001[Music] Good evening. I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Jamestown Public School Board to order. It is Monday, May 19th, 2025, 5:30 p.m. and we're in the Thompson Community Room at the middle school. I'd like to welcome all those in the audience today and thank you for coming. 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 under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Jacob. Would you be willing to read the schoolboard norms? The school board developed norms are to share and respect opinions and speak with a united voice once a decision has been reached. Execute all duties of the school board in compliance with the North Dakota Century Code. Properly prepare
002for meetings. Commit to assessing board effectiveness and ensure high quality governance for all stakeholders. Thank you, Jacob. We have no public communication. Are there any conflicts of interest to declare? Any conflicts of interest? Any conflicts of interest? If not, moving on to our consent agenda. Would the board like anything removed or have anything clarified in the consent agenda? If not, is there a motion? Motion by Melissa. Second by Steve. We have a motion and a 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 into our reg regular meeting, we have some recognition this evening and just want to note that um these individuals were also recognized in in the superintendent report spotlight
003in previous meetings, but we also want to bring them forward and get some pictures. So, um we have uh a teacher recognition and then the food service department. And as your name is called and and your recognition is read, just please join me over here. I have a certificate for you. Then we will come up here and and get some photos. And family, feel free to come up close and and take photos right up in the middle. Starting with Jason, you want to start us off? Mrs. Tiffany Douly, teacher at Jamestown Middle School, was named 2025 Middle Student Council adviser of the year. Tanya Hunsker, state director of the North Dakota Honor Society and Student Council, stated, "The award honored honors Mrs. Douly's exceptional commitment to student leadership, her dedication to service, and the meaningful
004impact she has on her school community. Congratulations and thank you. [Applause] The North Dakota School Nutrition Association named two staff for the state awards. Congratulations to Lori Puall, kitchen assistant at Jamestown High School, was named employee of the year. and Melissa Doctor, cook manager at Jamestown High School, was named manager of the year. [Applause] Thank you. and thank you for all the good work you do for the district. Moving on our agenda under correspondence, we have a couple thank you cards. One from Julie Skunberg and the family of Richard Muslin for the remembrance. Under reports, we have student council report is Oh, awesome. Hi, I'm Haddie McDonald. I'm the current executive board president of student council at JHS. And the only item I have a report on is our newly elected executive board president. She's
005unable to make it today due to soccer, but it is Belle Scho. As for student council, we have not had any recent activities to report on. Thank you for a great school year. And do you have any questions? Thank you for that update. Any questions from the board? We appreciate the report. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Next on our agenda, we have the food service report. Cindy, do I have to move that? Okay. Thank you for having me. Um, just a quick update. We are for the second year in a row doing the summer meals program. We have approximately 180 kids signed up already. Jackie Russell will be heading that again this year and our locations will be at Roosevelt, Washington, Lincoln, and Louis Lammore. The fresh fruit and vegetable program or FFVP
006will be introduced back into the schools this upcoming school year. um program updates and notable changes. North Dakota is expanding the free and reduced um meal price eligibility in the 200% poverty level. Um we're in compliance with the state policy which is the anti- um lunch shaming bill. Um program priorities looking ahead is to continue to focus on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, balanced nutrition. The nutrition team will continue to introduce more scratch cooking and um we're going to start introducing that in at breakfast as well. Reducing added sugars particular particularly in the school breakfast menu flexibility um including plant-based culturally inclusive and locally sourced meals. Jackie Russell and Lori Podall have um lots at the community garden this year that they will be growing fruits and vegetables and we will be implementing them in our
007fruit and veggie bars. Um our challenges still remain the food and labor costs um sufficient staffing to be able to introduce the scratch cooking programs and understanding program changes as they happen. Um, as you know, um, we've been recognized both state and nationally. Um, we look forward to going to Vegas in October to receive our two national awards we just got. So, that is all I have. Does anybody have any questions? Any questions from the board? What's that? I was just asking if there's any questions. And Jason, go ahead. Thank you. and thank thank your entire staff for everything they do every day. The um the summer meals program, you said 180 uh for this coming summer. So far there's 180 kids signed up. And is that up down? Has that number remained relatively consistent?
008It's a lot up from when we started this last year at this time. It's still people sign up when they pick up meals. We had people signing up all the way until we ended it. So yeah, Dr. Mike, what were we serving last year? Uh we served over 20,000 meals last year. Yeah. Breakfast and lunch. Yep. Anything else from the board? Dan, thank you all for continuing to support us and and to my staff, too, because we're doing amazing. They're doing amazing. So, I appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate the dedication. Thank you so much. We had a finance committee meeting uh recently and Aaron, you want would you want to just provide the board an update from that? Yes. So, we met uh last week and uh discuss some major
009topics. Um, one was a support staff pay and then a recommendation that we were going to put forth on that. Um, if you recall last year we did make a correction uh to get us to be more competitive with our tough to fill positions. We went through an analysis and showed that we had some gaps. And so last year we did fill some of those gaps, but uh we want to make sure we continue to be competitive. And that's why the the recommendation that we selected is putting in front of us that we uh we feel that that gets us in a gets us in a in a good position for um filling those uh positions or maintaining those positions. Um we also looked at the overall budget for um actually the next two years
010on on projections uh based on um the JPS latest offer for negotiations. Um just a couple of highlights there. We do have a slight deficit that would be uh realized as a part of that for this year. Uh but there's a much larger deficit that results for the following year. Uh so that led to some discussion um and um just to look at um some more analysis on what we're doing from a curriculum in terms of core versus um uh what do we call it? Enrichment. Yeah. Um so just kind of what what are our requirements? What do we need to do to meet our minimum set of requirements? what do we need to do to fulfill our goals and what other items are affecting uh operationally affecting our budget. So, uh we just asked
011the administration to kind of break that down so that when we get to a point of um you know we having to have some tough dis discussions and however this referendum turns out, however negotiations turn out, we need to have some levers we can pull to uh if we need to make some adjustments to to that and affect that deficit. So, uh there's some some homework on the table there, uh for us to consider. Um and also note that there is within that budget there's, you know, we did with the closure of Washington, there are some operational savings, but there's also some significant changes on the revenue side as well that is uh impacting us and operationally. So, um a lot of that is in that uh presentation that was made available for that finance
012retreat. Um, last item, uh, is a temporary position. Uh, so we talked about adding that to, uh, a recommendation to fill a position to deal with the, uh, the Washington assets, how we want to distribute them, how we want to dispose of them, whatever that looks like, having somebody dedicated to that as a temporary position, uh, so we know what we have and know what we want to do with it from a from an organized standpoint. So, um, and I guess that was pretty much it. So, any questions? Any questions? Thank you, Aaron. Okay. All right. Moving on. Strategic plan progress monitoring. Mr. Gayler. All right. Good evening. Thank you, Dr. Luck, for inviting me to uh share. There's two progress monitorings. Um and so we'll stop after each one, be able to answer any
013questions you might have. Uh the first one is really in in that leadership for learning uh focus area which you've heard quite a bit about this year. Uh but really is all about how we're continuously improving and it's about the quality of instruction as well as engagement with our community for uh in leadership for learning. The specific goal that uh we're monitoring today would be looking at our guaranteed and viable curriculum. And I'll take some time to explain that as well as to provide an update on the status of the second part of that which is that we're reporting proficiency on priority academic standards in 100% of courses by 2026. uh take some explanation uh to talk about guaranteed and viable curriculum. Guaranteed means that we've got a a set list that no matter what,
014if you're in kindergarten in Roosevelt, uh, or if you're in kindergarten in Washington, that those students have a guaranteed set of curriculum that we are, uh, working to this level of depth that we want to, uh, monitor proficiency or if you're taking uh, ninth or ninth grade physical science from one teacher versus another, that that's the same set of priorities. uh that we've got actual data systems behind that to be able to monitor that and that we have a PLC process. Uh a couple board meetings ago, we talked about intervention and enrichment. Uh if we have a guaranteed curriculum, we want to make sure that we've got resources to support kids that are coming in already knowing those priorities and resources to support those who don't know them yet. So that's where that PLC process
015supports with the guaranteed part of our curriculum. This is not the entirety of our curriculum, but it is that set of priorities that we've got. Viable means that our students can learn that within the a year and that our staff have the resources um to support kids, resources in in terms of time, resources in terms of curriculum. uh but that we've also sufficiently prioritized to say these this set of essential skills are priority are vi priorities are viable within a school year for students to learn that. Um so we've taken some um different action steps at each level to make some progress towards this goal. Um at the elementary we've actually been implementing standardsbased learning this year for math, ELA, music, um PE and health. And in the future we'll be implementing um more specifically
016with science and social studies scales and cyber security. Um so the status report for elementary is really that we're at about 60% of those courses that are reporting proficiency and 100% of grade levels students have experienced that and staff have experienced that across um the elementary. When it comes to what those reports might look like and and some of their usefulness, uh I included just a a quick snip of a report that we can pull directly from empower. We can do uh similar things with powers school when the middle school um and high school start to implement there. Um but basically we've got our our list of standards here and this was not at the end of the year. Um this was prior to the end of the year. So, I would expect some of
017these percentages of students proficient would change, but it really gives you a quick look at which areas have students shown proficiency. And that's useful from a curricular decision standpoint. It's also useful from that guaranteed and viable lens to say, okay, um, if there's only 28% of our students that are mastering classifying 2D figures, then why is that? Should that continue to be a priority or are we allocating resources? Do we have sufficient um coverage for that standard within our curriculum prior to being able to take the data and look at it this way? Um that may have gone unknown or unnoticed or hidden within the serieses of of assessments and grades. um being that much more scientific about collecting that information and having that on display is going to be a useful tool from a
018guaranteed and viable curriculum standpoint. Uh it's also really useful uh for example for the fifth grade teachers to know that um we're ending the year with 28% proficient in this area uh but we've got 82% proficiency in multiplying fractions. So for them to plan their review to start the year uh or to plan their sequence or of curriculum is um that's a pretty essential set of data pretty important set of data. Um also within the empower platform um this kind of shows uh viability u vertically across our curriculum. So, we're able to just visually see how standards stack on top of each other and be able to to determine um each of these colors represent a different grade level where those those standards and strands connect and our coaches and SPL leads did a lot
019of work to make sure that that vertical articulation was there at the elementary as well. So, those are a couple of the uh progress steps that we've made at the elementary level. Uh JMS has also been working hard on a report card. Uh they've done some professional learning this year on assessment practices. Uh they came together as a staff and talked about uh grading principles to increase the confidence and accuracy in how we're um presenting this proficiency data and then uh teachers have been piloting gathering that data in their courses. So, um, a conservative estimate would be around 10% of our priority standards. They've practiced with that at the middle school. Uh, high school is similar, still building in that process and, uh, they've done their prioritization. They've built a lot of the scales necessary
020to measure proficiency. Uh, they're working on unit planning for next year and building those assessments. Um, in our mathematics, a couple of courses did pilot uh the use of a resource called Navi, which is a state provided resource that gives by student by standard level data. Uh, and they found that to be a pretty promising resource. I think that we'll see some expansion into other grade levels and courses for that next year. The state's goal is ultimately to be able to to provide that resource for every state standard and course and subject area. Um but that will take them time to build that out as well. So the high school is currently um piloting that but um doesn't have any courses that are um explicitly listing proficiencies. So we didn't uh have any progress in
021terms of percentage but a lot of progress in terms of the background work um to reach that goal. So um we are on target with this goal. Uh even though it seems uh 2026 um is coming upon us fairly quickly. Um ultimately this will give us better data and helps us focus on that guaranteed and viable curriculum. uh the technology systems that are required to support this and to make this logistically possible for staff um continue to evolve and I think that that's going to help us with more effective use of that data. Um and we feel that this is the most um relevant data for classroom instructional decisions. each set of data, whether we're um talking later in July about our fast bridge and star data, which is nationally normed, or or we're talking
022in the fall when we get our state assessment results back. Each of those are for a different lens. This level of data is really the most useful to make those instructional decisions as well as some of the curricular decisions that we need to make. Um, so next steps just keep refining our tracking systems. Uh, increase our confidence and accuracy within our assessments. Uh, find which tech tools can help support that by student by standard data. Um, continue to support the PLC process so that we're using that data to inform our instruction. And then um some further analysis at the particularly at the elementary level um just to see what have we learned from this? How do we want to make sure that we're collecting that data um more consistently or accurately in the future? And
023also, what do we what have we learned um from our curricular performance to make decisions for next year? With that, I'd stand for any questions on um area two, goal one. Any questions from the board? Aaron, just curious as we uh this is kind of our first data point on the uh standard based learning out of the elementary school. Have you gotten any anecdotal feedback at all on what that looks like and how receptive or non-receptive uh folks are both from a I don't know from a teacher standpoint, parent standpoint. Uh so we had good engagement with parents u the middle of the year when we started to roll out our reports. Um I think that we haven't had as much engagement with the actual empower platform as what we would like. We're told by
024the um vendor that our number of parent loginins are about on par or on course but we want to see a little bit uh more engagement with that next year and so we need to do some more intentional communication about that data um to get that feedback from parents. uh our educators are really starting to think about the assessments and the pacing and um as they're looking towards next year and uh have learned a lot through that initial implementation. And I think that um we're going to be that much more confident coming into the fall uh with what we want that to look like. Each of those SPL leads uh put an additional five, six days in this year refining as they were going. Um and then they've been meeting as a district-wide group every
025other week to try to keep pace. Um I'd say that um we're going to make more progress in SPL specifically next year because we have some of the curricular questions answered. Uh that was a bigger lift than um maybe what I expected. I'm sure our elementary teachers knew that it would be a big lift to implement a new reading curriculum that's aligned with science of reading. Uh but that took a lot of the the planning efforts and uh of those teams. And so we've got a real focus next year on getting more into the data, particularly week to week within those PLC's and how do our instructional coaches support our staff to analyze the data and make instructional decisions um more on the by student bystandard level in a week-toeek fashion. So, uh, I expect
026we're going to come up with more questions next year as we get into that level of data, but we feel really good about collecting it this year, understanding how that process works. Um, I haven't um, reached out recently to our ELT on that, but we can definitely get some more feedback from them. And what what's the timing with the implementation at the middle school level then? So, the middle school is planning uh to roll out next fall. We've had just one uh parent forum so far this spring and uh need to you know get on some more communication there as well. Uh they have been working on their unit planning um and most piloted uh as I understood from Natalie the other day, most piloted a unit this spring. Um, I think that the the
027middle school uh team concept uh as well as the middle school uh ability to have common preps within the uh content areas for the most part uh has kind of helped them really accelerate that as well versus the elementary a lot of that was our SPL leads that got pulled out and then got feedback from the um from their peers in the Wednesday meetings the year before uh the middle school has been able to make really good progress in those common planning times they have. Any other questions from Jason? When the when the results or let's let's say we identify a pain point, a lower competency area, um either in a building or grade level or or what have you. Is it then in the I I liked what you said about how then maybe
028next fall that's addressed a little more heavily, you know, in the review of the previous year. So, is that in the instructional coach's wheelhouse then to to make those alignments with with the buildings and staff or is that a building level administrator duty? If it's a if it's a particular challenge in a building, they have building PLC's. Uh, Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Meisner, we're just working today on trying to align for next year the Louis Lamore schedule with the Roosevelt schedule, for example, so that they have a common prep time um that they can discuss those those types of issues and solve them at the building level. And those uh we have amazing professionals, no doubt about it. And uh that's really where that needs to live. It's not administrative function but um when we look
029at overall on the curriculum and on the um district scale for a grade level for example our administrators and coaches would be present at those meetings too. Um did I answer that fully? Okay. Any other questions? Okay. If not, Mr. Dr. Gayler, as long as you're there, would you mind moving into educational competency board education JBC? I have one more. Oh, you have one more. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Okay, I'll make this one shorter. Okay, maybe. All right. Um, okay. So growth and learning strategic focus four uh that we impact learning and growth daily uh and that we prepare all students for future success that we have balanced data and evidence to monitor that growth of knowledge and skills is that f overall focus area. This was a a strategic goal that was related to
030um our platform um for the most part is where the the data came from which is called I observation and that platform is what we use for our uh evaluation data. And so we had a goal um to have 2,000 teacher observations and 6,000 elements of actionable feedback over the course of this year. uh element ratings which are um on a continuum from not using all the way up to innovating. Um to have those ratings with 90% of them or more in that applying or innovating um in all four domains of the teacher evaluation and then uh two-year cohort models. We were looking at do are our stu our teachers that are coming back yeartoyear are they demonstrating um annual growth in those areas. So it took a little bit of analysis. Uh the first
031one was was fairly easy. Uh this was something that we progress monitored. Um Dr. Le had it on the agenda each month and I just simply updated that um at our admin meetings our progress towards that 2,00 uh teacher observations. the element ratings, we had to wait until um April 15th when the when evaluations are finalized to be able to analyze that data. Um in terms of status report, uh we did not meet our goal for 2000 teacher observations. Um coming up just shy of 70% of that goal. Uh and around 70% of the element score goal as well. Um when it comes to element ratings with 90% or more in applying and innovating uh the domain one average um so domain one is the most uh the one that's most focused on instruction uh
032whereas domain two is focused on planning and preparing and domain three on reflection on of in teaching and domain four is on professional practices. Um overall in 2024 we had a 96.6% of our element ratings were applying and innovating and in 2025 that's 95.5%. Um two-year cohort models. So the best way uh to look at this was to look at individual practices and to determine which areas did we demonstrate uh growth in. Uh so we did see some decline in a couple of areas. Level one teachers would be teachers um within their first three years of the district and so we only compared teachers that um were here last year and um returned this year then in those level one. So, uh, kind of a narrow group when you're looking at level one. Uh, establishing
033classroom routines and organizing the layout of the classroom were the areas of decline. In level two teachers, um, the areas of decline in terms of ratings was engaging students with complex tasks, providing resources for cognitive complex tasks and then celebrating success. On the flip side, a lot of annual growth um in level one and in level two. You can see those listed out there. Uh and a lot of common things like providing rigorous learning goals and performance scales. We saw an increase in performance in that and that's likely due uh in response to our focus um within uh professional learning and standardsbased learning. Okay. Um so we need to increase that observation frequency in order to be able to m uh meet that goal. Um we need some additional I think training and support to
034increase the accuracy and confidence in our observation data. Um when we look at high percentages of applying and innovating scores uh we have um um the group that supports us in I observation also is able to do some of that data analysis and uh it does indicate really strong instructional quality um and and that instructional quality uh maintains is strong yeartoyear. Um, one of the questions from that group that looks at that data and analyzes um, was just that um, if we're seeing that amount of scores and innovating and applying um, do we have a strong grasp of the tool as a growth tool. And that's not to say that that we don't have great teachers. uh but the tool is designed um for people to reach a score of developing and just the word
035developing uh I think is something that we're less comfortable with. Um so in that continuum the goal is developing and we have people exceeding that and their question was is that an accurate look uh picture of all of our uh instructional staff or are we being too generous with the scoring uh essentially and um I think that that was good discussion with our administrative team when they presented that data. I think that um one of the things that we need to get back to administratively uh is looking at video examples. So not necessarily our staff, but they have a plethora of videos and then doing more um like the teachers are doing scoring camps essentially looking at that same uh evidence and doing ratings together and then discussing as professionals, you know, why is this
036this rating versus that rating? I think that's going to give us more accuracy and confidence as well as the training. Um so we are um as a district um moving towards the focused model within Marzano as well which um just like we're asking teachers to prioritize um within their content to make guaranteed and viable curriculum. That's the same process we're going to do um as a district with our instructional model. And it really gets um to this idea of deliberate practice that um we're practicing a set of focused skills with feedback and coaching um and feedback administratively that's consistent as well. Um that model based on the same model that that was adopted in I think 2014 here. um but much condensed and refined and reflective of the standardsbased process. Um you can see the
037comparison from four domains to three from 60 plus elements to 23 streamlined elements. Uh a focus on what is the teacher doing in the classroom in the in the previous model to observing more how are the students reacting uh or what are the outcomes the students are having based on the teacher actions. uh feedback processes change and uh standards alignment is more central to the planning portions of the focused model. Uh we do plan to train admin teacher leaders in that focused model. Um that'll be happen in August prior to the school year uh for teacher leaders and and admin. Then we'll train teachers in that model off and on throughout the year. Um, uh, Jason is a member on the PD committee. That's a group that's worked a lot on personalized PD. And so,
038uh, the personalized PD model that we adopted is designed to get to that deliberate practice of these, uh, this set of skills so we can continue to learn that. And then um one of the things to explore administratively that I think is um a powerful model uh to get increased administrative time into classrooms is called the breakthrough coach and we'll be offering that um as a training opportunity for any admin that might be interested in that uh next year as well. Um, one other recommendation that just in doing this analysis was that um that data from a strategic goal like this I think may be best monitored by the PD committee. Um, and so that I put a note down for next spring to be able to at least offer that data to the PD
039committee to make sure we're aligning our resources with where our needs are. With that, I'd stand for any questions on strategic focus for goal four. Any questions on the second part? Okay. Not. Oh, Erin, go ahead. So, as as far as the uh number of teacher observations as a goal or metric there, um I guess when we kind of laid that out, it was I was of the opinion that it's a target, not a specific goal. And as we engage in this that if we need to adjust that for I think it's good to have a target. Um, but if it's if 2,000 isn't the right number because of resources and time and effort to do that for the benefit that we get from it, uh, I'd be open to, you know, considering a different
040number for next year in that in that strategic area. If I may, it was is a pretty aspirational number. Um, but I I think it's still achievable, but I I do think setting a a process to, you know, a timeline to get there. You know, maybe we jumped ahead a little too high or jumped a little too high on that, but uh but I I still think it's a a reasonable goal to get to at some point. It's just whether it's, you know, I agree that we could maybe look at that number a little bit and we could and it was a relatively arbitrary selection. It isn't scientifically based in any way to say this is what equates to good observation practice. It was just a number, right? I just want to make sure that
041the the context is there so that if somebody looks at this and says, "Oh, we failed because we didn't get to this number." Well, no, that number, like you said, was aspirational and we we were just kind of setting a target to see, you know, thank you. Good points. Any other questions from the board? Okay. If not, is there a motion um to accept the progress monitoring report for strategic focus area for goal four? What was it? Oh, and then the other one as well. Is it What is What's the number here? Two. What was the first? Two. Two. Is there a motion to accept both? Motion by Jamie. Second by Melissa. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Now,
042Mr. Gayler, as long as you're you're there, would you mind um doing our board education educational competency JBC project update? Yeah. Excellent. And uh of course, I'd invite any board members to come up to JBCC just arrange a time to meet with Mrs. Zachard or myself to take a look at the progress. It's um nice to see dirt moving. Um we the few major projects that we have going on currently um still a few trailing things on the child care remodel. Um one of them being an HVAC thing um that will get completed. The coil has been ordered and it's uh they have everything else ready to be installed for that. Uh that's going to happen in early June. uh as well as the fencing for the childcare playground. Uh otherwise um between auto collision
043and uh building trades, finishing up a few things, and Mrs. uh Olsen and her classes working really hard at getting the equipment um put together and installed. Uh everything is really um on track with that and ready to go. A ton of work. Um looks beautiful up there. If you want to check that out, just let us know. U culinary arts expansion was mentioned at the last um board meeting. And so that's that partnership that we have with the art center and that that equipment has all been purchased and is scheduled for delivery and installation in um in July as early as July, but that uh depends on the readiness of Jamestown Art Center as well. um our major addition up at the site. Um they've done some site uh prep and uh you may
044recall back in December the original bids kind of came back out of scope for that project. Um and then we had to rebid that project to be in line with the budget. Um last Friday we had a visit from our uh the state director for CTE and he was really impressed with the plan. and he was impressed at what we were able to achieve of that plan. Uh and said that that was that um he feels like we're getting a lot of bang for our buck. Uh he said that the timing would that likely probably helped uh to some extent because he's seen these projects play out in other parts of the state. Um their scope has been s in some cases have been has been more impacted. you know, we were all impacted in
045some way by inflationary adjustments over the time period. Uh but he said others um had to cut significantly more. So he was impressed with the creativity that we had to be able to still get that project done. Uh that site preparation u and excavation has been done. They've also been pouring footings up there. Uh progress has maybe halted a little bit uh with some of that with the recent weather. Um, but we're on track. We have bi-weekly construction meetings uh now with the architect and uh and Hillwood construction. Uh, so pretty smooth progress there so far. Um, no major setbacks. The crews um were uh excited to be able to come and and deliver some of that uh the materials for things and uh Mrs. Eert as well as JVCTC staff and students just did
046an exceptional job uh and making sure that the site was ready. If you had been back there in recent years, there was a lot of things that just get accumulated over time. Um and uh they did a ton of work going through that making sure that everything was ready on the site. Um, we did find out as we were as they were doing a lot of the dirt work up there that the uh asphalt coming in and out of there with heavy trucks didn't necessarily stand up to all of that. And I know that uh we're trying to work on a solution for that. Um, I would say that in the next month you're going to see a visible transformation up there with a building popping up. Um and um you know, we're really glad
047about the partnerships that we have working on completing that project and and just super satisfied with the results so far. Um and the communication that we've had on this project. Uh those would be the major projects. We have some other equipment related things that are on that capital projects grant. Uh we have our CDL program that's also going on. And there aren't any major construction processes with that, but it is there are some significant uh expenditures as well as uh significant revenue that's that are related to those. Uh we are still looking for a part-time CDL instructor. If anybody's out there uh that's interested in that, um it would be a great opportunity to both give back uh and we can support uh anybody through the transition to teaching to be able to uh support
048our kids with that type of opportunity. I got a little out of out of practice there, but um questions on the capital projects or construction project at CTC? Any questions from the board? Okay. All right. And thank you um Mr. Gayler and Heidi Eert and all the staff and students up at the JBCTC for it. It it takes a lot to get these things completed and completed on time. So, I appreciate it. Thank you. Before we um move on to the superintendent report, um I see our new student council president, Bel Shustrom, has has shown has come after practice, right? Would you like to just come up and introduce yourself to the board and we look forward to hearing your reports next year? Yeah, sorry I'm late. Um we have practice till 6, but I'm
049Bill Shestrom. I'm the newly elected student council executive board president. My campaign this year was mostly about inclusion in our school and I think that's what drew a lot of people to vote for me. Um, I have a lot of ideas that I'm eager to share with all of you here along with building it on student council. But that's really all I have right now. Do you guys have any questions for me? Any questions? No. Thank you so much for Thank you so much for coming um after practice so we could um meet you and we do look forward to um the progress and all your reports next year. So thank you. Thank you. Superintendent report. Dr. Luck. Thank you. You have my written report. Before I get into that, I have to apologize to
050the board. There's um I pride myself on giving you a lot of information as you know with a good runway to make some decisions and I failed you in this one. Um as Mr. Roberts was talking it uh made me realize as I was looking through the agenda we did not include the support staff uh recommendation uh on this agenda and so I wanted to talk through that. Um, like I said, that's that's that's my failing there and and um but we did vet and make some recommendations through the finance committee. Uh, a few different ways that we can deal with that. Uh, if the board feels comfortable, you could certainly direct us um, you know, in the form of a motion. Uh, if you feel like you need more time, uh, to have that,
051you know, to, you know, act on that, uh, we could do that at a future meeting. My concern would be um the longer we delay, the longer our support staff doesn't have that information and those letters of of uh employment. And so if it's possible, if you if as a board you feel comfortable making this decision uh based on the finance committee recommendation, I would certainly appreciate that and I'm sure that the staff would as well. Uh if you go through, I'm projecting it here and I did include it into your uh folder uh so you can pull it up on your own. uh it supports staff wage recommendations. Uh the the board the finance committee looked at option two. Uh that ranged uh between a 3.4% and a 3.6% increase for those positions. Um
052and you can see the the range of of uh hourly impact there from 53 cents to 89 cents. Uh and then those staff, if you're familiar with our uh wage schedule, uh those that are eight years of experience or longer, they they fall off the schedule and so they get a you know in this recommendation a 36 3.6% per hour increase. Uh the total cost impact to that 138,000. We did look at a few different um options uh from a flat dollar amount to percentage dollar to percentage amounts. Um and this was the option that align most closely uh with uh what has been um provided in uh other classifications. If you remember we have four classifications at least in proposals I should say. Uh but we have four classifications. Our non-eing professionals, teachers, administrators,
053what and support staff. So our support staff uh has compared the least favorably to peers around the region. Uh and that's why you'll see this uh percentage in this classification is a little bit higher than what has been um proposed uh in other classifications thus far. Uh that's the rationale for that and and the rationale for expediting if that's possible and I don't know if there's any color finance committee members that you need to add or would like to add or Christie uh that uh you know again my apologies for not including this in finance I'm going to take this down back thatole Oh, sure. I gotcha. So, again, the thought process looking was was to, you know, we we have a budgeted areas we're we budgeted targets that we're trying to reach and we
054wish that we could provide uh more, but that's not always the case. We we always try to strive to do the very very best that we can. Uh but this was the the option that the finance committee looked to. Jason, I know you mentioned that there's com some comparison to regional. Do we is there a way to or has the has the committee compared Jamestown employment opportunities? Um how this looks against that? Yeah, if you remember, we did the audit last year. We targeted a couple different positions in particular that were much lower than their peers and we and we did some equity adjustments to raise those positions up pair of professionals and custodians. Uh and this is looking a little more globally at the group, not singling out any positions. Uh we do feel
055like there's some that uh could use those equity adjustments when we have the ability to uh budget for that. Uh but right now this is just a global look. But we did make some pretty nice adjustments into the pair of professionals uh and and uh custodian positions last year. Any other questions from the board at this point? Okay. So, it may be some direction if the board is does feel comfortable if we'd like to delay this to, you know, we may have a I'm going to be recommending later that you might want to have a special board meeting at the end at the uh in the first week of June or uh if you feel comfortable with enough information to act now. Again, I wish I had sent this out a little bit earlier, but
056just a reminder, it was vetted through the finance committee. And I apologize as well. I was thinking we we only have one meeting in June now coming up and so that is a little bit later than than I was thinking um versus two weeks from now. Um if if the board is willing is interested in doing that, we could have have a motion in a second to add a C under finance. Yep. Go ahead, Melissa. It says that the scale range is do we know where I mean and I apologize if you said that and I just kind of missed it like where most of that is going to be going or how that breakdown is going to be like the individual positions you mean? Yeah, I know. Okay. Like on this on the wage
057schedule? Yes. Give me a second and I can I can make sure that you get that included in. I didn't include that in into this. Christie, if you could just Yeah, because we we just change the base cell and then everything populates through the wage schedule. But yeah, I can we can put that in the drive. So depending on the percentage of the box. Yeah. Any other questions? I guess just procedurally, what do we need to do to get something added to the agenda and then go and then go from there? A motion to add uh letter under Yeah, letter C would be under finance support staff. I guess I'd like to move to add um the support staff recommendation uh to the agenda. There's a motion to add under finance the support staff recommendation.
058Is there a second? Second by Jamie. Any further discussion on that particular motion and second Steve? Uh two things I guess. one I would want to declare a conflict there and then uh also I guess in terms of the motion when something has made it through committee I'm quite comfortable uh moving on that so we have a since this is a new item um we started with conflicts of interest at the beginning we have one conflict with this um as well as other comments thank you any other questions comments discussion So, we have a motion, a second to add the support staff um recommendations, salary recommendations um to the agenda under finance. Assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Yeah. Yeah. No. And now we can
059still have discussion on that once we get to that. Yeah. Yeah. Or and we can have more discussion now. It's just it's on the agenda. The only motion was to put it on the agenda. Whether it's passed or not is as another motion. Um and then we had um Amy, we had one conflict on that one. So when we record your numbers. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for that. Uh moving on to mine facility planning. Yeah, we'll pull it up in that uh now on section C or on item C. Y and we'll we'll pull it up on item C uh up on the screen and I'll put it in your drive. Just give us a second to organize uh facility planning. That's something that'll come up in a later agenda topic. So I'll talk
060about that more there. But we do have board memo 116. Uh you have an interesting qu interesting situation occurring in in James Town with the change of a few um items in Century Code. We're I think the only district that's in this particular situation uh with you know a potent we're far enough along in a facility plan uh that the imp the the change to um only primary and general elections could impact us that can't start until August 1st. So we're I think the only district in that middle ground area where if we chose to have a special election we could actually do that before August 1st. So that's what board memo 116 uh discusses and I'd like uh when we get to that portion in the agenda to have a little discussion and direction
061around uh how do we want to proceed with that. Uh but that's for that agenda topic uh in levy worksheet. I just want to walk through this with you a little bit. Um with changes to the 3% uh limit in uh in levy requests uh has created a lot of discussion. This was if you followed the legislature at all uh the 3% discussion and how this all unfolded really happened towards the end of session. So as uh once session ended and and the implementation and implications of decisions were all fleshed out um this I think will be a a a good document for the board but maybe also business managers and superintendents across the state to be able to utilize uh because there are complexities. But what I wanted to share with you is just
062a couple different pages on this worksheet. Uh not only for board members, but it could be for staff, for patrons to understand um what what uh the potential impact to uh taxation would be at the local level. But I'm just going to touch on a few things um in tab to tab here. Uh if you look at these spreadsheets, anything that's in blue, you could enter. uh the things that are in white are just going to pre pre-populate based on those other dollars or those other u calculations and formulas. Um on this page there's nothing really of surprise really. It's includes taxable value from your previous year. That's this current year, the budgeted year, what would be next year. We're just projecting a 3% increase. That could be different. We It's a little early in
063the process to know, but that's what we're assuming. the valuation of new district property. This is where things start to get a little bit confusing because it depends on perspective and uh interpretation of the law. And in some interpretations uh this valuation of new district property should be added to your previous year and then the 3% comes on that amount. Okay. In other interpretations, it's simply 3% of the dollars from your previous year. So, we still need clarification on that even though the bills passed. Uh there's two different schools of thoughts and interpretation. So, we need to figure that out. This looks at what I'll show you in the next tab shows you the more complex. So, um if if it's simply 3% on dollars from last year, that's going to be easy to calculate.
064If you have to infuse the valuation of dis new new district property that's going to get a little bit more confusing. The other and I think this is more a planning tool for the board to understand tuition in previous years. North Dakota Central Code outlines uh levies and tuition levy is really vague. Essentially what it says is you can in grades 7 through 12 school districts can levy for tuition or tutoring. That's all it says. grades 7 through 12, tuition and tutoring. It doesn't give you a time frame. Doesn't it just doesn't give you any parameters outside of that. To me, the most offendable position uh for a school district to be in is not to speculate what you may spend. It's to look to the previous year to say this is what we did
065spend and use that amount to uh levy for. That again seems very defendable. Rather than picking a number out of the air, you're saying, "Well, this is what we actually spent." then you're a as accurate as you can be uh moving forward. So if you look at what we spent in tuition in this year, uh the key areas of course career and tech ed, what we spend in tuition for the JVCTC district placement in grades 7 through 12, what we pl what we pay for students placed uh in outside agencies or outside districts in grades 7 through 12 uh is the 568 or approximate. Uh and then the tuition we spend on center for distance ed. If you add that together uh and and divide that by our taxable value, you would see a possible
066tuition levy of 14 mills. If you're familiar with our um our levy in the past, we've pretty consistently historically levied seven mills. So, we're levying significantly less than we could. I'm not suggesting that we should levy 14 mills. I'm just giving you the range of what you could do and what that maximum could be. Uh I am not at all in favor of simply just raising levies uh and ask you know taking our hands out uh to the taxpayer and ask them for more. I'm just giving you an option is to say what would your maximum be uh in this particular scenario. Um so with that I'm going to move into the next tab. Again you can see the blue uh cells here. This would be what we did levy on our certificate of levy.
067We levy in dollars. We don't levy in mills. So I think it's important that these worksheets uh focus on dollars and not and not mills. The mills calculate but we levy in dollars. So if you look at the 3% um from the previous year well if we know what we levied last year uh and we know what the valuation of new growth is you know we know what our maximum could be uh in terms of dollars and that calculates into mills. Okay. So you see that the only give that we're going to have in the future other than you know general fund the board discretionary that's the 10 we levy between 60 and se and 70 so those 10 mills uh those are all governed by the 3% miscellaneous fund it's governed by the 3%.
068Uh building fund governed by the 3%. Uh special reserve governed by the 3%. There's still questions about that. So what's 3% of zero? Uh is still zero. Uh, and so there's still we still need state guidance on what happens if a school doesn't levy in the miscellaneous or doesn't levy in the special reserve this year. Does that mean they are in perpetuity uh at a 0%? Well, common sense would tell you no, but we need guidance on how that works. Um, you know, if you levied it in the past, are you governed by zero or is it initially when you do it? So, that one is still a little bit up in the air. Uh but but special assessment, syncing and interest judgment come into play if you pass a bond referendum and tuition. Those
069are all mills that are defined in century code. So you are not governed by the 3% because it says exactly what you can spend those on. So those you actually can still increase. The maybe the most important part about this uh this tab is this one right here. So if you remember when we looked at um legislation in the past um we have in that limitation for 3% um if you increase or if because your valuation increases um more than 3% you can't levy 60 mills if you remember from our state u funding formula discussions in the past and and board education in the past we know that we're going to be deducted the value of 60 mills And so what the legislature did is they uh created what they call gap funding meaning if
070you are pushed below 60 mills in your general fund which we are in this scenario um the state will make up the difference. So 41 41,000 plus in this example plus this general fund uh allocation equates to 60 mills. That's essentially how that works. But this is the gap funding amount. So we would have to apply to the state. The state would send us this money sometime in January of that of that tax year. Um there is not gap funding for any of these others that push us below what we targeted in the last year. But it I'll draw your attention to this tab which even in this scenario you're asking for $312,000 more than you did in the year previous. That's the reason why we levy in dollars. It's easy to get lost in
071the well, we levy 60 mills, we levy 10 mills, we levy 12 mills. Well, we're still getting more dollars. So, that's important um to recognize and I think it's an important part of this this tool. Uh the other is percentage change. And you might say, well, if we're limited to 3%. How can these levies uh increase beyond 3%. Well, it's the value of the new growth. So if that value of new growth is added to our previous year's taxable value that is going to have to be greater than 3%. Or if we increase to the tuition levy or the special assessment that would have to increase more as well. More than anything just a tool for you and for patrons to look at. We'll use it when we budget. Uh we'll probably reference it at
072our budget hearing so you can be familiar with it. What might be more interesting to board members uh patrons is the last tab which is the property tax generator. So it uses the value of residential property, the value of commercial property, the value of crop land of of a crop land acre and it would just project out what the previous year was, what the present year or the proposed year would be and then the difference. So even if you wanted to look at that and suggest, well, what would happen if we increased and and added a a bond referendum that equated to x amount of dollars and x amount of mills, um then you could do that uh and pretty easily generate what the tax impact would be. If you want to suggest, well, what
073would happen if we did um actually levy towards that amount that we can. So if we added that in 1.3 million as an example. Oh, that's a one extra zero there. So just as an example, say say that was the choice the board made to say, well, we want to double that tuition levy because that's what we actually spend uh in tuition. is a little bit off from that, but you'd be able to see that that would make a fairly significant tax impact uh in all of those categories. So, again, just really designed for awareness for you, planning for us. Uh but we will reference this in the future as well. And we'll I'm working with the the director of finance at the Department of Public Instruction to get a little more clarity on some
074of these other topics as well. went back into my report. [Music] Um, other really the legislative updates. I I I included a presentation from NDCEL and a handout on all of the different ed pieces of education legislation. If you have some time, if you haven't already, take a look through that. A lot of bills passed that impact educators this year. Uh, and if you really want to get the shakes, uh, do the implementation checklist that shows all of the different things that school administrators and teachers have to comply with in the next school year based on all of this legislation. It's a significant amount of implementation cost. There is a lot, not necessarily in terms of dollars cost, but there's a there's a human capital cost to every one of these bills because teachers are
075going to have to do things differently. the administrators are going to have to do things things differently just to comply with the law uh in these various different uh changes that have come up. Uh the last thing that I have before I stand for questions is that Dollars for Scholars uh just a wonderful organization that continues to support our high school seniors. Um a group that works really very hard. Um in the last in the 12 years that I've been here, the the dollars for scholar program has grown. The number of scholarships has approximately doubled as the annual award or the average award amount has doubled. So, it went from $500 uh dollars per scholarship and about 30 scholarships to now 57 scholarships at $1,000 at minimum. And uh you know, that that equates to
076almost $60,000 in scholarships uh given to JHS seniors this year. So, they've done a fantastic job. I greatly appreciate working on that board. Uh but the people that we work with really care about our kids uh and care about continuing to grow these scholarships, you know, with a goal of being able to give a scholarship to every kid that applies. Uh that you talk about aspirational goals, that would be great if we can do that. Uh but uh and and I I would have have to say that we we are well on our way with the peoples that serve uh on that board giving a lot of their time and and energy to to our Jamestown High School kids. So with that, I would stand for questions. Any questions? Melissa's so we have a presentation.
077The question was uh is there a place you can go to get a list of all of the uh individual scholarships and those that have received it. Uh we do have a presentation that was provided at the annual um awards u presentations. uh we can get that uploaded uh online. I don't think it is right now, but we can certainly share that. And I think Dollars for Scholars is planning to do a um you know some kind of roll out to all of those award winners on social media as well. Any other questions from the board? Okay. If not, um moving on our agenda, we have nothing under old business under new business and activities. A approval of a cooperative agreement in boys tennis. Is there a motion? Motion by Dan. Second, second by Jason.
078We have a motion, a second for approval of the cooperative agreement in boys tennis. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Number two, buildings and grounds overview of facility planning next steps. That's a memo. Any questions on that at this time? Okay. Um, number three, curriculum assessment and instruction. Nothing under that. Under finance, we have A and B, the general fund balance and the monthly financials are both there for your information. And then we have letter C that's been added to the agenda, the support staff um, salary recommendations. I would move to approve the um proposed salary staff. Sorry. Support staff. Support. Yep. Recommendations. Is there a second purpose? Second by Aaron. So a motion by Jason, second by Aaron
079to for approval of the um provided support staff recommendations. And now we'll have discussion. Yep. Dr. Luck. If I may, Melissa, I assume this is what you were looking for. So, have our positions align to a lane and we approve the lanes. So, it's a percent each increase on each lane. So, that's why there's a range of dollar amounts because correct. So, an individual would get a a percentage increase on their cell plus they would move a lane. You know, we think a lane's down in education, but it means they're across. We didn't break it down uh by the lane percentage. Uh yeah. So like a three is par educator like a lane like a pair educator would be in lane three if you're asking specifically about paras that's this lane just yeah I'm trying
080yeah there you go now is that better you from a budgetary standpoint And then the custodian staff in that same custodian custodian is lane five. Head custodian is lane five. That would be elementary like an elementary custodian middle school high school. Lane six is the ele or the middle school and the high school because they take on different responsibilities with maintenance. Okay. And then I'm assuming lane eight is like office staff or that's after school site coordinator uh superintendent administrative assistant is eight lane nine nine is district m assistant maintenance and then line lane 10 is the district maintenance director. Yep. Aaron, go ahead. Yeah. And I remember uh last year we did do some lane adjustments for certain positions as well as correction. Yep. Pair and custodian. That was the equity adjustment I referenced
081earlier. We changed the lanes for those for those positions last year. Correct. So I think we have made great strides on our support staff schedule. Uh but the reason that those percentages are just a little bit higher is there's still a little bit more work to do. uh you know a higher percentage on a on a lower hourly wage and that makes sense. Yeah. There's a reason and one of the benefits that we can have you know looked to provide is is also in the child care area you know where we can really drive down that cost for child care. uh for those and and that is a particular position that we believe would have uh opportunity and and uh really see some value from that program. And the finance committee did spend quite a
082bit of time going through um Stacy presented all of the the options and um in just different ways to do it and this kind of landed on this middle ground area. um but but not wanting to lose ground either. And so that's that's why we're we're where where we're at. And the overall cost to the district is 13 30ome,000 38 138,000 is the the increase. Any other questions? Okay. All right. We have a motion and a second um to approve the the recommendations that came from the finance committee for the support staff u wage increases for the next year. Any other discussion? Any other discussion? Chrissy, let's do probably do a roll call on this just Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Heidi Larson, yes. Jason Roar, yes. Jacob Meyer, yes. Dan Tweeton, yes. Aaron Roberts, yes.
083Melissa Gleason, okay. Owen McKenna. Yes. And Jamie Bear. Yes. Seven to zero. It's six. Six to one. Sorry. Yes. Yep. Six to one. Yep. One conflict. Yes. Yep. Six to one. Yep. And Melissa, um I appreciate your comments on um in case we didn't hear your your concern was you would like a higher salary increase for the pair of professional um positions concerned about filling those positions and and that will be definitely noted um by the finance committee as well as as the board. So just All right. So that motion did did get approved. Moving into operations, we have a approval of the athletic training agreement with JRMC. Is is there a motion? Motion by Jason. I would move to approve the train athletic trainer agreement. Is there a second? Second by Melissa. We have
084a motion, a second for approval of the athletic trainer agreement at JRMC. Dr. would you just make a comment on what a great benefit this is for the school district? Yeah, the we've had a partnership with JRMC for a number of years. They provide an athletic trainer at no cost to the district. So, this is a zerocost agreement. Uh we had conversations with JRMC a number of years, looked at what options were out there. Uh they have done just a amazing job supporting our kids and supporting our programs. uh and for them to provide this to our district at no cost is is really a you know a wonderful benefit and and shows the kind of partner that JRMC is uh and we just appreciate uh the work that they do like I said not
085just for our programs but mostly for our kids coaches. Thank you Dr. L. Any questions or discussion? Any discussion? We have a motion a second for approval of the athletic trainer agreement of JRMC. If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Under personnel approval to post temporary inventory coordinator. Um if you remember um Aaron mentioned this um this is a recommendation coming from the finance committee um to inventory um the items that are uh in in Washington school as the school is retired. Is there a motion? Motion by Steve. Second by Dan. We have a motion, a second for approval to post the temporary inventory coordinator. And the information is there. Any discussion? Any discussion? Yep. Melissa. How temporary are you thinking? I would love
086to be able to answer that question with uh but we just don't know. We we've never retired or closed a building. Uh there's a lot um of inventory that we need to consider. We are hoping that it would be the summer. Uh but you know there there's lots of decisions that need to be made in and the inventory at Washington is one piece, but we also I think need to start to consider if we're going to do that and asset distribution or sale of assets. we have a lot of assets in this building that we might want to consider how uh that translates at a at a bigger level. So, um at the very least, I would say this summer. Any other questions or discussion? So, we have a motion and a second for approval
087to oppose the temporary inventory coordinator. If no further discussions, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. B. Approval of resignation at the conclusion of the 2024 to 2025 school year. Number one, Haley Alteringer. Number two, Bradley Stangland. Is there a motion? Motion by Aaron. Second by Dan. We have a motion, a second for approval of resation at the conclusion of the 2024 to 2025 school year. Number one, Haley Alteringer. Number two, Bradley Sangland. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. And thank you for your service to our district. Number seven, policy and procedures. How does the board feel about doing this all in one motion? Good. I'm seeing some nods. Okay.
088Approval policies. First reading of ABCB sportsmanship. Number two, amended FAB, school assignment and choice. Number three, amended FBA student fees. Number four, amended FCAA. Just those three. Just those three. Okay, that one's off there. Okay. So, we have one, two, and three. Is there a motion? Motion by Jamie. Second. Second by Jason. We have a motion, a second for approval policies AB CB, amended FAB, and amended FBA. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Under tuition a approval of tition agreements for number one Montpillar two Montpielar and number three Jamestown. Is there a motion? Motion by Melissa. Is there a second? Second by Aaron. We have a motion a second for approval of tuition agreements number one Montpillar two Montpillar
089and three Jamestown. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not assuming roll call vote. All those in favor say I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. We have nothing under other items for future agenda. Are there any items for future agenda? At any time, please email um Dr. Leer, myself or contact us. We have a few board announcements in future meetings, so bear with me. Teacher negotiations meeting on Monday, May 20th, 2025 at 4:30 p.m. in Thompson Community Room at the middle school. Administrator negotiations meeting on Thursday, May 22nd, 2025 at 4:30 p.m. in the district office conference room. JPS high school graduation on Sunday, May 25th, 2025 at 2:30 p.m. in Jamestown Civic Center. Teacher negotiation meeting on Wednesday, May 28th, 2025 at 4:30 p.m. in the Thompson Community Room at the Middle School. Teacher negotiation
090meeting on Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 at 4:30 p.m. in the Thompson community room at the middle school. Administrator negotiation meeting on Thursday, June 5th, 2025 at 4:30 p.m. in the district office conference room. Health insurance meeting. Um, this may not This is a tentative meeting if needed. Friday, June 13th at noon in the district office conference room and schoolboard meeting on Monday, June 16th at 5:30 p.m. in the Thompson community room. Oh, okay. We'll come back to that. Okay. Um, so those are all of the um meetings. Is there strategic planning meetings? It's coming. We just this week Thursday this week Thursday at at 5:30 p.m. Okay. I thought that. So are there any other committee meetings um that that we missed? Okay. Also with um with the agenda item adding item, we kind of
091did also move through um there was the memo of the overview of facility planning next steps. Um that was there for information. Um, we should maybe have a little discussion on that at this time. Aaron, go ahead. Yes. So, I think the survey result or the survey is due May 26th. Correct. Um, there's a decision date on is it June 5th? Right. ish. So, if I can provide a little context, you know, I I started earlier in the superintendent report and said we we're kind of in this murky middle ground. Uh a couple of bills changed some deadlines uh for uh holding a referendum election. We're probably probably the only district far enough along in plannings and we've been very deliberate about planning and communicating which uh has led us to this place uh where
092if the board decides to move forward uh in an and issue out uh a resolution for a referendum, you have really two options. one, you can you can expedite a decision uh and hold that uh referendum before August 1st or if you wait until after August 1st and all the timelines that would come with those uh with these law changes, uh you would have to wait until the next primary election or the next general election. It'll no longer be the case where school boards can come out and say, "We want to hold an election on Tuesday, u October 7th or whatever the date is. It can only be done after August 1st. That can only be done at a primary or a general election. Like I said, the the district is in um because of
093all the planning that we've done. Uh we are at a place where we could hold an election before August 1st and have the information we need to give to the public, have the have uh the results of a survey would guide you uh in terms of where's the what's the pulse of the community. uh but to do that and meet all of the timelines and I did explain that in the overview. It gets a little wordy with the different bills in century code references, but really what it means is if you hold an election or if you call for an election uh at the in in the first week of June, you can have a special election before August 1st. If you don't, you have to wait until June of 2026. And so I need
094a little bit of guidance from the board in terms of uh now we don't have the survey results yet. We won't have them till May 26th, but we have time between hearing the May hearing those results uh after May 26th and June 4th or 5th. that would give us the time to really analyze those results, see where we're at, and still have an election the Tuesday before August 1st. So, I put the dates in here. Um, I'm not looking at them now. Uh, but June, if we hold a meeting uh as late as June 5th, we could have a special election on July 29th. Uh, I talked with legal counsel. They feel like all of the deadlines, we can meet all of those, but what I need to start working on is an initial resolution.
095And in my mind, you'd need two because you put two options out to the public. So, I'd need to work with bond council to draft two uh resol resolutions and I'd have to prep the board on the steps that you need to take uh on that June 5th meeting. And I we would have to have that timeline broken down because we don't have wiggle room. You know, it is a hard stop on August 1. After August 1st, uh you won't be having a special election. Uh but that's if the board chooses. That's if the community's feedback says gives you the guidance that you want to move forward. Uh but that would have to happen uh probably no later than June 5th. So if you would like to schedule a board meeting, a special meeting for
096June June 5th, then you would give me the guidance that I need uh to do the work uh with bond council and icon to make sure that we follow all the steps to do that. Jason, so when these survey results are complete, the results, what's what's that going to look like for us to see the results? Are we just going to get um numbers, uh percentages, or are we going to get comments? we hear, you know, school perceptions will come and provide that feedback to you and disagregate it out. Right now, uh we're still below I sent an email out um to to the community through social media. Uh you know, we were we're below what their average return rate is. The response rate is around 18%. Right now, I just checked this morning, we're
097around 6%. So, we're still below what that number is. But in my conversations with other districts, their feedback has been once you kind of reach critical mass with a couple hundred and you're, you know, your your standard deviation, it doesn't really change that much. You you get once you get to 400. Um what you your results at 800 track pretty close to what they were at 400. When you get to,200, 1,600, 2,000, they track pretty close to that. Um, but the results that I've seen preliminarily put us right about at that 60%. So, you'd like to have a little more definitive response one way or the other. I I'm guessing what you're going to see is there's about 60% uh in favor um when we get to those results on May 26th. And that is
098right at the we need the 60% approval rating uh to pass a referendum. So, you're right. you're going to be right at that. Um, so I would anticipate what I would see that meaning is a 60% on that survey if with their standard deviation probably puts you somewhere between 56% and 64% approval rating on a on a special election if that holds true. Owen, how does uh so are we going to get any interpretation from school perceptions on selection bias? And I believe so who's going to who's more inclined to take the survey the nos or the yeses. I would anticipate when when they provide that and I have not worked with them and and seen their presentation but I would anticipate that you would you would um they would describe their methodology uh and
099how they're coming to the results and what they're seeing historically from schools. Uh I'm guessing they're going to share that we have a pretty low response rate and so there's a lot more variability there and um you know so so they're you know not going to feel as comfortable with sharing what uh their anticipated um projection would be. And then uh also you said you were talking to other districts. I know usually referendums only happen once in a while, but is there any sense to timing of a special election and how that affects who shows up to the polls? It certainly does. Um, historically, uh, special elections um have seen a higher success rate than those that are on a primary or a general. uh because the people that are coming out for special elections
100are coming out purposefully to vote on that election. They've they've uh uh educated themselves. Uh they are wellversed in what the pros or cons of that proposal would be. Uh those that are coming to the primary may not have been as uh educated on that topic. So historically, I would say uh special elections have had a higher success rate. Melissa, refresh my memory. The last two referendums we did, one was during a general and one was a special, or were they both during a general? Primary and a special Jason. So, you just need direction or what specifically are you? Well, if the board sets a special meeting for June 5th, then I my intention to for that meeting would be to prepare resolutions um in the event that the board makes the decision to move
101forward with a with a referendum. So, right now we're just deciding if we want to meet on the 5th. Yes. Basically. Yep. With not at least to review the survey. Correct. Yep. I have no problem. Essentially, um I need time to plan. Uh if the board is not looking to have a meeting on June 5th, that means you're waiting until June 20 26 to have a to even consider a special election or to consider a a referendum. So June 5th is a Thursday and were we thinking a noon meeting? There is administrator negotiations from 4:30 to 5:30. So yeah. Yes. Steve, did you say we have to declare on the 5th? Do we need a meeting before that? Actually, you need to pass an initial resolution at that meeting to work through the different deadlines.
102Century code says 20 days, but you can't do 20 days. you have um other there's other uh legal conflicts that um you just can't feasibly do 20 days. The the fewest amount of days would be in the 50 to 60 range. What's the cost of a special election? I'm not sure off the top of my head. I'd have to research that. And would we have to do it? We have to do it. Yeah. And we we wouldn't be have to run the special election. Aaron, yeah, I guess just with the, you know, the timing and how close everything is and um I think we should plan to meet. However, I think a lot of it's just going to be dependent on that survey and but we just don't know yet. though. Um, but I think
103we got we should run through that due diligence to be prepared in the case that the survey is convincing one way or the other. Set a special meeting, but you don't have a special meeting. Yeah, we don't need for special meeting. I can call that, right? Yeah. Yeah, we would. Um, so we'd be looking at probably 5:30 on June 5th. Is that going to give enough time. Okay. So, if there's a motion and a second to set that meeting, Jason, I would move that we set a special meeting for June 5th at 5:30 in this room um to discuss survey results and potential referendum proposals. So, we have a motion, second by Aaron, motion by Jason, second by Aaron. Any discussion? And you'll send out a calendar invite to get that on our calendars and
104put it on the district calendar as well. Any other discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Okay. Thank you for that discussion. and we will meet on the 5th and see where we're at at that time and and the different options um moving forward. Back under our regular agenda, we um had all the board announcements and future meetings including the strategic planning meeting was added to that as well. Our next agenda item is possible executive session to discuss negotiation strategies. Let's see if I can get this right this time. Uh, I believe that discussion with our negotiations and developing a strategy relative to the school board's petition in this matter in open session would have an adverse fiscal effect on negotiations position of
105the board. Therefore, I move that the board enter into executive session and the following members and negotiators be identified as being present. school board members Jamie Bear, Melissa Gleason, Heidi Larson, Owen McKenna, Jason Roar, Dan Tweeton, and Steve Velcamp. Uh, and then Superintendent Rob Le, and Adam Gayler and business manager Christy Grounds. and that the date and time are Monday the 19th of May at 7:10 p.m. and that the following topic will be considered only the following topic will be considered in executive session negotiation strategies and that the legal authority for the executive session is section 44-04-19 of the North Dakota Century Code and that the executive session be recorded. There is a motion. Is there a second? Second by Melissa. We have a motion, a second. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose.
106Same sign. Motion and carried. Note that following executive session, we will return to finish up our agenda and close the meeting. This meeting was a mess. Take a few Hey, hey, hey.