001[Music] I voted you and I gave you that I even like time place everything e e good evening I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Jamestown Public School Board to order it is Monday March 17th 2025 5:30 p.m. in the Thompson Community room of the Middle School we'd like to welcome all those in the audience this evening please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge to the flag of the United States St of America and for stands one na indivisible and justice for Jacob would you read the school board Norms y the 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 North Dakota Century code properly prepare for meetings commit
002to assessing board Effectiveness and ensure high quality governance for all stakeholders thank you Jacob next on our agenda we have Kathy Scott for for uh Public Communication Kathy come on forward and to the podium and please state your name and your address for our record Aon you want to help her with the mic there just a little bit tall thank you used to that either all right my name is Kathy Scott or Catherine Scott and I uh my address is 2940 94th Avenue Southeast spiritwood North Dakota 584819 policy I would like to see the last little paragraph of it to be changed or a clause added to it to allow outof District families or persons to go through the Open Enrollment process to enroll a foreign exchange student so I would wish that this is
003something you would discuss and that extra Clause could be added in there the policy Mr heiner told me was drawn up in 2006 and uh I have been enrolling exchange students in Jamestown high school for 20 years with that as it's stated now and I shouldn't have been I guess because that's what it stated but if if you could please talk about that and and um put that extra little clause in there because I think it's depriving the student body of cultural exchange if out of District families cannot go through that open enrollment process and and enroll I do have a a family that lives just three miles up the road from me that I do know wants to host and and they have enrolled their children or they have two daughters in Jamestown High
004School from kindergarten up so it wouldn't make sense for them to host a student and have to send it to Barnes County North so if you all can think about that that and do what you feel is right I guess thank you thank you moving on in our agenda are there any conflicts of interest to declare for this agenda any conflicts of interest Aron just the standard issue same one yep anyone else Jacob same any other conflicts of interest for this agenda okay moving on to our consent agenda is there is there a motion motion by Steve is there a second second second by Jason we have a motion second any discussion or any item you'd like clarification or something removed for further discussion on the consent agenda any discussion any discussion if not assuming
005roll call vote all those in favor say I I oppose same sign motion approved moving on to our regular agenda under recognition we have nothing tonight um under correspond we did receive a card from Lynn settled for the remembrance of a family member under reports student council report we have a student council report tonight please come forward and tell us your name and what's up with the student council hello for those who don't know me I'm Haddie McDonald I'm the president of the student council at JHS this month student council as a whole doesn't have anything to work on however the junior class is finishing all their prom planning um prom is on March 22nd and we are planning on selling Grand March tickets this week during lunch and Grand March will be at 8:00
006p.m. on Saturday do you guys have any questions got any questions from the board any questions okay okay thank you thank you so much for coming under um reports we also have our audit report you can refer to your governance letter and then Christie do you want to help just we have them on here on screen um we have Craig from woodmer rooll and he's going to present the audit report thank you Christie and um thank you to all the members of the school board uh Dr Le and christe as well hang on Craig we can't hear you sorry all right while they while they do that um as you guys are noticing here we have and and aware we have our first time um audit with Whitmer Ro this and each can go ahead
007and try still can we're still working on the sound Craig we're still working on sound we can't hear you if we can have you keep talking Craig so we can try to adjust so anyone to hear you still testing okay we're starting to hear you now just need it a little louder okay can you hear me now we can hear you we were just trying to adjust volume here okay I'll keep talking until you tell me to stop it feels like it's coming through the projector still still pretty quiet it's getting better it sounds like you're coming through our projector and not through our sound system system so we're still working okay gotcha I'll just hang tight it's a lot better now yeah much better okay can hear me loud clear excellent okay well um
008I'll just start over quick and yeah thank you to to all the members of the school board and to Dr Le and chrisy for for having us here today um as as you said I'm uh John and I are on the call um my name's Craig Hashburg John Wars with us too um and and we're from wh Maru um this is our first year serving as Auditors for Jamestown Public School District and um and I'll just say you know every every initial audit is always a challenge both for us as the Auditors and for for our clients in this case you know Jamestown School District just there's a learning curve and um that just is comes with the territory so um anyway we we were pleased to have the opportunity um we hope that we'll
009continue to have the opportunity this be be the first of of um many years of a a longterm you know professional relationship so that being said um you know I think the audit went very well now it's my understanding you should have all the reports on your end uh do you have um the the PowerPoint presentation or would it be beneficial for me to share it I'm not um because we did have some slides that we sent over as part of the agenda and or I can just talk and you can just look at you should share them if you can okay please absolutely um and I'll just keep talking while I'm pulling the physical slides up uh it'll only take a moment but um anyway uh I'll go ahead and start with you know
010just kind of you know what an overview what is an auditor what are the audit procedures that we perform to carry out an audit and this is right from the slide so I'm just kind of starting off without showing you the slides um we we assess the risk where that things could go wrong in the financial statements and and when we do that we consider the possibility of either errors or fraud um and then when we when we assess that risk then then we design our audit procedures to make sure that we address that risk and reduce it to an acceptably low level so that we can support our opinions and conclusions on the financial statements and in this case as is also the uh the case with uh Jamestown Public School District and probably
011will be for the foreseeable future your audit was a single audit which means that we also conducted audit procedures regarding compliance with federal guidelines and um and I'll talk briefly about that process too at this point I wasn't going to save it till the end but but I think it' be good to just recap that so um the school district uh any any local government that spends or state government that spends more than $750,000 in federal Awards or it'll be a million dollar starting with the 2025 fiscal year is required to undergo what's called a single audit under the uniform guidance and through that process we risk assess the federal Awards and we have to select based on that risk assessment um one or more grants to test in this case we tested title one
012and we did not have any findings and we were able to conclude that that the school district complied with those Federal requirements so um that's in the reporting package that we sent to you to is that single audit report it would be following the noise to the financial statements um now if you'll bear with me I'll just share oh I don't think I can share because I'm oh yes I can sorry I just found it I do have the PowerPoint slides open there it is okay seeing the the slideshow at this point we can see you thank you okay now I talk about the procedures performed so first and foremost the the audit of financial statements so um I would um in after getting past the cover sheet in our audit report is the independent
013auditor or in in the financial statement package is the independent Auditor's report um this audit report states that we covered the the the year the date as of and and for the year ended June 30th 2024 um our opinion is a clean or an unmodified opinion which that's the best opinion that we can give which means that the financial statements were free of material misstatements um some other things that are in this report it emphasizes the fact that management is ultimately responsible for the information in the financial statement so um you know as part of the audit we collaborate with we we obviously start with the school district's internal accounting records which are provided to us um and then we propose certain adjustments throughout the process to get to put the financial statements in the
014proper presentation format in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and also to ensure the the note disclosures are complete and accurate and cover all the required disclosure items uh and and then any adjustments that we make are provided to management as well as a draft of the financial statements are provided to management for them to review and approve also our audit report indicates that it was conducted in accordance with government auditing standards which are is those are a separate St of additional standards which are issued by the US OMB and or I'm sorry the government accountability office and um and those standards are any audit that's performed of a local government in North Dakota is requ required to be under government auditing standards as well so there's a separate report on internal control and compliance
015that we issue and and I'll briefly touch on that at the end as well um basically indicating that we perform certain testing of related inter internal controls and compliance so just uh then I'm turning next to the I'm kind of jumping ahead to the general fund uh balance sheet uh which is on page should be on page six of the financial statements and and um that one I really like to to look at the governmental fund balance sheet because it it really lays out the financial information in a basis that more closely resembles the budgetary process and the budgetary basis of a county used by the school board in the school district on an ongoing basis um the the first couple Pages represent the statement of net position the statement of activities which are required
016uh under generally accepted accounting principles but and they include uh items like debt and and uh property and equipment and they also include uh pension liabilities and other related accounts but I really like to talk about the government funds balance sheet more so because that again it's really more in line with the the base of accounting that that it's used on on a day-to-day basis by management and the board so again with this slide just you know there's a little bit of history there on the general fund balances and those the general fund cash balances have have remained right around $9 million um you know give or take $8 million in 2023 um 2021 they're a little bit lower around 6 million but um kind of been pretty stable which obviously stability is good uh
017you don't want to see wide swings and we really haven't been seeing that um just a couple other financial statement highlights the the fund level the general fund revenues and expenditures um have been uh fairly especially in in fiscal year 24 uh they were fairly close to equal and obviously you don't want to be running a huge Surplus or deficit there were some transfers to to cover costs from like the food service fund primarily that there were transfers out and once those transfers out occurred it was virtually a break even scenario in the general fund in 2024 with the the revenues and expenditures net of the transfers out netting to zero there were uh just a kind of a note on the journal entries I'm as I mentioned earlier you know we as part of
018the audit we work with management to provide journal entries and adjustments to help bring the financial statements in accordance with gap um so that are generally accepted accounting principles and and so there was um a total of 11 adjustments and that's really not all that many um and uh it feels like a may feel like a big number depending on how you look at it but it's it really um was not and that's not an atypical number um so there were some Revenue recognition items some prior period adjustments that that we identified um that we kind of caught up from the pre from the previous years and a few other items there's just some items that are that need to be reclassified for financial statement presentation related to receivables payables and so on um but
019those adjustments were provided to management for review and approval as well and they're they are attached to our financial reporting package so just then I'm going on to the the government funds income statement the statement of revenues expenditures and changes in fund balance and um as you can see the breakdown of revenues like the vast majority of revenues coming in are from State sources and and a distance second local and then Third Federal and there's a little bit of money that was in the financial statement classifi his County uh a kind of a negligible amount like but um property tax amounts would be categorize under that local category so and this breakdown is very typical of school districts in North Dakota and the general fund expenditures um the um Regular programs which that's you know
020regular instruction that would be this instruction K through2 instruction that's financed by state and local dollars um not including the federal program such as title one uh special education and so on and then all the other costs programs um or other costs such as Administration so on were about 49% of the total general fund expenditure so um and again this ratio is not not out of line not surprising not not a typical with having you know more than half of the money being spent by the general fund is going to K through 12 education which makes sense kind of another just bar chart that in the slides breaking down and again this is all in the financial statement in that government funds income statement um you know kind of a breakdown of of the various
021other costs um Administration being the highest and that that obviously covers all the the superintendent business expenses uh principles um you know all the all the the cost behind the scenes to run the run the school district uh special education is like a close second and that's would be funded with um idea or special education funding uh federal dollars and then there's other Federal programs which such as title type cost primarily those are um kind of a distant third and on down the line so um operation maintenance that's a cost to run the buildings uh keep the facilities the lights on and keep the heat on and all that good stuff and then the other ones I think are fairly self-explanatory so I'll I'll pause quick and and just see if there's any questions you
022know on the financial statements um and then I'll just just kind of go on at this point are there any questions from the board at this time okay continue on thank you okay thank you so and then I I don't typically spend a lot of time going through the notes to the financial statements but one kind of caveat that I would mention is the um the pension note is takes up a lot of lot of paper in those financial statements it's uh gby 6875 were passed or were were adopted as as generally accepted accounting principles just a few years ago and they really added a lot of bulk to the notes to the financial statements and there's really very little that's within the school district's control over those it's all related to NY Pur and
023TFR and it's required disclosure many many pages um and there's a very large liability that shows up on the face of the financial statements as well um that liability obviously is not the same as other debt in the sense that um there's not a fixed payment that the school district is going to have to make to pay down that debt it just it hinges on a lot of factors such as life expectancies uh the performance of the markets which drives the the investment performance held by TFR and Andy Pur and the contribution rates and all that so the most likely impact of that pension liability number is continued potential increases in the employee and or employer contribution share um probably some legislative action down the road to make some onetime payments to shore up that
024any deficit balances which would benefit any participating employers and so on so I like to just talk about those note disclosures because they do take up a lot of pages but the other note disclosures are really just intended to provide information for the readers of the financial statements and then I'm going on there's a communication with the governing board a letter that we are required to communicate to you uh certain aspects of the audit um and kind of the sub categories are those like represented in the slide you know our responsibility for the audit the timing uh we have to evaluate our independence and we verified that we are independent of of the school district I heard um you know Declaration of conflicts of interest U among board members at the opening and and again
025we very much take that seriously on our end as well um and any significant risks you know we we uh we do disclose those to you there um and we also send a letter with the engagement letter disclosing significant risks and again that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong it just means that we had to assess risk of a school district in North Dakota and use that to design appropriate audit procedures to support our audit opinions and then significant accounting practices if there were any significant difficulties working with management we would report them to you there were no such difficulties and if there was any fraud or anything like that we would be communicating that here as well and but we would be having a phone call prior to this letter so U there was
026no such issues like that thank goodness so that letter is a required communication to be made in writing from us to you by our auditing standards so we're doing just that and next um there is a also in the package there's an internal control report as I mentioned earlier this these audits in North Dakota are require to be done under what's called government auditing standards so we issue an internal control report and then we talk about um material weaknesses significant deficiencies and then if there were other matters and the definition of material weakness means there's a there's a possibility that there could be a material misstatement that occurs in the financial statements and couldn't be wouldn't be prevented or detected timely and then a significant deficiency means you know not a serious of material weakness
027but something that we need to communicate to you as a board we have identified two material weaknesses um in our report um one was a general one for audit adjustments and uh this is a very typical one that we have with um a lot of our clients and as I mentioned you know on the front end um there's the basis of accounting for generally accepted accounting principles really can deviate quite a bit from you know what what's practical and what's used on an ongoing daily basis for Management's purposes in terms of internal financial reporting so um you know most school districts across the state report on essentially a cash basis because you're budgeting on a cash basis um but that's not what Gap or generally accept accounting principles requires so there's a number of audit
028adjustments that we propos that are approved by management um and it oftentimes we feel it's it's good to communicate that to you as a board to be aware that those exist and just you know make sure that um that those are and we're we are doing our job to provide those to management as well as the board so you can be aware what sort of adjustments took place and then the other one was I I think probably a one-time one that um as of today I feel is resolved and I'm sure is not going to be an issue going forward but is something that we needed to bring up and that was um the cash there were some differences in the cash U balances um and it was at the beginning there was and it
029mostly had to do with the some of the CD balances there was a couple $1,000 difference between what the reconciled balance and what the financial statements said um you know the reconciled balance is per the makes versus is the financial statements U we worked with with christe and Tammy and um ultimately you know as a as a collaborative effort discovered what it was proposed audit adjustments fixed um and it I'm very confident it's not going to be an issue going forward either so uh that is something that we need to bring to attention of management the board because um that's kind of when it comes to government in North Dakota everything comes down to cash and if thing if if the cash is reconciled um lot of the other things are just going to fall
030right into place but if there's any differences you know then uh then things can get a little more concerning but u in this case I I'm I didn't have any heartburn by the time we got everything resolved I I don't have any heartburn about it anymore it really was uh just had to do with some accounting issues primarily related to buying and selling or buying and redeeming a CVS and that kind of thing so I'd be more concerned if it was major issues going on in the checking account which that's not the case so that's um probably all I have to say about that um and that and and again I I already mentioned but just recap that you know we we did do the single audit testing over title one this year and we
031had no findings or other issues and there is a separate report in that package that talks about the scope of our single audit testing as well so um again it's been a great pleasure to work with you all and to be of service um so um you appreciate all the hard work that Christine Tammy put into the audit and Dr Le for his assistant assistance along the way as well um and at this point I just uh make myself available to answer any any final questions um otherwise um I'll be happy to step aside and let you proceed with your business any questions for Christie or the Auditors or myself Dr luck okay all right and we need a motion to approve the audit report is there a motion motion by Jamie second by Dan
032we have a motion a second to approve the audit report as presented any discussion any discussion any discussion if not assuming roll call vote all those in favor say I I oppose same sign motion carried and thank you to Whitmer for the for the audit and um do they they can go take yeah you can you can go ahead and sign off onks every you don't have to sit through unless you'd like to sit through the rest of me you're certainly welcome so thank Youk you moving on in our uh agenda here we have strategic plan progress monitoring we have strategic Focus three engagement of learning goal two you have uh y you have the progress monitoring report and Mr gayor and I will uh kind of tag team this this uh progress monitor report
033uh at least he will add in any of the things that I'm sure to forget uh you can see our resource management and planning strategic strategic Focus three uh is outlined on on uh slide deck slide two of the deck um the specific goal uh addresses the study of equity of Education delivery models schedules and human resources and then uh also some uh making recommendations moving forward on this strategic goal uh we outlined I start on page three we looked and we've talked about vital networks and the survey that we do um a couple times a year a few different times and and there's an there's aspects of this that that we thought applied to um this goal as well and that was specifically in the area of workload management it was one of the
034areas that we performed under our Target area of 5.0 uh that was an area that was a gap for us uh an opportunity for improvement uh and that is represented as a district on deck on Slide Five in the deck and then we broke it also down by Elementary who performed the highest the closest to our Target uh in each of those workload Management areas uh down to the middle school which is uh slide seven uh and they were pretty much on average uh compared to the district they were very close in proximity to The District in terms of the scores again other under our targets of 5.0 uh but close to the district average uh at the high school campus that that's where we saw our biggest deficiencies uh in terms of the responses
035from staff uh related to workload management and they were under our district average and uh you know you know certainly under our Target uh again our Target five 5.0 so you can see some opportunities for improvement at the high school campus in that area uh moving into some strategies that are currently uh underway uh as a district we have worked with vital Network and that gives us a lot of the data that we just talked about now uh and our building leaders have been responsive I've talked about this before so I won't go a lot in depth into the process but we operate at a building level so you know we we don't focus on the district level data that gives us a good sense of the pulse but the real sausage making goes in
036at the building level because there's differences at every building that what's happening at Roosevelt is different than what's happening at the middle school different than happening at Washington so it's important that each of our buildings go through review their specific data and work towards strategies specific to them but one commonality we found was uh meetings uh and and if workload management is a is a concern you know are we having effective meetings or are the meetings that could be something else uh and so at each of our buildings uh people have looked at how can we uh use our time better not take the precious time we all know the the best resource we have is time uh the most finite resource we have is time and uh you know we want to make sure
037that the time we're asking our staff to sit in meetings is productive for them uh so we we've worked to try to decrease that number uh we have seen and you'll see it in this uh agenda we've talked about it in a few different uh meetings but um looking in special education uh has been a significant hurdle for us in Staffing special education uh we have looked to a few different uh I wouldn't say outside the box but they are kind of adjacent to the Box uh that we've had to look to uh J1 Visa teachers uh resident teachers a program called resident teachers it's it's a way that we can um get our get some staff members trained they get their cours workk done concurrently to working for us and so it's a way
038that that uh a program that exists to help that uh and then we've us used uh special ed technicians what a position that's called the specialed technicians we were one of the first districts in North Dakota uh and I still think it's an underutilized uh sta uh Personnel category uh to help uh alleviate some of the burdens that come from those uh Staffing shortages especially in Special Ed we've heard a lot of concerns about substitute teachers and the pool of substitute teachers shrinking we've tried to work with University of Jamestown to help increase that sub pool uh because what what happens often times when we don't have Subs is our teachers on their preps are filling those spots and so that again is that hitting that resource of time and so there's more that needs
039to happen there but we're trying to increase that substitute pool uh a last factor is Right sizing our facility footprint in our number of sections we've had a lot of conversations in the last few months about elementary sections uh and uh I think you can see I've given you a report in the last couple of meetings since the decision to retire Washington Elementary and the my superintendent report will outline our last teacher that's been placed uh and that's great news uh to getting that to to occur but it also shows the impact of shortages that we're able so quickly to fill those internal positions uh and I think about what would happen if we didn't you know in this year have those teachers that could simply move over uh into those other positions and I'll
040talk a little bit more about my concerns about the shortage in a bit in the challenges because I think the shortage is actually worse uh than we think in our state and I think there's U there's a few reasons for that but but I think if we don't do something as a state and as a profession fast we're really going to see that shortage hit us in a couple of years um and honoring time differently uh our special education staff we we see a lot in special ed there's a lot of paperwork requirements uh that come with our special ed staff that's creates a big time burden so one of the strategies that's been used across the district and we try to do this as much as we can certainly as much as it's requested
041uh but offer professional time and we get a sub uh during that classroom time to help those individuals get their paperwork done because that is an additional burden that comes on just a little thing that we can do to try to help out uh and then we're also looking at strategies uh to provide or to honor the professional development time beyond their contracted workday uh that's another area or professional development curricul Community has been working on uh as well so if you break that kind of the District overview at the elementary level uh as the board is fully aware we've had some different uh scheduling uh and the board has in increased the the FTE in specials uh specifically in uh in uh physical education but also in El uh to provide a little more
042support for our students there that has allowed us to create uh more collaboration time our elementary teachers have had the least amount of collaboration time built into their schedules uh compared to the middle middle level in high school uh and so we knew we needed to do more there we certainly heard that from our Vital Network survey and just conversations with staff that more collaboration time was needed especially at the elementary level uh and that has really helped uh utilizing our leads our standard based learning leads to support curriculum development uh and enhanced leaderships within the leadership within the teams uh at the middle school uh we have we have adopted the Middle School concept for many years in decades uh have adopted the Middle School concept and that embeds common planning time in their
043day uh our middle school has a significant amount of time to plan every single day and so you know continued commitment to that and using that time well uh is something that we are continuing to work on at the high school uh we've seen we've been able to reduce the number of extended contracts every time we have an extended contract that means that somebody's taking some of that collaboration time away to fulfill a curricular need and so uh when we can effectively recruit and hire staff that happens less we don't have to take that time away from our high school staff uh and so as that's shifted and we've had fewer extended contracts um we have to do less uh or more time is provided uh we have talked in the past and this board
044has talked in in in board education and a board retreat around different um secondary schedule models we've talked you know at Le at least at a overview level of what some of those secondary schedules could be and how could they impact time and collaboration for our staff uh and we know that we need to continue to have that discussion and engage our high school staff on what those schedules could look like and and what the benefits of those schedules would be how that would impact the work burden of time uh when you look at challenges I'm on slide 13 so cining enrollment in our district uh is a significant challenge it's a challenge because a lot of our models like our Middle School model that I just talked about they're predicated on a certain number
045of Staff a certain number of teams and as declining enrollment comes uh that's threatened by those teams or the team model is threatened and common planning time is threatened by declining enrollment because we may be soon in a position where two teams aren't the right number it might be a team and a half and so what does that look like from a planning standpoint how do we manage that uh and that's a challenge that we're going to have to uh look creatively at to try to solve because we know how important that Comm and planning time is and we don't want to see it go away but does it need to look different or does something else need to change um anytime you're talking speaking of change anytime you're talking about um change you need
046to have a lot of communication and you need a lot of build a lot of capacity around the why behind the change and what if that happens then what happens next and and providing professional development communicating with our staff or different stakeholders changing our structures all of that takes time uh and that's a challenge that we need to look at as well um and you know one of the areas that I think we need to continue to focus on is our salary and benefit structures we want to be able to recruit and retain the very best as we have if you look in jameston public schools I will tell you we have some of the best and brightest uh teachers anywhere that you can find uh and we need need to make sure that we
047can recruit more of them and we want to make sure that we can retain these high quality staff that we have teachers and support staff uh but anytime you know we are in a declining enrollment environment and our funding is so determined uh by enrollment we have to make sure that any change that we're making is a sustainable change so we have to balance those two things of providing the very very best and also thinking about sustainability uh in the long term um and Staffing is is at least in the foreseeable future going to continue to be a hurdle and I I kind of prefaced this earlier you know we have some challenges especially with some Specialists those are going to be harder positions to find and so we have to be creative about what
048we do for that uh to continue to find those folks uh but as I prefaced earlier I think the conditions are are actually worse than what we think they are even though they're hard we have a gap right now and there was a change made uh about a decade ago in the Teachers Fund for retirement and it changed the early retirement conditions we're kind of in this bubble period right now where we have about 3 years where uh new retirees are not eligible to retire because of this change in time so Rule of 85 became the rule of 90 plus the age of 60 okay and what that means is we have essentially three years in which no new early retirees you know uh are eligible we have this gap of time and so we
049have current staff that are eligible to retire but that Gap uh takes us until 2027 and then we start to slowly see that come back so even though we're seeing uh people leave us and people retire had the rule of 85 been in place you would be seeing quite a few more retirees be eligible so we're actually in this kind of a gap or kind of a valley period where we're seeing the advantage it doesn't feel like an advantage because we feels like we're a lot of people in and we're struggling for candidates but without that change you'd be seeing five or six more a year that are eligible to retire and so it feels good uh but but it's a concerning area that I think that we need to be prepared for because in
0502027 2028 the the new reality if we don't do more to make sure that we are recruiting and retaining the best people and filling the bucket in our profession of new new teachers coming in this is going to get demonstrably worse um and so I think that's just something I want everybody to be aware of because when that bubble does burst in 2028 there's going to be more uh concern across the state not just Jamestown so more that we can do to support that will be better so future considerations uh next step slide 14 uh We've utilized the teacher Leadership Academy for a lot of different things uh and uh the board is aware in the presentations you've heard that they provide action research that's uh a research over the course of their teacher Leadership
051Academy so five semesters um any work that we can Advocate to study workload Management Solutions would be a welcome action research but we also have signature assignments so big assignments that are the focus uh of a semester and and we'll consider uh different workload Management Solutions as part of those signature assignments so what can we learn from our tlaa uh leaders uh our teacher leaders in the TLA about workload man agement how we can improve that better uh I think we need to build on an initial training we had with with artificial intelligence how can we make work easier for our teachers uh and how can we get them comfortable with utilizing AI to try to reduce some of their workload burdens um I talked about uh a middle school schedule uh and the fact
052that we are in a declining enrollment period we want to protect that common prep time and that common planning time and how do we do that with the cining enrollment I think we need to be uh creative and and a middle school schedule committee could help us do that and and get some teacher feedback on how that would work uh similarly I think we need to engage our high school staff in different solutions and structures to support their workload management uh I heard just uh from another superintendent uh last week uh that is going out of state to a pretty large teacher uh Fair uh in Pennsylvania and uh there what we're seeing across the state we don't see this so much in North Dakota because a lot of North Dakota school districts uh like
053Jamestown used eser as more of a long-term strategy we talked about that when eser came about don't hire a bunch of Staff you know because then you're you're going to fall off the Esser cliff and you're going to have to then cut those positions or find a way to sustain them and uh so a lot of States outside of North Dakota did hire positions and so now the national trend is you're seeing these Esser funded positions no longer have sustained funding now you're seeing more teachers out in the uh you know looking for positions because their positions were cut or somebody else's position was cut and a veteran person was moved into their uh their position uh so if there's an opportunity for us to bring more teachers into the state because of that because
054of that I think we need to look at that uh and of course we always want to continue to build that competitive salary and benefit structures the best that we can to recruit and retain again understanding that every change we need to make needs to be sustainable but I will say I was looking earlier today at uh Heidi eer did a wonderful job and talking about our child care we I asked her to put out some options and scenarios and say I I'm at this place in my home looking at the child care and what that cost would be for my family try to make it tangible for people uh and the S the amounts ranged uh in those six or seven different uh uh scenarios for St range between $49 per child per month
055all the way you know all the way up to about 500 so that's significantly less I think strategies like that are really going to help us recruit and retain good people uh what we've done with medalis and bringing in that that uh partnership with malalis a Deca almost a decade ago uh I think is is a thing that makes us different as a as a school district than other districts people don't districts don't have nearsight clinics that they can offer to their staff parental leave our Child Care Program those are all the types of things that I think are going to help us recruit and retain really high quality teachers so um with that I would stand for questions and the recommended action to accept the monitoring report any questions before we move into a
056motion to approve oh I didn't even breathe long enough to allow Mr gayer to add I'm actually um you know I think you hit all the high points one thing about this goal in particular is that it it says by 2025 so for the strategic planning committee you will have to consider what's the update to this are there some more specific things and then it talks about the study of those models and schedules um and some of the recommended actions might be things that you want to turn into other goals but that's for that committee to discuss really yes and we're looking at scheduling a a meeting soon so that'll be a good thing to conclude on our agenda for that any other questions from the board if not is there a motion motion by
057Dan is there a second second by Aaron we have a motion a second to approve strategic Focus three engagement of learning goal two any discussion Aaron yeah so on this one here I'd like to and I am on the iic planning committee but I'd like to get a little bit more aggressive in this area um taking a more holistic approach and looking at not just one side of the equation but both sides of the equation in terms of the scope of work that we're trying to accomplish with the resources that we do have and um you I've raised comments on that before in terms of you know the size of our curriculum and um different things but I also like to look at um you know the org structure with that we're operating under uh
058I'd like to challenge the equity model to some degree um just different things I'd like to like I say get a little bit more aggressive on this um because I think it's something that we you know we need to do and and improve our efficiencies and whatnot uh and then along with that um I think we need to get to a you know a Quantified metric of what it is that we're going to how we going to measure success on this um so we have some some background now with the survey scores uh so that that's one point but you know in terms of uh the primary function of what we're trying to do how how is this one affecting that how how good are we performing in um strategically improving the district in this
059area I agree with that I I do think there's more metrics we can you know we touched on some of them but didn't quantify them out you know number of extended contracts amount of time that's provided collaborate you know in in opportunities for to collaborate with you know peers I think those some of the metrics we can look to but I I agree we need to define those out quite a bit more yeah and I think you know looking at also the the the scope of work what are we asking our teachers to to do on a daily basis and is that really necessary for for everything that we're asking for or is there a different approach that we can take such that um you know I don't know I don't know what the answers
060are but this is where I I want to have that discussion uh you know with the with the multiple stakeholders and and uh see see what we can come up with and so the strategic planning committee will be meeting but um as always of other B board members have some um input um that they'd like to have to the Str strategic planning committee before we meet you just let me know or or Dr Leo just to make sure that that's also noted on our on our strategic planning agenda so thank you Aon any other discussion any other discussion okay we have a motion a second for strategic Focus three engagement of learning goal two all those in favor say I I oppose same sign motion approved um we've uh rescheduled the board education to to
061another meeting um superintendent's report Dr luck is next before I get into my written report just wanted to add um we had public comment earlier today U my intention would be to add uh a section in my superintendent report next meeting uh that addresses specifically the policy that we have on foreign exchange students a state law related to open enrollment uh and a recommendation uh on the policy whether to maintain it as it is here's the rationale why or to make changes here's the rationale for why so I'll do that at my next meeting just so people understand that you know we do we have public comment you know the the role of public comment is to provide feedback to the district uh but just because we don't respond back in public comment doesn't mean
062we don't hear the comment uh but that would be my intention is to include that that uh as a superintendent report um so as part of my written report uh you have Personnel that are there that will be acting on later the change order request I outlined we have two different ones the one's a very small one change order six uh that's about $582 uh change order number seven has been um a process uh to get to and I've outlined what the what the problem was was uh the the architect and engineer mislabeled uh condensing unit uh ordered the wrong unit we needed a much larger unit uh and so quite a bit of discussion has occurred over the last weeks and months uh related to making sure that we get the right one ordered
063uh and that we are charged only for the right one uh and so this change order represents uh what is the proper unit uh and what would be our uh what I consider to be the appropriate cost uh of that change order um so it does exceed our contingency budget which we have included I we have keep that Google document that that shows where our contingency at is at uh and that is uh would require us then uh to uh utilize the building fund uh what I will say is the building fund does have uh available you know uh has the ability within the budget to cover that cost that is a unit that has was already targeted uh in the short term for uh to be replaced I should say in the in the
064capital projects plan to be replaced I think this grant for the CTE project allows us to do that a little bit earlier but there is a a building fund commitment uh to replace that unit it is a unit that needs to be replaced uh it does uh provide temperature control which is required in our Child Care Program to be between 65 and 75 degrees um it is frustrating to be in the position that we're in to have the wrong unit ordered um but this is the correct unit and you know that's the cost associated with that so I'm just want to pause for questions if there are any any questions about the change orders from the board okay continue so I referenced earlier the Washington Elementary transition we were getting very very close I finished
065a draft of the FAQ document uh today once we get that um uh reviewed a few more from a few more eyes uh we I'm working on a notification letter that will go to our Washington families that align to our um to our new boundary Elementary boundaries uh to help communicate that uh we're also we've just talked uh internally about having what we're calling a resource center on our website so all of the documents that uh have gone into the process to make this particular change whether it be the enrollment facilities task force board memos uh the enrollment and Boundary study um letters FAQ all of that will be housed online in one place so people don't have to look for it they'll just go to online to say Resource Center click on that then
066all of that information will be available uh for Fe for people so those are things that we're working on in the short term uh I referenced earlier we made our last placement now for our certified teacher Emma mikkelson will be moving from third grade in Washington to third grade in Roosevelt uh Mr Carlson uh will be moving from third grade in Roosevelt to fourth grade in Roosevelt um so we have a handful of other staff that we are still looking at but I anticipate those uh being completed in April 7th so again moving pretty quickly I feel really good about that I outlined in my report something I'm really proud of the nation's report card came out and those are nape tests uh nape tests are provided it's supposed to be a representative sample uh
067of school districts across the state and they are reported by state not by District even though uh we are randomly selected I'm using my air quotes but randomly selected in the middle school every year um but uh but I think that's because of sample size but we do we provide those tests every year but um North Dakota performs very well you hear a lot about Pisa scores those are when when when you see U uh International comparisons how did the US do compared to uh Singapore or Finland or what or what whatever the comparison is they're often using the Pisa and then there's also the Tims but uh if you took North Dakota on its own as its own country um in our fourth grade math we were number three in the nation that puts
068us uh in the top 10 in the world in for fourth grade math if you look at 8th grade math we scored number two in the I'm sorry eighth grade math we're number two in the nation in the top 10 uh in the world uh in uh in in Reading uh we were number seventh in the nation in fourth grade number 12 in the nation in eth grade both of those rank Us in the top tier internationally above you know people always point to Finland for example Canada is having very high uh reading scores uh we actually would U would outperform uh Finland in in Reading in our fourth grade and our in our eighth grade and I think what it validates what we already know about our North Dakota teachers is they are um
069outstanding professionals that uh work very very hard and are out just wonderful teachers and very dedicated uh to Excellence so I want to recognize what they do every day um I wanted to point out uh four different bills that I've highlighted I had a lot of different bills in the legisl ative assembly I want to point out a couple or just to talk about 1223 is one um expulsions there's kind of a misconception about expulsions that if a student is expelled they are expelled uh in perpetuity for you know forever uh we can't do that that's not how expulsions work expulsions are to the end of the school year and the reason why this bill is important is because uh I I gave you an example in in my report um right now only dangerous
070weapons are a full year suspension and that's a calendar year every other expulsion runs from the date it occurred or date of the hearing I'm the hearing officer for the district um from the date that they occurred to the end of the school year so in this exam so what you could have the reason why this bill is important is if you had an offense that occurred in September that warranted an expulsion through the end of the school year you could have the exact same offense exact same circumstances happen in May and you have a m and you can only expel till the end of the school year that creates an inequity uh it creates confusion because if uh it allow what this bill would do is allow you to do it uh as long
071as a calendar year so you'd have a little more consistency so if an offense was a year-long sus expulsion you'd be able to accommodate that uh for example if a student again was uh was expelled in May for a serious offense say it's a you know violence or a threatening action you know other staff students might be might question well what happened why you know why is this only three weeks the one that happened in September was all year and this would allow us to create a little more consistency around uh what is an appropriate expulsion and that doesn't mean that every expulsion would be a calendar year we make those determinations based on the hearing itself this would just change what that maximum could be uh and to to be able to provide consistency
072so that's 1223 uh 1575 uh in 1168 I've just um outlined what the the two different philosophies around property tax relief are going to be um and I'll touch on those if you want me to go into more detail but I provided those as highlights that's again that's 1575 and 1168 1369 I've talked about before that's the K12 funding bill what I want to touch is is we are far enough along that we can kind of start to quantify what some of these changes mean so if we're talking a 2% 2% and that's the bill that came out of the house or that's the amended version that came out of the house that would change your pro payment to 11,293 and then the second year 11519 3% uh it changes that to 11400 and then
07311,740 but what's important about that is not the numbers of the per pupil but it's the impact uh in our state funding our projection would be a difference of about 700,000 between 2% and 3% so it's a significant change you know 2% 3% doesn't sound like a lot uh but that difference equates to about 700,000 one of the biggest reasons that is is this is actually a a a fight we not a fight a suggestion we've had for a very long time we've done a lot in our state to address uh rapid enrollment school districts those like West Fargo that are adding 500 students a year um you know that and that was should have been a first priority I I totally support that uh but we don't want to forget that we have a
074lot of schools in North Dakota that are declining in enrollment and what the three-year average enrollment average does is right now our funding is based on Spring ADM or fall enrollment whichever is higher this would change it to allow the an average of the last three years in your in your spring ADM so it it's a smoothing effect where a a big decrease in enrollment doesn't hit you right away uh it allows you to address it over time that's a significant difference for Jamestown in a declining enrollment school right now um that impact uh is you know about $752,000 uh by that threeyear that threeyear smoothing but what I one of the reasons I want to bring that up is that is a short-term impact that's an average So eventually that's going to that's going
075to come back down because we're just seeing the the impact of larger enrollment but eventually that three-year smoothing is going to compress and so you're seeing I just don't want to you know uh to look at that that impact and go whoa you know we now have all of these funds that we can do something different with we can decrease our tax base or what um that's short-term impact and so um we just want to recognize that over time that that difference is going to compress we aren't going to see all of those funds uh in the long term um decrease to inl adjustments as about 51,000 uh you know I I I appreciate seeing additional funding coming back to us but I think the inl adjustment is going the wrong way 75% is is
076where the inl adjustments go now if you remember those adjustments are done to provide Equity between school districts if you want to create more Equity you move from 75% to 100% that's Equity moving from 75% down to 65% gives us a little more money but it distributes the rest of those funds inequitably so oil and gas coal sance and coal conversion districts that have a large amount of those County that County revenue they see big wins we see 50 51,000 they might see $250 $300,000 in that you're actually moving further away from Equity uh I would like us to see all of those at 100% that's Equity then it isn't about geographically where where do you live uh in the state you should have the same education opportunities regardless of where you live and the
077further you move that inl down in my opinion uh the greater Equity inequity that's get that gets created between those that those districts that have those that are wealthy uh and those that are not uh and so yeah I appreciate the 51,000 but I think it's a movement in the wrong direction um I talked last in the past about the the special ed Factor weight change uh that was eliminated amended out in the in the uh in the house uh but uh that impact if that were that if that if those uh if that was changed that we from 088 back to 095 the impact of that is about $160,000 so in Jamestown so that makes a significant difference again those weights don't seem like a big deal but when you quantify them out uh
078that is actually a big deal and this is a Perpetual in increase then that isn't like our our three-year smoothing where it's kind of a temporary bump that'll eventually normalize that's a that's a Perpetual one um so last thing Spotlight Cadence Golding we had an eighth grade student in Jamestown Middle School won our very first state championship for girls wrestling uh recently so we want to recognize her wrestled at 124 PBS we'll have her recognized here later but I wanted to point it out as well so with that I would stand for questions any questions for Dr L regarding the superintendance report this evening okay moving on in our agenda we have nothing under old business under new business nothing other activities under buildings and grounds we have the approval of change orders for jbcc
079expansion number six which is the light switches and number seven is the condensing unit is there a motion motion of Aaron for approval second by Steve we have a motion a second for approval of the change orders number six and number seven any discussion any discussion any other questions about that condenser or anything else okay if not assuming roll call vote all those in favor say I I oppose same sign motion approved we have nothing under curriculum assessment instruction under Finance approval of the 2025 summer school fee and salary schedule is there a motion motion by Melissa second by Jason we have a motion a second for approval of 2025 summer school fee and salary schedule any discussion any discussion if not assuming roll call vote all those in favor say I I oppose same
080sign motion approved um budget revisions did you have a chance to look at those any questions for Christie on those if not is there a motion motion by by Dan to accept second by Jason we have motion second for approval of the budget revisions any discussion any discussion if not assuming roll call vote all those in favor say I I oppose same sign motion approved general fund balance and monthly Financial reports are there for your information any questions for Christie on those at this time okay nothing under operations under Personnel um we have a accept letters of resignation for the 2024 to 2025 extended contracts and for our public these are just extra this is just extra work um the it's not resignations from um from their full-time positions for these teachers so um we
081have number one it's Kimberly cim Kimberly Carpenter Shelley Molson Denise wood Cody mikkelson Colton alterer Jason Carrol Cassandra reedburn Reagan CA Lynn coel Tim random Carlo Rosario Denise Tom marshel K and Zeb Willer is there em motion motion by Melissa is there a second oh second by Jacob motion a second any discussion and we thank these teachers for their work any discussion if not assuming roll call vote all those in favor say I I oppose same sign motion approved under B um would would the board mind if we for these next two if we just approve them all at one time okay approval resignations at the conclusion of 2024 to 2025 school year number one Regan CA faith justien and Steve Justice is there a motion motion by Jason second by Dan we have a
082motion a second for approval of resignation at the conclusion of 2024 to 2025 school year number 1 through three 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 C approval to hire for the 2025 to 2026 year upon successful background check Jared Bartles Maran pinga Brian Knox organ bossingham Morgan hair and Preston Myers is there a motion motion by Melissa second by Steve you have a motion of second for approval to hire for the 2025 2026 school year upon successful background check number 1 through six 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 nothing under policy and procedures
083under tuition we have a approval of tuition agreement for a sixth grade student from M pear is there a motion motion by Melissa second by ow we have a motion a second for approval of tuition agreement for a sixth grade student two mon pure any discussion any discussion if not assuming roll call vote all those in favor say I I oppose same sign motion approved nothing under other items for future agenda are are there any items for future agenda and if you have any at any time please contact Dr leer myself also um the strategic planning meeting will be coming up um and so if you have anything for that please let us know meetings to be scheduled a the finance committee's meeting on Wednesday March 20th 5:15 in the central office conference room we
084also have our Schoolboard meeting on Monday April 1st at 5:15 in the Thompson Community room at the middle school that is a joke we are meeting on April is that right I think that's a date that's what I was wondering yeah that's what I was wondering let me just check my date here I want to say that didn't quite sound right but let me look at my calendar okay it's going to be the 7th of April at least it's the first April 7th okay so that was a joke so y um are there any committee meetings that we're missing that we don't have on our agenda here okay if not um is there Poss executive session discussion negotiation strategies okay no motion um monthly superintendent evaluation is section two board relations and section three Human
085Resource Management there being no further business before this board this meeting is adjourned thank you he