001made the order. Let's start by saying the pledge. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Visit recognition of visitors. Everybody sign in. Looks like they're doing it. Public input comments must be Oh, I got to read my thing. >> Notice of meeting recording. This meeting of school better board of trustees committee of board of trustees or committee subject to open meeting laws being recorded in accordance with sections 2-2-3012-3-2022-3-203 and 2-3-214 MCA. All members of the board, committee, staff, and public in attendance are advised that the public portions of the meeting will be recorded in both an audio and video format. Cameras and recording devices are placed throughout the meeting room to
002complete these recordings. Everyone in attendance is reminded to honor the basic rules of decorum during the meeting and guidance associated with providing public comment as stated in policy 1420F. By remaining in the meeting, those present consent to being recorded and displayed in the video in the footage that will be posted on the school district's website. Public input comments must be non-aggenda items related to topics under the jurisdiction of the Maltis public schools. Is there public any is there any public input hearing? None. Move on. Consent agenda. Motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Make a motion. >> Motion from Jessica. Second from Katie Brown. >> Is there any discussion? Any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Agenda items. Superintendent interviews. >> Let's go. >> All
003right. So, I watched your board meeting. How you pronounce it is just like the contraction without the apostrophe. >> Yes, sir. >> So So just just started out right there without it. So >> Oh, I love it. >> So I'm glad somebody's willing to call me on it. >> It is pronounced aren't. >> Okay. >> So yes, um I was telling people earlier I literally have a third grade report card with an apostrophe, okay, >> in my name. My third grade teacher did that and I wasn't the first one she had. So I'll talk about it. So uh my name is Chris Arn. I uh hail right now from Sydney, Nebraska. I was born in Lincoln. So a lot of lot of good things going on in Lincoln right now as a Husker basketball team.
004Made the Sweet 16. Uh we'll play our arch rival Iowa in Houston this Thursday. So, um I am a first generation college graduate. Uh seven siblings in my family and uh and I am the still the only one that went to college. Um and have three degrees now. So, um biggest reason I don't have the doctor is I just don't want to write the paper honestly. Uh just got to a point where I'm like that's enough for that part of it at least. Um took me seven years to get my undergrad. Uh, I uh did not have scholarships coming out. I was not a particularly great high school student. Um, I uh went to the University of Nebraska Lincoln and I had to work full-time uh sometimes. So, I took part-time classes. Um, but the
005important thing was that I kept going and that was something that my mom instilled in me. Uh, no matter if you can't do it full, at least keep going. And so, I did that. So, it took me 7 years to get there. Um, if you're a fan of the movie Animal House. I was not on the John Belalushi plan, I promise. Um, it was just that I had to work to to do it. So, uh, seven siblings. I've been married for 32 years. I have three children and soon to be seven grandchildren. So, our, uh, our son and daughter-in-law in Glasgow, if you've seen my materials, are going to bless us with another grandchild here in about five or 6 weeks. Um, of course, depending on when the baby actually decides to show up, but
006that's at least what the doctors tell us. Um, again, 32 years in education, uh, 23 years in administration. I was a teacher, uh, elementary physical education, uh, preK6 in a high needs, uh, high poverty school in Lincoln. and then uh did that for 5 years coached at Lincoln East. And then uh for my four years after that, went taught at a junior high school. Um my team that I taught, we had seventh graders. And that team, as many kids as I have on that team, is as big as the school I'm superintended at now. I had 140 students in that group. So um probably probably one of the biggest influences in my life was when I took my principal program uh again through the University of Nebraska Lincoln and I had the opportunity to go
007work at Norris Schools uh which is a district that's south of Lincoln and uh literally sits out in the middle of nowhere. There's no town associated with it. Uh there's several towns that got together uh in the school district and they have a school that literally sits in the middle of a what was a 40 and they put the school there and they uh all come in from towns around that area and come into that school. That was really my first experience. I had always attended large schools in Lincoln public schools. My graduating class was 487 students. Uh, I will tell you to this day there were kids that walked across that stage at Persian Auditorium on May 21st, 1985. I did not know their name. And I would swear to you, I did not
008attend school with them in high school because I didn't know them. And as I got into education, I thought what a horrible thing that is, you know, that I didn't know classmates of mine. Uh, and I'm sure they felt the same about me, you know, that they didn't know me either. Um, so when I had the opportunity in Norris, I talked to uh I was working with the high school and I spoke to the middle school principal who I knew from Lincoln. I was a principal of the year in Lincoln. I had worked at Irving Middle School and I said, "Barry, tell me, I mean, you worked at Irving, you know, thousand plus kids, but now you work at Norris. You're the principal of the middle school. You got about 200 kids." I said, "What's
009the biggest difference?" Uh Barry uses very colorful language which I'll not use here today. But he said, "Chris, I'll tell you here's the biggest difference. In Lincoln, if I want to do something and I have a program or an initiative I want to start, I have to fill out the paperwork. I have to take it to my boss who's assistant superintendent for secondary education. He'll take it to his committee of people. Then if it passes that committee of people, it'll go to the superintendent. the superintendent says yes, it'll go to the school board. He said there's way too many layers. It takes me literally months, if not years, to enact any sort of meaningful change. He said, "Here at Norris, I can walk down the hall, I can go into Roy Baker's office and he'll
010say, Barry, that's a great idea. Make that happen." Or he'll tell me something else. Barry, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. what are you thinking and I'll go back to my office and I'll get back to work on the other stuff. He said for him and again this is a principal of the year in Lincoln at Irving Middle School. He said that's the biggest difference. I can make things happen at a much quicker rate in a smaller school than I can at Lake Public Schools just because of the bureaucracy. So um so that's what sold me on small districts. At that time, Norris was a very small class B size school, which in Nebraska is about 500 students. They're well over a thousand now. They're approaching class A size. Core values. Um I I
011still I I'll start with number three first. I'm still a teacher at heart. Um I got into education because I had strong teachers. Um, again, as I talked about in high school, I did not have a grades to get scholarships and those sorts of things. Uh, middle school, I was even worse. In junior high, I was just a rat. I was not a good kid. Um, challenged teachers, challenged administration, challenged my counselor, but I had teachers that stuck with me and and that's what changed me. So, I've always wanted to be them. I've always wanted to emulate that. Uh, so I'm still a teacher at heart. So I want to make every decision based on what is best for students. And as I was a teacher, I started to see the impact I could have
012on students. And hopefully students would tell you it was similar to the impact that I felt from teachers that I had. But I had great principles and I saw the work that they did and I saw how they empowered teachers then to impact students and I thought that's a place where I can make a huge difference. I can still have contact with the kids and have that personal interaction with the kids and hopefully make a difference, but I can also have that with the teachers and the staff because I know they will. And so that's what really convinced me at the core that was the place for me to be was to get into administration um into the superintendency then uh which I've been for 4 years the uh um again small districts and I
013get to have that more personal touch. I get to be involved with the students. I get to be involved with the staff. um larger school districts, it's it's certainly possible and there's great superintendents that do it. It's just more difficult because of all the other things you have to do. So that's why I've intentionally seeped out smaller districts so I can continue to have that type of impact. So uh motivation I had uh excellent mentorship as I said I had great principles. Um Bill Booker especially who was my uh middle school principal uh when I taught at Lux in Lincoln. He was a tremendous mentor for me and Janie Dash who was the assistant principal. Um so the the impact that I saw them have on a school of over a thousand kids uh was
014tremendous and the impact they had on their teachers uh made me want to be that that's my model. Uh so when we talk about why administration and uh and what the motivation is um that's primarily the motivation and honestly uh for superintendent I didn't include this on the slide um was my parents I made a promise to my parents um they both died in 20 2017 of cancer I had started my program actually for my superintendence program prior to my mother being diagnosed. Um, I was a caretaker even though there's seven siblings. Um, I was the primary caretaker, power of attorney, all that type of stuff. So, I stopped the program. I I backed away from the program at that time, superintendent program. Um, I promised my parents I would continue once they were gone.
015And so, part of getting into the superintendency was also a promise kept uh for them. That was important to me. Since I've been in the superintendent's role, very similar to being in the principal's role, I get to see the impact that I can provide for staff, for teachers, for communities to help impact the students in the most positive way possible. So um nine years as a teacher uh 23 now in administration coming to an end. Um I was uh assistant principal at Elhorn for 3 years. Uh that's a district that's outside of Omaha. Uh at that time it was rural. There was actually space between Omaha and Elhorn. There is no longer. Um the uh was called to be principal at Wahoo uh which is between Lincoln and Omaha about 25 mi from each. And
016then uh we had looked my wife and I being the Wii, we had looked at western Nebraska um two years actually before finally making the leap and decided this wasn't the right time uh for our family to to make that leap. And then in 2012, uh, walked into a great situation, uh, at Sydney Public Schools and, uh, was very fortunate to to become principal there in 2012. Uh, we have lived in Sydney since. I was principal at the high school there for 10 years and have been superintendent and principal in Potter Dicks the last four. So my role currently is actually 712 principal and superintendent. So um so areas of expertise um I am very well verssed at facilities. We've had uh when I was in Elhorn uh we built a new wing onto the
017high school that I was uh very much involved with as far as the the building part of it. Not so much the design phase but the building phase of it. Uh things like lockers and all the the little things like that. Um in Wahoo uh we built a auditorium uh that was not there before. I actually stood at the stood we had a large tall window overlooking the parking lot between there and our football field and it sloped down and I said I and Jason Lel who's now superintendent Ashley Greenwood in Nebraska I said you know what I see when I stand here and he goes what I said I see an auditorium said look at the slope looks like an auditorium imagine that stage being right on the back side of our football seating
018he goes Oh yeah, that that does slow that'd be great. So we approached our superintendent and we tried a bond issue and failed. Um, fortunately our superintendent had done a great job of saving money and so we were able to build it without a bond issue and no additional taxing to our to our patrons. Um, so uh we were able to build a I want to say 650ish 600 seat auditorium. uh for for our school. Um transportation. I'm the transportation director for Potter Dicks. Uh so I'm very well verssed in all of our state laws, federal laws. Um some things that irritate me to no end with federal laws uh and regulations, but that's a different story for a different time. Uh budgeting, uh I would have not four years ago uh if I was
019interviewing here, I would not have put budgeting on there. um to to be frank, but I have worked hard to learn. That was the that was the area I recognized in myself that I had to learn and uh so I've worked hard to do that and building the relationships uh with people and I'll talk about that more here in a little bit. Uh instruction uh literally every school district I've gone to, they've been in year four of their school improvement cycle in Nebraska. Year five is your visit year. So when I've started there, we've had a visit from the state for accreditation uh every time I've changed. So um also I will tell you selfishly PE teachers are are really good teachers because when you think about how they go from teaching a skill to
020where a student may or may not have a skill to skill development to mastery is not what we should be striving for in all of our classes. So, I would like to think that uh as a PE teacher, but also in my experience, I've I've really worked hard on the instruction piece and school improvement. Like I said, been a part of that. I've been on several visits, uh not only in my own school, but uh several visits to other school districts as a part of the accreditation teams, uh including one earlier this year. So very familiar with with those processes both through uh state of Nebraska and Cognia um which used to be called advanced dead. So, deep dive one. Uh, many of you know that Cabllas, which was housed in Sydney, Nebraska, um, was
021bought out by Bass Pro uh, during the hostile takeover, uh, Cabela's Gone Public and their stock was not doing good and so they were bought out by Bass Pro. Um, that impacted my family directly. My wife worked there and so she was transferred to Springfield, Missouri and we looked at moving down there. Uh this is right before co actually when she was transferred her apartment was one of the last ones to go. So there were about 1,200 people that worked at Cabelas in the town of 6,000. Uh so roughly 20% of the population in Sydney now no longer had a job. a huge impact on the community, huge impact on the region honestly because Cabllas was really a regional company. Uh people would drive in from Cheyenne, from Okala, uh from Sterling, Colorado, uh from
022Alliance Bridgeport, Nebraska. And so, uh big big deal. So, at the same time, we had no FFA at Sydney High School. We sit in ranch country, uh, western Nebraska, panhandle, Nebraska is ranch country. We had no FFA program. We were the only school in our area, Panhandle, Nebraska, that did not have an FFA program and I wanted to change that. But due to Cabela's um leaving uncertainty about funding because our student population was changing and uh and quite honestly low interest um and the low interest and I know that may sound odd but the primary focus of our students at that time and our school was come through get a business get experience business go to college for business, come back and work at Cabllas. >> It wasn't go get aggra business. It wasn't go
023get agriculture science. It was go get a business degree, come back and work at. Um, so when I say that was a a big issue, I know for most people on the outside looking in, they would say, well, that's not you're lying to us. That's really what it was. Um, so there was low interest because of that. So, um, I'm not one to give up easily. So, I came back 2019, there were two things that happened. Uh, Sydney High School was named a national blue ribbon school. Um, which I know you all have experience with now. Um, as a principal of Sydney High School at the time, you know, you got to go through every department. You've got a list, summarize what are they doing. Uh at the same time we had what's called the
024revision process and this was part of Perkins grant money and so we were pursuing Perkins grant information or or Perkins um and we had to provide information about our CTE programs. Amazingly enough, it showed both in terms of the work we had to do for the blue ribbon and the work that we had to do for the revision process to gain Perkins funding, our interest level in FFA now was growing. Um, and understandably so, no longer having Cabelas in town. So um and as you know in this area very similar in Sydney agriculture even with cabelas there agriculture was a driver of the economy in Nebraska statewide but especially in the panhandle. So, uh, went back and in the spring of 2020, um, again, I was asked to wait and I had discussions with our
025superintendent and he wanted me to wait because co same reasons, not sure about the funding, not sure if we're even going to be back in school in the fall, all these things, right? with CO going on. Um, what time did they start? >> 4:05. >> You start about 410. >> 4:10. Okay, good. >> My wife told me, "Keep it one minute to slide cuz I can talk forever, but um, so I'll try and go a little quicker, but I do want to get through this." Um, and he said, "Chris, just wait a year." Jay Haylor was our superintendent. Just wait a year. He said, "You're you've got solid reasoning. You've got the numbers. I do believe in the program also, but man, we got to wait a year. I ended up not hiring a teacher
026from a different department. And I said, "Jay, I've got the FTEEs. Can I do it?" And he said, "You're not hiring that teacher. You're not going to come back to me later and say, okay, now I need that." I said, "I won't. I got it worked out. It'll work." So, he approved it. So now, as most of us know, I got to find somebody to teach FFA. Um, so I start putting it out on uh Nebraska, very similar to Montana jobs for education. Nebraska has a sim similar thing. Um, but I also went over to Wyoming and talked to there because they have a great uh agriculture training program, FFA program at the University of Wyoming. Excuse me. And I found the young lady from there, Jamie Peterson. Uh she's up at Sheridan in Wyoming
027now. Married a Sydney guy actually. Um so uh the program was uh hired or the position was hired and she and I and our curriculum director uh began preparations in earnest to start the program in 2020. Uh the first couple years numbers were low. new program. Um, so it does continue today. We did figure out did some history. Uh, the program had not been at Sydney High School since the 1950s. So, it's the first time in 70 years, uh, close to 70 years that FFA had not been at Sydney High School, which sits in the panhandle of Nebraska, farming ranch country. So, I'm very proud of that. Uh we took that first year to state uh which is actually this week uh in Nebraska. Um we took I think like 12 13 kids. Uh this
028year they're taking over 40 incredible students. So I'm very proud of of bringing that program back to Sydney. Um I'm very proud that that even though they're on their third teacher um since the startup that it has gone well and that that it's thriving. Sydney has gone through some really tough financial times. Um it was on the chopping block last year, but it is a self- sustaining program. It's intracurricular. Um they could not replace it if they removed it. Uh, so it survived the budget cuts at Sydney. They were they were like, when I say major like $1.5 million in the hole. Um, so it survived it. So I'm very proud of that and the fact that we were able to get that done and I'm I'm very proud of the fact I didn't wait
029till 2021. Um, and we were able to get it put in place in 2020. Uh, deep dive 2 budget otter dicks. Um, as with everywhere, funding in Nebraska is struggling. Um, Governor Panin when he came on board started what was called foundation aid. He put $1 billion into a fund to help fund public schools. He had no sustainability model though. No uh no money going into it. um they did decide to put a quarter of a billion dollars into it every year and it's far the the money that districts need is far outweighing the money they're putting in. So it's not not a sustainable model. Uh on top of that this year fiscal year Nebraska's $464 million in the hole. Um, and that's on top of the 700 and some million last year, another 800
030million next year, what they're projecting right now. So, they're, you know, they're they're in the hole. I mean, $2 billion in the hole. Um, so it's going to be tough. Land valuations have gone up astronomically. And of course, our property taxes are based on the valuation and then the district sets the mill levy to to go towards that. Um, so that's a that's a factor. The uh budget caps, the legislaturator has implemented budget caps are requiring districts to stay at 2% plus growth unless your board um 70% of your board votes to go over that. Um there's another mechanism that you can go to your voters uh if you need to go uh different percentage. We've never even come close to it. Um where you go to your voters and you have to be 70%
031with your voters have a special election. Um so between the state aid and foundation aid um our finances have to be monitored monitored consistently and with great forethought as to what is what it's doing to our producers in the area. >> Oh boy. Okay. So um funding does include those student needs. um information gathering. Uh school board obviously talk with staff to identify the priorities, school board to identify priorities, community members to identify priorities. Um work to understand the taxing structure uh you know an impact on businesses in our area. Growth is a factor and there's no growth in our area. In fact, we're losing uh we're losing businesses and we're losing producers. >> Is that my two? >> No, that's me. Sorry. >> Okay. No, that's all right. I just want to make sure
032I didn't. So, uh make sure again to take a detailed look at the budget. I'm on 14 and 22. I'm going to have to go really quick. I should have listened to my wife again. Um, so, uh, the leadership challenge, uh, continuing at the information gathering, communication with state budget officials, communication with county assessors and treasurers, uh, with other area superintendents and work with our business manager on our coding system because there were some things that we were coding to the wrong areas. And when we coded them to the correct areas, it actually helped us. So decision-m worked with board members uh worked with state budget officials uh to work on our specific budget and worked with the business manager to make sure we were coding things appropriately. Communication strategies I always prefer face to
033face email phone calls text messages and asking questions of budget and tax experts especially in school finance. So um we're in our best standing in several years. I'll show that here. And generally our producers have been happy with us for what we've done. There's the final resolution and impact. So that's our onhand cash to spend