001This conference will now be recorded. >> Okay, let's call the meeting to order. Uh, introduction of guests. I'm Mike Ziggler, chair. Then if we can start with Bo and go around the room, please. >> Bo Gibbs, trustee. >> Tessa Hopper, trustee. >> Philip Hedrickk, trustee. >> Connie Sassy, trustee. >> Jay Failen, trustee. >> Alex Rivas, trustee. >> Frank, trustee. >> Josh Ples, trustee. Stephan Stribe, superintendent. And it looks like we have Katie Kennedy, principal, on line as well, Mike. I don't know if you saw that. >> You're on mute if you're talking. >> Yep. Thanks. Uh, takes us to consent agenda. Uh, if everyone's had a chance to review that. We've been doing a motion in a second. Can we pull donations again? >> I think you I think you could recognize them now, too,
002before you go. I mean, if you want that. >> Yeah, you don't have to. >> I mean, because you're not really discussing anything. I'm just going to >> We can't if you want. >> Yep. No, just obviously wanted to recognize Dr. Basta and that medical center for the big donations for new hurdles. >> Yeah, pretty awesome. >> Yeah, that is great. They're down there now. They look like big dog houses. [Music] >> Especially reading the paper. Eh. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Jay. Uh, takes us to communication. Is there any motion in a second? Yeah. Make >> Oh, yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Yep. >> I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> I'll second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion or comments? If not, all in favor say I >> Any
003opposed? Motion carries. >> All right, Mike, >> real quickly before you move on. So, it doesn't happen very often when you hire someone that they're sitting in the room. So, I just wanted to introduce you to Madison Terar. I told You just hired her for second grade teacher and we're happy that she's joining us today. And >> thank you. >> You guys just approved her for us. It's pretty awesome. She's gonna do a great job. >> Yeah. Thanks for coming. Uh okay, that takes us to communication. Is there any public comment on anything not uh on the agenda? >> There was no one that signed in, but did anybody want to do public comment? Doesn't look like it. >> Okay, that takes us to reports. Uh Stephan and Rat, is there anything you guys want
004to We'll go over on your reports. >> Um I know Rhett's going to be having an opportunity here in a second. Uh the only thing I wanted to call attention to was something I sent that email out to everyone. If you look at mine, the in the yellow was just new today. Um, I could have left it off till next time, but to me, I I feel like it was good to have it on there. So, even if you haven't got a chance to look at it yet, I've been trying to anytime you approve something like that, as soon as we can get it to you, um, the better. So, um, we I finally got that done um today with formatting stuff. It it will it'll look different the next time when you um do
005it. it'll be a little bit more pretty. But, uh, but you can you can see the work that is there for the action plan for next year. So, um, but I wanted to call your attention to that. That was something I got out of it. So, okay. Thanks. Uh, I guess there's questions on reports. This week is kind of roll into building updates. That's, uh, Rat. >> Yeah. Well, um, on the emergency tour, I think actually after today, we are even probably a little bit more ahead of schedule than what I have on the airport. Um, still going to be up last year, but we are um doing really well. It's been all the contractors have been amazing. Um and again I you know uh it's been very difficult and challenging to get contractors from
006all over the region but when you have an emergency such as the threat of not being able to have school start up or have school sports or PE contractors break their necks to try to fit in their schedule of all of them a really good job and working over the top of each other. Um, one day in the girls locker room last week, I think it was it, there was like 15 or 18 guys in there working with five different contractors and um, they were getting along fine. I mean, literally one guy was up here, another guy going underneath his arms and I they were working and and hard. So, they've all been on schedule or ahead of schedule and on budget or under budget um, except for the couple the unprecedented things that we
007saw. So, everything's going pretty good on that. and the HVAC project's going really good. So, but all that's pretty much in Port Eng. >> The big thing I'm going to point out on that is just um just understanding because because of the HVAC, you know, that is on schedule, but part of the schedule has always been a the heating is really the priority. >> Um and so there won't be cooling right away, right? So, so that'll be and not that there was always AC everywhere in the building, but that is going to um be difficult for some coming back. So, I mean, you can kind of tell in this room. It hasn't been too hot, but um it can get it can get warm in the schools and that's something that the students and teachers
008will um have to be facing. Jefferson is one that deals with this. um used to be Lincoln that dealt with this and they were really tough because that that brick just kept the heat in and um it was tough and then once the boilers kicked on um then it was hot again because of the boilers you couldn't really control that in the room. So the Lincoln's been, you know, taken care of with um the Mercy Project that we had before, but so Jefferson, Washington, and the high school do have I mean that first time back in August and September um can get pretty hot in schools and so that's that's a tough thing. And then sometimes in in May as well. So just something to be aware of. >> Yeah. >> I think that's important
009for people to to know. >> Exactly. And you know, obviously we'll be talking more about it at the August board meeting. Um, we're going to try to do everything all the buildings down to Coin High School down are going to be difficult. 350 some thousand square feet of space. Um, it's hard to get positive pressure, negative pressure, you know, push out the hot air, bring it over there. If you guys remember the board members that were on before and when we when we when you guys um approved to purchase equipment before we even had a signed contract, that's the equipment that we are waiting on. So people, you know, people ask you around town, we can have answers that um yeah, we had a crown here a couple weeks ago and we were flying units
010up on. So it doesn't mean that we can automatically just start turning them once we get them hooked up. We're still making waiting for the main disconnect which was over a year lead time when we ordered it. I think it was last September. Um so it's not going to be till September October before we actually can get that installed and turned on. We're still waiting on a couple other crucial parts that were a year or more lead time. And so I the contractors are aware and I've been preaching to them. I'm like this is we're going to have a lot of complaints when school starts up here. And so they're going to do everything they can at parts show up early, try to get them plugged in and then get if they if they can
011get the main disconnect in and get power up to the units. I mean, if they can turn on one air conditioner, they're going to turn it off if they so as soon as they possibly can. But we're still even optimistically that's not going to be till end of September the best. So I mean we're still the biggest push is to get heat on in time for winter, but if we can get air conditioning, we will. And it's not as simple as just getting air conditioners in the classroom either because now you're dealing with electrical issues. We have you have four classrooms being on one circuit and you have state codes that you're trying to deal with. And so it becomes interesting. Same problem we have in all schools. >> Long as we're not having the
012same discussion next year. See, I just got to like to make note that I was looking at kind of the timeline from when we got the money to what we're doing right now and it's quite amazing the logistics and you know just the delays and that we went through to get to this place. It's like man Rhett's done a great job with this from from what I see. >> Yeah. the 13th finishing up and then starting on the 15th. >> Yeah. >> So, >> like I say, the the contractors deserve a lot of credit because they've just been really good to work with. >> Yep. >> All right. Uh any other questions for Rhett? Uh if not, that takes us to labor management committee update. Uh you see we'll be looking at some action items
013here in a bit that we can discuss, but I'll just kind of give a oh kind of a general over overview of uh kind of how negotiations went. We were we really had a short time to do this and uh as far as negotiating the stars act with the GA uh yeah it was just like really quick and it was difficult because we came from different perspectives on what we wanted. I wouldn't say what we wanted. I mean the goal of this was always to get uh the money from the state that they would provide if we meet these certain criteria. uh primarily getting the new teachers wages up uh uh which actually you know that's kind of been a goal of this board uh past couple negotiations uh we implemented this uh annual fixed
014increment to be able to kind of give raises to everybody at the same level. You know, the trouble with the matrix is uh teacher on the low end, if you give a raise there, it ends up being twice the amount on the high end. So, it's really difficult to raise raise starting teachers wages with and staying within our budget. uh the GA came with uh you know their plan started with uh over two years it would have raised it would have increased payment to teachers to over six about 600,000 more than this year. uh and I guess kind of as you'll see when we get into discussions of the uh classified as another piece of this. Uh classified haven't had a raise in quite some time and neither has uh admins. They didn't at least
015last year they didn't. Uh so you know if we if we would have stuck with the GA plan there's like pretty much no way we could have balanced our budget and uh given anything at all to classified. Uh so I think Bo and the team we did a good job uh kind of stayed in our cage and making making the stars plan work. Uh it's it's great for the district. It's money that we get from the state that we can pass on to the teachers. It gets our starting teachers wages up and it uh there was enough money to get to all the teachers. Uh ended up uh negotiating a 2.5% raise to the base and a thousand buck dollars to the fixed annual increment. Uh and then uh I guess I'll just speak to
016the raises to classified primarily and then and uh also admin. We just I guess I'll speak to admin first. It's kind of in tradition that we've always just whatever we've negotiated to the GA we've passed on to admin. Uh so that's what we're doing. 2.5 to base and a thousand to across the board. And we're also eliminating two columns. Uh so it'll be a lot easier to negotiate or say to recruit in the future. If we have admins change out, it puts us closer to state averages. Uh just kind of a note there though, you know, if you do the math entirely, I think if you did it as a percent, it's always how you do view things as a percentage. I'd say admin got a less of a percentage raise than teachers. uh even
017though we passed the same thing on. I guess you'd have to get in the math on that. But uh and on to the classified uh started with uh we knew we had to do something for a long time. The their matrix kind of it was difficult to give meaningful raises uh kind of similar to kind of how the teachers matrix was aligned. And this plan here fixes it and it really sets up future boards uh for uh raises say a I guess a mechanism to give raises. I guess if you read through it's a dollar this year a dollar I think December correct me if I'm wrong Steph and I've I didn't >> January okay dollar January and then I believe was it 50 cents the following year total and then a sorry what was
018that >> it was 25 cents in next school year >> okay yep and then 25 cents every year after that a te for like longevity. If a teacher or a if a classified stays, it's a 25cent raise uh indefinitely. Uh >> just to clarify that just um so when you see a normal matrix, there's there's steps you can go down with years. Um classified don't have that. They have a starting matrix and it's only to place them because they have up to five years um experience they can bring in and then after that the board doesn't give them raises. they don't get raises. Um, and so that 25 cents becomes like a step. So every year that they're in the district, they'll get another 25 cents per hour on that. So it kind of created
019that because before um there wasn't anything. So there had been years where classifi didn't get anything um with for teachers and admin. teachers and admin have a matrix where you have steps and then lanes >> um to where you know if the board doesn't give raises some of them not all of them would still be either going down a step in years of experience or could possibly earn uh education and go over and so um you know Mike talked about the admin cutting off the two columns so they no longer will have the opportunity to move over uh for education um which is good and bad depend on what who whose perspective you're talking looking at but um but then um for classified there was none of that. So it so so it just allows
020for a mechanism to actually every year they will for every year in the district district will be rewarding them 25 cents per hour by having another year in the district. So it's a retention aspect of >> okay and uh I guess just on a kind of a final note it's in Stephan's board report and uh I guess first Bo would you like to add any perspective or anything what I'd said? Sorry to put you on the spot on what you said. No no no you're fine. On what you've said so far I don't have anything else to add. Okay. All right. Uh, you know, it wasn't it wasn't like I kind of mentioned, it wasn't easy, though. Uh, and there's been certain thing, you know, at the end of the last negotiations, we filed an
021unfair labor practice against the GA. We ended up dropping it just due to basically it would cost the district. uh we think our case was strong and we would have prevailed, but we dropped it, you know, just because we didn't want to cost the district money on uh basically just saying we won. However, you know, this negotiation was was just as difficult. You know, uh we ended up sending a letter to uh Cody, the the union state rep. Uh I'll just read it real quick just kind of to give the board an update on oh if you just on how you know on the labor committee and how things went. Uh I'll just read that real quick. There have been several discussions about the board and superintendent's concerning concerns and frustration with the Glendive Education
022Association's inappropriate and potentially illegal behavior in connection with collective bargaining. Although we are we were able to successfully negotiate a collective bargaining contract which expires at the end of school year 2526 and starsacou the behavior of both GA representatives Lori Nelson and Cara Bartle are of such significant concern that we have reached out to discuss the issues with district's council and feel it necessary to communicate with you as the MFP field reps to formally advise you of the significant impediments to the negotiations caused by GA co-presidents and their activities. The most serious conduct occurred during STARS Act negotiations this past spring. As you are probably aware from a review of the documents, both parties concluded collective bargaining contracts that provided for an annual fixed increment AFI wage increase rather than a traditional percentage increase which
023modified the salary schedule. during negotiations. Miss Nelson Falsley is a district of smoking AF by definition. Not only was this false, but it was also offensive and as I understand potentially an unfair labor practice. Miss Nelson signed the documents contain the definitions that were by MFP field represent Maggie Copeland. the AFI definition in the proposals passed back between the parties during negotiations and included in the final document. Miss Nelson failed to acknowledge exchange of proposals and the final agreement to which both sides ascribed. There was no basis for her accusation on the documentation and definition that had been agreed upon both parties when she made the excusation against the district. Such an can damage trust under my negotiations and is potentially an unfair labor practice because I understand negotiating after accusation corrects that such negotiations
024on the part of DEA do not appear to be in good faith because agreements reached during negotiations were disavowed after they were agreed on. Uh the other significant issue was Caribar's Facebook post which spread false information about the district's position concerning the district's financial ability and willingness to provide raises for classified staff. This type of miss this type of informationated to staff in the poll creates confusion, damages trust and undermines the negotiation process. Once again the union has the obligation to negotiate income faith which Miss Bartle's Facebook post folks appears to violate. proposed. Miss Bartle claimed that the STARS Act funds should be plentiful enough to provide classified staff with raises and that the administrative team did get raises. Uh at the time most neither classified nor administrative staff obtained raises for the 2425 and
0252526 school year, even though the district intended to begin such discussions in June. While I cannot comment specifically about the illegality of Miss Bartle's accusations, they may well violate her responsibility regarding professional conduct and public comments. These concerns taken together with other inence underscore the importance of reinforcing a foundation of good faith engagement moving forward. The district has made repeated good faith efforts to maintain a cooperative relationship with the GA, including transparent communications, willingness to assist in developing formal proposals, and careful adherence to negotiated agreements. Unfortunately, from the district's perspective based on documentation and public remarks, the GA leadership has made false accusations and misleading statements, spread misinformation to staff in the community, and attacked district leadership. I am reaching you with good hope that you will provide appropriate counseling to the GA leadership which
026will end the tactics I have identified above set a path and framework for productive negotiations and avoid any legal action. I would be happy to answer any questions you have about the above and provide any further documentation to support the issues discussed. However, I would appreciate a response that will establish a positive relationship with GA. The biggest purpose of this is just kind of to set up things for negotiations in December. You know, we're just it's it's tough. It's tough to negotiate when there are untrue things being said that we can't control. So, just kind of figured I'd read that to give you guys a heads up on on what's going on with uh the labor committee. There's any questions concerning that? there. Uh, >> can you repeat that, Mike? You kind of cut out
027for a second. >> One more time. >> Okay, there we go. Okay, it's better. I think I muted my thing and it quit the feedback loop. So, all right. I guess if there's no questions on labor management, that takes us to action items. Uh, action item A, co-op with Weebo Football. You want me to? >> Um, >> okay. Um, so you can see it on in the report. Um, you know, we've approved a possible co-op with us for this next year at their last board meeting um is being brought to you um way and myself are recommending this um for you guys to you know look at and um you know approve. So, you can see the application that's there. And um you know, we have some people from Weibo here tonight, but uh um
028what questions do you guys have? It's probably easier doing it that way. >> It's really no different than what we've done with >> Yeah, I don't see a problem with it. >> At this point, we do not have another co-op with football. This would be because Terry's is no longer if people thought Terry was still coughing with us. >> That's exactly what we did. >> That's exactly and and that's how we would structure this whole thing. >> And at this point, we're just doing the we're just talking one year as of right now. Right. >> Well, right now that MHSA did away with the three-year agreements. It's all one year. So, it could be dissolved as soon as you know these legal decides that they, you know, have enough to run their own program. they
029can dissolve it uh and move on with their own program. But uh MHSA used to have the three-year agreements and it had to stay three years, but that's not true anymore. And they also used to have hard and fast deadlines like February 15th, March 15th, and now it's just you can go all the way up until some of these schools will, you know, open up football practice and realize they don't have enough and try to co-op in August so that they can have their kids. It's it's a lot simpler process than it used to be, but it has to go to you obviously like the last one because it is an MHSA requirement that both boards agree uh to it. And then like Mr. Shice mentioned, we have a we have an agreement uh in
030play. We have a structure that we use with Terry and we'll just go back and you know we'll work with uh Weebo and and make sure that it fits what they need to and and you know there's always a few things we have to work out as far as um you know activity tickets uh you know uh fees and things like that but it's like we have the structure in place so we'll just sit down and tailor it to to fit what what works for them. >> Yeah. So, you guys will be approving the ability to move forward with the co-op and allow for us to put the application with um MHSA and then Wade and myself will work with um Weebo's administration to finalize that piece of it. >> I think you spoke last
031time, but what was the uh what was the deal with the liability side of things? >> The liability. So, I think the question was last time and wait um but if like if someone got hurt or whatever, where is that liability fall? And I think um it's it's both districts, right? Just but it falls within their agreement because our co-op just says that they can come play with us, but they're actually >> they're playing football for us, but they're a student that we vote. So, the liability and all that, I mean, it wouldn't be any different than honestly one of our kids getting hurt in a in a game or something like that as well. the liability and and you know most uh well I shouldn't say most school districts don't carry liability insurance for
032its athletes that's a that's a personal home or insurance issue uh school districts don't carry liability for that obviously if something happened and it was I don't know >> by a school district at fault or something >> right a school district that would be different >> like in transport or something like that >> Yep. Yep. >> And our insurance will cover that. >> Yeah. >> That I have. >> They're they're our in our program, so they would be treated as such. And actually, >> your guys' co-op agreement would would be the documentation that insurance would be. >> And there's actually a line in there that says that that addresses that. >> Probably a dumb question, but so we both you guys want to do away with your football team and you're just going to play
033here. That's it. >> That's where they're at right now. That's what the board decided to do. >> Enough kids. >> Yeah, they didn't have enough kids to >> do their eightman football. Is that correct? >> Wow. >> That's sad. >> So moved. >> Did I hear a motion and a second? >> Yeah. >> It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion or public comment? If not, all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Uh takes us to school meal prices update for year 2526. Um so the information on there has some guidance that we have to are required to to do. And so we're required to raise um prices in certain categories. And so you can see the proposed meal um prices for that. And uh we're just requesting you to
034um raise them to meet the guidance that we needed to. We got a letter from them saying that we had to do this. And um and so not all of them are required changes, but um it's it's about making sure that we keep prices low enough so that students can eat um but also high enough to where we can kind of stay right at even. And what was happening was we were lower than that. So and they require us to be at least even. So, we've been keeping prices as low as we possibly could for as long as we could, but they said no more, so we needed to to raise them. So, the prices are listed there. Any questions? Um, >> it looks like they're still lower than most of the surrounding areas. >>
035You you can't um Yeah, we we try really hard because we have a lot of people don't know that Glendev has a really um you know, low social economic uh status students. we have a pretty good healthy chunk um of kids who just struggle um getting food. And so we try to keep it as low as we can um to help out. And so if you look at some of these prices, you know, you can't go eat anywhere else um to have school lunch. Um you know, even for adults, it's still, you know, we talk about it all the time. Should we be raising the adult price? Um but you have the people who really benefit from that is our teachers and our substitutes and everyone else who come and uh they put in so
036much time too. So it it helps them um you know as well but >> motion to approve. >> I'll second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion or comments? If not, all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. That takes us to other or sorry, tenative agreement with GA Stars Act for the 2526 school year. And I'm glad I got a second run at this because I left out kind of a big big part of uh of what we discussed in uh there was a proposition of an anonymous donation made through the GA uh that you know we didn't we weren't really prepared for because you know we'd never been confronted with something like that. uh you know the board at the time you know the the the district
037me and and uh and Stefan you know we appreciate donations uh we would love it and we made clear that yeah if they could make that donation we'd find a way and we did actually you know we contacted legal and I believe we do have a path uh to where if the donation came in we could pass it on the teachers. Uh but I guess you know I guess cart before the horse though. Uh Stephan, have you have you heard any any news on the donation? >> No, there's been nobody who's come in with that. >> Okay. And I guess the the purpose of the donation was to get the district past year one. It was in the neighborhood of 100,000 100,0008 neighbor that neighborhood. Uh the the biggest trouble with that with the district
038was what happens in years the next year and every subsequent year the district would have to come up with 100,000 because it was going to go straight to wages. And uh you know in talking to legal they basically said yeah nobody does that. So, you know, in hindsight, I I think the way the committee dealt with that was the correct way that, you know, we didn't know how it could fit into policy, uh, didn't fit into long-term financial uh, plans and but we would love to pass that money on to the teachers. So, uh, that that I guess that was our assessment of that. Uh, again, Bo, sorry, I put you on the spot. you know, anything to add to that one? >> Uh, just expressing my own appreciation for that donor and their willingness
039um to bring something forward and if they so choose, I think we've, like you said, largely tried to lay out the path and the framework for that to the best of what we can with the information we have today. So, um, we'd be delighted if it still came through. understanding like you said it had a certain specific motivation early on but um if that donor would be so willing we'd greatly appreciate it. >> Yep. So I guess uh any questions on tenative agreement? Uh it is the recommendation of the board to or of the committee to approve that. It's we think it's a it's a great thing. Hey, hey, Mike, can I just u take a stab at this real quickly? Just just the fact that for some people, this is the first time you've
040seen that tenative agreement. Just explain some background. I tried to do my best on the board um >> report on that, but I mean, you guys would had a novel. Um, so I tried to condense it as best I could, but but basically how it works in negotiations is, you know, the GA and the um and the labor management committee of the Lab Unified School Board gets together and they try to negotiate something. When they come to an agreement that's called a tenative agreement, um, both of them take it back. It's it's not official until they both take it back to their respective parties and get it approved. So that night the GA did they said that they had a uh quorum of their members and so they were able to vote on it that
041night and they approved it. Um and now it's up to you guys to approve. So um you know if if approved then this this will be then I will start contacting um the MFP rep and we will start finalizing the language to update the CBA and then we will start getting things ready in the business office to have these things take hold. But but that's how it works. Um and you know basically everything is about trying to bargain in good faith. Um, that's what everything's about, trying to do everything that they can. So, um, because Mike and Bo are on the labor management committee for the district, their job is to try to do what they feel is going to get passed by you guys, uh, when and come back. And so, but if you've
042ever been in negotiation, nothing ever goes as planned. negotiations are uh a good negotiation is when both sides do not get what they want and hopefully get something that they want, you know, and so that's that's typical. It's very I think it's very rare if you ever get everyone's happy with everything like you're going to have and so a good negotiation is really when you you aren't all you know exactly thrilled but but their job is to try to give the best get the best deal for you guys to bring back so you guys can say yes on this. same thing for them and their side. So, both sides have the same um jobs in that and um and then they do the best that they can to do that. With the STARS Act, you
043know, Mike kind of talked about this at the very beginning. This was um it's it's difficult when you've been it's it's something totally different than it ever happened before. Usually you don't have money specifically to try to do something like this, but the two things that were that were mandated was um you had to raise anybody coming your district had to make at least 41,615. Um that was quite a bit more than where ours were at. And so um that was a struggle. But then there was also a percentage that we had to have our average teacher making and we didn't meet that one. So really the the only thing that needed to truly be negotiated was the to get the 41615 to happen. But ultimately the plan in front of you, you know, all
044teachers benefit from this. I do feel like it's it's it's good um for the district. I do think that there's going to be more work on this to try to to help eventually even this out. If you look at the orange um eventually try to get all those orange to go away because those are off the schedule. If you could read the little writing on the bottom, that would be in negotiations. So, I just want to get you guys to understand that because, you know, the district will be going back in negotiations in January. And so, this won't be the last time that you see this, but this is the starting point of what that looks like. Um, and it's all based off of QEP, which is quality educator payment. Um, we get that for
045certain positions in our district. And by doing this, our district got double um that which was there in order to do it. And it's kind of like we had to make a promise to the state that we were going to get this done. So by you guys approving this, we will be um holding true to that promise saying that yes, we did do these things. Um, we said we were going to do these things and we did do these things because we had to go into a a memorandum of understanding with the GA um to get these negotiations even to to happen because the state needed that information um earlier in the summer. So hopefully that clears up some things a little bit and then you can see kind of and he already said the
0462.5% and then um and then $1,000 on each sale. One thing to kind of note on that too, and I don't I think I put this in there, but you know, the district just got done negotiating with the the union in December of last year. And so there was $1,000 that was put on um this past year, the 2425 year. And just to understand that, so that was on there. Then there was going to be $500 on the annual fixed increment for this next year. And then so that plus the $1,000 creates this 2500 annual fix increment, but it's been done in stages. So um so just understand that because if you hear like 2500, it's kind of complex at this point. But one thing I want to note is that $1,000 that was given
047to teachers this last year was not retroactive. So by the time December hit, it wasn't retroactive. So they didn't see the full $1,000 of last year. I think it ended up being like $560 on there that they ended up getting. um throughout the rest of the the school year, but that thousand dollar since it was based in the matrix, they will fill that because salaries will keep on going. They do fill that this next year. Um it just wasn't last year. So, I want to make sure you guys knew that they didn't get $1,000 last year. It was put that way, but it wasn't retroactive. So, it was I think they only got like $561 last year, but altogether, you know, if you look at that matrix, it's 2500 is what it states. get kind
048of confusing with everything changing the way it did. >> Actually, I >> Oh, go ahead, Bo. >> I was going to speak a little bit about kind of the total dollar amount and how we came to our proposal. Um >> Okay. Yeah. Good. Because I kind of totally forgot about that. Yeah. Thanks. >> So, um I'm pulling these numbers off memory, but I think in general they're they're pretty close. So, correct me if you guys remember differently, but um we we we took the total sum of money that the state brought to us from the quality education payment, which is about $355,000. We took away our uh first took away the the overhead costs. Um I thought that was like 17% or something like that. Um pulling that out and then pulling out the um
049the portion of the quality education payment that was uh allocated or that we received because of admin, our certified admin. pulling that out and then looking at how many teachers were below the threshold of the state requirement. We had several teachers that were below the 41615. So we added up the total dollar amount to get them to the minimum of 41615. Um and that left us, I think, with a total pot of money of around 165,000. And so the initial um the initial offer we had was very close to that dollar amount and I think we landed at 170 >> year 260 >> or 260. Sorry. Thank you. >> Around 200. >> Yeah. Thank you. There's little difference there. Um but that number then I think we landed at 270 for the total commitment that
050we were allocating towards teachers. And so we we've kept this within um the I guess it doesn't this doesn't implicate any additional funds from our budget. It utilizes the funds provided by the state and then we were able to retain the admin aspect for um admin raises and and help feed into the the classified raises as well. >> The goal just from being in those meetings, you know, Mike and L were pretty adamant about trying to be budget neutral, right? I mean, you already negotiated it for next year. You get this new chunk of money. How do you become budget neutral for that? I think the hard part for them was try to figure out like, okay, you have this chunk of money, but you not only have that, but you also have other um
051employees that you're trying to give raises to. So, you want, you know, I can just repeat kind of what they they've said is they want them to give as much as they can to teachers, but also try to make this work for the district because without your classified staff, now all of a sudden you have issues and so you have to be able to do something and and so um you know, it's a difficult thing to do and negotiations are never fun for anybody. I don't think I don't think anybody. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the one of the first proposals that the the union brought reflected a dollar amount that would have um I think Mike said required an additional roughly $600,000 from our budget. Um and that would have taken
052away any chances of offering classified. So, while I would love to get that money, and I I I do believe they deserve it, there's just financial uh I can't remember the the the metaphor I was trying to use, but I just think of like a rock in a hard place as far as what we can provide with the funding we have available. So, >> yeah, the first proposal was about so it would have taken up all the stars act money and then another 200,000 um and then plus the overhead cost on top of that. So, it would have been, you know, >> it was just something we couldn't not we didn't want to fund, we couldn't. And so, um, by being able to stay within the funds allotted by the state, we felt pretty comfortable
053with this proposal coming to you guys. >> Anything else you want to add to that, Mike? >> No, no, you you stated it very well. Thanks. This is kind of funny. We talk about it and we forgot about the, you know, the whole where we'd started and the root of it. So, but no, that's that's exactly what it is. So, thanks. Yeah. Any any other any questions or concerns or last thing I I want to I'm use this time to educate on some other things. So everything is about recruitment and retention and inside that so I'm going to research shows the number one indicator of success in students is highly effective people it's highly effective teachers is who you have around your kids and so everything should be in my opinion to this board when
054you're looking at salaries it should be to try to to recruit and retain highly effective people. Um the only mechanism mechanism that we have to recruit is job fairs. And I love our teachers out of college, but by definition of a brand new teacher, they're not highly effective. >> Um I'm in my eighth year as superintendent. I still don't feel like I'm highly effective. Right? I mean, I think as a first year person, you can't be highly effective. You might be good at a lot of things. You might be skilled, but you can't be highly effective. Um that comes with training and that comes with experience and that comes with a lot of different things. So, I'm going to kind of rephrase that. that's about recruitment, training, and then um retention. And all of those
055have to be put together. If you focus too much on recruitment, then all of a sudden you have issues o over here. Puts all this tension. Now, all of a sudden, you have these issues with recruitment um or retention and so forth. If you put all your focus on retention, now you have problems with recruitment. In today's day and age, there's no longer um we don't have 20 plus applicants for each job. We're lucky to get one. Um and so and even a double A school is really struggling to get teachers. And so um there's no it's no longer a district market. It's a teacher market and they can pretty much go wherever they want to. So to be able to be competitive is going to be really important to um the success of this
056district. And there was only I think it was 25 districts in the whole state that did not do this. And when I talked to OPI, they were really like most of those districts were like one student didn't have students, things like that. There was really five districts that didn't do this. And it's going to be really hard for them um to do this moving forward because this is the only there's only been two times that the the state of Montana has given money on the front end. This is one of them and there was one for preschool. And so by not doing this, basically what ends up happening is in order to get this money ever for the district, you would have to first put in place and then you get the money the next
057year. So you'd have to have the money up front. So, this is the best time for Glennet public schools to be able to become just as competitive as everyone else with the starting wage and do exactly what the governor and the legislature wanted, which was to um which was to really increase the starting wage in districts. And we have, you know, the rest of our teachers benefiting as well. So, I think in my opinion, I think they did a really good job of trying to balance that and the budget. I'll make the motion to approve the tenative agreement with the GA. I'll >> second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion or comment? >> If not, all in favor say I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. That takes us to other labor management
058committee recommendation. Um, I think I pretty much spoke to that to the best of my abilities, I believe. But just to recap, it's it's been a long time coming. It's just awesome to be able to put our district in a position to give this kind of raises to uh to be classified and I I think we're proud to do it. So, uh, yeah. I'll make a motion to approve. >> A second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion or comment? >> Yeah, thanks for all your hard work, guys. >> Thanks, Frank. I guess YouTube will watch >> actually pretty stressful. >> This is moved and seconded. Uh I guess all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. That takes us to long-term leave of absence request. >> Yeah. So,
059this hasn't happened in a while um that we've had one of these. So, this is probably new to most people on the board, but um but basically in the collective bargaining agreement with um the GA, which you know um this can happen with the classified staff too. So, teachers are called certified staff. Classified which is your hourly wage is called a classified. We have a policy, I think I had it in here, um, policy 5321 that kind of looks at that, but really it's the collective bargaining agreement that governs this for teachers. And basically, it's up to the board to accept or deny this leave a request. Basically, the leave is for a teacher who recently had a u their first kid and um would like to take a year off to be mom for
060a little bit and not have a loss of standing. Uh, since I've been in this district, I not to put pressure, I'm just giving you facts, right? I've never had I've never seen a board deny this before. Not saying it can't be the first time, uh, my recommendation is to approve this. Most the number one most important job in the world is being the mom, even though I'll never know what that feels like. But, um, but I think it's really important. as much as we want um you know her in our district um we also want her to come back to our district when she does feel like it is time for her to come back in the classroom. So my recommendation to you is to approve the rule of absence. Um and she she
061then has to notify us by March of next year whether or not she's coming back or not. If she is coming back then my job would be to put her in a license area. um if her job is is open at that time um which most of the time it is not um I would then put her back in that position but um but if it's not open then we put her in an area that her license is there for accreditation purposes so and she understands all that. >> So we're not holding the position we will hire for this position. >> We will hire >> because it's hard enough to get people I just don't want it. It is the hard part. Oh, you can have this for a year and then you're done. Like
062that's hard. >> That's exactly right. Yeah. So, we we've always tried to you open up the position and then depending on what happens then they get um a position with their license back and that position is a you know what we advertise as a counselor position at Jefferson >> because that is what is needed there and that's what it's always been. We've had to adjust >> which is an important position that we can't really live without for a year. >> Yeah. What compensation does she receive through that year? >> She gives she gets zero compensation. >> No benefits. She would she has the option of going on COBRA um to be able to pay for their health insurance if they want to, but there we will not be paying for anything for her in this
063leave of absence. All it really does is just hold a spot for her and it allows for her not to lose standing. So if she was to just resign, she loses standing. So when she comes back in, she starts back over, not with everything, but tenure. She'd have to get tenure again and and so forth. So this basically allows for her to um maintain tenure, but and also where she's at. So um our master matrix is all based off of years of experience >> and so it's based off of levels. So she would just this year would do not believe it counts as a year. I have to look at that. But that might might be I might be wrong on that. But um but we'll put her where it's supposed to based off of
064the master giving, but there will be no compensation for her. >> And ultimately, we want to keep experienced teachers around. >> Yeah. >> Right. So I mean, you're not going to replace that position with someone with the experience of the >> district. The hardest part would be I mean this is your downside, right? You always look at the good and the bad. The the hardest part is going to be if she comes back and we have no open positions. >> That Yeah, that's another thing that happen. >> Then I would have to we would have to non-renew someone who is non-tenured in order to put her in. That's the promise that we're going to make her. >> So she is tenured. >> She is tenured. >> So that Matt is hard. I can't imagine that
065being the case. Is it a possibility? Yes. >> The first time, right? I'm willing I'm willing to roll the dice on that. >> Sorry, but just so you know, you're like >> glad you showed up, Madison. >> I've never seen that happen. I mean, we've had I mean, every year has been more people. So I can't >> is a possibility because low chance >> nice knowing you. >> You're saying I said I'm willing to roll the dice. I'll >> make the motion to approve the leave of absence. >> I'll second it. It's been moved and seconded. Any further uh discussion or comment? Not all in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Yeah, there's no action other uh upcoming events next board meeting. No Vulker and Wister. Uh if there's nothing else, I'll
066adjourn this meeting. Thanks everybody. >> Thank you. >> Thanks so much.