so those funds are being administered by a private company called the universal service Administration company USAC USAC is the company that helps us write these rfps so that we can get the money from the Federal Communications company the one that administers the universal service fee and the EAP program allows
124us to claim up to 70% of the cost of the bid now our funding currently is at a 6040 split so they would pay 60% of this we would pay 40% I don't think that was your question though it was it maren helped what you're talking about was the occurrence where we had to pay that back last year and part of the committee's job and Mike's job and everybody's job was to document this purpose that didn't happen again because there's always strings attached with eate funding right correct can you explain those uh the some of the strings that come with this are that we have to maintain the equipment for a minimum of five years we have to have it implemented in a certain amount of time we have to keep it in its place
125for a certain amount of time we cannot move the equipment from where it's been allocated so there's a lot of Hoops that we have to jump through to make sure that we do this and we and an audit there's a periodic audit of your documentation to prove correct and that was our shortcoming in the last was that an audit for 2017 I believe basically a vendor helped us through this and did not we didn't audit it right so when the government or the corporation eate funding people came back they asked for our audit report and we had none so we couldn't prove that I hadn't taken this equipment and put it in my house basically so that's why they asked for the money back it's part of these guys' commitment her job was to make
126sure that we went out for our rfps correctly everything was documented correctly and then we'll continue to pass audits right and it's a fair bidding process that was a big thing too we couldn't prove that we didn't have unfair bidding last time so when we Doc is it is it where it's at on a network or where it's physically where physically located so know not dropped any of it in here or there right we have certain places uh well when we developed the the RFP we noted what locations needed how many uh we did increase our capacity by 20% when we went out for RFP so that we have we physically yeah say that some of it's going to be in the buildings we just did a land swap in and none of it's going
127to be in the buildings we out at the time we wrote the RFP that was not that information was not available to us so there will be changes once we move forward can we do that we can as long as we audit it correct as long as we document it and say what happened yes if we don't spend the money like say they do less the all the equipment also has to be used for direct instruction they can't use it for admin buildings okay we're going to build another school yeah can we use it there yes we just have to make sure we document where we use it and how we're using it and then it's going directly towards students what happens if you don't use it then we could get in trouble for um
128like I think you have you have like six or 12 months to deploy all the equipment once you get it in hand I'm just talking about the levy money in general let's say we decided to go against this and you have X number of dollars sitting in the tech fund and how long can it sit there do you have to give it back forever it'll just keep building every year because our Lev is perpetual and and then it's there for when we have to replace Chromebooks or whatever else that comes down the line right the problem with waiting is one of our big risks um because the the r rap program is in question uh right now there's a a court case in front of the Supreme Court um consumer research versus the FCC they're
129discussing the constitutionality of the universal licensing fee and um the private company Universal service Administration company for administering those federal funds uh oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court are scheduled for March 26 so there is a possibility there wouldn't be no eate program it could cost us more in the future should we we would have to pay 100% of the cost moving forward so is this refunded all up front or do we have to fly for every Che quick this is that's be well that's what he's talking that is a possibility R's been on the chopping block long before this last president was elected and we started talking about Cuts they've because of what he's talking about with the um the fee that gets put on everyone's phone bill they've been questioning the
130constitutionality of that for years um so I don't know we don't know what's going to happen but what we do is we have what's called spy invoicing which is service provider invoicing so they only will invoice the district when we order the equipment they invoice the district for our portion and they invoice eate for their portion so we never have to worry about getting reimbursed or anything like that it's just we get invoice for our portion of it they have two different kinds of invoicing they have bear invoicing and spy invoicing and bear is more of a reimbursement and I always request spy because it's cleaner so what happens if we approve this today and then at the end of the month they say e- rate's done um then are we essentially approving a 100%
131cost are I don't believe so no so if if the funding is not guaranteed we cancel the RFP that's one of the contingencies when we wrote the RFP so if it's not funded by the eate program nothing happens on top of that they've already allocated this money so unless they decide to take away all the money that they've already allocated for this round of rfps in Category 2 Funds then I think what where the problem is going to be is moving forward so say March 26 they have this court date they'll stop everything moving forward but I I I don't anticipate that they'll back up and say I mean you never know but they've tried it's come down to courts though yeah they very well could so I mean I don't know usually they favor
132schools and they don't try not to do that to us RIS what is the risk if we do not go forward with this well one again the big risk is the cancellation of the erate program however the equipment we have itself uh is getting toward end of life uh we have just about a year uh left before we get no firmware updates no software updates for any of this equipment so is this like the laptops is our Chrome books is this what you're talking about no no this is this is the hardware that the network runs on all the switches all the wireless access points in the ceiling all of that okay perfect so okay and it's not just academic that runs on this I mean we have our current Network supports over 10,000 devices
133across the district uh so it's not just academics that this supports then this also supports facilities this also supports you know other things that are non-academic I mean I can't name those in a public forum but I have two things I wanted to mention um one of them is just we voted on those solar panels about a year ago and I still feel guilty for doing it because I just we just spent money because it was there I don't think it'll ever pay itself off and I feel bad about that as a taxpayer even though it would have been refunded back now the second question I have is the topic of cell phones keep coming up and I wonder I realize we're going to bump up against our capacity at some point but if the
134teachers continue to let the kids use cell phones for their instruction that makes this very blurry decision for me as whether or not we should continue and really think that at some point we're going to have to make a decision on whether or not we're gonna B cell phones basically and focus all the traffic through get that on the agenda well maybe's not the right night I've met to I've met to bring that up earlier but we need to put that on the agenda yeah but I I you know like I have to have some assurance that we're going to start focusing all of our educational traffic through the network that you guys have created yes and I agree with that we still a philosophical standpoint still need some sort of central backbone network access
135whatever else I mean IE can have different opinions on this well I agree that you need to keep up with the most recent stuff but you can also let your and older stuff roll a lot longer than you might think you know our current infrastructure has been going for eight years eight okay yeah my indry that's Swit yeah I don't know we say that too but we're still using Windows 10 images too so and I work for Oracle yeah you for orle Buu from so when is what is the deadline for this to apply for this the deadline the deadline for filing is in four days in four days I have to have the decision to our usack I mean it seems like we have the money allocated it's not something that we could take
136and allocate to teacher salaries for example it was coming straight from the general fund I would say no but yeah um I just want to make sure we're using good the taxpayers money right and I also want to make sure that the kids are using devices on our Network because we're we have we put a lot of focus on one one device for kid and if teacher says pull out your phone and they can use chat GPT to cheat that's defeating a lot of their they're using it through the wi no well they're blocked from the Wi-Fi right Mike that's correct we do not allow students on the Wi-Fi yeah we took away the guest access to the wi-fi at the beginning of the school year because that's what kids were using they use their
137own data plan that's why some parents are upset about the Netflix and the Disney and all that stuff going on too it's I I don't want it to derail this discussion but it's something we need to think about so you're going to if we approve this you're going to apply we're not guaranteed that we will get it we we go into the pot with everybody else correct and then maybe we'll we'll get it maybe chances are we will get the funding yes it is available if we don't get it don't buy it if we do not get the funding then we do not buy it that is correct I mean this is we're on we are in the last year of a fiveyear rotation for eate funding so this particular round of funding the money
138is already there any other questions for Mike that would help clarify I think as long as we're as long as we're staying on top of being prepared for Audits and doing our running our own in-house audits because yes getting another fine or having to give money back will not sit well with me yes that's why we met as a grading committee when all of the bids came in we sat down we documented everything thing we put in a spreadsheet in the grading Matrix that's in your board book everything is documented as to why we Mark some venders down on some things why we gave more points it's all documented and that's what we did not have the last time around yeah I think as a committee I mean your stuff was solid like from a
139committee standpoint I would totally approve it like it's it's a no-brainer yeah yeah I think my big question was you know if we were I didn't know the funding source so if you if You' have told me we were giving half a million dollars to do this from the general fund I would have said no but since we have this lovey money available it's a different story does that make sense any other questions you look like you got something no I'm just trying to decide how I'll just stare at you uncomfortably you're on the committeee yes yes and you're on the committee did you have who else on Committee just Rocky and I yeah I should have asked or who makes up the committee me and Rocky and Mike no teachers no just well Mike
140all of us so it's DD Mike okay and did the screener included uh Greg oh the the grading committee was Trey Carrie Greg Rob and myself anything you wanted to add Rocky you good no I'm uh with you I the committee said thumbs up on this all right comes back to a vote all in favor of uh the recommend taking accepting the recommendation of the selected vendor for erate cat 2 say I I I Holly uh Holly logged off during our break um motion passes six to nothing thanks Mike thank you uh consider revision to continuous Improvement plan for 2023 24 and 20242 D um so the uh continuous Improvement plan is a required document by the state that um we have to have on hand and one of its um charges is to have
141us um articulate if there are programs that we would limit the number of students that we would accept as open enroles from other districts um and so on that we have the special education preschool um the behavior classrooms deaf education medically fragile life skills structured classroom for autistic students the resource room um but we left off uh the 19 through 21 year old um program and so we'd like to set that at um three students if we have more than three three students we would not accept outside um enrollments for that you have a motion to continue I move to approve the amendment to the Belgrade School District continuous Improvement plan school years 2023 2024 and 2024 2025 I'll second motion and second do we have any public comment or question questions for DD comes
142back to the board any board questions or comments when did we approve this before way back when last year no God wasn't Godfree still here yeah we probably don't remember it was it was a good long while ago so don't question your laps in memory yeah I think Godfrey was still here we knew we had to have it done ready to go for the 2023 school year so it was it was back like right after we did the Strategic plan they just changed the Open Enrollment law um what's be somewhat recent it's got alert us in it should it be dat they should have a date on it this is all out of our pocket yes no we get funding for it uh we get full A and B for it if they're en fulltime
143so if they don't come if they only come halftime then we only get half A and B for them so it just depends on how much they're enrolled and that is based off of their IEP um me too and I think we did just ask that so do you remember um because Bill there was a there was a challenge in Billings because they originally it was only going to be funded at one quarter am right yeah why would we right so but then but then Carrie and I Revisited it and there's nowhere in there that says it's limited to a quarter A and B yeah and then I also called OPI and got confirmation and she said it depends on their enrollment so I think they quietly just took that away our challenge is more
144being able to hire more staff yeah right so we're not as worried about bringing students in as we are being able to find staff absolutely this pretty um complicated programming that we do with our 19 to 21 year olds so three okay any other questions comes back to the board for a vote I take it Holly still off all in favor of approving The Continuous Improvement plan revisions say I I I I'll oppose same sign motion is six to nothing me what dedicated to those three students there's one halftime teacher doing halftime programming okay yeah and is that all of well it's special education so I don't know if it's paid out of idea or it's probably a little of both it's probably a little of both because we have general fund that has to
145be spent on special education so it could be either it's still that targeted funding okay next item on the agenda ballot language who has he over on 8:30 I did yeah does that count the bathroom Breck or not oh we subtracting the bathroom we're totally subtracting we need somebody fast to read these motions not me then we have motion can someone start the motioning process I make the motion to approve the ballot wording and set the general fund Levy amounts requested at $100,000 which is approximately .97 Ms for the purpose of operating and maintaining Belgrade Elementary School District and $65,000 which is approximately 0.56 Ms for the purpose of operating and maintaining bgrade High School District okay so then we uh wait I'll second oh yes sorry thank you we have a motion in a
146second um any public questions or comment Carrie did you want to say anything about this nothing it says written yeah any board questions or comments yes no there'll be two different questions but your motion is is here that's how the law reads because it's two different districts yeah they have to be two different questions because different people vote in the high school and we can't add we can't add 65,000 in into the other one and just take away the other one no no the state gives us a maximum budget that we can go for in a maximum budget that we can vote in and this year it's a little bit of a puzzle to figure out what those numbers are because it's not defined yet because the legislative session's still going so I um used
147their the state spreadsheet I added 10% and rounded it up that's my scientific way of doing this um so that if if so I'm hopefully we're covered and then if what happens is if we Levy more than what we're allowed we can't do it if the voters approve like say we can only Levy 50,000 that's all we could Levy um and that's all that gets approved this is significantly less than what you were hoping at the work session and everything right no I was only at 149 oh so it went up a little bit and um and I think that's because our of our uh A&B was a our three-year average got used instead of our actual and so that helped us a little bit so and if we don't run a levy if we
148don't run a 100,000 and 65,000 what will happen are we not we need every dime of that to give our staff the raises that they deserve yeah so that's that's where it's all going towards staff yeah so then what you're saying to me then we need to wait on negotiations until this passes no we always have it is just trying to get out of here are you trying to push neg iations to beyond the may but if we don't run a levy we still will be okay financially but it's going to be real tight yeah it'll be tight and you won't be able to give anybody rais um as as big a raise you're going to get the star act money in which will be another influx of some cash but it's not going to
149be enough to to cover all of your staff that need raises and we don't know what we're get right I have an idea if the law stays the way that it is but you don't know what they're going to do it still hasn't gone all the way through the Senate so I mean I'm anticipating that it's going to be fine but they like to throw those last minute curveballs at you don't have very good track Rec on passing levies but I hope that changes well it's no if you don't ask so I kind of feel like if you already have to do an election for trustees might as well add it on there and then I think you know I mean it's not a big ask and it's better to do smaller asks than save
150up for the rainy day and then ask for a lot more we're not going to get a yes on a lot more and we need to show our our staff that we're we're committed to them as well we've got to ask on their behalf okay any other questions requests for clarification no comes back to a vote oh public comment please I thought I did Becky there all my all right I'll start to run together after a while take a minute break to last time R you too uh my name is Becky Krogan um I'm the president of the Belgrade Education Association I am here um requesting that you um ask for a levy um it will help us not only for our teachers but all of our staff as go into negotiations um I also
151would like to um Express the support of the belr Education Association in running the levy um and the support that we can provide in helping to pass a levy um and by advocating for it thank you thanks biy Randy So Randy radkey High School teacher um I want to again encourage you to um run both the high school and the Elementary at Levy like you're planning to um uh we appreciate it and I really appreciate the support from the board thank you thanks all right any other further comment comes back to the board for a vote all in favor of the ballot language for motion number one say I I I I motion passes six to nothing now we be proceed with motion number two do we have someone who' like to continue for the
152belber School Board of Trustees and accordance with Section 2-2-1 1213b I MCA to hereby authorize and Empower its superintendent DD sarod to engage in all necessary and appropriate activities to promote and advocate for the passage of the general Mill Levy propositions approved by the board superintendent Samad is further directed to reach out to interested stakeholders the press and the community groups to provide information and advocate for passage of the letters I'll second we have a motion in a second any public comment back to the board questions comments I just say that uh Mary elling's reading speed is a lot faster than pretty sure I need some more uh help with respect to this to the Heritage language well that would help me a lot yeah I need some continual yeah support okay comes back to
153the board for a vote all in favor of uh the ballot language or motion number two say I I I I motion passes SS to nothing resolution of intent to increase non- voted levies why don't we just begin with a motion I'll make a motion to approve the resolution of interest to increase non- voted levies as presented for physical year 2025 2026 I second we have Motion in a second um DD did you want to say anything no this is car's thing oh car's okay uh we talked about it pretty in depth at the finance meeting on Friday I don't know if anybody has any questions that wasn't there that basically this is a law that in my opinion shouldn't exist but aside from that you what what it requires is for anything that's permissive
154that the board does um that's not voted uh you have the ability in the tuition fund transportation bus depreciation building Reserve to do an adult ed to do uh permissive levies to meet the needs of the district um we've always been very responsible with that and worked really hard not to overt tax our taxpayers however the law requires us to estimate at this time when we have no information what we we possibly could be levying so it's all an estimate it goes in the newspaper it has to be published once before March 31st um after and we have to use this year's taxable value to figure out the Mills so what's going to happen between now and when you adopt your budget in August is there's a property reappraisal we're going to get our new
155taxable values in um the 1 of August and then we start working on our our budget and putting it together and what we need and what it's going to look like uh for the actual number of Mills um I did estimate based off of History how much I'm anticipating our taxable value to go up up and I'm estimating maybe 5% in this um reassessment year I mean it's been as high as 53% the higher it is the less Mills that we Mill because um each taxpayer it's distributed more amongst the taxpayers so there's a lot of unknowns right now so this is just an estimate I do try to be very conservative in this and kind of estimate high so that hopefully when it uh the budget actually does come in in August we're lower
156than this but I always want to try to air on the caution I Pat myself on the back and I'm like look at me I came in lower what about our what about the community do we do we communicate to them we've come under we're coming in under our budget or I haven't gone out of the way to do that I don't actually get very many questions about this at all it it goes in the newspaper and I think in uh the three years that I've been here I've maybe gotten one question about it and mostly like can you explain it to me um but that's that's it I've never gotten anything like what are you guys thinking why are you levying that much you don't for see any big jumps like the cliff notes
157version of this that someone would accuse us of um the biggest Jump's going to be your tuition fund and your Adult Ed funds um we've we've kind of um dealt with bus depreciation and it's kind of leveled out but your tuition fund we're we've got 144 students attending dis Stu School outside of our district that we have to pay tuition for which ranges depending on which school it is um ranges anywhere from 1,500 to 2400 um so we do have to pay that and I think at the elementary level that's over $200,000 that we've never had to Levy out of the tuition fund before um and then on top of that um just the the needs of our students and our our tuition fund um also funds special ed and so we've been really analyzing
158that and looking at ways to to help offset some of those costs from our general fund too so I guess I never I never had a problem with a special ed you have very little control over that but the 140 that you mentioned is that a result of the school choice act yep that's the Open Enrollment okay and then the adult ed um Career Concepts we are in a partnership with them and this is our last year because they lost their Federal funding so they'll cease to exist after June 30th so we'll have to run our own Adult Ed program and highet program so um that will probably require hiring some people so I tried to estimate that into the cost as well so you were going to put in all funds or yes all
159funds and not just the five required right and which is what the districts done in the past is um put in our resolution all all of the funds because it gives the taxpayer ual picture of what's Happening instead of just those five funds those five funds are the only ones that are required to put into the thing but there's also uh tax liability for the taxpayers in the general fund and um uh gosh Transportation no transportation's a permissive one that wouldn't be in there anyways but the bud the general fund is the main one that they actually do they've got voted taxes in there and they've got permissive taxes in there because they help make up part of the base and you want to continue to do that and just not do the five funds
160I do I recommend that you put all of it in I think it's a better picture we've been talking about full transparency too with the taxpayers and our constituents I'm just thinking we just passed levies to put a levy on the ballot much they see all the ones well the the five are the ones that are going up so I think it's better to put all of them in because it's going to show that not everything's going up yeah yeah I thought that was a good I agree and it will go in the class classified ads yeah I put them in the classified ads I don't pay for don't put a full page ad in no I don't it it's it's a one-time required publication and I just can't justify spending money on a display
161ad when hardly anybody's going to read it nor understand what it is so I always pay for a classified ad in the legal section and it's 80 bucks compared to you know whatever Boseman usually puts like a full page add in the chronicle MH and I also think Boseman does all of their funds too and I think it doesn't look well for us if we only do five of them when they're doing all of [Music] them looks like we're hiding something everyone good y okay comes back to a vote all in favor approving the resolution of intent to increase non voted leves as presented say I I I passes six another and our last item of the evening the FY 24 audit report I move to accept thisy 24 audit as presented by Denny Downey
162and Associates PC I second we have a motion in a second d bar you want to say anything I I think we're doing great we have one Improvement to make for a and b but other than that we've cleaned up our Student Activities and we're only got the one finding left and the first year I was here where we had four I think so I think we're doing we're making progress it's really boring reading until you get to the last page where the findings are that's the only page I Read Mary Ellen we're looking for boring reading I'd like to compliment Carrie and her team on cleaning up things that were here that needed to be cleaned up if we not accept it you get to spin another hour and no potty breaks Andel I
163always wondered if anybody ever came to you and was upset because you had an audit but they don't realize this is a positive thing versus like the type that you would get with the IRS oh oh yeah no actually people that I've interacted with always want to make sure schools are getting audited yeah I mean I think that's a big positive and you know having been through one of these every year for most of my career uh just have one finding is like a miraculous uh activity I mean not typically you've got three or four of them and some of them you know hopefully none of them are major that's the big deal there's always we always had 22 or 23 year old Auditors role and you took you about a three days just to
164explain to what you what your business was that brings up another topic which is next year we're supposed to be um considering a new switching Auditors yeah because we said that we would do that yeah when is when do we need to make that selection just be sure for somebody else pointing so uh I can't remember it's either I think fy2 is our last audit year so then after we get audited on this year then we'll go out for bid um on the for another proposal because we promis to do that yeah I think it's prudent that we look at other Auditors and I mean I do like our auditor that we have now Jonathan is great and he does a lot of um teaching as well um you know when I have questions I
165can call him and say you know what what should we do here how should we handle this um and he's always been great at answering my questions so he would rather me ask ahead of time than him have to clean it up later so he's always helpful he's been he's been good yeah my question is on the corrective action plan are we going to have it all sored away by June 30th 2025 the expected date we've worked on it yeah the enrollment I hope so I mean we're we've worked on it a lot this year so that was for last year's audit and we've worked really hard on this year to redefine our our um processes and procedures and work really closely with the principles and I'm shooting for not having any discrepancies next year
166so we won't have an opportunity to check until the fall counts yeah that's what okay right shall we vote Yes all in favor of approving the fiscal year 2024 audit report say I I I I'll oppose same sign motion passes six to nothing that concludes our meeting thank you for everyone