001[Music] Good evening. I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Jamestown Public School Board to order. It is Monday, April 7th, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. in the Thompson Community Room at the middle school. We'd like to thank all those who are joining this joining us this evening. 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. Melissa, would you read the school board norms? The board developed norms are to share and respect opinions and speak with the unified voice once a decision has been reached, execute all duties of the school board in compliance with the North Dakota Sentry Code, properly prepare for meetings, and commit to
002assessing board effectiveness, and ensure high quality governance for all stakeholders. Thank you, Melissa. We have no public communication. Are there any conflicts of interest to declare? Any conflicts of interest? Melissa, I have a conflict of interest um in the consent agenda um with the open enrollment applications. I am related to one of the individuals. Any other conflicts of interest? Okay. Moving on to our consent agenda. Would anyone like anything removed from the consent agenda? Anything removed? There's one um clarification. The minutes of March 3rd if we could if the board does not mind. Um it's all accurate except I just like to clarify under the U.J agreement. Um there were two conflicts and if we would just put um the vote was it says unanimous. If we could just put a vote was 70 if
003that if the board is willing to do that. We can fix those if you approve that. Okay. Anything else on the consent agenda outside that change in the com including that change and the conflict of interest with it? Is there a motion? Motion by Jamie, second by Steve. We have a motion, a second for the consent agenda. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote outside those items noted um for conflicts. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Moving on to our regular meeting tonight, we have recognition of DECA. Jacob, would you please read our DECA? The DECA chapter from Jamestown High School celebrated two state champions at the North Dakota DECA state conference held in Bismar. Nevia Ramfo secured first place in state championship in the restaurant
004and food service management roleplay event and Carson Muggley secured first place in a state championship in the human resources management roleplay event. Their achievement will make them able to attend the DECA international career development conference in Florida. Uh we thank their adviser Mr. Shane Eddie [Applause] pictures of this. Thank you. [Applause] We appreciate the work that our staff does and teachers and staff do with all their their advising of these great organizations that give our students opportunities. So, thank you. We have nothing under correspondence tonight. Um under reports strategic plan progress monitoring number one strategic focus five resource management and planning goal one number two strategic focus three leadership of learning goal two and I will start yeah I will start with leadership of for I'm sorry this is resource management and planning goal one
005um as the board is aware we operate a a capital projects plan a 10-year capital projects plan and embedded into that is this goal. Jamestown public schools will annually approve a plan to address existing facility needs that allocate 100% of available funding to the highest priority areas. We know through this 10-year capital projects plan that we have much more uh identified over that 10-year span than we have funds available. So, we need to prioritize. And basically what this goal says, goal number one, it says goal two here. I apologize when I was moving through these, but um essentially what this says is that we're going to prioritize all of our available funding and I'll identify that as we go along. Uh one thing I'll note is you'll see this in my board report and you'll
006also see it as a as an approval for the uh updated capital projects plan. So you'll see this a few times uh in this meeting. So again, we identify our and prioritize our facility needs through a 10-year capital projects plan. It's a rolling plan. So what that what I mean by that is we add a new year every year and we shift everything over. Uh we identify across seven different schedules. Those are asbesus abatement building updates sites, roofs, ADA, safety and security and equipment. Uh the process that we use to make this prioritization starts with the building principles. uh we send a a form to them that they identify what their needs are, those that are that are already in the capital projects plan and any new needs that they see. Uh that process then
007moves to the central office administration uh Mrs. Grounds, Mr. Wagner, who's our facilities uh and grounds director, Mr. Gayler, uh and myself, we meet, we review, and we again prioritize uh those needs. We bring that recommendation to the board's facility committee. They review and then the final approval is here. So, it isn't just a kind of stab in the dark uh in terms of what we're going to prioritize. A lot of different perspectives have gone into this process to identify what the summer projects and and uh what the annual projects for this next year will be. So, if the goal is to spend all of the available funding, we are we anticipate having um needs, the target for the building fund is uh a little over 1.1 million that includes 10 mills towards the building
008fund and three mills through special assessments. uh our proposed expenditures slightly exceeds that goal of 100% of funding uh which which includes those special assessment expenditures, debt financing for the middle school green space on Washington campus and I just made a note in the presentation that that debt retires in in 2829 and then the entirety of our summer 2025 summer projects. So, um, one new thing that you'll see when we do the approved, uh, updated annual plan or when I ask you to approve the the annual plan update, uh, you'll see a slightly lower number than what we've identified in the past. The the reason for that is um, Washington Elementary being retired. That has that becomes removed from the capital projects plan with the retirement of that building. So that's why you see that
009slightly down from the 32 plus million number that you've seen in the past. So if you look at the schedules themselves, uh we have no anticipated expenditures in asbestous. Schedule one and schedule two is always the bulk or has almost always been the bulk of our of our annual spending. uh is generally in building repairs and that's about uh 548,000 uh in sites, 92,000 in roofs, 50,000 in targeted expenditures. I'll talk about the roofs just a in a little bit more in just a second. Uh nothing in ADA uh in schedule six, which is safety and security, 80,000. Uh and then in equipment 108,000 which is a little bit more than what we annually provide into equipment but we'll talk about that in the next slide here. So we have talked in the past about
010prioritizing roofing needs. Every year uh we have a contractor come through assess all of our roofs gives give us recommendations on what roofs should be prioritized in in that summer uh session. Uh this time they have suggested that we might have priorities in other areas. They didn't have a roof that they felt needed to be replaced um in this cycle. Uh so we were able to look then at other priorities that we haven't been able to target because roofs and other expenses have been uh have taken priorities. We felt like this allowed us the time to address more of our food service needs. We've uh we have uh pushed those into later dates in the past because we haven't had available funding and without roofing we felt that now was the right time to address
011some of those needs. Uh that includes flooring replacement, countertop replacements at Roosevelt and Gusters, dishwashers at various schools. Uh what we call combi ovens. Uh those are helpful for our buildings that are doing much more scratch cooking. So cooking from scratch. uh and they need those to support doing that increased scratch cooking. Uh other building needs were the replacement of shop doors, HVAC needs at JBCTC that we just approved that in the last board meeting and change order number seven. Asphalt replacement at JBCTC as we do that that building project up in that space. Uh the we do need to replace the asphalt up in that area. uh bleachers for elementary activities were prioritized and they were prioritized because a PTO agreed a 50% match. Uh they came at the right time to ask for
012that request. Facilities committee reviewed that and felt that was a reasonable request with that match. Safety updates include enhanced welding ventilation. Uh and we're also taking uh a pilot approach to safety glass 3M safety glass uh in in a some of the priority locations like where our um we see the most amount of traffic. Uh and and just a reminder, the board is well aware of this. We've talked about it before, but we include in our capital projects plan what I call various buckets. And that's where we put annual expenses like our maintenance needs, building repairs, HVAC uh uh HVAC repairs, floor replacements, painting, roof repair, uh safety updates, sidewalk repairs, things like that. all go into those buckets and those are coded separately uh in those buckets by Christy in her budget. So, next
013steps, uh, later on in this meeting, you'll approve the or hopefully you'll approve the updated capital projects plan. Um, and, uh, after that, you know, we'll contact our the various contractors, schedule those projects. If we need to, we'll follow procurement laws and bid them out. Uh, when we go beyond the our financial thresh thresholds, that requires us to do that by law. Uh the other next steps would be just the board's long-term commitment to uh updating the capital projects plan uh each year as part of our summer projects. And with that, I would stand for questions on focus area five and goal one. Melissa, I just had a question if you could clarify a little bit more what the bleachers were for at the elementary school. They're elementary activities. Uh Guster Elementary hosts uh the
014majority if not all of our elementary activities and there's no seating. Uh there's really just the they're either putting chairs out or they're using a um it's a wooden bench that goes along the the west side of of the gymnasium. Uh felt it would be safer to have telescopic bleachers uh involve in on the west area of the gym. And again, I don't know that we would have prioritized this outside of the 50% match of the PTO. I guess that was more my question is, okay, how storage wise, but you you said they they kind of telescope out. They're telescopic and they're still 3 ft from the court, which is what they can be uh to meet safety code. Any other questions? Jamie, we did, if I remember correctly, we have a roofing project that
015wasn't quite finished last year. Is that correct? That'll still be completed this year, but the the pro that is not part of the summer projects out of this that's already been covered in our last summer projects. It's just when they're completing the work. So, that's still being completed. Any other questions or comments? I'm glad our You want just have one motion? Should we do one motion? Is the board okay with one motion for both? Okay. All right. And thank you to our facilities committee. Um this you can see just by this presentation the amount of time that they put into this. So thank you. Mr. Gayler, are you going to do the second part? Leadership of learning. Good. All right. So, uh this is uh 3.2 in leadership for learning and uh our goal is
016that we build capacity um for personalized learning. If you go back to the um previous slide, uh it talks about some things that we aspire to in leadership for learning. Uh things like all students in or all learners that includes us as adult learners engaged in our learning environment. uh we uh provide students with relevancy with connection and equitable access that students have an opportunity to explore their interests and that we uh develop ownership in their own personalized learning and growth. So this goal uh is not a specific measurable goal but it's really to build capacity towards that vision or that focus under leadership for learning. Um, one of the things about this goal is that it also connects to other goals that we have, student engagement and student achievement and our goals around uh
017more community integration. All of that kind of comes into this one bubble of personalized learning. There's some outcomes in those. uh the outcomes in in this goal are really specific to just how do we build capacity and um in our community and in our educators as we implement this. So if you've remembered from that dashboard in the past this this would be considered a driver metric. Mhm. Yep. Okay. So um how are we uh building that capacity? um from a staff standpoint, we've had some professional learning opportunities. These are almost all exclusively um grantup supported or uh initiatives within the state of North Dakota. So there are many other districts that take take u part in these opportunities. There's the um Northern Cass uh personalized learning conference that happens every summer. We've had several educators
018attend that over the last three years. Um we there's the uh a North Dakota personalized learning network. Um there are several districts that were u part of a statef funded opportunity to engage with a group called knowledge works and then that transformed into this personalized learning network uh which includes site visits and workshops um that we've had teachers participate in. Uh there's another group that's been working uh mostly through Northern Cass um with a group called two revolutions that uh is implementing pieces of this framework as well. Uh there's been supports um through SEC with different trainings that relate to personalized learning. All of it goes back to those messages of how do we make learning increasingly relevant? It's relevant now, but how do we get even better at that? uh how do we make
019it increasingly personal so that I can see my own interests as a learner in what's happening in the classroom um and you know how do we make sure that we have outcomes for all kids. One of the foundational pieces that's not on this list but is really what we've talked a a lot about which is standardsbased learning. If we know what our standards are, it's much easier to understand what the rigor is of the of the standard and we know that we've got a solid floor to stand on. uh and to expand into areas like personalized learning. Um so these are some elements from the North Dakota personalized learning network. Um hard to see up there, but probably easier to see if you zoom in on your own presentation, but it's about those same things
020that we have that we're striving for in leadership for learning, about learner agency. How do we get kids to own their learning more? How do we build solid relationships with students and with our community? Uh how do we have a continuum of learning? Things like um our scales that we've built. How do we show students that learning goes on a continuum? Um learner supports. How do we make sure all kids have access and are supported in their learning? That they demonstrate their learning. So, you probably have been invited into classrooms where uh students are presenting on what they've learned or they have a community um presentation or our DECA students uh we just heard about their stellar examples or our robotic students. All of our students are out performing, but this is how do we
021get that into the core experience at a regular enough cadence that kids um have those opportunities to solve problems, present all of the things that you guys know are important. Um and then relevant learning experiences. How do we make sure that um not all of the time, but when the standards call for experiences that could also impact the community that our kids have an opportunity to do things like that? So, I feel like I'm explaining a little bit of the goal at the same time. Uh but that maybe helps you understand. Um so at the elementary level we implemented a learning management system in empower that really shows how do those standards flow together over time and increasing our level of feedback on the standards gives students more ownership over their learning. Um next steps
022really for them um is to continue to incorporate more student choice and voice into how they show what they've learned and also in goal setting. so that they are able to own that those goals, see their progress, and track that progress over time. For the middle school, um they're preparing to implement standardsbased learning. Uh so any of these training opportunities have been optin types of opportunities at this point. The goal says we're building capacity for that. We have a lot of other things that are going on at the same time. And so people who are ready for that next step have taken that step. Uh we've had some middle school educators engage in the professional learning opportunities. Um they're really focused on that implementation of standardsbased learning at this time. Um uh in their curriculum,
023they're working to ensure that we have relevancy and connection and community partnerships and things that they already um do pretty well here, but we can continue to get better in the high school um action steps. We've had uh teachers be able to attend those um professional learning opportunities. Uh they're working on a pilot uh while we've been practicing with a pilot for um how do we track non-academic skills, what we call career ready practices at the high school level in power school. So our CTE teachers have been doing that for a few years now. Um and then um we actually have uh Tony McIntyre will be presenting at the personalized learning conference this summer as well as some elementary educators uh presenting. Um but Tonyy's going to be presenting on that subject of a senior
024capstone project that he works on in English 4. Okay. So next steps um we're kind of laying the foundation building capacity in this area. um continuing to uh offer uh training opportunities. Some of those things were funded with uh maybe ESSER through the state. Um there's a state personalized learning network that continues to meet and set up these opportunities. Um I think even though this is a a driver and not an outcome, it still gives visibility to the importance that this is something we aspire to. Uh I think it's an important goal to continue. Um and I think that um you know as we approach that season where we're looking at strategic plan, I think it's something important to keep in our sites. um after SPL implementation which I kind of described earlier as the
025floor for this I think that you're going to see me more people say hey now I want to know how do I make our or how do I get our students to have more ownership in this how do I make this into uh the same outcome but a community focused project that also has good outcomes for our community relationships or gives people from the outside an opportunity to come in and share share their expertise with our students. Uh we want to establish that floor and then move forward with this um maybe more aggressively in the future. But I think that it's a a good I feel good about the spot that we're in now and having the opportunity for people to start to engage in it. I'd stand for any questions. Any questions from the
026board? All right. Thank you, Mr. Gaylord. Okay. Thank you. And the motion. So, yep. We have strategic plan progress monitoring number one, strategic focus five, resource management and planning goal one. Number two, strategic focus three, leadership for learning goal two. Is there a motion? Motion by Melissa. Second by Jason. We have a motion, a second for approval of strategic plan progress monitoring one and two. 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. Le, thank you. You do have my written report. Um Oh, excuse me. I'm going to jump down to um the the bottom of page one. Uh policy FDF, the foreign exchange students. Uh the board is aware you had public comment uh
027uh related to foreign exchange students. Uh and um I did take some time uh looked through policy. Um I I and I visited privately with the requesting individual and I I was open about uh my recommendations what I would be recommending to the board and the rationale for that throughout that conversation uh with the patron. Um from my perspective policy FDF and and it's specifically outlined in guideline D that host families be residents and I think there's a few important reasons for that. Uh the first is that the policy limits the number of foreign exchange students. So if you open that up beyond uh those that are residents, you could be in a position in which you've approved five non-resident families and now resident families would be limited uh or would be unable to have
028uh foreign exchange students uh even though they're residents of the district because you've given those slots outside. And and I'm sure that's why the policy was drafted that way to limit to residential or to families that live as res residents of Jamestown public schools. The other uh key piece in this discussion as well is that uh state foundation aid is not eligible for foreign exchange students. So uh the the cost of is borne by the resident taxpayer. Uh so my recommendation is to maintain the policy as it is that if you'd have um foreign exchange students that they must be living within the residents of the Jamestown public school district. Uh if there is a desire and I would you know you know if that is the direction the board would like to go to
029open that up to non-resident families. I I do have some suggestions that the language would be uh to for the superintendent to create some procedures for the consideration of non-residents as an example uh those that open enroll that live outside of the district but open enroll in or families open enroll in and I think the specific example that was given uh again my concern would be that you are taking potential slots away from resident families but if that is the will of the board. That's the direction that I would like to take that. Just with that, I'm going to pause for questions if there are any. Melissa, I know in the past we had quite a few um foreign exchange students and I'm kind of out of touch with with that since my kids are
030no longer in in high school. Have we had all of those positions filled within our district or is that something where there are positions that are still open and that there's vacancies? Yeah, we almost always fill the quota of five. Uh and there's some other regulations that we have in place and you know only one from every country to give people the true exchange experience. Uh, and I think the policy is a well-written policy, but generally speaking, we have we fill that quota up almost every year if it isn't every year. Any other questions from the board? Jamie, is there a way that we could um after the five spots are filled go on a basetobase like approval process or something? You certainly could could. It becomes a little challenging without set rules like we
031have rules that you know that by the end of June 30th you know by July 1st our cut off um then we don't accept applications anymore um you know the the the rules of of u only one per country of residents to get in the exchange experience. I think when when we blur the lines, uh it becomes uh easier to blur the next line, you know. Um and and I guess I would suggest from a policy standpoint that you're firm on what you're firm on. Uh and if it's five, then it's five. Uh if it's July 1st, that's what the deadline is. And if it's no more from one country, otherwise there's always a reason uh for individual circumstance. Uh that's why I think it's easier to keep the policy as it is. And again,
032I'm the I'm the vehicle here. So if the board wants to go in a certain direction, I've given you the rationale for why I believe that to be the case. Uh that the policy is written as it is. Uh but if there's different direction, just let me know and we can work on something. Jason, you look like you're in thought there. That's scary. Um, so, so when these students apply for this program, are they applying to enroll in said district around Jamestown or how does that process work? I mean, are are they are they applying for a specific district or just the program? They apply uh to the program and they are placed is my understanding. you know, we don't have a lot to do with the placement of of those, but there's different uh
033individuals that work within regions and they place within those regions. Um, but no, I don't believe that um, you know, a foreign exchange student from another country says, I want to be in this particular school district, they apply to be part of this program, and then they get placed somewhere. I'm sure there's some level of criteria uh and and opportunity to to personalize that, but I don't know exactly how that process unfolds from the student standpoint, Steve. So, in the I guess what the lady had brought forward, if there were host families that are not part of our district, could they not just enroll in Barnes County North, or are there certain districts that don't accept them or or why is this an issue, I guess? Yeah, I can't speak to other districts, but I
034don't know of any districts off the top of my head that do not accept foreign exchange students. they would certainly have that opportunity to to be within their own district. The request was could we accept surrounding families, those that live outside the district to enroll here, different opportunities, more students, uh probably the driver there, but um but no, they certainly would have the opportunity to to request that of um their resident district. Um this is a different question I guess then so if how much work is it if we have a certain timeline where if the five are not filled then we would allow other applications that's certainly possible. uh that you know the u the five slots usually start to fill up you know about this period of time you know is when we
035start getting because there's there's competing agencies that do placement of foreign exchange students um and so almost every year uh I would say probably half of the time uh you know we either are at five or past the deadline when when individuals start asking and and and those are slots are usually filled out. Melissa, if I remember correctly, the reason she had come forward was because the host family had children that come to the Jamestown and that's why they wanted to. So, I think one option for the board if you right now our policy is pretty black and white and pretty firm. Um, one option if the board wanted to allow um, an exception and and I think my thought is instead of creating a bunch of different languages and criteria is that if we
036created some sort of exception form that the superintendent could review based on the numbers for that year and other circumstances. Otherwise, um, just my thoughts. Otherwise, we leave it as is or we in instead of, you know, doing up to, you know, if we don't have five, then this or if we don't have this, then that. That way, it just would be kind of a catch-all kind of process and and the administrators work with the the high school and what whatever else, you know, work together on that. Melissa, you know, my personal opinion is if we are not having any problems filling those five slots and five is what we've been doing that we just leave it as five because I would hate for somebody to have to go outside of the district if they're
037here because we've filled our five and we've let somebody from another district um come come in. So, I would I would re be open to revisit in the future if we're seeing that those numbers are not getting filled, but since there it's not an an issue right now, I would say that we leave it as is. Jason, and is is five the quota that we have selected as a district? Okay. Um, I think, you know, it's obvious the common ground here is that we don't want anyone to miss an opportunity if there's an opening or or what have you. Would it make sense for us to consider our original five and then if we would what what it would look like to have a quota of six, but one of those six is for a
038potential out of district. I don't know what that would look like does or if that makes sense, but um that was just my thought. My my only uh consideration for that would be there are times when we take when we're above the five, you know, and we deny res, you know, resident families as well because we've reached that five. And so what you know, that would again kind of be in the same scenario where we're denying a resident family. Sure. Yeah. Do any other comments from the board? Do we um if if if someone doesn't want it brought back? Um we will leave it as is and revisit in the future if there's any changes. Steve, did you have a Yeah, just one other question. Does it does a host family or the student or
039the program whatever do they have the opportunity to pay that so that there is no taxpayer burden or would that affect anything? Well, um I would have to look at North Dakota Centralakota as it relates to tuition agreements and the yeah I would have to look to see if that's even allowable because usually that's for residents. I think the language is specific to resident in centry code. But this is an area I can keep looking at too if it's something that you know hearing what I'm hearing right now is let's maintain as it is and just keep our minds open to other alternatives if there are any. Okay. Uh continue on. Okay. Moving into the element Washington elementary transition. This is just a uh an area of the superintendent report that I'll continue to have
040until uh this transition is complete. So, it'll be a while. Uh just to give some updates, we've sent out a notification letter to our Washington families regarding the boundary placements. Uh we've included a frequently asked questions document that's also in the resource center uh that our check department is helping us to maintain. Um and I've discussed that before. A district leadership team met. uh we started walking through all the different protocols and and procedures for um retiring a building. Um and I think right now there's there's about 50 different steps that we've identified or things that need to happen. everything from you know uh the moving of assets to uh insurance uh to everything across the board and and I've listed out some categories and this is certainly work in progress but um you know
041everything from asset management and facility planning uh building and facilities moving and storage technology and equipment records and documentation furniture classroom items legacy items comm communication financial and asset reporting uh and then a final walkthrough or just kind of the overarching categories that we've identified thus far. Uh but still something that we're continuing to work on and work through uh as we think about retiring a building. Um I wanted to draw attention to Emma Mickelson. She teaches third grade at Washington. She's done such a fantastic job uh in um organizing some celebrations for the retirement of Washington. uh she's organized or is working towards a fair welfare, a community open house to honor the legacy of Washington Elementary and then a last day event. uh she's really done a great job not only with organizing
042these events and getting feedback from lots of different people but also has done quite a bit of fundraising and so we've made some district commitment uh but uh her budget was uh included you know it was pretty comprehensive and and so we couldn't do everything and so she's done uh quite a good job with uh different levels of fundraising and the community has been very supportive which we appreciate as well but I wanted to draw attention and and honor the work that she's been doing. Uh, as I said, we have a resource center. I put a link to that. You can see uh one other thing that um is fairly new to this process. We've talked about it before, but uh we felt like we needed to do a better job this cycle uh in
043building capacity in the community around our facility needs. So, we broke that down into three questions and we we recorded a series of videos uh so four different stakeholders uh around three key questions. why was Washington retired? You know, why is now the right time to consider facility needs and then what options have been identified? And so throughout the course of the next few weeks, we're putting pushing out two of those videos a week. Uh right now, we're still on why was Washington retired. Uh later on this week, we're going to transition into why is now the right time to decide the facility needs. So that's something we've had some good feedback on from the community. you know, quite a few views that have come to those and the feedback has, like I said, have
044been good. Um, and these are also then uploaded. Uh, Quinton does a great job of making sure that they get uploaded right away to that resource center. So, we've had three out so far. I think we recorded a total of 20ome uh different uh segments. The those won't all be posted, but they'll all just serve a different need for us. Um, I have talked already about the capital projects plan. uh you know, we'll act on that later as a board. I've talked about a couple different areas, provide a little bit more detail uh into what some of those projects are. Uh the teacher leadership academy, uh we are targeting St. John's Academy as our partner this year. Uh and hopefully we'll have interested individuals from St. John's Academy to to go through that teacher leadership
045academy with us. Anticipate starting in summer of 2025. uh and then they will complete their program through five semesters in December 2026. Uh a couple legislative uh I've included a a number of different bills, but maybe just uh to bring attention to a couple uh House Bill 1160 and Senate Bill 2354. Those are the hog house bell-to bell restrictions to cell phones. Uh 1160 actually failed last week. Uh but it was brought back. Uh it was under reconsideration uh earlier today and it passed uh as well as 2354 passed off the floor today with a handful of different amendments. So the next step for the for the legislature now is to take these two bills because they are uh so similar. uh they are going to go into conference committee and then whatever bill comes
046from conference committee will get voted on both sid both branches and will go forward to the governor for um you know whichever bill comes from that conference committee uh will then get forward forwarded to the governor for to be signed. Um 1176 is the most likely property tax reform or reduction bill uh that's been revised a little bit. You might have read a little bit in the paper about that moving down to 1250 for a property tax. Um, who knows? There's still lots of discussion. That'll have to go back to conference committee as well. Uh 1154 is 11, excuse me, 1144 is not one that I brought to the to your awareness in the past. That actually relates to century code for accommodation of transgender students, but amendment was an amendment was added in the
047house on 1144, which we've been monitoring because it addresses uh bathrooms and shared um communal sinks. And as that's defined, that could be everything from science labs to um if you've been in Gusner or or Louis Lamore, there are shared communal sinks outside of the bathrooms in Gustin's sake. That's original to the building. So about 1958. Uh but that would be uh required to be removed uh if 1144 in this in this um uh in this current draft would pass. And it's not just Jamestown Public Schools and a couple of different uh buildings that would be impacted. You're probably talking about many, many millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars across the state in construction costs that would need to um be expended to get all public schools to code on uh communal sinks.
048Like I said, it's not just communal sinks and new construction. Uh you'd be talking science labs, too. uh and you'd be talking about those that have existed in uh you know for 50 60 70 years in some of these buildings. So just something that again I've been discussing and um uh that I've been monitoring and just to bring your awareness 21104 I'm just going to bring that back. Uh that bill at the time that I wrote this had received a do not pass. uh since that time it has been defeated uh on the floor of the house. Uh but I'm hearing that there's potential for 21104 to come back under reconsideration as well. So uh just something else to monitor. Um under the spotlight, I wanted to bring attention to uh our food service department.
049Uh they have a number of different awards that they have received uh in the last month. uh the small and or rural trailblazer award. They're the only winner that's a national award and they're the only winner in North Dakota. Um and they were awarded for reduction of sodium in their recipes, but they'll be recognized in Las Vegas at the National Fall Healthy Meals Summit. They also won the innovation in the preparation of school meals. Uh that was for scratch cooking. So for their different scratch recipes that have come and that's again a national award and but they were the only selected North Dakota winner. Uh beyond that, we have two individuals and we'll have them up here for recognition to the board at at some point in the future. Uh but we had two staff
050uh awarded the state awards of um Lori Podal uh kitchen assistant uh employee of the year and then Melissa Doctor who is the manager of the year. She's the cook manager at Jamestown. Both are at Jamestown High School. So with that completes my report. I would stand for questions if you have any. I think we just need to get a round of applause over the spotlight. Okay, Jason. Bill 1144 with uh sinks. Is that all public facilities or ju or uh just public schools? Public schools. And that's that's any public school facility regardless of age? Uh yeah, it includes adult area uh staff, any p any public school building. Okay. Correct. I think that would meet the definition. Yes. That wasn't the intent of the amendment, but that's the practical application of the amendment. Yes.
051But but you are talking tens of millions of dollars across public schools. Yeah. And is there any financial supports? No. To that bill? Nope. To to do the repairs? Um Jamie, um I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the videos. I think that's a great idea to get that information out to our community. Um and then also if there are any dates um that schoolboard members can attend the um Washington school celebrations, I would be interested in hearing about those. We will get those those dates and information hopefully in my next report. Yes. And good point, Jamie. I've been hearing positive comments on the on the videos, so people are watching them. So, very good. Any other questions or comments from the board? Steve, are there any other districts in the state that
052are doing something similar to the TLA? Yeah, there's a number of different teacher leadershipmies that uh go on across the state. Uh I would like to say that the University of Jamestown's version is the best version. Uh but um but there are a number of others that do that as well. Any other questions from the board? K. If not, moving on in our agenda, uh we have nothing under old business under new business activities. A board education. Oh, did I miss something? Board education. Okay. Oh, did we miss that? Okay. Board education. Dr. L, you want to do the open meeting? I jumped over that. Sorry about that. Thank you. So, this is a a piece of board education that that I know everybody in this room has heard before. Uh, but open meetings and
053open records are part of a regular rotation of board education. Um I think it's important that we continue to come back to um o what open meetings and open records executive sessions just to u uh you know continue to um receive board education on this topic. Uh because uh law is very prescribed on on open meeting and open records. Uh I'm going to just start with who is subject to open meeting and open records. If you look at North Dakota law, our sunshine laws are uh some of the the clearest in the nation in terms of what is open to the public. Uh in other states, states make these decisions for the for themselves. Uh in North Dakota, we have uh made the decision that almost everything is open. There's very little is closed. In
054some states, you can even have evaluations uh evaluation meetings in close session. Uh in in North Dakota that there's only a couple of things that happen in a closed session. I'll talk about those, but for the most part, uh almost everything almost all public business is done in the open or what they call open. So, who's who does it apply to? It applies to in almost everything I'll talk about it lives in Centry Code 44-04-17.1. uh but a public entity is subject to open meetings. So what is a public entity? A public or governmental body, boards, bureaus, commissions or agencies of the state or any political subdivision uh including any entity created or recognized by the constitution, state statute, resolution, ordinance, rule, uh bylaw, order of the governor, etc. supported by or expending public funds,
055acting as an agent or agency of a public entity, performing a government function on behalf of a public entity. I won't read every slide but this I think you can see school boards fit pretty well into who is subject you are very clearly a public public entity so what makes you a what makes a meeting um a quorum so and we'll talk about how that you know changes slightly with with committees but a quorum of a governing body of a public entity discussing public business becomes a meeting Again, this is under 44-04-7.1. There's some caveats to each of these. Uh, but you know, the quorum of a public of a governing body uh discussing public business as a meeting. So, that begs the question, well, what is what is public business? What does that mean?
056uh I've highlighted a century code that says all matters that relate or may foresee foreseeably relate to the performance of the public entities, government functions. Um so almost everything that you do becomes a matter of public business. Some of the exceptions that you see that come about um is meetings of national, regional or state associations. So for example, when you go to the North Dakota School Boards Association for an annual conference, you don't have to post a meeting for th for those conferences. That's a meeting of the national, regional or state association, chance or social gathering. Sometimes we get this question, well, what happens if we're all in or a quorum of the board is all having supper at the Buffalo City Grill? Are we suddenly uh are we having a meeting or does one
057of us have to leave? No, you're not conducting public business. And that comes back to public business. You can be in the same place and chance social gatherings. You can all be at the Jamestown uh high school girls basketball game. That does not constitute public business. However, if you start discussing the board meeting, the actions that were taken or actions that are forthcoming that you um that may come up before the the board, those are the times when you have to consider, well, this suddenly becomes public business um or or this becomes a meeting. Most of the time when you see if you go through the attorney general's website, you'll see you can go and list all of the different investigations that have happened over open meetings. Uh and I actually encourage you to do
058that. Go check it out. Um there's many many that occur every year at least inquiries about, you know, did was a was a open meetings violated. Uh they're almost always done um accidentally. We didn't realize. I didn't know that making that phone call to somebody would constitute a serial meeting or I didn't realize that we were talking about public business. And that's one of the reasons why I think it's important to have this reconnection to open public meetings on a regular basis for board education because sometimes we forget um that those those minute details that could lead us to uh a open meetings vi violation u the other delegation to one person. So if one person uh represents the board at a meeting that's not a meeting but if two or more are provided that
059um representation of the board that suddenly becomes a committee which is subject to open meetings. Uh as I said there's no exceptions for committees. So it doesn't matter if it's two three or four that's still a that's still you are designated by the board. So you are acting on behalf of the board and it doesn't matter uh if you don't have the final authority uh in that committee to make a decision that you're not acting on behalf of the board even though you're just having conversations. Uh you could just be factf finding, you could be brainstorming, you could be coming up with um recommendations for the full board. That doesn't make a difference. It's still a committee and so it's still subject to open meeting uh open meeting laws. So, how can a meeting occur?
060Um, so sometimes when we consider a meeting, we consider this. We come to the Thompson community room at 5:30 and we invite all of the board members in the public. That's a meeting. But meetings can happen in other ways. There are times when individual board members can't come and or we do a telephone meeting or we do a Zoom meeting. All of those are subject to meeting laws. Uh it could be at a restaurant. Again, not a chance meeting, but if you're conducting public business before, uh with a quorum of the board, that becomes a meeting. Uh meetings can happen on very short notice. There's a myth of a 24-hour rule for a special meeting. Uh I don't know where that comes from, but it's not it's not the law. It's not in centric code
061anywhere. Um, you certainly want to provide enough um time to have a special meeting, but there is not law that says you can't have a special meeting until it's been posted for 24 hours. Uh, but it can happen on very short notice. It can happen over video conference, and it can happen uh through email over a series of days. They call them serial meetings. So, things to consider. If you're ever in doubt, treat it like a meeting. If you're uncertain, post the meeting, post an agenda, make sure that the public is aware. Don't hit That's why we say, you've heard me or other members of the board or or district say, don't don't hit reply all to emails. Those could create serial meetings. if you are uh asking about board business um or or even
062asking sometimes innocent questions that aren't intended but collectively they could be become serial meetings. Don't straw poll. I think that's an obvious one but you don't want to contact other board members and say what do you think about that motion? Are you going to vote yes on that? Um I wonder you know of course we know we can't do that. Uh the biggest thing is be cautious of serial meetings. Small emails, telephone calls, private conversations that when strung together could be considered a series of meetings between two or more board members that led to discussions that should have happened in a public meeting that should have been heard by the public because when those individual meetings happen, they could take away the discussion that should happen at a board meeting. So in that in those
063cases the public misses the conversations or the dialogue that you have had as board members either through email, by telephone or in person that should have happened in in an open meeting. So when you're posting uh one of the keys that I would say is make sure that your agenda topic is not vague. kind of a easy rule of thumb is that anybody whether they're on the board or a a a patron of the community should be able to look at your agenda and know exactly what you're acting on. Don't be vague. Say things like contract approval. Well, contract approval for what? Are you talking about a a contractor? Are you talking about a memorandum of understanding? Are you talking about uh the teachers contract? Are you talking about a an individual teacher contract or
064an administrator? What are you talking about? There should be clear enough that anybody uh should understand. Anybody from the public should understand what exactly the board is acting on. It shouldn't be ambiguous. Where do you post the agenda? It should be at the main office for us at the main office. Uh it should be a central location. Uh or you can put it on the on the district's website. It should include the location of the meeting and the time and it should be given to anybody that requests it. So, if somebody wants to know uh if somebody reaches out to Amy or myself and says, "I want to know about every board meeting that you're going to have from now and through the rest of the year." We provide that when we when we send
065out to these other entities, then we send out those agendas to everybody else, whether that's a committee meeting for the finance uh or it's a regular board meeting or a special board meeting, whatever the case is. uh if that's requested uh we send that out and again there's no myth that's a myth of the 24-hour rule. So minutes uh that's the listing of what uh the minute should include and again that's that's listed right in sentry code 44-04-21. You have two kinds of meetings regular and special. Uh in a regular meeting uh the difference between them of course a regular meeting has been previously scheduled. A special meeting is scheduled after your regular meetings have already been established. Uh but in a regular meeting, you contain all the topics that you're going to discuss when
066the agenda is created. In a regular meeting, you can add agenda topics. Districts are going to have rules associated with how that happens. How can you add an an agenda topic during a regular meeting? At a special meeting, you can only discuss the things that you posted the notice for in the special meeting. You can't add topics at a special meeting. Uh in a special meeting, you do have to provide notice though uh to the newspaper and anybody that's made those requests. Executive session, I wanted to add in executive session uh for the for open meetings. Uh in North Dakota, you can only go into executive sess executive session for four reasons. To discuss conf confidential information. Uh this is kind of an outlier uh because you don't make that you don't have to make
067the you don't have to make a motion to go into executive session for confidential information because by law it has to be done in executive session. Uh my rule of thumb though is just make the motion to go into executive session. Don't just assume it provides much more clarity. Uh although you have to go into it anyway. Uh to discuss exempt information. Uh the two most common are attorney consultation and that has to be pending uh or in light of potential litigation. You can't just uh have decide you want to have a conversation with an attorney. Uh and that happens in executive session. There has to be pending or potential litigation at play. Uh and four, the most common is to discuss negotiation strategy. But that's only if having that discussion in a public meeting
068would have an adverse uh effect on the negotiations strategy. So you can't just have it because you want to have it and call it negotiations or even if it's slightly is adjacent to neg negotiations. The test that you have is that it has to adversely affect negotiations to have it in open session. In some districts or in some states, um, you you do you you could discuss personnel matters or job performance or discussion around a personnel complaint. That hap that's fairly common in a lot of states. In North Dakota, you couldn't do that, but it's one of the more common violations that you will see uh by the attorney general in open meetings is having those discussions uh in in an executive session. So procedurally, uh, we give you a cheat sheet. We we include
069all of the information, all of the steps, all of the motion that you need to make an executive session. So you can just read it. Uh, but the procedure is you, uh, convene in an open meeting. Uh, you announce in open meeting the topics to be discussed in your legal authority to do so. uh you record the session and you have to keep that for six months in the event that somebody uh files a complaint or a question or an inquiry. Uh if that was executive session was appropriate, uh the attorney general would need that um the attorney general's office would need that recorded session to review and then make a judgment. Um, one of the critical pieces of executive session conversation, I think our board does this very well, is making sure that the
070only thing you can discuss in executive session is what's on is is the stated purpose. Uh, you can't take um side conversations, even if they're natural or tangental to the conversation. uh you have to make sure that you are only talking specifically about what you've stated uh in the open meeting that you're going to have a conversation about in executive session. Uh you don't need a motion to exit. You're simply done when your conversation when you've served your purpose. Um you are just ending executive session. The the chair will close executive session and then you're required to reenter the open meeting to take any formal action. No action happens in executive session and no board action only discussion and direction. So with that I have a couple of resources that I've included in there. Uh
071but with that I would stand for questions if you have any. Any questions from the board? Okay. All right. Thank you Dr. Le. Sorry I switched those around for you on our on our agenda. Um moving on in our agenda now under G we have nothing under old business. H. Under new business, we have number one, activities. A, approval of cooperative agreement with Victory Christian School for Dance. Is there a motion? Motion by Melissa. Second by Jamie. I have a motion, a second for approval of cooperative agreement with Victory Christian School for Dance. Any discussion? Any discussion? I'll make my usual discussion on cooperative agreements. just and I know it was it was noted in there, but I always feel like we want to make sure that we continue to revisit these um that um
072there's room in the programs for for Jamestown public school students. So, I appreciate the work that is done with that. So, any other discussion? Jacob, I guess I ask, was there an inquir inquiry from uh a student from one of these schools or are we just kind of getting ahead of the game in case that they're Yeah, Mr. Ralden requested to stay ahead of the game and to stay consistent uh with what we have done in other for other schools. Okay. Any other Jason? So this motion includes St. John's and Victory. The the memo says St. uh includes St. John's. Yeah, that should have said Vic. The the the agenda topic should have said both. Okay. Um just clarification. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for noticing that Jason. So the agenda the the motion is second
073if you're still in approval is approval of cooperative agreement with Victory Christian School and St. John's for the dance. Everyone good with that. Okay. Thank you for that catch. Thanks for that catch Jason. Any other discussion? If not assuming roll call vote all those in favor say I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Number two, building and grounds approval of updated capital projects plan. Is there a motion? Motion by Jamie, second by Steve. We have a motion, a second for approval of updated capital projects plan. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Number three, nothing under curriculum assessment instruction for finance. Approval of audit agreement and subsequent audit scope. Is there a motion? Motion by Jamie. Is there a second?
074Second by Jacob. We have a motion. A second for approval of audit agreement and audit scope. Any discussion? Yes, Melissa. Is this the report from the auditor that or is this a totally different? It's the future agreement. Okay. To do it again. Okay. Any other discussion? We have a motion second for approval of audit agreement and subsequent audit scope. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Under operations, we have review of Crognia accreditation report for your information. Is there any questions on that at this time? Yeah, Mr. Gayler gave some board education on this a few months ago in preparation. We we had seen a draft. Nothing subsequent has changed since that time, but we wanted to put the final document in front of you. Yep. And thank you for
075all the people that all the staff and teachers and administrators that um put a lot of time into um creating entering the data for this report. And also thank you um to the board. Um we um we the uh the report uh I think had some positive things to say there as well. So there being no questions and if you have further questions um and also there's going to be continued followup on this that Mr. Gayler will be back to report on. So, okay. Under personnel, a approval of 2025 summer school course offerings and do we do you care if we do the contracts as well as the board and B of 2025 summer school contracts? Is there a motion for A and B? Motion by Jason. Is there a second? Second by Melissa. We
076have a motion, a second for the approval of 2025 summer school course offerings and approval of 2025 summer school contracts. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. C. Approves. Approval of a resignation. Chelsea Grany. Is there a motion? Motion by Jamie. Is there a second? Second by Steve. We have a motion, a second for resignation. Chelsea Grenzy. Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote. All those in favor say I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Thank you for your service to our district. D. Approval to hire for the 2025 to 2026 school year upon successful background check and receipt of lensure. Trevor Wilson, Sydney Solless, and Bonnie Milky. And including the A approval memorandum of understanding. What was it?
077Oh, and Matthew Stewart. Matthew Stewart was added maybe. Added. Okay. Yep. And Matthew Stewart. Is there a motion? Motion by Melissa. Second by Jason. We have a motion. and a second for approval for hire for the 2025 to 2026 school year upon a successful background check and receipt of lensure for 1 through 4. Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved and welcome to our district. Thank you, Dr. And um if the motion did not include the approval for theou the memorand yep the a under under 3A. Yep, we read that as part of the original motion. So, any questions on that from the board? Okay. Um, number seven, policy and procedures. A, approval of board policies. Do are we can we do
078these together? Are we good with that? Okay. Resin policy DFA teacher evaluation and first reading of policy DFA teacher evaluation with subsequent approval of the amended DFA- AR teacher evaluation procedure. Is there a motion? Motion by Steve. Is there a second? Second. Second by Jason. We have a motion, a second for one, two, and a. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Under tuition, approval nuition agreements number one, Barnes County North student to attend Jamestown Public Schools. Is there a motion? Motion by Jason. Second by Jamie. We have a motion, a second for approval of a tuition agreement number one, Barnes County North student to attend Jamestown Public Schools. Any discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all
079those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Nothing under other items for future agenda. Does the board have any items for future agenda? At any time you have an item, please let Dr. Luck or myself know. Under meetings to be scheduled, co-curricular committee meeting on Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 3:30 PM in the central office conference room. Finance retreat for negotiations on Tuesday, April 15th, 2025 at 4:30 p.m. in the central office conference room. Regular schoolboard meeting on Monday, April 21st, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. in the Thompson Community Room in the middle school. Transition house graduation on Thursday, May 15th, 2025, 11:00 a.m. at the transition house. High school graduation Sunday, May 25th, 2025 at 2:30 p.m. at the Jamestown Civic Center. That's hard to believe we're talking about graduations already. Are
080there any meetings that we missed? Any facilities or finance or um we'll have a strategic planning one in the next few months um with was that a doodle for that? Anything that we missed? Okay. Um possible executive session to discuss negotiation strategies. Okay. No motion. Monthly superintendent evaluation section one goal and vision setting in section 4 curriculum and student support services. There being no further business before the before the board, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone. Hey, hey, hey.