001Good evening. I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Jamestown Public School Board to order. It is Monday, December 15, 2025, 5:30 p.m. in the Thompson Community Room. We'd like to welcome and thank everyone in the audience for coming tonight. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible and justice for all. Does the board have any conflicts of interest to declare this evening? Conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest. If not, moving on. School board norms. Oh, Erin, go ahead. Sorry. >> In the case of the executive session gets called. I would be >> okay. >> Up for I have a conflict uh due to my wife >> being a teacher. Same conflict.
002>> Same conflict. Yep. Okay. Any other conflicts of interest? Okay. All right. and schoolboard norms. Dan, >> the board developed norms are to share and respect opinions and speak with united voice once a decision has been reached, execute all duties of the school board in compliance with North Dakota Century Code, properly prepare for meetings, and commit to assessing board effectiveness and ensure high quality governance for all stakeholders. >> Thank you, Dan. We have no public communication. Moving on to our consent agenda. At any time a board member can remove something from the consent agenda. Um or if you want clarification um we can clarify anything. Would the board like anything removed or clarified? If not, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> Motion by Jason. Second by Steve. We have a motion
003and second for approval of the consent agenda. Any discussion? Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote. All those in favor say I. >> I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Moving on to our regular meeting. We have our fall athletic recognition. And so when your name is read, please join me over here. We have a little item for you. And then we're going to have everybody just line up up on the steps here for for one big photo. And parents, please come forward. Come into the middle. Get the best angle for your photo. >> All right. Uh, first boys soccer, John Beltzer, all conference. [snorts] Evan Hardy, all conference. Miles Anderson, all conference, all state, all state tournament team. >> And boys tennis, we've got Luke Lefiv, all conference, all state. And Braxton
004Briquette, all conference, all state. football. Liam Fry, all conference, second team, all state. Cody Barth, all conference. Ryland Doctor, all honorable mention, all conference. Eli Olsen, honorable mention, all conference. Girls golf. Miley Michael, all conference. Girls swim and dive. Marissa Moltzson, all conference. Volleyball. Mary Anderson, all conference. Hannah Atlson, all conference. Lucy Faulk, all conference, all state, first team. Jeda Peterson, all conference, all state second team. [applause] Come right. >> [applause] [snorts] >> under correspondent or on recognition. Um, congrats to all of our fall athletic winners. Under correspondence, we have a thank you um, letter from the Jamestown Community Thanksgiving dinner for all the years of support. So, we appreciate that. And moving on to reports. Do we have student council student council report? Yes. All right. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity
005to share what's happening at Jamestown High School from the perspective of a student. I'll be giving updates on recent events, student initiatives, and upcoming activities. First, we have North Dakota State Student Council Conference. That was December 7th through the 9th, drawing close to 1,300 students in attendance with over 79 schools across the state, including advisors that took place at the Bismar Hotel and Convention Center. The conference brings keynote speakers, breakout sessions that focus on leadership, service, and community. The annual conference was a success fostering leadership development generation generating innovative ideas and building lasting friendships among students. I did ask Jamestown student council members to share their takeaways from that just to show how important it is our attendance in that is because not all schools go. Leah Deitz, junior vice president shared her take takeaway.
006leadership is not always being the loudest. And senior publicity director Clay Bingham, who wanted to be here today, but has choir right now, shared, "I met a lot of new people who are very productive and involved in their schools, not only just in sports and clubs, but genuinely improving school structure and creating spaces for people who need it. Student council convention was a great opportunity for people from schools all over the state giving their ideas, implementing inclusion, volunteering, donating, and creating organizations and donation centers. Student councils around the state have more influence than maybe ours tend to realize. But overall, the best opportunity I took to learn about my influence and creating spaces for everyone in JHS Do you guys have any questions on that or I'm going to move on? >> Any questions on
007that part of our report? All right, go ahead and bounce them. So, kind of going into that, we did have um Ivy Cordell run for state student council president at that conference, speaking to over one, 1300 people. So, that was applause to her. But for her campaign, she had a $200 budget. And one of my topics was um allocating $200 budgets towards campaigning efforts for North Dakota State student council conference because that was kind of a question mark. Um she ordered stickers for her campaign because you're supposed to hand something out that was $150 and that was build towards a school. But um booth decorating, which was a total of $45, was not. So I was wondering if there could be a budget of $200 set towards that. >> With our budgets, we'll talk with
008the student council advisor. Yep. >> Um that's the place for the budget discussions. >> Okay. And then school culture initiatives. I was just wondering if you guys had an update on the peer-to-p peer program and then I was going to share my next steps as well. So >> really just pending enrollments. >> Pending enrollments. Okay. Is that student enrollments? You mean? >> Yes. >> Okay. So the immediate action that I would like to take would be lunch buddies, student escorts, and a joint gym class. Right now, the special education department holds their gym class during fourth hour and it's just them in there. And I think it would be really easy for kids that have a free class just to go in there and have it more volunteer based rather than a set course curriculum
009or a set course >> and I don't think that would need an adviser necessarily >> as we're like I just go in and volunteer. But >> so Bill, who is the remind me again who the student council adviser is? >> Um Mr. Deetsz. >> Okay, great. >> Yep. And th those are some things you probably want to your board um can have discussions with Mr. Deetsz on and and work some of those things out. >> Okay. >> And Mr. Heiner of course as well the principal. So >> um upcoming events we just have snow week everything and we set committees for the dance and pep rally for that facilities. They asked me to bring up um this is they asked me to bring it up here, but I was going to talk to Hiner deicing
010the sidewalk earlier because the students that went in for early lifting and meetings, it wasn't deiced or before 7. So, >> sure. Yep. And maybe you and Mr. Deetsz can make a meeting, set up a meeting with Mr. Heiner to to talk about a few of those things. >> That is all I have. Do you guys have any questions for me? And how many students again went to the student council convention >> from our school? Yes. >> About 22. >> 22. Fantastic. Fantastic. >> 22 out of our 21 out of 23 actually was a number. So >> it's a great turnout. Yeah. >> So it sounds like a great event. So I'm really glad that the student council was able to participate in that. Jason. >> Yeah. So, Belle, your your thoughts on the peer-to-peer
011would be move that from more of a a course to a student organization where people can sign up. Is that kind of what I gathered? >> So, my concern is getting the ball rolling right now so I can personally help make the transition for the students that would be involved, the kiddos from the special education department, and introducing them to new people and stuff like that. So that's where that volunteer-based idea came from. But I would also still like to continue the course of course and my um next step for that is at this conference I asked schools uh which schools had them and it's eight schools out of North Dakota has a peer-to-peer program and the president elect I have her name on here. Her name is Liv. um she is advocating for a
012peer-to-p peer program in every single school in North Dakota. So my next step was reaching out to her since she is president elect of state student council now and then also the four schools that I talked to which is Mandan Century BHS and Dickinson. So any other questions from the board or comments? Okay, thank you. We appreciate the updates on especially the student council convention. I know that's always an board always and really enjoys hearing um the opportunity for students to go and um learn additional leadership skills um through those through those events. So congratulations to your to your organization. >> Thank you guys. And then I can send this uh via email also if you guys want a copy of notes and stuff from Dr. Bet. So >> thank you. Thank you. >> Thank
013you. So, next on our agenda, we have board education. Oh, wait. I missed one thing. Sorry about that. Little blue jay's nest report. >> Oh, okay. Yep. And this was a board requested report. So, Miss Eert and Ms. Olsen, please come forward and give us an update. >> We know we know everybody has already gotten this in the packet. We just want to review a couple things and then take any questions that you might have. The biggest questions that it sounded like we had from the board was how is it doing and where are we going with it? And as you can see, our enrollment in August for infants was zero and we've increased to eight. We're at max for that. Trends are looking that they are going to be more and more enrollments. Teresa
014will speak more on that as well. She's the one that's taking the phone calls and emails on our new enroles. So you can see the projections and then our staff support. We have hired two more staff so we can meet ratios for those. So any questions on this slide or anything you want to add? So I'm getting calls not necessarily just JPS employees, but I had four people reach out on Facebook last night looking for infant spots. Um, of course our priority is JPS employees. that is our priority after that if we have space at this point we are taking people this year unfortunately most people want infant spots next year looking at projections we probably will be strictly JPS employees because we've had a lot of interest already starting to look for especially infant
015spots next year but some toddler age also so y >> just curious on the maximum occupancy there. Is that facilities based or is that staffing based? >> That is where we would like to be facilities based. We are licensed for more than that. We are licensed for up to 63 I believe. >> Um we would be filling pretty tight there. Um >> what is the max in infants though? >> Our max in infants is eight. So we are at max in infants right now. We do have some others like by January we will be at eight but we have some that will transition to that toddler room so that when we have our next baby that comes in March we'll have space there. So the numbers fluctuate as kids continue to move rooms based on
016their age. So moving ahead you also asked about some of our strengths and achievements that we've come across so far. Like we mentioned, we have the additional staffing to help meet those ratios with the incoming numbers that we have. Proare so proare is a program that we have provided to us through um childc care aare in the state. They have been an amazing partner for us. We've had several grants we've applied for through them that we've received. Um we have a consultant who comes and meets with us. I would say about once a month I meet with Vera and we do some things but they provided ProAre for us which is a system where our employees can track everything that they do. So if we feed a kid a bottle we can say you know
017we they were offered 6 ounces they drank five and it's a way for us to keep track but it's also a parent communication tool. So parents get that live feedback. They can log in or they can be on the app on their phone. Um, we try to send pictures, short video updates just so they can see how their day is going so that they can still be involved. We're also able to message back and forth if they have questions or concerns during the day or if you know with our late starts, I can message parents from home to let them know that. So, it's been a really useful tool for us. And then we did think it was noteworthy. We are getting some recognition recognition, excuse me, across the state. And we have the um
018lieutenant governor that will be coming up in January to visit and look at the facilities. So, we're excited that the state and area are starting to ask questions and we're hoping that everybody would be able to have something like this. And we know it wouldn't have been possible without all the community help and grants that we've gotten for this program. Uh part of our program at the Little Blue Jay's Nest is we have some work-based learning students who come in to help us throughout the day. That has been a tremendous help and I think it's been great for them too because they can use those hours towards earning their child development associate credential. Um today we got to start the foster grandparent program in our building. So it's been a process to get there, but
019we officially had our first day with our foster grandparent today. Um, and then we've had amazing support from the school food nutrition services. They have been amazing to work with. A quick call or text back and forth and it's [snorts] it's been a phenomenal relationship there. >> And then just one note with the workbased learning students. We've heard feedback from the community of people that are looking to get into the program that that was an area of concern. And just to clarify, any student that is in the child care facility has gone through the same training from CPR to growing futures, all the requirements that you need to be in a child care center. They've gone through those same pieces and they are never alone. They help us meet ratio, but they are not one
020that's going to be in a room alone. But I would say when you walk into it, you can't tell them apart from the staff that have been hired for that particular piece. We've been fortunate too that we have some students who when we [music] have some gaps at the end of the day, we have some of our work-based learning students who have applied and been hired on as subs to cover an hour or so at the end of the day. So, it's been kind of fun to see that progression with our students, too, that they're very interested in being there with our kids. >> And you also asked for some areas of growth or challenges we may have come across since this is fairly new. and Theresa and I were talking about that today and
021we also have been talking with people across the state that have centers obviously not in necessarily [music] schools but these are not any different than anybody who has a child care center is coming up across but our biggest one I would say would be the staff challenges finding people that have those alignments to what our original goal was and maintaining those and then the student to child ratios staff I should say ratios so um billing process has been a challenge just figuring out the different state programs and about the time we think we have it figured out there are changes to those state programs and that's every child care facility is dealing with that we just had another update of changes that are coming out so it's going to be continuing to learn work through
022that process and learn it but we also know that we can reach out to the state um central office has been great about helping us through some of those challenges too >> just some natural growing pains learning some of the systems and places and then we already mentioned the workbased learning students but one other part to note with that is like I mentioned they can't be counted in our student ratios uh Teresa just informed us there's a feedback piece for the government that we can poss or for the state that we can possibly get some feedback and let them know that that would be very helpful like I mentioned those students are just as qualified as the staff that we've hired it would be very nice and helpful if we could use those to help
023with our ratio comps so if they are not paid staff, we can't count them in. So, like the end of the day where we hire some of those work-based learning students, we can count them then, but when they're not paid throughout the day, we can't do that. So, but anyone under 18 must be supervised by somebody over 18 in the same room as them. So, that kind of can create some challenges there, but we've worked through and we just kind of bounce staff around as we need to to make it fit. And then the last thing you had asked was next steps. What are we looking for? The biggest one we have is to start planning for next year. So, we're looking to start our committee back up and get some feedback on what's gone
024well. Pretty much what we just presented to you with some of the topics we'll have for discussion within our committee to start that registration process. And like we mentioned, we already have people reaching out for next year, especially in that infant category. So, we know that's going to fill up pretty quick. Um we are working on the quality improvement rating system and that is a program called brighten early through the state of North Dakota. Um when we wrote um a grant where we got 40,000 for different needs in the nest um we had to come up with our goal and our goal was to be a step two. We had planned over several years to be but within a year we wanted to be at step one. We are currently at step one. So, we've
025achieved that. Um, we are starting the process of working towards step two. One of the changes that happened with some of the new child care assistance stuff from the state is that you will get bonus payments based on your quality rating. So, we are pushing to get that bright and early rating up higher as soon as we can so that we can take advantage of some of those bonuses from the state to help our program. So, and then the last thing is state licensing. We've been working on that. We've already had two check-ins with that and passed with colors. So, that's been going very well. >> So, our questions are are we hopefully have answered your question. We're wondering what questions you might have for us. >> Thank you. And this is been a lot
026of work to get to this point and um appreciate all your work and dedication to get here. Are there questions from the board at this time? questions from the board. >> Jason, go ahead. >> Kind of an odd one, but is is the facility planning that was all done, is that working um like it was expected to any major um instances there where something just didn't work out for as far as facilities go. >> I'm chuckling because the only major issue we've had is plumbing, but that's to be expected in childcare centers. We're working on that one. Um, but no, everything else if you're talking about the actual rooms in the building that was with that, everything's gone pretty well. We have a couple little hiccups, but those should be taken care of within the
027next month or so. >> Any other questions? Thank you so much. Thank you very much. We look forward to future reports as well. Okay, a couple housekeeping things. Um board members and audience um Jamie Bear is joining us by phone um today. So you have heard there sometimes can be a little delay so just be aware of that. Also um we our next on our agenda is the choice ready overview and high school integration essential skills and we'll invite Mr. Heiner, Mr. Beta and Mrs. Eert up for that. While they're coming up, would the board mind if we moved 4A, 4B, excuse me, under finance up to the next agenda item after this? Um, we have auditors here from Whitmer RO and um, they have to travel back to Fargo tonight. And so, um, we
028would that if the board is okay with that, you comfortable with that? Okay. So, we're going to do our board education here and then after that um, we will move right into 4B finance. Okay. >> All right. Thank you. And joining me this evening is from the beginning is Mr. Beta is my assistant principal. Heidi Eckard is also our assistant principal and she's at assistant director James Valley Career and Technology Center. So biggest piece about North Dakota Choice Ready when you access the website this is more than likely one of the first pages you're going to see and and there's four major components of the choice ready format for North Dakota and that is the essential skills at the top that you see in blue. everything that you see up there and below that is
029post-secary ready, workforce ready, and military ready. And what the state requires of our students is from that part in the blue, our students must meet four of those areas, any four of those areas to be choice ready. Okay? And then for the the areas down below, they must meet two of the three. Okay? And any two of these three. Okay? And so um in addition to that there are also some other key criteria that every student must meet uh as a part of the essential skills. Okay. And these are the required gateways. And so you must be a high school graduate. In other words uh to be North Dakota choice ready. Uh you could qualify as as under a 9-week career educational course or individual counseling. at a Jamestown High School. We fulfill that through
030our counseling piece and our students have access to it as as a part of that four-year ruling plan. And then there's also the career development piece with the counseling. So that's how we fulfill that at our school. There's the financial literacy piece and we complete that through personal finance uh a passing score of a civics test and our students have unlimited opportunities for that. So even if they fail once, twice, three times, they can keep coming back until they fulfill that uh requirement. And then for the computer science and cyber security requirement, uh JHS has an integrated plan for that. Okay, there are still opportunities online where students can fulfill that as well through cyber security, but our integrated plan takes care of uh the vast majority of that. So for essential skills, these are
031the the key areas that we were speaking about earlier. And again, students can meet any four of these. So 25 hours of community service, and we're very fortunate at our school, our students, our students are doing very well with that. And I'll show you some data in just a little bit. Uh as well as 95% attendance, uh career exploration, we fulfill that. Basically, every kid that's part of our school has that opportunity. Uh we have two career fairs throughout their high school experience. One is required, the other is optional. We also fulfill that career exploratory uh with our guidance counselors in the classroom. Okay. uh two or more years of organized extracurricular activities or co-curricular for that matter, successfully complete a capstone project, successfully complete an online learning course, demonstrate 21st century skills, and again
032that's embedded uh within our CTE piece. And so that's where many of our students are are experiencing success with that. And then multicultural awareness as well. And this is the data from 2025. Okay, this is where our students performed just for just just for last year's graduating class. So from last year's seniors, 70% of them met the requirement for 25 hours of community service. Pretty proud of that. In terms of 95% attendance, 61% of our seniors uh met that. uh where we're trending right now through November for our own students. Our juniors and seniors have an average daily attendance rate right now of 96%. They're absolutely crushing. I'm very proud of those kids. Our sophomores are at 95%. Okay. And our freshman are at 93, but they're trending upwards right now. So, pretty pleased with
033the whole big picture. As a school, we're at 95% as an average. Uh our career explor our exploration, we're at 100% as I mentioned earlier. 59% of our seniors that graduated last year uh qualified for co-curricular and 69% qualified for extracurricular. Okay. Uh 84% of our students uh completed a capstone project and that's again embedded in many of our courses and so that's where they're fulfilling that. 75% of our seniors qualified under online learning and 100% of course qualified for 21st century skills and 70% of our seniors qualified for multicultural awareness. And so that's how we obtain that 98% for essential skills. That's a big piece. For schools that struggle in meeting choice ready requirements, chances are really good they they struggle in this area of the North Dakota choice ready. Mr. Mr. Beta is
034going to talk to you a little bit about post-secondary ready and then he also has some data to share about that. >> Dr. Le has a couple questions. >> Mr. Hannard, I have a question. Uh, as it relates to essential skills, you talked about this. It's a gatekeeper. You have to meet essential skills before you can even go down into the other three components. 98%. How does that measure up? 98% of students meeting essential skills. >> That's 98% of our seniors that graduated last year fulfilled that requirement. So, they were able to meet that. Okay. And how does that compare across the state? Do you have an idea? I mean, I'll >> Well, I actually have some data on that which I'll share later. Yeah. Okay. >> Hey, good evening. So, when we get to
035that bottom part, if you've met essential skills, these would be the qualifying uh criteria for postsecary. So, the gateway there says you need a four-year career uh rolling career plan, which all of our students will have. But then we talk about GPA. So they must have a minimum GPA of a 2.8. If those conditions are met, we have basically two ways you can be considered postsecary ready. The first in the top right up there would talk about like your ACT scores or your SAT scores. Eventually it will be the ND uh Northakota A+ assessment once they get there. Those cut scores haven't happened yet, but if you qualify under those, you'd be considered choice ready. In the event you don't hit an ACT score, you don't hit the SAT benchmarks, to the bottom right, there's
036a list of criteria there, and you need two out of that whole combination. It could be any of those. So, as you read through, there's like AP courses, you have to have, you know, an A, B, or C. You take a dual credit course, ABC, C. Algebra 2, an A, B or C. If you take the AP exam, you need a three or higher. If you take the international balorate exam, four or higher, 3.0 GPA for the course uh requirements for the Northakota University um admissions process. Um if we had cream, which we don't, uh that would be a qualifying uh 70% or greater. And the bottom would be three fine art courses where you get an A, B, or C. So several areas there for our students to u meet. Um and we'll go
037to the next slide and show you. I don't know which one. manage clicker. We'll show you the next slide here on where how our kids did. So you can look here, this is AP data for our students. Um you can see on the left hand side talks about the course. The next column over would be your um earned a minimum of a three which is a passing score in the AP exam. And then you can see some more data as far as the pass rate our kids had. And then the North Dakota pass rate to the right. Uh so our students did absolutely amazing. They did very very well. Um, even in the criteria like calculus, well, we had a 70% pass rate, but we had only 10 kids taking it. So, I mean, that's
038to take into consideration along with psychology. Uh, same with chemistry. We had only five kids in AP Chem, but four of the five hit a pass rate. Um, and as you go down, you can kind of see we had 47 of 106 kids get a a four, uh, which is amazing. and those um scores then translate to other colleges and accept it as credit for for those courses. Okay. Then dual credit. Uh next one will be your dual credit for our kids. And this is just total students that earn credit. So you I won't read through all the courses, but you can see like comp 110 we had 36 students for semester 1. Comp 120 we had 37. Uh, and you can go down the line and see how many number of students took advantage
039of dual credit opportunities and earned credit, which all adds to our qualifying criteria for um, post-secondary ready and I'll visit a little bit about the workforce ready area because the career and tech obviously fits well with this correct or this particular spot. I'm not going to read everything for you, but you get the idea from what we have to have. But basically, the career and tech courses with an A, B, or C. And then those career ready practices, which have been mentioned a couple of times tonight, there's many of those. They're new this year with the area that they have redesigned at the state. But they cover stuff from leadership, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, integrity, timeliness, skilled employee, all those different pieces that they mentioned earlier. Kids are assessed on. Instead of the ACT or
040SAT, we have the work keys option. The industrial credentials, I've been looking into those because at the Career and Tech, we'd love to send every kid off with a job offer in one hand and a some sort of certificate or credential in the other hand. They do not have a list out, but when I last looked, which was last week, they were hopefully having that fairly soon. But we do have ASSE, which is the automotive certification. We have CPR. We have a mechatronics possible certification that students can get. Um, OSHA we're working on, and aerial lift, and CDA, like Theresa Olsson mentioned earlier, some of the ones that we have right now for students as opportunities. So, I'm hoping many of those, if not all of those, will be on that list that they'll accept.
041And then the workplace learning experiences. You see two of those up there. I'm most wellversed in the Perkins part because that is a direct correlation with what we have at the Career and Tech Center and Mr. Jerry Wagen is our workbased learning coordinator that sets those up. When it's with the Perkins funding, what we have is students want to have a class or two in that area and then they go out into the workforce and their employees are assessing them on those career ready practices. again. So, as you can see, we've heard it three different times, those career ready practices are a big part of the workforce ready part. And then I will mention with the world languages, I did think it was noteworthy that sign language would fit under a world language. just as
042a little tidbit with that questions that you have for workforce on this piece. >> The the first criteria there um complete three CTE courses or more. Um is there is it a concentrator type setup or can it be three different courses? um any like program that the student needs to take two of the three. Does that make sense? Yes. What are the requirements there? >> That's a great question and the state likes to look for concentrators and obviously we'd love if if all students could figure out what they want to do, but high school is also an opportunity for career exploration as we heard in the other parts. So either of those criteria will meet depending on what the student needs. We have many that take all sorts of different career and tech classes as
043well as ones that decide to be concentrators, which means they have two or more credits in a program area. Thanks for asking that. Good question. And then how was this earned for our Jamestown students? You can see the list of courses that we have up and available. The new ones that we have, we have CDL, we have culinary, and agriculture is back in from being on a little hiatus for a while, but otherwise the rest of those have been up for for a while. Any other questions? So, the third area where students can earn choice ready would be military ready. Okay? And of course, they have to have that four-year rolling plan. And in order to be choice ready under for military ready, it would be a score of 31 on that ASVAB. In addition
044to that are the indicators to the far right. Quality citizenship, so no suspensions or expulsions. And they have to be physically fit, successfully complete a required physical education course, earning that ABC of course. Complete two or more additional indicators from post-secary or workforce ready options or complete two credits JOTC or civil air patrol or complete two credits in the military pathway program. Those top two that you see are actually available right now through North Dakota Center for Distance Ed. So our students have that CTE is actually well they're exploring the the bottom three as a way of adopting that and bringing that on board but that has not yet uh been approved. So any questions from military ready? Okay. So, here's some choice ready data from the 2024 through 2025 class back through time. And
045this goes as far back as the year 20 uh 2020 to 2021. And that'll be the groupings on the far left and everything in the green. Uh 21 to 22 of course will be in the blue. Uh the 22 to 23 school years in the orange and the uh 23 to 24 areas in the gray. And then to the far right, of course, that's our most recent data with that class of 2425. Pretty proud of where our students are currently sitting. Okay, for essential skills, again, we're still shining at that 98%. Okay, postsecondary ready, we've raised the bar a little bit at that. We were at 59 earlier uh in July and and after our report came through North Dakota sleds, okay, it came out to 65% for our school. Okay. Um, for workforce ready,
046we're at 98% of our graduating seniors have fulfilled that. Um, military ready life skills, we have made some serious jumps there. So, 65% of our seniors qualified for that last year. And then choice ready, right, 80%. And that's absolutely incredible to to reach that mark. Pretty proud of our kids uh in terms of our progress in that. I think one of the things that makes it so difficult for choice ready is the fact that this piece is so incredibly fluid depending on our legislature and whether that's changes and shifts that they're making to that. All right. Um to say hey we're going to up the Annie a little bit to push kids a little bit more because we believe that they can excel and that also can impact the state scholarship side which would be
047a whole another presentation. Okay. So but we can talk about that at another time if if you wish. we'd be happy to come back and talk about uh our progress there, especially over time. So, um any questions with the data that you see there? Um you might note and you might ask why were we so low uh just the year before uh in military ready and it's 17%. And we used to test our sophomores and then we made a shift. We started assessing our juniors for the ASVAB and that group actually slipped by us that year. We invited them as seniors to jump on board. We even scheduled an extra test date. Uh they weren't too excited about taking yet another test their senior year and I get it. Um and so that was part
048of that piece. Uh another thing that I I did not talk about earlier, but I think is significant to note. Um and that is the the change in requirement for the ACT. Okay. And so it's no longer required to get into our universities. It is tied to many scholarships, however, and it's also tied to the state scholarship. So, we still have a good number of kids uh that are taking the ACT for that reason because because they do want to use it as a qualifier. Um but and again, I I'm not really sure how much more moving forward we're going to trend up or down in that area. It's really going to depend on the interest of that exam. Any questions from this slide? Okay, here's some data in terms of comparing Jamestown High School
049to the left over that same time period to the state averages to the far right. And that's where you'll see in that 23 24 area where we were a little bit low in military ready, but we're really making some great strides there. actually were trending upwards or steady in in basically every category for Jamestown High School, even postsecary ready. And so that is really encouraging to see versus the state average. Any questions with this? Okay. So, how's data collected? Well, first of all, it's downloaded from Power School. Uh, it's imported from our NDUs system. So, that's a big piece of that is GPA, CTE courses, ACT, advanced placement courses, dual credit. All of it comes from NDUs. All right? And then the piece that you see down below that is collected from our students. And
050so when our students come in to have meetings with their counselors and they begin talking about the courses they'd like to take for the following semester, they first meet with uh a lady from our office named Dorothy Lawinger. And honestly, I think she's the best in the business. She does a very good job of collecting the information, everything that you see in the blue from community years of of volunteer service, co-curricular and extracurricular participation, activities like 4, figure skating, things that sometimes go by the wayside. She does a very good job of asking kids about their participation in those opportunities. Um, let's see, summer or afterchool employment and technical assessment in the vind. All right. So, again, that's a big piece of her portfolio and she's incredible. Our counselors also do a very nice job
051of following through to making sure that all those things are in place for those kids. So, where is JHS shining? Well, essential skills for sure and 98% very proud of that. Workforce ready. We're at 98% of our our students at least for last year. All right. They fulfilled the that requirement. Postsecary ready. Only Fargo North, Fargo Davies, Bismar Centry, Grand Forks, Red River scored a higher percentage than us. All right. So, I'm very proud of where our school is trending in that area as well. And then of course that choice ready mark of 80%. Uh that's a a very high mark to be a proud of. All right, for our students and so um I believe we were the first one since our last update to reach that mark for our school. So how can
052JHS improve? Well, I look at this as a big place for us would be the ASVAB. There's opportunity there. So we continue to provide ASVAB test preparation for our students. We created a comprehensive AVA ASVAB test prep guide for them. It explains the purpose of all subtests. It follows the order of the exam. Uh there are sample questions. There's key vocabulary terms, visual models. Uh we actually built that. I I looked at purchasing some ASVAB books. Uh the they're at a price point that's up there. I'll just say that. And then even if you buy like five or 10 copies, will kids really take an interest and check that out and and return it in a time where another student would have access to it. So our students have complete access to that. Um we
053promote second uh ASVAB attempts in March and that's by the way for juniors and seniors. Uh we we had a new subgroup of seniors come in just this week where we're going to be meeting with them and informing them of the two dates of opportunities that they'll have to take that especially if they're within oh probably five points of of making that score. I think they they'd have a great opportunity to do that. Uh promoting extracurricular and co-curricular and club opportunities for our students and expanding dual credit offerings. We just did that of course through uh speech and then leverage of JHS newsletter to educate our parents and we've been pretty active about bringing parents up to date this year with activities within the school and that was of course noted in our last newsletter.
054All right, any questions? >> Any questions from the board? Jason, >> as far as the extracurricular, co-curriculars go, um, are there expectations within that? Meaning, can you just get your name on the FBLA roster and you're counted or do advis the club advisors sign off, document what they've done? Um, or do the students requ are required to do that? We actually gather a lot of that information from the students, you know, and we can cross reference it with coaches and adviserss to confirm. All right. But yes, a lot of that information comes from our students. >> Yeah, it's just participation. >> Other questions from the board? It's a lot of data to track. >> Very proud. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Okay. Next on our agenda, we are going,
055as we discussed, going to move 4B, finance to the next item. And it is um the agenda items are approval of the audit, number one, financial statements, and a governance correspondence, and b report on internal controls. So, we'll let Whmer come forward and in person this time. Yes, welcome. >> Good evening everyone. Oh, is this off? >> You're good. >> Okay. Good evening everyone. Uh my name is Craig Hashburgger. I'm an audit partner at Whitmer. Um as you all know, this is our second year as a firm working with uh Jamestown Public School District and we really have enjoyed working with you the past two years. First year of an audit is always a challenge for everybody involved both um you know in this on Christiey's end as well as on our end as auditors.
056Um, obviously we got got the audit done and and all came out relatively relatively unscathed that year. This year I think things went tremendously well. Um, here we are. You know, it's not even your end yet and here we are presenting before you and very pleased to be doing so. Um, but with that, I won't uh say anything more. I'll just uh hand it over to John Warl who is the manager who who did a lot of the heavy lifting on this and was out here um on site working with Christie and and the um accounting team each of the last couple years. So, thanks again for having us. Get this down to my height quick. Uh yeah, like Craig said, thank you for having us. Uh my name is John WHL. I'm an audit
057manager with Whitmer Ro. Um very happy to be here. Um, and so, you know, like Craig said, we're out here in uh, September. I think it was the second week uh, for 3 days of field work. Um, you'll see me and Craig up there, but we also had three other uh, associates with us who did, I would say, even more of the heavy lifting um, over the course of the engagement. You know, my my role in the audit is to be able to uh, you know, speak to the client, direct them on where to go. They're [snorts] the ones doing a lot of the work. Um and then you know Craig's role is ultimately the responsibility at the end of it for the entire um audit report itself. [clears throat] And so uh this audit
058was for fiscal year uh 2025. So this would include the activity from July 1st 2024 through June 30th of 2025. Um, as far as the opinion itself, it is an unmodified um, opinion over everything, which is a clean audit opinion. Um, another way to think of it would be, you know, a passing grade uh, would be a good way to think of it. Um, and that is over all opinion units. That would include the governmentwide statements as well as the fund financial statements with the major funds and the aggregate remaining fund information. Um, I could bore you with the details on what all that means. So I'll refrain from that unless you want to ask me about it. Um but everything was unmodified. Additionally, there is a uh single audit portion of the audit which
059uh deals with the federal grants that the school uh receives and puts on uh for stuff like Title One, special education, child nutrition cluster. Um there's other ones, but those are the main ones. Um I'll get into more detail on that later on during this presentation. Um but the actual independent auditors report is pages 1 through three um of the main packet of information. It will spell out the the uh responsibilities of both management and auditor. Uh the main responsibility for management is to be able to prepare uh a full set of financial statements that are free from material misstatements. It is worth noting that while we do assist with the preparation of the financial statements, it is ultimately the responsibility of Jamestown School District for those amounts. Uh, additionally, the school is required to
060design, implement, and maintain a system of internal controls to ensure that there are no material misstatements in the financial statements. um our job as auditors is to express an opinion on that um via audit procedures, looking at bank statements, looking at uh invoices for expenditures. Um again, I could go into a boring amount of detail, but that's the main areas. I do like to provide some numbers in these presentations. So, this first one is uh the cash over time specifically for the general fund. you will see that it does stay you know relatively stable. Um looks like there is a jump in 2023 to 2024. Um but then again does stay stable and at the end of 2025 uh the amount of cash is about 8 million. I think it was a little bit over
0618 million if I remember correctly. Oops. Here we go. Uh this next slide will show uh on the income statement which is page eight. The main sources of revenue uh for the general fund. Um as is typical with most school districts in the state uh the state source revenue is the main source. That would be uh stuff like transportation aid per pupil aid um stuff that is uh coming from DPI. Um the next main source is the local source revenue. That is mostly property taxes. Um there is some other amounts in there but the main one in there is property taxes. And then the smaller piece of the pie there is the federal source revenue. Um that is basically getting reimbursed for uh through DPI and other federal agencies. Um sorry not federal agencies but
062other uh federal grant agencies. um you know what basically what you put into the federal programs such as title one special ed and so on. Uh this next slide uh sticking with the general fund is the kind of the let's call it a pie chart over the expenditures. Um you will see and this is pretty typical and I looked at last year's audit report and it was about the same ratios. The regular instruction piece of the pie takes up about half of it. Um, and everything else uh takes up about the other half of it. As you can see, uh, this next slide is um for governmentwide. So, this would be bringing in other funds outside of the general fund such as, you know, food service, student activities, um, you know, other stuff. And um
063you'll see uh I think specifically the revenues increased by a million if I'm looking at that right and the expenditures decreased by about two million there still fairly steady um but there is some increases in there also. Included with everything else will be a listing of um journal entries that were um made on um over the course of the audit. Um these are not indicative of the school district needing to change anything with their financial processes. Um, there are certain items that need to go on the financial statements, uh, such as receivables payables, uh, capital asset information, long-term debt, uh, pension obligations, stuff like that that are not necessarily tracked in the internal accounting software, um, that do need to make it onto the actual audit reports. This is common amongst all of our school
064district audits, so it's not indicative of Jamestown School doing less than other school districts. Um it's just for us to be able to present GAP financial statements. Uh these adjustments are necessary. Uh some of the more significant note disclosures um would be the I think I'm trying to read that note five and note six and seven below. Um note five has to do with the uh uh long-term debts. Uh so long bonds payable, certificate of indebtedness, uh leases and loans as well as any compensated absences. Um basically what that note is showing is um the activity of long-term debt uh for the year as well as any um debt service requirements to the maturity of those debt items. I do have it noted in there that compensated absences did increase quite a bit. Um that
065is not due to anything schoolwise as far as like policies or anything like that. Um that is what is called Gazsby 101 and it it just changes how compensated absences are being recognized. Uh fiscal year 2025 would have been the first um effect on school districts for this. So that's where that increase is coming from. Um note six and seven. Um this is talking about net pension liability and OPED liability. Um, if you look on page four of the audit report, you'll see there's I want to say it's about 32 million of total liabilities. 29 million of that is net pension and OPED liability. This is not saying that over the course of the next however many years the school is going to be paying off 29 million to retired teachers. Um, this is stemming
066from about 10 years ago. There's a gazby pronouncement gazby pronouncement for 68 and 75 that requires these to go on the financial statements. Um, in my opinion, it's more of a ND pers and NDTFR liability, not a school district liability, but it does have to be shown on there. I think this time would be a good time to pause for any questions on the I guess the number side of it if anyone has any. Any questions from the board this far into the report? Okay, continue on, please. >> So, yeah, this next piece of it will be uh going over any required communications um over the course of the audits. There would have been a letter to governance um with the entire audit um audit report and everything else. Um we are required to communicate
067certain items to the board um you know before, during and after the audit. Um the main one being any significant risks um for the audit. I do stress because we get this question all the time. This is not indicative of any findings or any issues that came up during the audits. It is to help us plan our audit procedures for a su successful audit. U most of those are basically uh at all of our clients. The one exception is uh you'll see I think it's the fifth one there issues related to bank reconciliations. Uh this is stemming from the prior audit. There were some differences um in the uh cash reconciliations that there was a finding for it. Um so we did have to include that this year as a significant risk just because of
068prior experience. Um the cash uh stuff was [snorts] uh remedied this year. So there was no finding in the audit report this year. Um but it is again a significant risk over the course of the audits. Uh significant difficult difficulties. I can say very proudly that there were none. [snorts] Um clients, uh Christy and staff were very responsive responsive to all our requests. Um like Craig said, we're here I want to say or virtually here in March to present last year's auto report and all of a sudden we're here in December again. So it went very well um this year and I think a lot of the items with the delay last year was like Craig said with the first time engagement. Um and then we also are required to uh provide a list of
069any Aje and Gazsby entries. Um that was mentioned on another slide. Those are the items related to you know capital assets, debts, uh pensions, other related items. Uh [snorts] we do have to issue a report on compliance required by uniform guidance. Earlier I did talk about uh child nutrition cluster and special education cluster which are the two programs we tested uh for the single audit portion. Um and so again this one also came back as a clean audit opinion. Uh there were no findings related to any federal programs. Um as far as any responsibilities of management uh they are responsible for overall compliance with all federal programs in accordance with uniform guidance. Um and then we are you know responsible for testing those areas. Um that all that will be in a separate package called
070like this we refer to as a single audit package. It's about a I want to say about a 15-page document. It would include uh the opinion over uniform guidance the opinion over internal controls the which is the schedule of expenditure of federal awards and a couple of items in there as well. I think I'm going to gloss over this slide a bit. This is just giving a description of uh the certain levels of findings. Um the one finding this audits um and I'll stress this is a finding at a vast majority of our clients. I did mention earlier there is adjustments necessary for items such as again pension, capital assets, long-term debts, other areas as well um in order to be able to present GAP financial statements. This has to do with us, you know,
071assisting with u [snorts] the preparation of those financial statements and for that reason uh we do have to issue a finding for that. Um like I said, this is a finding at basically all of our clients. Um, in my career doing this, which is over 10 years, I can think of four or five clients who don't get this finding because they do prepare a full set of financial statements. They're typically the LA largest counties and schools in the states that [snorts] um have, you know, 10 15 staff on board. Okay. [snorts] Okay. So, I think that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. >> Any questions from the board? regarding the findings. Any questions? All right. Is there a motion for 4B with one A and B to approve
072the audit? >> Motion by Steve. >> Second by Aaron. We have a motion, a second to approve the 2020 2025 audit. Correct. 2020 2425 audit. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved and we'd like to thank you for coming out and and meeting with us in person. Um we appreciate that. So, thank you and drive safely. >> Absolutely. Thank you. [clears throat] >> Turn back a page here. Okay, we're going to go back to um the approval of the strategic plan progress monitoring. We have dashboard goal 3.3 chronic absenteeism. Goal 4.3 choice ready. Dr. Le. >> Okay. Uh thank you. You have both of these written reports. Uh and both of these have either received updates today or in the
073last few [snorts] months. So, some of these areas I will touch on a little bit more uh than others. Some I'll gloss over. Uh but as it relates to chronic absentee rate, our goal uh a very aggressive goal has been 12%. Um and uh all of the data that we get comes from North Dakota Insights. So that's a public, you know, we want to make sure that if if you are uh watching online, then if you go to the the North Dakota Insights website, uh treasure trove of information uh exists on district information, academic progress, student information, post-secary education, the district environment, special education performance, and staffing. There is quite a bit of information available uh on all all public school districts across the state. Uh this is a great resource for families and it
074also drives uh the data collection for our strategic plan. Um if you go to slide four uh you can see the chronic absentee rates. Uh so you'll see a trend down. We were at 15% uh at the last completed school year. Uh our just this la I'm sorry we were at uh 15% in the 23 24 academic year. our last completed school year, um we saw a decrease down to 14%. So, not at our goal, uh of 12%, although I will say 12% is is a very aggressive goal and I I want us to keep it there. I think that's a great goal to strive to, I just want us to put it into context uh of where that is. You'll you see where the state average is. We're certainly below that. Our focus is,
075of course, on our district uh and where we're going. Uh but you'll see that decrease from you know we we've been pretty steady in 14 15%. I have a lot of different slides uh in this presentation more for your awareness than um for report but that includes district demographics and then a breakdown for the attendance rates or I'm sorry the absentee rates at each building and demographic breakdowns at each building. I won't go into those as a whole. Uh but my focus I I'll touch on a few. My focus is on the district result narrative. So, as I said, we've seen a slight improvement decreasing that chronic absentee rate uh from uh 15% to 14%. And I will bring you back to what is what does a chronic absentee rate mean? Uh we use the
076definition that the department of public instruction uses. uh and that is a students who a student attending school for 10 or more days uh who also miss 10% or more of their enrolled days within that school year. So that's how we meet that chronic uh absentee rate or that's how we get to that uh attend for 10 or more days and miss 10% or more of enrolled days within that school year. Uh so again at at a as a district uh we're seeing a decrease below our 12% but we are trending towards that. So I would say that we are on track. Um what you'll see if you look at statewide data uh you see very similar ratios. Uh we're lower consistently but you're seeing the same uh trouble areas across demographics that we see.
077ours are lower, but you see trends that are very similar otherwise. Um, so why I why I bring that up is I don't believe systemic systemically I think we're on the right track. We just have some areas that we need to uh provide a little focus on. But from a system standpoint, I think our process uh and what we're doing uh is working well. uh but targeted interventions with some student subgroups at different levels. That's where we're going to see our ability to go from that 14 15% down to 12 to 10%. Is by being a little more surgical in some of those interventions with subgroups. Uh I went through uh in collected this or showed this data at every school. um you see at every level below the state average in some different um
078you know demographic changes than others. Uh the high school below uh that state average uh again above our our target at 12%. Uh but you're seeing that trend there at 16% chronic absentee rate. Um at the middle school you see that decreasing 19% when in the in the 23 24 uh down to 16% uh in 2425. Uh again still below the state average a little bit above the state average like the high school. Uh at the elementary level uh you see I'll start with Gustner. Uh really very low. I don't know that any I've never seen a score an absentee rate that's that's at 3%. Uh I think that's a real celebration um at at that level and you see a very low a very low rate also coming uh with Louis Lamore. One thing
079I will point out is that this has five elementary schools and not four. We're going to see a shift uh as our students have been distributed into four. So you'll see an increase uh in Gustner very likely uh in the next school year just as those uh as those demographics has been have been shared um between the four remaining schools. Uh at Lincoln Elementary uh you'll see a pretty flat line uh from where it was two years ago. um at Louis Lamore a decrease at Roosevelt a decrease um and I have at every one of those uh different schools just touched on a little bit about the the subgroup that we're seeing overall uh the impacts and again it really comes down to being surgical at those specific levels uh with particular subgroups and they
080and they vary somewhat uh by by building to building. It's not the same subgroups everywhere um that are but but there are some trends in terms of special education. Some of our um some of our other subgroups have have consistently been in there. Uh Hispanic students, our English English learner students, our homeless students are all exhibiting higher than the norm for uh chronic absenteeism. They're still below the where the state is at, but they're high compared to our um at our district level. So with that, I'd stand for questions on chronic absentee. >> Any questions for Dr. Luck? Erin. >> Yeah. So I think in instances here where we were making a statement that the uh you know, we're not meeting the goal for for this specific objective. um in order to you know put
081some teeth to the to the strategic plan is to just detail out all right so what are we going to do different then specifically and then will that then what's our confidence level in in achieving or closing the gap on on our goal by the end of the year >> yeah I we have uh we're very fortunate to have a students attendance review board committee that works uh this is the data that we will provide to the student attendance review board they will look to strategize in the specific areas uh at the different levels uh to help us bring from 14% down into the 10 to 12% range. So that's really the next step of where this goes is giving this to our practitioners, our counselors, uh our administrators that work in uh um for
082the work with the student on the student attendance review board uh and help them to develop or have them help to develop strategies that are going to be specific to bring down those where we need to be surgical in those targeted areas. Do you mean to report it on on here? What? >> Well, we'll be asking you asking the board to approve this then, right? And that's an action that I would expect to see within this package then to say, "Okay, so these are the next steps and how we're going to close the gap." >> Yep. >> And because that's that's a part of the the whole approval process then say, "Okay, the board's on board with that plan to to do that." Okay. Owen, go ahead. >> Yeah, [clears throat] this interesting uh to
083break it down by kind of um at risk demographics and but then the the to be considered chronically absentee. It's that over 10 days and 10% threshold. Is there this uh committee with the counselors and stuff? Are they looking at the kind of the seasonality too through time of because the data we have right here is just at an aggregate, right? Are there things beyond just demographics or at risk demographics that may be at play like times of the year where there's more absenteeism or um things like that? >> Yeah, I would have to talk we would have to, you know, to get a little bit more granular like that. We would need to talk with the the SAR board u to look into that. I I I off the top of my head don't
084know the answer to that. The seasonality, I'm sure yes, there is. Um how the the SAR process works is uh after there's there's certain thresholds of days missed met so five days that brings forward a counselor one-on-one counselor conversation uh with the family. What barriers are you seeing? You know, how how can we help get your child to attend? Uh and then as the days continue um it gets a little more um administratively involved where a letter comes then it's a one-on-one meeting with the c with the with the principal uh those kinds of things to to uh bring forward uh more teeth to the expectation of to attend and that could be all the way up to loss of credit if they're in a credit bearing class like at the high school. Uh but
085in terms of the when uh I'm certain that there's some seasonality related to to absenteeism, but uh a lot of our families once they start to get those notifications and those connections, many stay at many don't need the letter. Uh many don't, you know, and even fewer go towards the administrator conference. So what we've seen is that connection to home from our counselors is a lot of what our families need to maintain below that chronic absentee rate. >> Thanks. >> Other questions from the board about the the report? >> Okay. The second report is goal 4.3 choice ready. Dr. Luck. So, you went through a great piece of board education on this. Uh, I'm only going to touch on a handful of things. One that our metric is 80%, if you go down into um
086slide five, our goal is 80% and um our range is 80 to 84% uh on ND insights. Uh the reason they have to give you a range is we have subgroups with small sample sizes. So, they have to give you ranges. Uh so we're in the 80 to 84% range, meaning that we've met uh that expectation, met that strategic plan goal as it relates to choice ready. Um I won't dig in a lot more to that unless uh there are more questions just because our our [snorts] administrators did such a nice job of providing that information already. Um the one thing I will say, I'll editorialize it a little bit. uh infusing uh essential skills into our course requirements I think is a huge driver towards a a large number of uh students meeting choice
087ready that essential skills as a gatekeeper and at when 98% of students our seniors are meeting that mark just they're going to have uh more meeting two of the three of choice uh uh in choice ready postsecary workforce or military ready um they just they're going to and I think where you see schools that don't have this level of choice ready uh that's a big piece of it is the essential skills because that you you stop if you don't meet four essential skills you don't move forward down into the the choice ready components you just stop and so the fact that our students just by coming to school are meeting a lot of those essential skills they are much more likely to advance on to being choice ready. So, I think that uh great credit
088to uh the high school administrators and the staff that have embedded those skills because without that, I think you wouldn't see we wouldn't have been able to meet this goal. Uh and um I I do think that as Mr. Heinard had pointed out Azab. We saw the ASVAB as um as a a hole or a gap uh where we didn't have as many taking and they targeted a lot of different strategies in which they're going to increase uh the students uh taking the ASVAB which means more students will become military ready. you'll see that number grow from 80 to 80 80 84% uh much higher uh when you see more students meeting that military ready standard more take the ASVAB you're going to see a higher number there uh and I appreciate the work that
089they've done there already uh we also later on in this um later on in this agenda is a request to approve a course uh for military uh as the military pathway that's another component that's going uh see an increase in military ready as well. I've included more demographic information for you. Uh but um you know outside of that, the only other additional metric uh beyond choice ready uh is our cognitive commitment. We have engagement in a couple different indicators. Cognitive is one. I'm on slide 12. Uh you've seen over time that's increased from 32 to 39%. Our goal is 50%. So we are we are on track but we are not at uh the 50% mark. We're seeing an increase which the there's a certainly a positive trajectory uh on those engagement scores. Uh but
090that is where we were at as far as our 2425 school year which is our last completed year. Uh so under that amount uh but uh trending upwards. So with that I would stand for questions on choice ready. >> Any questions on choice ready as presented? Okay. All right. So we have approval of the strategic plan progress monitoring and so we're we're approving the progress monitoring and to your point Aaron we can have some followup on on um actions that uh and strategies. So >> yeah, I'll ask I'll ask Sarb to provide some specific strategies uh and then we'll present on those and throughout the course of the year probably let it be into the spring uh to give them a chance to dig into the data. >> Steve, >> can we go back to
091the absenteeism very quickly? um just I don't know what uh the metrics are that uh where SARB gets involved but um if if simply getting them involved is where the kind of where the buck stops can we just get them involved one or two days earlier. I mean that seems like a viable p path forward. >> Yeah, we certainly can. uh you know what you know what our data has shown is that uh and I don't know that it's related to that question is related to how soon we engage uh but but I think it's like 80% of our students don't have more than five p five absences so they're about halfway to that to that trigger uh and I don't know that it's directly ly related to those to those phone calls. But I
092do know that those that trend up, we've seen a decrease in those that are reached 10 by the earlier intervention and the tone of the call. In the past, we sent letters directly uh and it was administrators that made those first calls uh as opposed to counselors and it was uh it was viewed uh more as authoritarian than helpful. Uh but I we can certainly talk to them in terms of if they think an earlier intervention uh would help that or um you know three might be a pretty low number because not all of our absences I mean some just can't be helped. Um but uh but that's something we certainly can bring up to the SAR committee. >> Any other discussion on the go? All right. Okay. So we um the agenda item is
093approval of strategic plan the progress monitoring and reports that were given today. Is there a motion? >> Motion by Aaron. Second. >> A second by Jason. We have a motion. A second for approval of the strategic plan progress monitoring dashboard goal 3.3 chronic absenteeism. Goal 4.3 choice ready. Any discussion? Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. >> I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Moving on to the superintendent report. Dr. L. >> So, you have my written report. Um, very excited about a couple things. First, uh, we have a new hire recommendation that you'll act on later uh, in this meeting. uh Paul Mson who has been a teacher in our district in the past uh in in uh the alternative program, the Blue J Academy uh
094and uh at the high school. Uh this would be for as a CDL instructor. Uh Heidi mentioned that earlier, Mrs. Zard mentioned that earlier. Uh adding CDL uh into our CTE offerings uh with Mr. Mson will be able to offer that not only to um uh to our students, but eventually uh that would be there's potential for that to be offered throughout the community as well. Uh so I think that's something I'm very excited about. I think there's a significant need in our community workforce uh related to CDL and I'm looking forward to seeing that um come to fruition here next semester. Uh the next two items relate to uh art artificial intelligence tools. Uh so as part of the seek grant uh one of the packages that come is is what they are calling
095the gavvel guide. So from a parliamentarian standpoint if you have questions on Robert's rules of order uh you can click on uh that link. What I would encourage you to do is to make that an app on your phone or a link a hyperlink on your bookmarks and so you can click on there if you need to ask a question. How do I amend a motion? Uh what is the process for tableabling a a motion? whatever the case is, you can ask that. It essentially becomes your parliamentarian. Uh it's also been uh uploaded with u all things parliamentary procedure and Robert's rules, but also North Dakota's open meeting laws. So if you have questions related to governance and that standpoint, you can ask the bot and it will give you a a well uh curated
096answer. Uh along those lines, uh one of the agenda topics that's coming up later is uh a contract with the same vendor uh that uh that we received the grant for uh to do the strategic um strategic plan dashboard and and the governance side uh is a benefit simulator for staff. Uh kind of the same idea. There'll be there would be a website with common questions and key areas all of a kind of a clearing house of all of our benefit information whether that is our benefits guide, handbooks, uh policies related to benefits all housed in one place. The simulator and the and the AI bot will be uh curated with all of those document all of those documents. So our staff can go in and ask questions. For example, I have a family dental
097plan and I need to get my son needs to get three fillings. You know, what am I going to pay for copay? And you and the bot will be able to answer that. I'm having a baby. Um, you know, what are the what are the steps I need to consider? Well, you have parental leave that you should be considering gap funding or you might need um gap insurance. Um, this is the policy that governs this. This is how many days you're going to have. Um it'll give you here's a timeline of steps you should take. Uh and we think it's going to be a really nice benefit for our staff at a really a pretty low cost. Um a few other items uh in my report just a reminder to do the campaign finance disclosure
098documents by January January >> January >> end of January. Um I was asked uh and presented to the interim legislative taxation committee. I just shared that presentation with you. Um I talked about the course approval. Uh you heard earlier about this the state visit for Little Blue Jay's Nest. Again, something I'm just really excited about. uh that uh that program is getting the recognition it should have and and and uh uh Lieutenant Governor Stranden coming, executives from the Department of Commerce, some legislators, other folks coming to check out what that program looks like and what we're doing uh to see if that's something that can be supported. And uh we want to make sure that we reinforce how important our whip was, the the childcare assistance program, uh all of the other programs that we
099use to drive down those costs. Uh and so we're excited about uh providing a little more u awareness to that program. And then the spotlight I wanted to share was Christy Grounds. She was accepted into the Stzman Barnes Women's Leadership Cohort. Uh so that's only 15 regional leaders that get to do that. uh and she the mission of that cohort is to cultivate and connect women leaders across Stzman and Barnes counties by providing meaningful learning, mentorship and community engagement opportunities that inspire growth and create and create lasting impact. So just a recognition that she was accepted and best of luck to her and with that I would stand for questions from the board on the superintendent report. Okay, not moving on. U we have nothing under old business. Uh under new business, we have nothing
100under activities, buildings, and grounds. Number three, curriculum assessment instruction. A approval of course proposal for the 2026 to 2027 school year. Number one, career and technology center military pathway course. Is there a motion? >> Motion by Owen. Is there a second? >> Second by Aaron. We have a motion, a second for approval of the proposed course, career and technology center military pathway course for 2026 to 2027 school year. Any discussion? Aaron? >> Yeah. just when I went through this here uh in prep and uh shoot uh it just kind of raised a a question in my mind is you know in the future can we look at broadening the the scope of this specific pathway to include not just military service but um you know firefighting, law enforcement, EMT, other services, community services that um
101kind of follow that same mantra but um not military centric. um just to kind of broaden that whole view of a community more of a service in general uh pathway. So uh just again not for specifically for this but a future consideration as we as we move forward >> and just have a comment. I have two smiling administrators uh back here who are in 100% agreement with you uh in aligns with discussions that we've had in in terms of wanting to provide opportunities like that. >> Thank you Aaron. Any other discussion? Okay, we have a motion, a second for approval of the course for the the career and technology center military pathway course for the 2026 to 2027 school year. There be no further discussion. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose.
102Same sign. >> Motion approved. Under finance, a approval of the agreement with Optimize Ed Strategic Solutions to develop a staff benefit web page. Is there a motion? Motion by Steve. Second by Owen. We have a motion, a second for approval of the agreement with Optimize AD strategic solutions to develop a staff benefits web page. Any discussion? This was also discussed at the uh health insurance committee also and and they were in favor of of moving forward, but it it is just a probably a little larger than just health insurance. Um you know, it could be other um policies like family leave and those kinds of things. And so they they um referred it to the board to to to consider. So um so do we have a motion second? I got lost. Yes. Motion and
103a second for approval of the agreement with optimized ad strategic solutions to develop a staff benefit web page. Any other discussion? Any other discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. >> I oppose. Same sign. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. We've taken care of 4B. Um the audit was approved. Number five under operations approval of the district communication plan. Um is we'll do a motion in a second and then have some discussion on this. Is there a motion? Motion by Steve. Is there a second by Jason? We have a motion, a second for approval of the district communication plan. Dr. L, did you want to comment on this at all or just >> this was part of the strategic plan and and we will provide a little board education
104when when that comes uh for progress monitoring. But you do have the u the written plan in front of you. Um the there were a couple of different goals uh that were identified in the strategic plan. Position Jamestown Public Schools as a recognized district of choice in North Dakota. Uh strengthen transparency and accountability within the community of Jamestown. Establish a regular cadence of modern and effective communications that promote the JPS strategic plan and professional quality of staff. And then engage and educate stakeholders of Jamestown public schools. I broke those down into uh short-term goals, what we can accomplish or what I feel we can accomplish in the next year. Uh and then longer term goals, what are the things that we want to accomplish uh in the next two to three years? Uh maybe you
105know larger goals or or those that take a little bit more uh commitment. Uh and that is what um is before you is is not only those one-term those one-year short-term goals but the action steps for each um each goal area with uh short-term and long-term goals. >> Okay. Any other questions, discussion? Aaron? >> Yeah, I think there's a lot of good content in here. I think uh it it touches a lot of the points that we've been talking about. Um, so and you having that short-term and a long-term vision there, but I can definitely see that uh there's going to be some lessons learned and then so I'm fully anticipating that you roll this out there and we go, well, we didn't think about this or so then there's going to definitely be some
106changes there, but I think it's a great starting point. Um, and that uh I think it, like I say, it hits a lot of the points that we've been talking about. Yeah, my vision uh and I should have touched on this, but my vision would be that we sort of like our strategic plan, we revisit this plan annually, too. Uh so we go through our first year and maybe uh sometime in our next school year, uh we bring an updated version of this. Where are we at? Kind of to your point, what worked well or maybe these are different strategies or hey, there's a there's still a gap in this in this with this stakeholder group, so let's plan this. Uh, I do agree it's it's a good place to start. We've already started to
107operationalize a couple of these goals um to see where we can go next. So, it's it's a good start. >> Yep. I agree. Um, any other discussion? Okay. Um, we have a motion, a second for approval of district communication plan. There being no further discussion, all those in favor say I. I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Under personnel a approval of the resignation at the conclusion of the 2025 to 2026 school year contract Cassandra Beach. Is there a motion? >> Motion by one. >> Second by Steve. We have a motion and second for approval of the resignation of the conclusion of the 2025 to 2026 school year. Cassandra Beach. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I. I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved and
108thank you Cassie for your service to our district. B. Approval of non-renewal of extended contracts for first semester of the 2025 to 2026 school year. JHS um Kim Carpenter Lynn Kosal Cody Mickelson Cassandra Redburn Tim Ranom Carla Rosario Denise Wood Veronica Ascu Steven Hyde Chantel Shock Har Jared Bartles Morgan here Brad Hanodle and Amy Igel is there a motion? Motion by Aaron. Is there a second? >> Second by Jason. We have a motion and second for approval of the list of non-renewal of extended contracts for the first semester 2025 to 2026 school year. And for the public's um notice, this is these are just extra um courses that these individuals are willing to teach. They're they're still with our with our district. So sometimes we get that question. Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call
109vote, all those in favor say I. >> I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. C. Approval of extended contracts for the second semester of the 2025 to 2026 school year. JHS. Kim Carpenter, Cody Mickelson, Denise Wood, Cassandra Redmond, Lin Kosal, Tim Random, Carlo Rosario, Morgan Hair, Steven Hine, Brandon, Amy Igel, Deb, Debbie Krebs, Phil Kraber, Chantel Har, and Jared Bartles. Is there a motion? Motion by Steve. Is there a second? Second by one. We have a motion, a second for approval of the extended contracts for the second semester of the 2025 to 2026 school year. Any discussion? Any discussion? Owen and Owen first or go ahead Aaron. >> Um yeah, so with this uh I'm you know been raising the point here for a while now. Um you know, we I think it's great that we
110have this basically a merit-based uh recognition of people who are willing to step up and go above and beyond. So that's a good thing. uh but I do know that there are people that at the other levels uh that we're asking to fulfill FTE equivalent roles and they should be added to this list and so I just if you could just comment on that. >> Yeah, you'll have one uh we we were just having this conversation today. uh our anticipation uh is there will be at there will be two that we feel are extending beyond typical FTE requirements uh at levels not at the high school. Uh we'll have a rationale we'll kind of explain why uh we feel like this need is and then the solution uh and that's coming at on our January
11119th. So, we'll have two uh that are currently filling instructional coach uh pilots for us uh at the elementary level. Uh and this is requiring some prep and planning outside of the scope of their typical day. So, that's why we're making that recommendation uh for those uh two positions. Well, again, it says a pilot, but it could be a model that we're looking at long term as well. Also, we want to make sure that we have um uh a strong recommendation doing a little bit I think maybe a stretch to call it a time study, but we're looking to see what that time commitment is. Now, uh we spent a little time doing that today and so when we bring that recommendation, we'll feel good about what that extended day contract would look like >>
112with that. Then that'd be retroactive for the full semester. Then >> it would be for the 25 26 year. So it would be for the full school year. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Owen. >> Yeah, I was noticing with some of the the um the groupings of the extended contracts that we had at the high school, especially like in the English department, we're almost at a full load now. I know it's different with onboarding somebody and you know benefits and things like that not onetoone but at what point uh or are we advertising for that English uh the English one stuck out to me but you know >> right it it seems like every year uh we're struggling to find in Phil one FTE which means that there's uh a follow a spill over to
113the impact of the department and when you see this any that means that we have a a gap that we have that we weren't able to fill. Uh we would rather bring people than have extended contracts unless there's a long-term uh decline in enrollment that we're planning around and we might do extended contracts as a short-term uh solution uh rather than bring somebody into town and and then do non-renewal just to address an enrollment bubble. Uh but but uh in the grand scope, we would much rather see an individual here uh to fill that FTE as opposed to giving extended contracts. We just aren't always able to do that. We aren't able to find the right person all the time. >> So did any of these represent open positions? >> Yeah, math and uh math
114and uh ELA. >> Okay. >> Math and ELA. Correct. >> Science. Yes. Yeah, that's right. Science. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Any other questions? Okay, we have a motion, a second for approval extended contracts for the second semester of the 2025 to 2026 school year. Any other discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. >> I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. D. Approve the hire in January 12th, 2026 for 2025 to 2026 school year. Number one, Paul Mson. Is there a motion? >> Motion by Aaron. >> Second by Steve. We have a motion, a second to hire on January 12th, 2026 to 2025 to 2026 school year. Paul Mson, Dr. Luck, >> just a reminder post January high hires uh non-ontinuing contracts. Just a reminder. >> Uh Jason, go ahead. >>
11529 FTE. What? And I see that comes out to be 91 days. Is that is that designed to be >> Two periods. Okay. Thanks. >> Any other discussion or questions? Okay. >> We have a motion of second for approval to hire on January 12, 2026 for the 2025 to 2026 school year. Paul Mson, any other discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote or not, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved and thank you Paul for joining and filling this position. Policies and procedures. A, approval of amended policies and regulations. Do you mind if we do them together or would you like to separate them together? Okay. Number one, second reading of policy BAB, board conflict of interest. Number two, first reading of policy HCBA, vendor conflict of interest
116disclosure with subsequent a review of HCBA- the vendor conflict of interest disclosure statement. Is there a motion? >> Motion by one. Is there a second? Second by C. We have a motion to second for the second reading of policy BAB and first reading of policy HCBA with subsequent review of HCBA. Any discussion? Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. >> I. Vote oppose. Same sign. Motion carried. Nothing on tuition or other other outside of the election information. And if you have questions, Christie has has the information and um connect with her if you have questions on that. Um the only other thing I'm going to just refer back to is while we um had the approval of the audit C and D the general fund balance
117and the monthly financials are there for your just for information. There's nothing we need to vote on. Um if do you have any questions about that at this time as a board? Okay. So items for future agenda. Are there any items at this time you'd like to bring forth for future agendas? If not, please let myself or Dr. L know. Schedule the meetings. Health Insurance Committee meeting is on Monday, January 12th, 2026 at 3:45 p.m. in the district office conference room. Schoolboard meeting on Monday, January 19th, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. in the Thompson community room at the middle school. The North and um Amy did send you some emails on this. The North Dakota Schoolboards Association Winter Summit, February 5th and 6, 2026 in Bismar. Any other meetings that were missing at this time that
118committee meetings? Okay, I can't think of any, but just checking. Um, next item on our agenda, possible executive session to discuss negotiation strategies. Okay, no motion for that. Then under monthly superintendent evaluation, section one, goal and vision, and section three, human resource management. Please complete those. There being no further business before the board, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Hey, hey.