001is her husband here he lives like she's gotas and he and his my sister my nephew gas station he can be sick and he'll be going I didn't have to use it so oh that's great that was a nice piece of Mind cu the wind come up you know more minute three more minutes is fixed you got it I know the other yesterday I was like oh man I've got another hour before somebody comes to relieve me at my mother's house then I'm like wait a second no she'll be here any minute I forgot to change the clock doing I'm doing well how are you doing just trying to get to March I know it's my most unfavorite month yeah I'm not really a fan of the transitions when so M I know's it sir
002I can see the door so I guess I am by default hello hello hello thanks for coming everybody my phone okay let's do it let's pledge allegiance was me to order Al to the flag of the United States of America and to theu for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay approval of the minutes jump out at you it's wrong it's wrong it didn't look right or needed updated I motion to approve minutes last feeting second that all in favor of I I so mov approval of the expenditures I just think that's just so outrageous for the bus it's just about chokes me every time I see that mcps yeah but they have a whole lot more people but still I bet it chokes them too yeah times
003like that times 100 oh my God do you want to make a motion okay yes I make a motion to approve the payroll 4,214 28 claim 15392 I second all in favor of say I I I okay public presentations you GNA sing a dance tonight Ron right okay Communications reports sorry you evening everyone oh thank you're welcome uh so I'll start with continuing that we have the county book Mobile coming to Woodman twice a month second and fourth Tuesdays which actually be tomorrow they get here at 10:45 the community is welcome to come to they want to check out a book uh spring break is coming up uh next week we have no school March 17th through 21st and then we have no school March 31st uh we have the Lions Club out on March
0044th and did Vision screenings on all kids and uh we'll be getting those results to give to parents pretty soon electronically so a great free service where they come out with the machine to be able to check Kid Vision and see if they need a referal to that's all done free of charge Dar the Daughters of the American Revolution came out to read books in grades K through five about President's Day so that went well uh we had a successful trip up to the Lolo pass for snow day kids went sledding and snowshoeing and got to have lots of fun and a chilly lunch up there that happened February 21st on February 22nd four students went to the Special Olympics Polar Plunge and between the four students they raised 1,8 25 that's pretty cool something
005to see I got to go down and watch that and we even had some uh two first graders jump in that ice cold water that's pretty good yeah and then coming up in April on April 8th we will be taking a field trip to the butterfly Gard uh spring pictures will be coming up April uh 16th and we have more field trips coming up the end of April and into May that I'll update you on next uh one thing I want to talk about is C uh collaboration with other school districts I updated you the past couple meetings about working with loo school and we've done a couple things with loo uh we did a middle school dance together uh and we also set up that interlocal fund between our school districts um that we
006could put uh money into and keep track of um so that was something we did together the other thing we talked about is cooping Sports and it sounds like the Lobo board U might not be uh real ghole or wanting to necessarily coop for sports um we could still kind of pursue that talk more to them but I actually decided to reach out to another local school district that's also a KK like us and that's Target schol where I happen to also know the superintendent um and so had a great conversation with him uh and he is kind of looking into that him and the principal's talk sounds like they might be willing to do that so he's going to kind of talk to his board and whatnot kinds so they're also in the copper
007league so all the middle schools in the area are part of the same league uh so it's volleyball TR basketball soccer so if the kids were participating in that the parents would have them most likely it' be pretty difficult for the district to transport back and for and um but it is nice to have options for parents and for students um so if a student really wanted disate one of the sports if we Co-op then they have that there would be some costs um we would have to decide I meet with the superintendent we'd have to pay help pay some of the dues to the coer which is not very much and then some of the salaries and whatnot but I told Jeff it's a super inhibit there I've got six middle schoolers this year
008I mean it's not going to be a FL of kids you know could be one or two once a year or something probably wouldn't be a huge amount of kids but it's nice are so it's usually after school for practices but sometimes the competitions depending where it is they're having to get out early or in the afternoon I know having been in logo sometimes they would leave resp cool uh I did this in high school a lot different High School Districts um we did P off for sports worked pretty well so I'll keep looking into that and then we if we want to pursue it we'll have to do a formal agreement between both School boards uh we'll both you you'll have to agree target range will have to agree and then we'll have like
009a document this is kind of something looking forward way into the future to be aild like our biggest class right now is Ken and to establish that relationship they do not but to start having these relationships with other districts and what not and build it now for the future I think is it it um a certain amount of time if that document was signed that we are within that League or just expire um so the membership to the league I think is every year um but not to say that we couldn't put an expiration on the document we signed between the districts um probably either Jeff or I will run through our not a lot of it's common for high schools to co-op not that common midle do they have the same problem getting enough
010kids in and like tet range for different sports for like teams no they said sometimes they've actually run two teams for sports because they have enough kids um but their enrollment is down um I'd say across Montana um enrollments down especially in Western Montana a lot of that is people moving out of uh operations um I bought new ropes for the flag pole um so we've got that now to fix um I am meeting with the landscaping company tomorrow to talk about um starting to move into spring hopefully it doesn't snow more what's the name of that landscape uh Southerland yeah um Jonah said he's willing to do that bring the tractor I guess the tractor was down they had both their tractors down but uh I told him probably not now because I don't
011think you want a tractor driving over that lawn right now do you depends which way he drove in I guess yeah well you what way can you drive around that way or up depending on type ofic yeah so your tror at this point would just that there's no super rush on it they have those four-wheel drive you onto your tractors it might just climb right up front from the particle up to the pole they could okay okay I'll talk to you about it again be worth a try either makes it or spins out yeah want to tear up the lawn the lawn that you guys been working so hard at okay um so I'm going to meet with them about the grounds um look at projects things that need to be done up coming for
012spring and summer also I'm going to talk to them pring the area for the volleyball court the outdoor one so the company's holding off on that too but the weather's right we've got it all from that grand so they're going to come out and install that but we need to do some weed whacking and did you ever get the um while you got benches coming did you get a fire pit so we haven't bought the fire pit yet but we got the money for that and the tables are right out there and we've got the volleyball stuff but it's at the contractor place okay just wa so going to work on that make a plan for the for the grounds uh I did meet with our custodian um and our plan last year was that
013the custodian position takes a month off in July uh because we don't really need the building cleaned when no one's here and do the deep cleaning and getting ready in August and clean up stuff in June and she great with that and then the parent group it is coming up April 18th for the spring egg hunt and lunch have more info about that coming out after spring break and then ouring fund raer uh fundraiser was going to start today but the catalogs got delayed through UPS somewhere um so we're trying to track down where they are there's been some I don't know if it's weather problems for UPS I know I had a package delayed in Minnesota not quite sure what's going on that's delaying packages uh but we are hoping that that arrives tomorrow
014so we can start our fundraising was that candy cookies or something yeah whole catalog of stuff like that we did raise quite a bit last year and we're able to greatly reduce what we charged for the ski lessons and help pay for field trips we want to do swimming lessons next year so we're hoping that raise enough money to help with all those things next year questions general purpose public input any non-agenda items I've got a couple of things um so with my name is Jason oqu I'm the parent of Abigail and Bergen we've been noticing that there's been a lot of traffic going around the school buses lately um there we talked to the Trent officer up here he's actually getting um a reckless driving ticket if it goes around the bus because they
015have to mandatory go into the office or into the courts but my concern is is more about uh the signage is there any maybe the summer we can look into maybe getting at least one more sign on that straight stretch there uh because people do come around that mil cek area and they just bolt it even though that the school bus is way on the other side they still they'll just keep going and i' I've even s out in middle of traffic one time and pointed at a guy to stop and they just they're just don't care sign slow down call 911 well I called I called personally on the you or the FedEx driver and um I I took him two weeks to call me back but I haven't seen the FedEx driver so
016they obviously did something but it's just saf it's all about the road signs there's one coming West but not I don't see one going east it is so does the one slow does that that's where the bus is at slow it down at all when it goes this direction but yeah but the bus is normally there so they slows them down anyways but it's just coming this way so where would you want another side just right before me c right around there on this side going that way so I can talk a little bit about that okay to make any action or anything but to talk about what we have done um so we put up that new sign we' got the county to put it up yeah the one on the east side and
017the county will put it up when there's a blocked view of the stop is what they told me because we worked with them um I can call them again we see if they'll do additional signage uh but the reason I put up that sign was the blocked view of the bus stop okay um but I can call again and Beach cans call see what they can do but they're pretty particular the county is about where they will put signage um of course you know we'd love to have more signs i' love to have like slow down in front of the school and stuff because I see the same thing I mean I see motorcycles and vehicles going over 100 miles per hour on this highway um the other thing that we've done so Chris is
018our SRO so him and I been working together on this so we not only reached out to the sheriff's department and had additional patrols but we've also reached out to the Montana highway patrol and we're trying to get them to come up there and do more patrols that is difficult to get Highway Patrol um in this area they will come once in a while on Friday we did get a sheriff out to patrol and follow the boss in an unmarked vehicle um so we did that on purpose um because a lot of times they see those marked vehicles and right away people won't do anything wrong so we deliberately had an unmarked uh police vehicle following a bus on Friday so trying to increase that awareness but it is a yes okay thank you that's
019all I needed for now appreciate that thank you thank you okay old business pay for Grant Services a little bit about that so we had the opportunity OPI chose us to be able to apply um for the uh Montana literacy Grant uh which is a huge amount of money and great opportunity for our district um I realized with the short timeline that we had and the opportunity that this would bring to our district that I needed some help um I am teaching you know quite a bit and a lot of other things going on I also personally written this grant before so I actually uh looked and found a person that has wrote the grant twice successfully and received it uh for districts both times both times um so her name is Amelia she lives
020up in Troy uh and so um we got her working on the grant for us um this grant is a million dollars over five years for the school district it could be one of the largest grants this District's ever received um I didn't want to chance it with um you know having my rushed effort uh you know uh make it so we didn't get the grant um so Emelia has been working on this uh we are almost done and ready to submit the grant um we are really hopeful that since the district has never received the grant um and that we're a rur school that we have a really good chance she's done a fantastic job inserting tables um you know it's probably a 25 Pages written grant um so my hope is that she's
021agreed to write this for $2,000 for the district and only receive 2,000 more if you actually receive the grant um I got quotes from two different people she was the cheaper of the two and she had the most experience so my hope is that do they decide yeah so we submit it um the day is the 14th and then we don't have a day the side uh it could be as late as May um I'm hoping it's a lot they will decide is that the one that includes okay you were saying you outdated materials curricul materials this one would cover those materialss professional develop for teachers Mentor coach to come in and help teachers um travel to the professional development all of that as well as help pay Sal for the district it's a huge
022opportunity for us so really ation to accept so we wouldn't pay the $2,000 if we didn't but we're there for $2,000 so I make a motion to I supp Payne to write our grant for the Montana reacy gr another favor say I so I so move okay the open trusteed position okay I know John said in the past that theyve put that up for 30 days um I think last week we found out or last meeting we found out who was running and that was Dan and Eden and both you guys are signed up to run and are you guys did so okay well I know that uh John said in the past that they've put that uh up for announcement that um to announce it for anybody to um that wanted to serve on
023that position I think that since we're so close right now I'd just like to see us vot one one of these girl in do you want to make a motion I would like to caution the board um just the lawyer voice um and via's training from me is it is best to do follow past practices whenever you can what I what I don't like about that though is that our policies do not state that our policies state that it should be done so since we didn't do that last meeting I suggest that we just vote something in for now because you got an election in May so that would that would put um today's February or March I mean so you'd have April there's really no point in doing it if you don't do it
024now but it also said here that he got 60 days should the board fail to fill the vacancy within 60 days that the county and superintendent should appoint in writing for person so I don't know well and what would happen because of the dates is if nobody was appointed today or in April we would just wait for the election results in May it wouldn't even move on to the county suit because it's just you run out of time for that step to even happen Okay um so it's either you guys yeah make the decision now or you follow past president put it out there put on the website put it out for you know if anybody else happens to be out there that that would want to and then you appoint for the one meeting
025in April and then the election takes there is one more option is that you have a special meeting before the next board meeting either way it's just going be I don't see that's necessary what is What is the voting someone temporar I don't understand uh to give the public notice and the chance to apply to you in case there's other people out the community that wanted to be appointed okay and if someone did but we voted somebody in temporarily what is the they' have to sign up to like you guys do to be on the board they'd have to have an election they would they would be in a position to be elected like you point it's best to give notice when I would prefer to just do it I would like to it's it's
026temporary and then we have a proper election why don't you make a motion okay um until May is that right yeah until the would be a temporary position I would just say motion until okay I make a motion to elect Eden until the next election in May I think you we probably should we vote on because you got Dan and my vote Eden has your vote Yes so you make a motion to okay I second [Music] that okay pull up chair on hey let election when is the date we need to notify the county of so I just got that information it was a or April March like March 21st me March 21st so the end of next week we need to know what we're running and for how much um that gives them a
027chance to finalize their language in a couple weeks to print ballots before they're sent out you think that people are going to vote they last last time they didn't want to vote in 20,000 right so here's what I did if you look at the little chart that I made yeah the highlighted portions are the ones that keep a $600,000 home under $100 a year so even if we did $5,000 general fund Levy lives lives on and will help us for the years to come so ,000 Levy it's on a on a $300,000 house it's an extra $15.55 a year uh $600,000 home $31 um it's not a huge amount but every little bit helps especially with our numbers Ben have been going down um in the funding formula it's kind of a building block that
028always stays there it kind of bumps us up that little bit every year um also to keep in mind our building Reserve ly has one more year so next for the 26 27 year it will be gone um and that's a it 17,500 a year 7,5 17,500 I believe is what it is a year um and so that will be going away um it'll be on fourth year and so if we we're running we're running an election anyway if we're going to pay the the the bill to run the election I say we try maybe a little something nothing crazy nothing I mean maybe we were shooting for the moon so this will be on people's tax bills forever once it's on it'll be part of the funding formula yeah I mean of course those
029things fluctuate as kiddos you know if we get more kiddos then it it's offset by you know things but but yes it does help our our school out every year that it's every little bit that gets voted in will help us into future so something to think about is there is a possibility we might get this grant but there's a possibility we might not um I've also got another agenda item that I'm going to talk about a possibility to make some money and whatnot but the reality is with our reduced enrollment um we were $40,000 short going to be short last year and we're looking at 50,000 projected for next year yeah um 50,000 short and that's only because we are still floating on the threeyear average if we were running on Strictly our current
030enrollment it would be much much earlier um yeah we need kiddos um yeah so it's completely up to you guys I completely would understand if you were like not not this time around um I think timing wise next year honestly does make better sense but if you were to do it I would think very small for this year and make it something where you know somebody's like okay you know my my tax bill values my house $1,000 I can for three copies worth completely well part of me is like if we don't ask we're not going to get anything but I think if we did ask it needs to be what are you thinking last year was 20 and it didn't go through we go for 2,000 this year I don't know what taxes I
031don't know if it'd be worth to do more than less than five really okay I I mean another strategy could be to not ask till next year and be able to tell people our building Reserve is going away we're not actually asking for any money we're going to ask for the same amount for the building Reserve um that could be a strategy Bank it now I've done that before I banked several years and went to taxers said okay we haven't asked for anything in five years um but yeah next year we could go to taxpayers and say okay well we're not actually going to raise any taxes we're just asking for the building Reserve that's expired okay uh which the building Reserve has been huge that has got new grows on all these buildings um
032the remodeling the bathrooms I mean that's helped for a lot of things how does how does that work the building Reserve I don't understand what that means there two portions of the building Reserve fund so we get permissive monies which essentially um we can Levy without going to the voters the great part about that is um we get a total of it's almost $20,000 every year of which we only ask our voters to pay for about 4,000 of it and then the state's major maintenance fund picks up the rest and so we get this nice chunk of money with our taxpayers get hit for very much of it then there's a voted ly which is what we're in the midst of right now where um what we did was a $75,000 Levy broken out over
033four years okay and so like I said I think it's 175 if I'm doing my math right um and or maybe it was 70,000 anyway um and so they're hit for smaller portions at a time um but those are the only two ways to put money into the building Reserve f permissively levying through the tools that the state has given you or you're going to your voters and ask the permissive per how do you say that permissive permissive permissive Levy is that guaranteed money that is money it's kind of like our transportation fund our transportation fund we need a certain amount of money we permissively l what we need we don't have to get we don't have to there's not many funds that do that um we do that in retirement fund uh Transportation fund
034and building res okay and the tuition F that's going to become more of a biger planer now too with the legisl passages of things in so okay what do you think about that you think we ought to try and go for another ly or hold off for another year what did you say last year last year we had one for 20,000 and it was V which was considered low yeah pretty you said what would you consider said at least the five on here which is pretty pretty minimal on the grand but but then that almost sounds ridiculous to go get to get it to me do why would you go get a a ly for five grand well because for every kid we lose we lose that much and you know I mean it's can
035we ask for ask you can ask for can I have a question I have a question so like if we were to get the grant when would we publicize that money because that might affect voters voting the problem is we don't know when we're going to get that it'll be it'll be after but would we get notification of that before we had to it's OPI has not told us when they'll let us know for the grant people I know at OPI say probably May okay um I guess it depends on how safe you want to be I mean the safe thing is to ask for money when we're going to be short um is there any har I'm just saying it might tick off the public if the only thing is we've asked for a
036couple years so the building Reserve fund passed three years ago and we've asked a couple times in the last five years for a general fund lby it has never passed and what we have working against us we have the lowest taxable value of any school district in the county which the lower the taxable value the more Mills you need in order to raise money the higher the taxes are for smaller amounts of money and it makes it that much harder for us to ask for money because even small amounts can sometimes feel bigger than they should um so that that is something we have working against us always part of it is kind of getting a sense of what the community like to do tring to ask around what that was part of my campaign
037of only asking for half the amount we needed last year I actually went on K interview with them presented counil about that seemed pretty well received but we were only asking for half we need but that still wasn't it's failed the past five years and we haven't asked every year but but the couple times we had it has failed the general my okay let's just hold off on that one then going have to raise some money she don't okay fencing project yeah so we've been talking about this for a while um so Jan and I talked and I reached out to two companies for quotes and got some pretty different quotes uh I reached out to Turkey Creek fencing Grizzly fence so I've attached that here for the different quotes with different options I asked
038for just repairing the fence with the lumber that I bought last year and I still got out there I asked for a new uh wood post and rail fence and then a steel or metal fence and then Grizzly also did a chain link as well um so you can see for a whole new fence lot of Mone I guess it's the bottom line one company for just repairing using the lumber we had was only 4,50 um that seems pretty reasonable the other company for just repairing using our lumber was 16,500 so a pretty big difference there between companies okay I had a I had the Randle construction came in this last week and they were willing to do all four sides um and pressure wash it and light wire brush it with a solid base
039stain to protect the wood longer would be $9,200 and that would be our whole fence other than I think we would need to get some of our neighbors together to fix that fence out there or you to do have Turkey Creek do the 4000 for the repair and then have the other company yeah so then that would be 16 that would be 415 I don't know I talked to Jonah the other day though he thought it'd be pretty easy to do that we got together with some screw guns if we had like a if we had like a um we could get four or five guys with screw guns and get some screws and he could pound those post and he said he had a new post pounder but he was he wanted to do
040round ones instead of the square ones I don't think that hurt if we're going to power wash and paint it we could do that fence for $9,200 I the whole thing and it look better than it does now the bad part is it's not going to last forever it's there's a lot of eventually we're going to have to get it done in which case my thought was and I don't know my husband hates me for thinking these kind of thoughts but my thought was if we did the three sides did the spray paint power wash and do the three sides put a metal fence out there with just metal posts and wire but I don't have a bid for that but I'd rather pay $4,000 for that than another then you got that at least
041one side out there that's done because these other three aren't going to last forever I'd be surprised if they last another 10 years so one thing that was told to me that makes sense is just a regular chain link wouldn't be recommended because of the castle they did recommend doing what the ranch already has if we're going to do metal and do steel yeah do we have [Music] grand no but but I know that I can get so what's the difference so why why do we need $50,000 right did did anybody give you a bit on just a traditional um Ranch fence like say steel post woven wire couple strands of barb wire on top they didn't do that we really can't be having Barb Wire wire wire the other thing that I think we
042need to do is also let Scott know Scott I already talked to Scott it's it's on he's on he's he'll write the check for what we need but what I talked to him about was this here I was like do you on doing that basically he said get those guys up the ranch to help do it you have all guys here to help well and I think if we announced it what if we announced it in the school for the parents to come up and help and would you have a luck could we do that in April Easter is in April just April that might and so a lot of our parents are shuttling kids for sports we have a lot of kids that like a Saturday when's when's Easter the 20th is the 20th
043so are you saying the four grand and then have them do is that what we're saying no I think what I'm wondering is okay so the four grand was the fence repair so that would we wouldn't need that four grand if the guys came up and did it we might need a little bit more than of that um what Jonah said was he could get a bunk of of those round posts and those will pound in Easy he says oh we can pound those in a couple hours and you guys got some guys with screw guns we could take those out there screw those in and get that done and then those guys could come in and power wash it and paint it it'll look nice you know a a question do we want to
044paint it if we're putting up new stuff staining is a lot easier and a lot cheaper and just as it is it is easier to maintain what he said was a solid base I would use a stain and not a paint yeah that way you don't have to scrape the paint yeah yeah so he said solid Bas stain should we go with that Randall and then the guys take care of the repair so do Jason I'm already going to be volunteering Jason's got a well there's five guys right there so Jan can I ask this question quote for treating offence and whatnot is the district going to need to pay for that or thinkes decision got cover yeah Scott said Scot I asked I asked him if he would vote $10,000 for offence and he
045says just let me know J good Lord so I think we ought to do that 10,000 on the I didn't realize it was free yeah okay um I make a motion to hire out Scott no Randall construction well I mean if he's actually paying the bill we don't even need to have him do okay so we just need to know if we can have a pot luck then and have a date motion we have to have a motion for a pot luck you just want to eat so I think no action is there's no money well well we could have a day though a work day I work better how about April 26th for a work day that's a week after Easter I told we do 426 have a the only the only thing that
046I do make sure is to announce it to the public just so where we can get it on our calendars that we're here we might have more success with you make it a Friday night yes that's true how much time is going to be needed when that time it'll be dark about 9:00 it's already dark at 8:30 it's true just come after school and whoever wants to come on Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon can come back and work too I know the guys would start early but if that's a is that a school day no weekend I know construction said they could do it on a Saturday too if we had a date should we double check with the R st first no we already got it cover yeah but what about just tell them
047to come on up there and and Jonah said a Saturday work as long as it wasn't a week day you thought the week day was kind of tough but I don't know if it' be tough on the evening as basically all they have going now and it's just as long as someone so so with a s with a Friday Friday or Saturday would work either way cuz I would be here until it's done anyways even if I start on Friday it would be back the next Sunday than Saturday yeah Friday's kind of a rough night for me Saturday I say Saturday morning 26 what time 9 9. should we do a a noonish lunch or should we do an evening do you think hopefully won't take all day just so work day on April 269
048and then Nock and if if I'll help cook burgers okay can we get together can we get together to plan a pot luck that's not well technically I mean you'd have to make it a committee meeting and invite to the public okay but can you just announce it and just put something like a you know bring a side dve and and I'll talk to you about okay I'll put it out okay sounds good okay major facility projects yeah so I just wanted to start the discussion um about facility projects for this summer so last summer we remod bathrooms in this building um if we do want to do a major project I need to start getting cloes now for summer um so some things we've talked about already are the doors and I have one
049quote for that but I want to get more um the doors are certainly a bit of a problem a lot of them stick one is rusting out um certain are they metal doors um so these are in Miss building the rest metal um industrial doors are expensive learned the other part is that a lot of them have door fobs so we also have to rewire doors with the elect door so that's an added expense so it's that some [Music] reps so that's one thing the other thing that we've talked about is we've done all new roofs in the past five years except for building one yeah how old do you think building one is building one the last time we had somebody up there I don't know how old it is I just I know
050um last time they had somebody up there it wasn't any sort of yeah it's um there was no big emergency to it's something that could probably hold off easily two or three more years without a whole lot of unless something develops that it's unexpected um it really wasn't in formable shape the last time they looked at and they looked at that one when they replaced the last roomp which was not last summer but summer these two roofs have so okay I think we're all cut up on window I would recommend putting some kind of protection on my windows on the end of the building because they've come close to being broken already those are expensive for some reason they're screening on that building but not on the end of this building so I mean and
051those aren't necessar window for fire escape anyways so it wouldn't hurt to scream or put some kind of metal on there to protect them yeah you got the wind coming flying Ino another thing would be the carpet hasn't been replaced ining has definitely out of the other would be if we wanted to remodel anything else the bathrooms in this building bathrooms if we want to do some of the cabinets and several of the buildings need model um so there's different things that we could do so I just wanted to get it on everyone's radar to do some thinking do we have money for these Reserve plus another 20 on top of that so it always ends up being I always say 3 and there's only one more year on that [Music] reserve and those permissive
052levies you can roll them over so if we decide in 3 years we want to do the RO going to be more than amount one from any year we can save a portion of the year before yeah you can build anything else on the facility projects I think that's about it I'll probably try to keep working on quotes for doors and you guys think on anything else you might want to get quotes on are you thinking about the cabinets in that other building I haven't inventory quite a [Music] few okay legislative updates yeah so we had a bill not long ago that would have actually closed all the elementary school districts that bill wased and remains to be that was 84 so that actually would have dissolved hundreds of school districts in our state so
053we would have merged with uh mcps but it also would have dissolved all the independent boards so instead of having boards combin or what not they actually would have dissolved all the school boards as well as the schools that would have meant probably a lot of school districts properties would have been sold I doubt mcps would hold on to the eight school districts bu they'd be busing um luckily that remains tabled hopefully it does not come back they're running out of time have less in a month to be able to do action on things um some good news uh we have had some progress in school funding SCH bills uh pleased to report that house bill 15 which addresses School inflation is advancing so it's not through both the house and the Senate uh but
054it's looking like it will get there that'll give a 3% inflation uh to funding for schools from the state is that 3% per student then or what's that 3% on I do not know the exact answer State fing I don't it's built into the it's built into the pieces of the funding formula and they're messing with a few different things with the funding formula this year um so you've got hb15 is an every year they have every legislative session they have an hb5 is the standard one that breaks out how much you get for kiddo how much you get for for her school quality educator uh data for achievement Indi it all that sort of stuff it's all lumped into that one that one bill um this this time around they're tweaking the quality educator
055portion of it um and John's probably be talking about that next um with the Stars act um that will if you meet certain criteria you'll get double quality educator payments so right now we get a certain amount for every teacher administrator um with the new new setup you get twice that for each one of those which is great it gives us a nice little chunk of change the problem is we've lost enough kids that suddenly it all that lovely new money that we would have gotten if our numbers have stayed stable I believe it's 3% for State funding across the board but I don't know if there's exceptions for certain pieces of the next bill I want to talk about is House Bill 252 and that is the Stars act that's um a bill that
056I've really been helping folks promote um it will bring 55 million to schools above and beyond that 3% uh not only for um the teacher quality payments that uh Jessica just talked about but also for CTE several programs this bill was written by Lou Jones out of Conrad um and definitely will really help funding um what is CTE uh Career Technical education so there's quite a few different aspects of this that's really going to help schools uh the one um kicker to looking at things is that to qualify for some of the funding um you have to increase the teacher base pay and we've actually got an agenda item that'll talk about that um there's also been some tax relief uh bills actually working on uh relieving tax um payers money but actually helping schools
057so look up all that information uh House Bill 156 uh there's some great information on there um mtsba actually sends out uh emails that you should be getting um with lots and lots of information more than probably ever read um there's just been quite a few positive bills for schools one that would benefit us um is funding for sixth graders that's house bill 339 as middle school students right now sixth grade is funded as Elementary um middle school students get a little bit more money so that would help with funding for us um House Bill 405 uh increasing Transportation reimbursements rates that would help us with money uh for transportation quite a few different bills here the bus so we do get a portion back from the state for running the routes that we ran
058so like for the first semester our payment from the state is a little over 9,000 pays for a little over a month for transportation we get that twice a year so we make nine payments so it's like the state pays for seven or two of them and be pay for seven makes it a little better um but yeah if they bump that up that would help kind of offset the the local tax pay so a lot going on um will continue to be it's getting down the wire a lot of times they're having 80 bills a day go through um so they are keeping pretty busy um definitely some bills that um are pretty interesting um but those are kind of the ones that would help with funding that I want to talk about today
059is there any bills that we should be paying attention to that could possibly hurt um the except for that major one that that one is there any other ones that we should be paying attention to not particularly that come to mind for me that was the big one where I really wanted to have people know I mean that would have closed our doors absolutely uh there's certainly some that um definitely are not beneficial but not to the point of closing us down but great question so that's what I have for the legislative okay new business permissive ly resolution so ly of the night um so just so you know um there's a different version in here than the one I originally sent you and that's because the tuition fund I had to tweak a little
060bit so um we have three funds that we permissively Levy in transportation um and that's just based on our transportation needs um and I do take into account the portion and all that when when that's calulated so we're looking at these are rough rough numbers um roughly a $5,000 increase um next year to run the routes we um tuition is a new one we have not traditionally levied anything in the tuition fund uh the 2023 legislature changed how tuition is is done in the state okay he's wide awake now so yeah traditionally we've not um done any sort of permissive Levy in the tuition fund we haven't had a need to the 2023 legislature changed how uh out of District students and tuitions are paid parents no longer have to put the bill for any
061sort of tuition payment um the way it's set up is any kiddos that we have from other school districts we then build that school district during the next school year a few minutes there um for the uh for the tuition amounts and those are um the tuition that you pay to another district is paid for out of the tuition fund and then the [Music] um and so any money that we any money we okay I lost track sorry um so kiddos that we have from so we have we have kiddos from loo so what we will do is for those kiddos we have this year from loo we will build them for tuition next year and they will pay in December and June for this year for this year's amount for this year's kiddos um
062and that money they pay out of their tuition fund we put it into our general fund they're now adding that as part of the general fund formula the tuition monies from other districts so we have I believe a total of 10 kiddos from other districts we have four kiddos that are from our district going to other districts and so that means we have to pay tuition to those school districts for those kiddos which is why I have a $4,200 increase in the tuition Fund in there is to cover that money that we'll have to pay out we have kiddos at low and we have a kiddo at target range so so it cost for us to send those kids there than for them to send them here because of the it doesn't necessarily cost more
063what it does is the kiddos we have coming in we get tuition for we also get to count them for a and b so we get additional general fund funding by having them here when we have kiddos leave we do have to pay a tuition amount um but that's it so so we definitely gain from having kiddos come in um the new aspect is we now have to pay for kiddos that are going out um so you don't want kids going home you don't want kids going out um but it's it's it's the way they set and I don't know why they set it up the way they did so you permissively leving your tuition fund you pay it out of that but when the money comes in from other schools it goes into the
064general fund so it's not even like you can do okay I've got four they've got four to wash you can't even like do it that way because they're going to completely separate f so there will be a new line for taxpayers on the tax bill for the tuition fund for Woodman that's completely out of our hands we have we are required to do it and like I was talking with the business manager at Lo they have like 84 kidos so they're or 80 some kidos they they have they're going to be permissively leving like $86,000 in their tuition fund to pay for the kiddos so so good thing is we don't have we don't have many we're bringing in a lot more than they leaving and I did personally reach out to those families um
065that are leaving us to encourage them to come back and whatnot one works um near target range and that's why they go one and the other one the staff member works at loo so that's why they bring their kids there so um trying to bring anyone hope they lose their job but then they'd have the option of homeschooling which they've done so I don't think we're going to get those three kids back yeah probably not um then the other fun is the building Reserve which I just put this like I said these are such rough numbers we're required to put this together and pass a resolution now um for the legislature back in 2017 I think is when they started this um so I just put a placeholder of $500 in there for the building
066Reserve it's always a small adjustment to that number that we that we have to Levy so that Lev is already pretty much built into the tax bill when you get T you know your taxes you're not really going to see a whole lot of difference when it comes to that building Reserve fund um but yeah those are the three permissively webing funds that we have and so what what happens is you guys approve the resolution um needs to be printed in the newspaper before March 31st um so this will go into the Saturday edition right before the end of the month and um and then we've met the requirements under the law but these are all going to change by the time the budget rolls around in August these numbers will be will be at
067least a littleit so is there a reason then that we need to pass this now yes it's required we have have it done by the end of March okay or we can't Levy in those funds that's that's the we wouldn't be able we wouldn't be able to we wouldn't be able to run bus we wouldn't be able to yeah okay it's completely honestly nonsensical the fact they have it do it in March for something that's so far away it's supposed to be for transparency saate but it's not really we don't it's not really transparent in any sort of real way so we don't know the fing are they're not I can tell you they're not they're a complete shot [Laughter] the resolution sounds it has to be done I mean to increase the approve the
068res just approve the permissive Levy resolution okay I make a motion to approve the permissive l so moved okay item disposal Chromebooks so we have a speack of Chromebooks that are end of life um Chrome books are only contained for a certain amount of years which is why they much cheaper than say a laptop um we contract with Technologic a technology company and they told me that these are just no longer usable we actually have quite a few exra books because we are down in numbers of students um so they have recommended recycling do e recycling for these they tell me that really is any value so just ask for your approval to recycle and do we have new ones coming um so we actually have a surplus of extra ones we could we've actually
069got about 15 extra ones so really need to buy any at this point these are pretty old like seven years old or make motion to dispose of the Chromebooks sure I make a motion to approve the recycling sove policy 5338 so this goes back to the legislative update so we need to be able to take uh advantage of the extra money from the state uh we have a deadline to say that we will increase our base teacher pay which is the qualification to be able to take advantage of that luckily at Woodman there's not a huge gap between thee what the state is asking um but to be able to get in on this extra money uh we need to change our policy now uh and say that we will meet uh that base pay
070uh we need to do that before we even decide about increasing salaries uh and wages uh I would wait till after the legislated session to make those type of decisions but at this point if we don't do this now then we are out and don't even have a chance for this so what's the increase of percentage now to so you have to be at 41615 would be the base and so what it is is when you look at individual teachers we have two teachers that are already above that and one teacher that would be bumped up a little bit um it's a we can do a pretty easy manipulation of the salary stands in order to get there and then once the legislature you know finishes up and we know where we stand then we
071can see about you know an actual tweaking of the okay yeah but we will'll be able to get there pretty easy do what do you want to make a motion to uh to accept policy to meet based pay competitive teacher Bas P yes I make a motion to accept the favor it is great because talking with other districts um some the teacher pay is so much lower that there's no way they can even do this so they're going to miss out on thatone glad yeah okay contract with Harmony Education Services so I have been working on trying to find money for the district and this is one of my ideas talking to other districts so to give you a little bit of background there's a few districts uh in the state primarily I think they're
072all in the bot Val uh Darby St Hamilton and I think Florence might be doing this that's partnering with a company to provide distance learning for students that would like to learn at home uh so Harmony education uh is a company that uh provides the education uh on behalf of the district which is completely computer based for homeschool families that want to remain at home um so the benefit is that that family isting completely free computer-based education for their child uh and the benefit for us is that they will enroll at our school and then we will be able to collect A and B uh which is how we make money for students uh per student uh and then uh we will pay Harmony per child so the great thing is if nobody takes us
073up on the offer then we pay Harmony nothing um so I have uh some flyers I passed out but I also have a little video to show you from Harmony sh it's a it's a quick one 20 the national pandemic changed our lives and shape our world in a different way this includes how we educate our children isn't the goal to provide educational options and personalized learning for all students can we propose an option that perhaps you never thought about first let me ask you some important questions as a school are you constantly looking to build or maintain student enrollment is your school constantly looking for additional funding each year is your school searching for options to educate students who prefer to learn at home would your school like to save money purchasing online curriculum
074programs and what about a program that provides certified live online teachers Harmony Educational Services Bridges the gap between home and school that's right we provide Harmony in today's educational world we can help you build enrollment increase your funding purchase curriculum create diversity and provide teachers all with the flexibility from a students home sounds interesting here are some frequently asked questions how does funding work in every state each student receives funding for educational purposes Harmony takes a percentage of these State funds to perform services and to pass on educational resources to the students the School receives the remainder of the funding for its part of the partnership what can the school district funding be used for keep in mind that the extra funding going to your school can be used in any way that the school
075would like to use it how does this affect teacher retention in our school district while Harmony does provide teachers we we also work with your existing school to utilize your own teachers if needed what resources do you offer for sped students we can help all students including students with specific needs through our Harmony program to get even more information please click the link below after all intelligent people make Intelligent Decisions once they get the facts let's all create more Harmony within our educational World standards inform experiences transform and fitness that's sales so some other questions that I asked uh and wanted to make sure on was that this isn't going to be a burden on teachers um and they provide all of that so in like a mentor teacher for each child uh that works
076with the family um and they do all the grading all the work they use a lot of online platforms um such as an adventum that we already use by University different things like that um so they would be students that are enrolled here uh but if they were completely homebased uh they actually wouldn't receive any education from our teachers the one thing that we would need to do is data entry so on the back end of it office staff wise um either me or our secretary would have to enter things into our student information system uh which is Infinite Campus uh so that's one thing the district would have to do um couple of other things um will actually get money for educational expenses so part of the money that uh we pay harming we
077actually give back to that parent to be able to buy textbooks and things like that that they need so it's a great deal for families um what would you get for students yeah great question so right now this year we get $637 for an elementary student A and B um we would pay uh Harmony 00 so we would have $327 that the district would me now um we actually are probably going to get more for AMV with that 3% increase hopefully um but you're looking roughly a little over $3,000 per student um I really I was skeptical on this at first um I'm like H well this just sounds a little too good to be true and thect isn't doing you know any work and whatnot and being able to collect this money so I
078reached out to some of my colleagues I uh talked with Tony down in Derby for a long time um and I'm like really is there any drawback and whatnot he's like truly no uh they picked up 12 children in Derby and Derby's fairly small um you can see how that you know we get extra money then I talked to Pete and coral they picked up over aund children in house uh and they have kind of a unique situation where they have some um different communities with a higher percentage of homeschooled uh but one thing I do know right now no one else in Missoula County is doing this it's only in R Valley County um and I have Jessica run the numbers we actually only have one student homeschooling in the Woodman School District but
079in Lolo there's 16 students on school um and you know Missoula probably even more right now mcps is not doing this they do have their own online based um like um School run through mcps uh but this is a little bit different than that um I think we have potential to possibly bring more money into the district and there's no risk to the district so if we pick up no students we don't pay anything the other thing that could happen is we could end up picking up somebody and they might uh want to join us and come to school here so that's something that uh in Derby they started with even more and several kids actually ended up coming to school district I don't understand how howman is would be affiliated with the the family
080I don't understand that yeah so do we do we um determine any curriculum through this m or no they do not okay yeah so they're determining the curriculum and they're using curriculum that is approved by the state okay um so edmentum is one that we use that's online based um BYU um there's several companies that provide online learning that are both state and National approved so they only use approved things they actually use a portf system if parents wanted to do like their own electives particularly like for high school um so they could actually um keep track of records and improve that uh to um Harmony um and Harmony would make that a class um the great thing we're we don't have to worry about like high school graduation requirements and whatnot not being a
081high school district so it makes it a lot easier uh so if decided to go with Harmony what I would do is start advertising this uh they would too on their website that we participate in it I'd like to go around talk uh different hom School groups and talk to them let them know about the opportunity uh I know Pete and coral is did that quite a bit um so kind of a great opportunity for families that do homeschool or wanted to be homebased for their education to get totally free based education that's approved and make some money for expenses um such as textbooks and whatnot um they want to buy a computer with that money or what homeschooling is very expensive in a lot of cases like AIS is a very popular program right
082now and and uh it's a lot of money each year for a family and we you the the state doesn't offer any sort of real availability of funds for for curriculum or anything is this like an all or like say have a student who's currently homeo who like can they take like elective classes like can they do like so it's kind of All or Nothing okay but within that because I asked that question of Harmony um there is that portfolio system where if they're doing like wanting to do their own elective cooking class they could do that and prove through the portfolio system presenting to the Harmony teacher and the harmony um they they actually have like a mentor teacher that works with the family directly and lines up their whole course schedule and whatnot
083um and that teacher takes attendance that the KE uh parent reports in and what so Harmony takes care of all that I'm assuming parents have like a pretty it sounds like very family oriented kind of so can they get samples oful and or most of it's all online computer based um but I'm sure that um yeah I'm sure they'll accommodate and I think they do a whole meeting and seeing if it's a good fit or whatnot so really what we're doing is advertising and then parents will have to fill out our enrollment form and we'll have to change an enrollment form says that your distance space to Harmony the other thing that I would do and bring to the board next if you decide to approve that is make a student handbook and I have
084an example from Derby that just talks about your expectations and whatnot talks about the whole program um so it just kind of goes through everything they talk about like extracurricular scorts do those students if we had them would have to come for standardized testing or not so by state standards they would um Darby and corales said that they invited the families to come for testing um there's not a real way to that okay so they're invited but they may mayor okay and then as far as um field trips going on here is that something we offer to the C if considered students so that would be a decision that we would have to make within that student handbook just for dist learning if that ever happens we'd have to make that decision too um so
085if we approve the contract today I would start working on a student handbook and then I would give you that for approval just stud up but have a separate for and that's where we can make that decision do we know how many students in Woodman District are homeschooling or is it just one we got one family right oh really one family how many kids well it doesn't even have it doesn't have to be a Woodman family it could be anywhere in County if they want in Woodman there is not many yeah sounds so would that work for like pal the Idaho side oh yeah that's a good idea it would because I mean but they're in Idaho so wouldn't the harmony thing pay for them yeah if they fill out our enrollment and this is
086a unique thing that happens on Border towns if a student rolls from out of state into a Montana um school they actually become a Montana child and Montana ends up paying for that even though they're from a different state minus the transport kind of not every state does that pry other questions you guys want to make a motion Harmony not not that one not that [Music] one okay I I make a motion to approve the harmony educational services offered through all in favor of say opposed okay so moved okay the creation of a Woodman Foundation I can go ahead and speak to that I have been talking with with Scott about that and um he's he's got his uh one of his financial advisers from his company is calling talking to me and she's looking
087for um some more information she also runs his foundation but in our discussion um he thought that we could probably get more grants to our uh a Woodman Foundation that would also be wouldn't have quite the strings attached to where we could use it for more unless they absolutely stated it was for this amount you know like Scott wanted to give us $30,000 for a teacher and it said for a teacher we would still it would have to be that uh go for the teacher of course if that's what it was but it would give some more local control um or you'd still have to have a board um we did discuss that I don't think that would be would it be a different board than the school board yes so there would be a
088school board and a foundation board yeah it would be separate it wouldn't be under the school at all so it would be a foundation a 501c3 that would have the policies and procedures and bylaws that would be to support our school in different areas that would need to be supported as well as possibly helping with like some of the grants from gm4 and Washington cour and stuff might be more as well if we had the foundation so we're still kind of looking at that do we know if there's any other small school districts that have foundations there are there are um so I did reach out to our legal counsel uh and she pretty much said uh what you said that an outside party not the school would set up a 501c3 and she offered
089to do that of course that cost for an outside party if they want to do that she could does she have a figure what that would cost I know I that it would be about the same as when we were getting a quote for setting up an official PTO and I think that it's about 15 the board members have to be within the district right no know but we would want definitely people that are invested to our area and our school yeah okay yeah that giv us someity Yeah well yeah we got to find money where we find it is that what Derby did with their big donation a few years ago they had a yeah they had a huge um donation that came out um inance yeah and I'm not sure if they funneled
090it through that or not but it was Millions um but I know there have been several um school districts where people have set this up to Sur does anybody know if by doing a foundation if people are more willing uh to to give to the foundation versus um tax or a school levy or is there any information on that um it sounds like Jan's getting that comment that that could be a possibility well I I'm it's a it's a good question it would be nice to talk to some of these other people that do have the foundations and see how that is that's what I was wondered what percentage of people just um not big doners or big grants just everyday um parents we have a lady that donates $100 at the end of every
091year for the library you know she she does little things like that and um and the school can always take donations and they can be spec you know specific to certain things and that sort of thing and and it just it goes into the miscellaneous fund I track it with a project code and make sure it gets used for what it was supposed to be used for um but yeah I don't about the foundations the tax Foundation could they build a fund that grows interest faster oh sure I I feel zero interest in miscellaneous so yeah so yeah I'm kind of looking into the pros and cons on that and if you've got some school districts that you know do I would love to talk I'll start ask I would love to talk to the
092yeah okay information on P and upcoming events I think you already went over that right okay before we close Dan I just want to appreciate you for your willingness to serve as well on the board and you know being invested in the school and just wanted to thank you for that as well okay our next regular meeting will be April 14th at 5:00 p.m. meeting adjourned