001is not the official record of this meeting to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Any revisions today? No. Public comment. You just want to mention the letter. Yeah, I'll just say um there was a letter in the packet from our first grade teacher from last year without cause without cause and I think here and anytime now that something comes to me that's addressed to all trustees if it's a matter of public record. So it wasn't a specific job askment I think just informative letter so I share it with you. Yeah sound like she wanted to come back and was excited the opportunity if there was one. Yeah. move on to approval of minutes. I'll make
002a motion to approve the minutes from our regular schedule meeting on March 11. You have the special meeting minutes, too. I'm sorry. I should have put that in there for the 21st for March 21st for special meeting. I second motion. Any questions? Call vote. All those in favor? I posted recommendations, recognitions. I mean, the PTO I think needs to be recognized here 350,000. I haven't heard the final number from what they actually made, but that was a great It was a great event. Yeah, great time. Great show with people and everything. So many people, artwork, everything was great. So, yeah, great show. Okay, you want to get us started? Yeah. So, this will be the last time I discuss current year enrollment. Next next meeting we'll start talking about future room and we'll probably talk
003a little bit more about it too in discussion act one the legislature is still kind of rolling away but there's three key bills um that I have put updates in here that are going to have some impact on us um house bill 252 the stars act we were to start negotiations this week we weren't able to due to some illnesses but we're going to get into that next week and we're really going to should this past. I think we're really going to be able to do, you know, in conversations through the personnel committee with Danielle and Cara and with the negotiations committee do some really good things for teachers salaries this year. So, it's it's exciting if this goes through and then it'll also give us that ability to levy that 300 should the uh
004ballot pass. Um, and then Senate Bill 260, Matt and I testified, Matt Jennings and I testified on this on Tuesday. So this is the one from earlier in the session. There was a group of Jake Sky constituents who wanted to adjust the boundary for special taxing districts of which the school district and the hospital district are the two that were talked about in this session. So, through a lot of um I would call sausage baking, um we've came out with a bill that's really pretty good for the school district and that we would receive reconciliation payments provided that the boundary remained the same. We would provide we would receive reconciliation payments and this year it' be um approximately the $350,000 range for fiscal year 26 which you know would go a long way to to
005reduce our deficit and that I mean according to Cork and I's calculation it wasn't quite as high as what they said but once we dial in the AP and work out that's about what it's going to tease out at. Um, but that would go a long way in reducing our deficit and we'll get the budget committee meeting, budget committee together next week. Uh, because pro I think we'll have some really good news, especially if this continues to carry on. Um, so then House Bill 864 kind of became an orphan of 260, was a standalone school bill and my sense is that the school lobbyists, Montana School Boards Association, um, didn't want to see a school book get hijacked by a hospital, by another special taxing district, right? Um, but it's it's the exact same provisions
006of 260. So regardless, I think Ultimately, we'll be having a more probably spirited lengthy conversation about boundaries and reconciliation payments at this at this board because the big change is if you want to change the boundary through either 260 or 864, you just need a certain number of petitioners that live in that district voting uh voting taxpayers who live in that district and and full approval of this board before there were some other things. So really we we'll talk more about it, but it will boil down to do we want the reconciliation paper or do we want to change the um and I think there's a high high likelihood um of of all of these passing um it's been probably the best session for schools in a long time. Matt, did you want to add
007anything? No, I was going to say too is just great that Lance Melton and uh Emily Yeah. that they were both there. They're spearheadating this too, which is great. So, I think that carries a lot of weight and should go well for us. So, yeah. I mean, if that gets through, it's that's worth right there for year. Exactly. And then housing update. Um, last month I had reported we were awarded a building for lease rent permit and currently we're in a conversation with the HOA about some specific interpretations of design requirements and consulting with a legal with our legal the school district real estate legal team and I hope we'll have a decision soon. Um, I I do think there's going to be some delays though because we have to have the final design into
008the builders next the first week of May. There might be a small delay, but it's going to be just that small. Um, and it's it's really the frustrating piece is, you know, we had two different three meetings with the chair and vice chair of the architecture committee and they were enthusiastic about the whole thing. It's come off that way. Um, so I'll I'll continue to keep you posted at the very least. It might be slightly delayed. We still have the money. We still have everything else. The funders were fine. Um, a small delay. Was I getting some push back from just members of the HOA themselves that did I think we we never had the full support of our immediate neighbors um ever. And so the the interpretation, the specific language of the architectural community
009um book or the architectural design book for the HOA is the principal dwelling has to be 2,000 square feet or larger. But on our lot, that's not the principal dwelling. Right. Right. These aren't the principal dwelling. And we have, you know, we have some a little more flexibility in how our lot is defined in the HOA. So, we'll we'll just kind of see where it goes. That's what it feels like. But the builder, the the company who's going to supply the the housing has been really good about we we can make work what you need to make work. We'll just have but adjustments are going to take time. have it. Yeah. Great. Any other questions? Thanks, Justin. Marlo. Hi. Hi. Um, academics, we had the ID art show which was a great showcase of our
010students work um right first grade and they timed it so people could see it when they came into Greece and that was I don't know if you got to see it. It's pretty incredible. And then we also have the high school art show which is set for the 18th coming up. of our calendars. Middle school teachers are completing their mass testing. Um, from the student life perspective, we had a successful EY trip for our eighth graders the week before spring break. And I want to thank Kate, Jeremy, Tony, Devin, Vanessa, Magguire, and then we had our senior um leaders who also came, which was a great addition to have been role modeling, Haley, Maddie, Grady, Aubrey, that was really nice for everyone. Um on Monday we have our job fair in the gym and this
011is in partnership with our big sky features and chamber of commerce program we've been running and so last or just yesterday um community managers came in and did some mock interviews with our students to prepare them for that the job fair and that was really exciting. Um, and then as I already mentioned briefly, we had a really successful production of Grace. Um, and I just want to congratulate our performers, directors, and I really that was really a fun event next week at the Big Sky Arts Council building. Um, so we're really grateful for their generous support. And then from professional development perspective, Gretchen and I completed a PAX training yesterday and today. And um it's a science and evidence-based program. It really focuses on practices that promote like a very positive school culture and really
012healthy behaviors for students and teaches them really explicitly um through our practices how to self-regulate and transition between different events and moments in the day. Um so we're going to look at that share with our MTSS team teachers and see if it might be something that program. Awesome. Great. Thanks, Marlo. Britney, we were just saying all that's on our mind is we just got back from spring break. So good. Back to winter. That's right. Welcome to spring in Montana. My four-year-old woke up this morning was like, "What? It's snowed." Yeah. You know, a lot of people did that. Yeah. Um well, since we last met, we had our celebration of student writing called Everyone's an Author. Um the students conducted research and then wrote a non-fiction story and Miss Nell counted 140 people coming into
013the building that day to listen to the kids read, which is really exciting. And grandparents and parents and younger siblings that aren't in school yet. So that was really fun. Um, we continue to get new students. We've got a couple new students at the end of March, so they keep rolling through the doors. Um, and speaking of new students, our 4K program for next year, we have the desire to enroll form where parents say they're interested, that is closed and Julie Haj is now working on testing each one of those kiddos. They go through about a 30 minute um test where we evaluate their early literacy skills um in word reading and language comprehension and then those scores are are used to help us determine who has a need for the program and who will
014be accepted. So we've started that process and we should know probably in the next couple weeks. Um we'll be reaching out to families to let them know if they're accepted to the 4K program. I know this is a stupid question maybe, but do we have a max for that? Right. We do 18 students. Y and we'll be at that. We will. I think this might be the first year where we have to turn a couple which is really tricky. Yeah. We would love to have every four year old. Yeah. Um Yeah. So, we'll see. You know, last summer we ended up having a family that moved away and they didn't know. So, things always happen over the summer. It's been great. Every year so far, we've been able to accept everybody that was interested. So,
015um, we'll just see. Um, I'm working on programming for gifted and talented in our building. I'm working with Dustin and the the co-op to um get some testing underway and forms and an evaluation process for us to use so we can make sure we're reaching every learner. And then our um letters cohort, the the um literacy essentials for teachers of reading and spelling. We have six teachers in right in that right now. They just finished part one of unit seven. They have to get through unit 8 and they'll complete all of that this year. So that's really exciting. They're reaching the end of that very long road of So thank you. uh the next two. Okay. Um our exam session begins on April 29th. Um we have 16 students taking a total of 72 individual
016exams. Um and then we've just wrapped up course selections uh for next year. 100% of the rising juniors will be enrolled in high classes to some extent. Uh and at this time there's 60% of those uh intended to participate in football. That's great. On the sports front, spring sports continue to get cancelled. I can't imagine why. Um we have a lot of events coming up. Um a lot of athletes sent personal bests at the Midland High School track meet on Tuesday. Lady Deorn golfers won the Manhattan Christian tournament at Cottonwood. I didn't know that. Um, and we are going to be hosting a big middle school track meet here. The date I think is maybe going to get switched, but it's going to be big. Uh, it's going to be all of the dis all
017of our district teams, middle school track teams. That's great to finally have some used for sure. Um, three of our basketball players earned postseason honors. Isaac Bedway and Aid Greybo were first team all conference. Um, and Ryan Malinowski, second team all conference and Isaac Benway earned all state honors. Great. Excellent. Awesome. Thank you for that. Corgi. Hello. Um, as you can see in the packet, fiscal year 25 general fund is almost depleted and and so over the next quarter, that's where the magic begins with the fund shuffling. Uh, we'll start taking advantage of House Bill 408. will start taking advant advantage of the grant funding we have in order to reconcile through the end of the year and then concurrently trying to build a year a budget for fiscal year 26 um and that watching
018the legislature because obviously that impacts where we end up uh so while we're winding down 25 and starting that reconciliation process we are beginning fishear 26 and I think I will be out there in May uh late May for that board meeting And hopefully I'll be able to present I should be able to present a decent budget for fiscal year 26 at that point. Excellent. Well, hopefully it's nicer weather by the time you get out here too. Me, too. And maybe I'll just add, Corki, this is kind of part of the business manager clip report. Uh we had two candidates for two open spots on the board of trustees. Um Barbara O'Reilly and Bessie Baff. So they'll win by acclamation, right? We couldn't we couldn't take the vote off took that off take that off
019the ballot due to the state right in laws. But unless somebody went to the county registered as a write in candidate and at the end of the day gets a lot of votes, it's for conclusion who will be the next trustees. Those two are on the ballot. They'll be on the ballot. It doesn't matter. Nobody. Just so people will know. Yeah. Nobody will lose. Yeah. Great. Thanks, Corgi. Move on to the committee report. Oh, yeah. You can kick it off. We met Danielle, myself, and Cara and discuss personnel items. We're going to meet again. six negotiations coming down the road. Yeah, I won't be long, right? And one one of the things we're really focusing kind of trying to key in on really is kind of what the business office structure and how that's going
020to unfold in the coming like 16 months. So, there's some other there's some people we need to bring into that conversation, but that's that in negotiations is going to be a big push for us. I mean it's I mean if I would say May 20 possibly prior to that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. Move on to discussion and action items. I accept motion number one. Motion to approve the out of district students in grades 6 through 12 as presented. I second the motion. So, I put the list in the packet. There's discretionary and non-discretionary. And again, there we're really talking about uh discretionary students at this time. And we should really only do 6 to 12 at this time because we really want to take and Britney and I are going to start this
021process tomorrow. We need to examine the class sizes in our fourth K through fifth grade um and determine if the discretionary students are going to put this into an accreditation deviant position and and then probably tell them no as it as normally is fluctuating right now. Uh I'll notify them after today those four K35 and just say look you're going to have to wait. I'm sorry. They'll always have to wait anyway, but we'll be more proactive about waiting because especially if they understand that you might have a seventh grader who was going to get accepted and a third grader who's not, right? Um based on on class sizes because I it generally in the past hasn't been a big deal with the accreditation standards if you have these bladed classes and we're doing everything that
022we have to to cover those overages, but like our first grade got to an overage of 20. is over six kids over automatically. You're supposed to split that class. That's going to come back as a pretty serious accreditation flaw uh for our school as soon as they're done with everything at the end of the year. So, I think we just really want to be careful and again we can see where the budget lands and see what the staffing pattern is going to look like, but it's my recommendation we do 6 to 12 now. There's just more capacity across the 612 from the staffing model. And we we wait the shortest time we can, but that we we really start to examine this. And like I said, Britney and I'll start that work tomorrow. Really really
023under a microscope. So we tell them now they're waiting. Yeah. And then we'll get back to them when we I'll tell them you're going to have to wait. I hope not to wait a long time, but there's going to be a wait, right? And that's 4K through five. 4K through five. Yeah. and only discretionary because we do have quite a few of those surprisingly. Yeah, there was a big boost. When they're discretionary like that, do we get any money for them? We do. If you remember Matt and Corki is going to have to help me slightly with the numbers. Um, we get a little bit. So, we get the state to we get for A and B, right? And then we get the state tuition dollar, which I think at elementary um is between 900
024and,00. Yeah. And then we also get something from their school district. So last year with the discretionary students, I think we ended up at the positive at 30,000. Is that what it was, Corki? Or 40,000? 40,000 across the discretionary students. So not even one teacher, not teachers in the benefit package. No, no, actually in not even a salary. And and that's and that's the tricky point part, right? is it it would be different if it was nine non-discretionary or discretionary students in first grade. Then you can go, okay, we can Yeah. Right. Then it only cost you a,000 bucks for 5,000 bucks. Uh but if it's, you know, 15 across three grade levels and it pushes you to above two, then you have a problem. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And and the difficult and the further
025difficulties is a matter of timing. when we want to accept these students before the school year starts but accredit you know we can but we have to enroll anyone who shows up and and our accreditation being in October we can get in a situation where we want to accept out of district kids then we get more people we have to accept and then we fall outside the number so and then with those discretionary kids have to be pushed out or they commit legally you couldn't accept them and push them out here Right. Yeah, that's tricky. Any other questions? Call for a vote. All those in favor? I I opposed passes unanimously. Make a motion to approve Anderson as a certified fulltime employee for the 2025 26 school year. I second the motion. So, I think
026probably most people here know Renee. She was a teacher for us previously. She's taken two years in the teaching field to do a few different things. Um, she's on this agenda later in the consent agenda to be hired as a classified staff for the remainder of the year. Um, you know, this is this was really led by Britney and and happy to have her back in the school. So, we have a little shift. you accepted that I accepted that the kindergarten teacher her indication to not return for next year. At the last meeting, our current 4K teacher, Miss Toy, has indicated she'd like to move back to kindergarten. Um, and so Britney likes Renee for for that 4K job. I think she spent career in kindergarten. She had my kids on there younger. So, and
027she has great. Oh, yeah. I'm looking forward to having her back. So, I think she is too. Yeah. Any questions? Call for a vote. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. I'll make a motion to approve title one procedure panel as presented. I second the motion. So, this is uh updated to the federal requirement for schools which get title one dollars of which we do. We don't get much, but we still need to have it and it's a it's a good guide for us to follow. Um Britney Britney and Julie Hodgej attended a workshop and received a lot of help on this track and it's exactly what we need. Um I blacked out certain portions that had student names in it. Great questions. Call for a vote. All those in favor? I I
028Any opposed? Passes unanimously. I'll make a motion to approve up to $50,000 to coach sports for tennis court resurfacing. I second the motion. The tennis courts haven't been resurfaced in at least 10 years since I've been here and they're in bad shape. um they were planning to get resurfaced and have some work done part of phase three of the of the campus expansion but we didn't end up doing the phase three there's only one company in in the gator greater area that does this kind of work and he estimated it he was here on Monday to between $40 and $50 or4 and $50,000 perfect and we can use that you know the bond dollars interest dollars and we can do one of two here. We can approve up to 50K and get it on his
029calendar or wait until May when I have the official quote. Um, I would just recommend we prove up to 50 and I think it's going to come in slightly less than that, but it won't be less than 45. Be nice probably getting some weird angled shots off of things. There's one big crack. He's going to put in pickle ball capacity. People have to net There's a number of them up there, isn't there? Yeah, there are great. Okay, any other questions? Call for a vote. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Make a motion to approve the superintendent presented. I second the motion. So, I worked with the personnel committee and Corki worked as a personnel committee on this two years, two months. Um and that'll provide for a significant transition for student superintendent.
030Um especially in means of private dollars raising. Um there's going to be a lot of that. Uh and then the conclusion of this will also signify my 12th year here at at the school district and anybody I've seen is contact at any time and it's also part of the packet in court's office. Well, it's it's gone by in the blink of an eye, hasn't it? maybe two weeks. Yeah. Well, I'm I'm happy that you're still staying on with this. So, thank you. Any other questions? Call for a vote. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? As unanimously. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. I second the motion. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. Um, future dates. Looks like we're May 20th. Yeah, maybe I'll kind of walk through
031this just a little bit. So May 20th will be our next regularly scheduled meeting and that's when the county superintendent comes swear in the new trustees have a reorganization meeting. Um, we're also going to need to meet no later than May 9th, depending on the state of negotiations, depending on the state of the legislature. But I'd like to do it May 9th, if at all possible, even May 8th for two reasons. one hopefully by that time if nothing else we can have the financial piece of the negotiations done um and know what people's salaries and benefit packages are going to be and then Corki and Libby and the business office can get the contracts out because by law we do need to give 20 days prior for them to have the contracts in their hands
032signing their own back and don't do that by June 1st then it has to be done before June 1 and the quicker the better the sooner the better but We're in just a a weird timing situation because of of those things. I mean, and that one on the 9th can be completely online or always we're going to have an online option, but we can kind of do it at any time during the day as well. Do we want to say the 9th now for sure? And just Corki the 9th was your drop deadad. Yes. It's drop 9th's the drop dead date. So, I mean that week when you're comfortable correct? Yeah. Would the eighth be better? Yeah, it's totally it's up to Dustin and kind of what he thinks about that CBA being wrapped up.
033I mean, I don't think Yeah, the ETH would be fine. We We'll figure it out for the eighth even if we have to do a marathon session. Okay. Okay. So, maybe just say the ETH for now. Yeah. Just so we make sure we're not up against the very drop deadline. And then on the 20th will be important because we'll have old business first. There'll be some things to wrap up before the new trustees are sworn in and the the new organization's done, the reorganization is complete, and we might have a couple things to do to on May 8th to that old to that old business that could be hanging around on the 20th as well. Is everybody looking pretty good for the 20th right now goes? Yeah. And then we can we can shoot for
0343:45 and if a time works better than another just just somebody communicate that with me. So May 9th and May 20th. I think we're going to shoot for the ETH Matt. Unless that doesn't look in your calendar. I think might be traveling but I think I can call in on the ETH. They have a wedding. Okay. What? What time it could be? You said 8 or 9. Uh, I didn't I didn't say I was going to say 3:45, but it could be a morning, too. Yeah, I couldn't do the afternoon. Maybe we do the morning. Maybe we do a 9:30 9:00 start. Okay. I was just going to ask about this week. Next week. Yeah, let's shoot for something. Well, for sure negotiations going to be next week. Okay. Um, for sure on Wednesday, hopefully
035sooner. Okay. So, I'll I'll get that all set up by tomorrow when I hear back from from the other team. Okay. Great. Anything else? Meeting journed. Thanks everybody. Thank you guys.