001Okay. Um, I'll call this meeting to order at 7:30 a.m. regular schoolboard meeting Tuesday, September 16th, 2025 in the central office conference room. Say the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Item on the agenda is the confirmation and approval of the agenda. Do I have a second? Um I forgot. Are we doing this or are we doing um we can >> Sheila Nagel? >> Yes. >> Fanny Carlson. >> Yes. >> Brian Rosenol. >> Yes. Brian Sire's absent mark. >> Yes. Motion passes 40 with abs. Moving on to welcoming the visitors public comments and communication. We have Mr. Lynch and our special okay that's what I was going to say but I didn't
002want to. So, welcome. Glad to have you here. And we have Sue Dyard on um on to item number two, student outcomes. >> Great. Okay. Um this month, like you said, we have Jennifer Picaro. She is our special ed director and she's going to give you some more information on our special ed unit and also in relation to our goals and um with special ed and hand it over to Glad Shannon presented earlier because I didn't know where I was going to stand. >> Um so like she said, my name is Jennifer Pegaro. Uh a little background on my education history. I started as a pair professional uh for a onetoone student with severe behaviors. Uh that kind of got me interested in special education because I never intended to go into special education. I
003was a coach and it was kind of their way of getting me on campus. Um fell in love with it. Made a really big difference in the student's life and the family's life. I was really good family's uh friends with the family for a long time. I went into teaching. I became a self-contained teacher and I taught um all levels of autism. Um I had non-verbal intense behaviors all the way to high functioning kind of inclusive in general education. From there, I became a behavior specialist that I supported just one high school, about 4,000 students. I helped all teachers with behavior plans um and how to incorporate that incorporate that into IEPs. From there, I became a behavior coach for our district. Our district was about 200,000 students with about a special ed population of
00440,000 students. I supported 22 schools um in behavior plans. kind of the same thing I did at the school level, but now at a county and district level. Uh then I got into administration supporting uh principles and schools again with behaviors and IEP implementation and compliance. I'm now here in North Dakota. Um a lot of people ask me why North Dakota. My husband played football at BCSU and he coached there and he lived there about 11 years and absolutely loved it. Um he tried to get me up here for uh a lot of years and it was a hard no for a long time. Um finally things were too good to say no and I'm glad I didn't because I've absolutely loved North Dakota. Um I've loved living in a small town. Never knew I
005loved living in a small town till I was here. The no traffic it's it's been wonderful. So I'm very happy to be here. Um I can say that Oaks's administration has been some of the best administration I've ever worked with in my career. um absolutely phenomenal. I enjoy coming to Oaks because of them. Uh and kind of working with them on special education. I can go. Um so eligibility categories. So for special education, students do have to uh be evaluated and fit in one of these eligibility criteria. Um the one that has changed just this year from legislation is emotional disability. It used to be emotional disturbance. Um, as you just hear the negative connotation with that wording, it's really nice that we got that legislation passed for emotional disability. So, those are the 13
006categories. Um, ages 3 to 21. Enrollment. These numbers are from last year because our child counts won't happen until December 1st. Um, but the entire unit composed of those five districts was 255 students. Um, definitely a change from 40,000. Um, Oaks was 46 last year. And again, we'll have that child count for this year um after December 1st funding. So, our funding comes from the federal ground funding of IDAB prek discretionary grant if it's available, which it was this year. That's usually around around 10,000 and it's around teacher retention. And then also our behavioral health grant, which is a big part of our funding as far as our behavior programs go. Um each school district contributes excess cost which I'm sure your board is very aware of. Um every year 85% of that operating expense
007is staffing. Um it is our teachers, it is our par, it is our related service providers. Noting that this can fluctuate, excess costs can fluctuate every year. This is the first year. Um I looked back uh at least seven I talked seven years. I talked to my business manager. She's been around for a long time. She's never seen excess costs go down. Um they stayed the same for a while and then they went up uh every year. This is the first year that you guys are going to see a decrease in those excess costs. Um when I came in last year just with my background with PAR supports and things that we're giving around the school districts, I found that we were overstaffed. So, I took some data and helped with kind of those para
008allocations, staff allocations to really um make it match student need and what it shows on IEPs. So, you'll see the excess cost go down this year. Know that that could go up next year. Um we had several students in multiple districts move in with high needs on IEPs. Um and that's something you just can't plan for. I know with school budgets, you can kind of plan, you know, how much each student you're getting for each student. you kind of have an idea for special education. You could get someone that moves in and has a onetoone on their IEP and automatically we're legally required to do that. So what does that mean? That means a whole extra staff person. Um so that can happen multiple without even knowing. So it's very difficult to understand what the
009budget will be every year. So just know that from year to year that excess cost could change. um your access cost there just at the bottom there you can see it was 273 then 274 um we are having our final budget meeting today after at 9:00 today actually um we are planning for around a 25% decrease um but hoping that school districts would uh potentially plan for 15 to 20% um that's dependent on you guys' budget to determine so our current staffing for oaks we have one early childhood teacher. We do not have a parah anymore in early childhood like we did last year just because of the case load. Uh there were five students last year I believe um and this year there's only three. So we just have a morning session and then
010the afternoon that teacher is able to help out in kindergarten. And then at elementary we have one and a half teachers. Uh we say one and a half because one of those splits between the elementary and the middle school and high school and we have four paras. Um I just we had two openings in Oaks. Um they are filled now. The last person will start on Monday. So we should be filled. Um from there I can evaluate the need. Um but we we we do have those positions filled. I'm really excited about the two that we filled. We brought back Nikki Kenodal. Um and then also we have a parah from Valley that will be traveling here that is actually a therapeutic counselor. So I'm very excited about her joining you guys as staff. uh
011middle school and high school. We have one and a half. Again, that half is that same teacher that bridges and two paras. Uh we have a speech language pathologist, Miss Awander. She's phenomenal. And then our shared staff are the ones that we are legally required to give as according to the services on the IEP. Those staff do travel. Um our virtual is the physical therapist. That was a difficult thought last year. um physical therapy being virtual, but we had no one to fill the spot. So, I had to do it virtually and it actually worked out pretty well. Um evaluating that from last year, it it it met the students needs and I was happy with that. So, that will continue virtually. Um TVI was a big change. Um your TVI, which is vision impaired,
012was traveling here. Um she took another position. She was phenomenal. So, I was very sad about that. Um so, now we have someone who's virtual. um that we thought would pose a problem. I don't know yet. I'm still evaluating that. So far, it's been it's been okay and it has met the student need. Um DPI focused monitoring. So last year I came into the unit and had to write an improvement plan for the unit based on the prior year. Um which was kind of difficult because I really didn't know how things operated yet. Um but these are the kind of things they look at. Um it's kind of over identification. Um I believe that this is a a problem in our country in general is we are overidentifying disabilities. So teachers will see that a
013student is struggling and they automatically think disability when really we should be thinking why are they struggling? Could it be an MTSS process where we just have to give a little bit of a higher intervention or should we be evaluating for disability? So we're really requiring schools to make sure that we're doing everything we can first as far as intervention. See if that works great. they're good to go or they're still struggling after we've done intervention. So there there might be a disability applied. Um it seems we're jumping those steps and it causes overidentification. What is MTSS? >> Oh, thank you. MTSS is your multi-tered system uh system. So like I was just saying if a student is struggling it would be an intervention. So talking about why is this student struggling? What can we
014do to help them? So, let's say for instance, reading. They're scoring low on reading and the teach the general education teacher notices that like, oh, this student's struggling. They're really not performing where they should be performing. Something's going on here. You would meet with your MTSS team, which at Oaks they call it blast meetings. And you talk as a team like I have the students who are struggling. >> Let's go ahead and put them in an intervention. So that means maybe giving um a little extra support, maybe supplementing with a little bit extra instruction, um a little bit more attention, and that's kind of the tiered level. So that would be like a tier, you go from a tier one to a tier two. Um and from there, it's just a tiered level of supports
015is really what it is. And then once you've tried those supports and something's still not working, then just just to say there must be something else at play here, which is then you would think a disability possibly. And that's when we would go to the special education process. Good question. Um, least restrictive environment. We are federally mandated to educate every student in the least restrictive environment. And what that means is the general education classroom. So we are we have to legally give every student education. Um, general education with no support is least restrictive. When you look at a student that might need Paris support, that's more restrictive. When you look at a student that might need to be pulled out of the gened classroom for special ed services, that's more restrictive as well. Um, so
016we look at each student, see what their least restrictive is appropriate to their data and what they're showing. So assessment and progress progress measures. So when we're talking about your school goals, before we get into those goals, just talking about assessment. So IEP students are still held to the same standards as general education students. They just might need more supports. The only students that come away from that are the alternate assessment. You only have, I believe, three or four students here and those are kiddos who are not held to the same standard. Their standards are modified because they have probably a significant intellectual disability. Um, some of these students might have Down syndrome. Some of these students might be intellectually disabled. Um, they have IQ's usually below 70, so very low. So, they cannot absolutely
017meet those standards. So, they are alternately assessed. And when you talk about standard based grading at your school, their standards, they're accessing that standard, but it's modified all the way down to their level. Um, so those are the only students, like I said, three to four that are not included in your general assessments. And then also with STARS assessments, like you guys do on campus with progress monitoring, our specialized students are still held to that same standard. So here's your guys' achievement goals, right? So you have proficiency in reading, proficiency in math, and then the choice ready with graduation. That's on the left. On the right is your score for special education. So this is Oaks District in the special ed unit. As you can see, there's a lot of categories there, but I wanted
018to show the different things that you all are measured on. Um, in terms of your school goals, if you go down to reading uh proficiency, you guys have met that first proficiency of the state. Um, graduation rate was excellent. Um, that usually is a lot lower that I'm used to seeing in my career. It was at 100% for your district, which is phenomenal. Um, I usually see that number closer to that state target where you see it's 76. I usually see it closer to that number. So, that's phenomenal. Uh when you go down to reading proficiency, like I said, you met that and that's at 100%. Uh come up here and point it out too. Participation rate was 100% which is good, which means we tested everyone we needed to. Everyone was involved in that
019count, which I sometimes see that lower as well. Uh you guys are at 100%. Uh math proficiency, you guys met that. Okay, a little bit above the state target, which is great. Reading proficiency, we did not meet. So what do we do with those goals? We look at you guys' achievement goals and how we're going to do that and special ed that that's the pull outs. So you have students of special ed that are struggling. We pull them out to give them supplemental curric curriculum to help bridge those gaps because there is a gap there, right? We can see that the proficiency isn't there. Um so we're really giving more attention to that. I can say after going around to the state kind of learning North Dakota in general and learning our our different districts,
020math is something everyone is struggling with because there's been such a heavy focus on reading. So there's been a lot of reading reading reading push which is great but math has suffered. So they told me that the focus the next one to two years is going to be more of the math side because we are lagging in that area as a state as a whole. So I'm hoping that that goes up. Um educational environment. This is a big one that I've been advocating a lot for this past year is looking at how are we justifying why we're pulling the students out. Why can't they maintain in the general educ classroom? If they're a special education student, they should be able to be in the general education classroom. And then if they need support or accommodations,
021then we can give that so they can remain in there and not have to pull them out. So when you see that educational environment, it's that time that we are pulling them out with not justification. And that leads more to kind of the push on those blast teams and the MTSS process I was talking about. We need that data to show that we've tried things first before we just pull them out. And that's kind of what that means. So working on improving that. Your preschool outcomes are um when your preschool kids come in, they do a rating scale and the rating scale of where they're at. And then then when they exit school uh system, they do a rating scale again. That has to show improvement. We didn't do so well with that. Okay. So,
022we're working with that with the preschool program. But overall, I think this is three points. One, two, three. A seven is when you start having to do improvement plan. So, really good with what they're at. And those are kind of our concentrations right now according to you guys' schools. Um, referral and support. I am excited about this piece because when I first came to North Dakota, my first two questions were, "What's the point of my office?" Because I'm never there. I'm always at the schools and in my districts. And two, where where are your self-contained classrooms? And self-contained is kind of those separate classrooms from the gened when students can't maintain uh because of unsafe behaviors that you would have that area. I think in the past and I don't know how long you guys
023have served on the board. In the past, you've had a student where they traveled to solutions and it was really long way away. I don't know how long ago that was. Year and a half ago. >> No, an hour and a half. Let's see. Yeah. few years ago uh like a self-contained classroom an hour and a half there. Your students pulled away from your school. You're kind of disengaged from that student's process. So, what I wanted to do was create a self-contained classroom for all of our units. So, I have created one that opened this fall. We actually have our first student starting today there. Um and it's at my unit office. So, I turned my unit office into that kind of setting to help support all of the five districts when you get into
024that situation. So you don't have to be going somewhere to solutions or in Carlson which as a budgetwise in Carlson costs about $100,000 more than $100,000 a year for the student um which is very expensive and not only that but the student again is taken out of their setting. They're not with their normal staff. So when we're ready to reintegrate them, we don't know what their progress has been and we don't know what their journey has been. We've been so disengaged from that process that it's hard to reintegrate. Now the staff will come with them. They'll be used to the same support staff. They'll get those more intensive supports in the setting so that when they do re-enter it to school setting, it's a more smooth process hopefully for the students. Um, so that's a
025difference in support we have this year that we've never had before. Um, I'm excited about that opportunity. My background is in behavior like I talked about and BCBA background, so I'm able to support that process. Um, referral process. Again, I was talking to you guys about when students are struggling, it's really important through that MTSS process that once we've tried interventions and once we've tried everything we can for that student, then we would submit the referral for special education. So, that's kind of how students will get to me. Uh, and that evaluation process. Um, I created a district support team which is created with the school psychologist, social worker, people who already come and support your school. Um, we're doing trainings on behavior plans, uh, doing behavior plan fidelity checks. And what that means is
026we could have a behavior plan all day long, but if it's not being followed, we don't truly know if it's working here or not. Um, so coming out and doing those fidelity checks and then also collecting that data. Um, some professional develop that I have development that I have offered is regular education and special education collaboration. I gave that one here uh, last year as well as kind of an updated one at the beginning of the school year. And then I did a behavior 101 for staff and parents. I opened that up last year for Valley City and Oaks. No one signed up for the Oaks one. So last year it didn't happen. I've had a couple in Oak hopefully get that do it for the community and parents and they come in and I'll
027give an overview kind of just a basic of behavior. Um because it's hard it's hard at home. We do want to reflect what's going on at home in the school and the same supports so it's cohesive for the student all around. Um so I love to do that for families in my former district. I had really good relationships with the families of the students I worked with. They'd come into my classroom. I would show them what I'm doing with their student during the day and it just it really helped with that cohesiveness and success for the students. So I'm excited to hopefully be able to do that for Oaks. That is it. Do you have any questions for me? There's a lot that can come up in special education that people just aren't aware of.
028There's different laws, there's different processes. Um, I know that we have been through a couple of those last year in Oaks. Um, if you do have questions, always feel free to reach out. I'll always answer them because a lot can be perceived one way, but there's a lot going on behind the scenes that has to occur that's people might not always be aware of. I'm always a very open, honest person. You can always reach out, say, "Hey, this situation's going on. Oaks, do you mind giving me some feedback on it?" I'm always more than happy to do that. So, please feel free to reach out. And thank you for having me. I appreciate >> it. The budget, we tried to be super conservative and stayed with where we were at. We didn't want it. If
029you remember being on the board, the last time the window first came on, we got hit with that overage and we were not expecting it. So, we're just going to be conservative on our end. If it doesn't, if we don't, right? Not, you know, we we're planning for it. So, >> and I'm super grateful because you just never know who can move in. But at least it's still somewhat of a decrease, which hasn't happened in I mean, I want to say over 10 years. Mi said she's never seen it. So, at least it's something, but I'm glad you started. >> Any other questions? Okay, moving on to item three, our consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as all? Do I have a second? >> Seconds. Sheila Nagel. >> Yes.
030Ryan Rosen, >> yes. >> Patty Carlson, >> yes. >> Ryan's absent. Monica, >> yes. Motion passes 4 with absent. Moving on to item four. You guys all have the reports in your packet. Thank you. Um items for discussion and possible action. We have none unless there's future meetings. Um I just want to mention that we have our V legendary training on September 27th and or 26th and 27th. Um we will begin at 8:00 a.m. both days. Uh I will send out an email reminder for that as well. Kind of a loose agenda that um Sue and that I discussed. Um our regular meeting Tuesday, October 21st at 7 a.m. We will do our board self-evaluation and we will also be doing our superintendent evaluation during that time. Um I will send information out to you
031guys ahead of time to get those done. um and back to me. We are legally obligated to do our superintendent evaluation by November 15th. So, this will prevent us from special meeting. And our next regular meeting, Tuesday, November 18th at 7 a.m., we will be doing our business matter of manager evaluation at that time. Anything else for the order? Hearing nothing. and we'll trans the meeting at 7:54