001To the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I'll receive the very lengthy agenda. for an approval and a motion to move. I have a motion and a second. All in favor say I post. Okay. Uh welcome visitors. We have Mrs. Gmer here, Mr. Engel, Mrs. Warren, Mr. Gilbert, Mr. and Kyle and Travis from we'll move on to um item number 2A full progress monitoring goal number two we're doing math this month so yeah um so there you guys had some great questions in fact there when I got together with the admin and we were talking about they were challenging questions which were great questions because they made just reflect and we had the opportunity
002or um the spurning on to go talk directly to the teachers and I was going to try to I don't know if you want to call it translate or um reword some of their replies but then I thought no I'm going to just let you you know hear and hear see what the teachers have to say about these because I can say something to you and I can write something to you but I'm speaking for everybody and I don't want to misspeak and I don't want to promise you something or not tell you the truth about something. So having the teachers give their answers was was really good. So I hope you found that insightful um and helpful by those. And thank you for asking the tough questions makes us dig deeper and um you
003know try to find answers. So um let's maybe I can just talk about 21 and 22. Unfortunately, you know, as I said in my report, we saw our learners that were being monitored. We saw our dreaded drop at winter testing. And you know when we had our meeting we talked about it and we can make a million excuses. We could talk about well you know this could have happened or that could have happened or that could have happened but that doesn't help us move forward. So um we came up with some hypotheses and we decided we came up with a plan of I shouldn't say new plan because that was one of the questions but we have the same plan because if we remember right this is just one progress monitoring event in our 5-year
004plan. So our goal isn't until 2020 um 29. So we're you know or 28. So we're looking at that future and this is just one of those things and but we wanted to combat that unfortunately. So what we're doing so here's our plan or you know expanding on our plan. So we had talked about this before but we're going to move spring math into K through three. And some of the questions the teachers gave or answered were you know do we have any interventions? We have interventions, but we don't have intervention programs. You know, the teachers are doing interventions. I I'll use Kelly for an example. In first grade, she knows where her kids are, right? She uses her her um assessments. She does her interventions, she assesses, but her interventions might be one-on-one or
005um in small groups. And she she kind of talked about that in her answer, but we are going to provide um spring math in K through three that if you remember right, that's the one we did in four, five, and six this last semester. And it's a tier one intervention. So, all of the kids are getting it. It's just a matter of then it personalizes for them and um we can you know use that to give them some extra help or expand um adjusting our test schedules. We talked about that. So when we did our winter test we had been in it for recess. It was very cold outside. We've been testing a lot. You know we've talked about double testing. We're doing A+ um or doing STAR because we just don't know where we're
006at and which one is the best predictor for that. So, we know that we've been doing a lot of testing on that and there were other seasonal factors like I mean what's everybody like in the middle of the winter. So, we're looking at some of those things like should we adjust our schedule. So, we'll talk even more about that. We're still going to assess them four times but which one we're going to report on or where where it's going to land. We'll we'll look closer at that. Um implementing an incentive program. Great question on this. Really, we don't. Do we want to do incentives? We don't. I mean, we don't want our kids to be those external um we don't want them to have those external needs. But I think Greg explained, you know, what
007he's talking about in an incentive program, you know, we want them to be internal motivated instead of external. But even as adults, we're externally motivated, right? Why do we come to work? We get a paycheck. Um why do we do things? We, you know, we're Sh and I are talking about north quite a bit. Why do we walk? Why do we keep track? Because we're going to get something at the end. So, we're going to get some kind of an um an external motivator on that. So trying to look at things that are not totally externally um motivating but internal to try to get our kids to be those kind of learners but that takes training. You know we haven't always done this. You know we've always offered to our kids those things from the
008outside. So um and so we have been focusing on our reading and title one. It's been that way for years. Um we used to not have a need for math interventions. Well now we're starting to see that data and we're having to adjust. So, um, Greg and his staff will be adjusting in title one and looking at what kids need help um in math and expanding beyond writing and reading and writing. So, we're going to try to uh broaden those efforts in elementary. So, 23 um we had drop again, but it wasn't, you know, that drastic of a drop. It was a four four point drop. Um, the his actually he did really well when I was going through some of the data. my goodness. You know, last year our 10th graders did do very
009well on the NDSA plus. So, um or on the NDSA test. So, I'm excited to see how they do because our 10th graders did really well on our progress monitoring. So, I would expect our 10th graders are going to do better this year on the the NDSA. Again, we're implementing get more math. Um uh Liz and Ryan are doing that to get more practice and reinforcement. They're going to continue it again. They they came to us, they talked to you guys about that at the last meeting that they really like it. They feel that we need to keep it. So, that that's where we'll spend our money at. They're going to refine our assessments to ensure that they align with those key skills. We're always doing that when we have late starts. We look at
010our data. The other day we had a meeting with Renaissance um to and guiding because we if you remember right last year we talked about how with our new teachers, we haven't been giving them the PD for Renaissance and we felt like we've kind of fallen off the boat on that because there's so many more things. So this year we did that. We invested the money and the time into bringing in Renaissance to get our teachers on their end, but keeping in mind that our new teachers are going to have to have that too. So PLC groups in the high school, Jordan's working with them to focus on data driven and again we'll look at the NDA plus data from the spring to look at those relationships and then we'll see how we do on
011our NDSA. Now I don't remember if the principles probably told you that or not. The NDSA data we were supposed to get right away. It's not coming till the fall. So that makes it really tough, you know, to know how we did at the end of the year. But I've moved our progress monitoring back so on the progress monitoring calendar so we can look that um to the fall when we get that data back. It's disappointing because we thought we were going to get it right away. And I think it's a matter of they just need to collect the data so they can, you know, get get they need to get a build up their database so they can understand where kids are at. So um and the high school is continuing to work on
012increasing and fostering communication. had a question about communication. Um, you know, we do tend to like Jordan, call parents when there's troubles instead of, especially as kids get older. You know, we don't contact the parents. Our elementary teachers are constantly calling. Like I get the communication logs. The elementary teachers are calling, emailing, you know, contacting. But it tends that when they get older, we only do it when there's difficulties. And we need to do a better job of that. And that we've talked about that this year in the guard rail and we have increased communication. Is it where we want it to be? No. We're always talking about that, aren't we? The teachers need to talk to parents like why did the parents not know that the kids are ineligible? Those teachers need to individually
013call those. So that'll be a big push next year for us to make sure that those teachers are doing that and holding those teachers accountable to our guard rails. So that all kind of ties in together. Okay, that's where I'm at. Would you like to hear anything from the principal for questions or they're here at Well, several of the teachers replied on there that there is no intervention for math. Is that something that we as a board need to budget for? Is that right? So program that they're wanting many of the replies there were from K3. Yeah. Right. That we don't have a K3. We're not paying for a system or a program or something like that. Well, we are going to next year with uh spring math because we're going to expand that to
014K3. So, we'll be full K6 spring math. Um, and like I said in my reply from the data that spring math has provided us, the the people we've talked to at seek and the schools that I've talked to that are using spring math, um 100% of schools have increase their mask force once they've implemented that um you know with the county and the whole year too. So, There was a school out west. I don't remember which school it was. It was probably school, but their scores on their NDSA went up so much that they thought that something they were cheating or doing something, but one of the things they had done was they had implemented spring math and they saw big increase for for their kids. You know, we had this conversation about are we
015teaching the test? I mean, you could say that, right? But our test now is our standards. And that's what we're supposed to be teaching is our standards. And we have so many other or so many places where we can get data and information about how our kids are doing that of course, yeah, we're teaching those standards. We want those kids to have the standards because that's what we're, you know, focused on. Jordan got anything? You know, I I'd just like to point out I think one of the things that I said was we're we're not seeing a whole bunch of kids that are becoming urgent intervention kids that are scoring from 0 to 9% rank. you know, it's those kids that are bouncing from one one testing um time they're at a 56th percentile, which
016is above, and then the next time they're at a 46. They're not that far below, but yet they're below. And then the next time they bounce back and forth. So, I I think that's that's something important for for you guys to understand and for our teachers to hear, too, is we're making strides with those kids that are the lowest of the low. and we're bringing those kids up. We've showed you guys that data, you know, we I don't remember the exact numbers, but we started the year with so many intervention kids and we're we're less than that now. So, we're making strides in that area. It's those borderline kids that bounce back and forth and and we've known that for years, but we haven't necessarily put a a a target on those kids to make
017sure that they're they're above that 50th percentile necessarily, you know, because we we tend to spend most of our time with those kids that are urgent intervention. So that's something with NDSA, too. Those bubble kids are the ones that make or break you because they could go to their range of hitting and some some of those kids might be affected by those little things, those seasonal factors, you know, absences. We have high absences. My principles are dealing with it every day. And that it's it's a very frustrating thing. And you I mean, you probably seen in the legislature that they're doing studies on it. our kids that are missing days and days and days and parents will call in and not tell the truth and just get their child out of school and there's nothing
018that we can do about it. We have there's no help if you guys probably have kids that have missed 20 30 and Jordan's trying to do stuff but he gets pushed back from homes and you know trying to get the kids illness and we require a doctor's excuse you know if they're ill but we can have kids that are gone and the parents will just call and say they're gone and homes and trying to trying to put our foot down but it's it's just amess are are hard on us. But the incentives is that something I mean do we feel like that's going to help the bottom kids as much as because the top kids have this much incentive you know internally motivated but those those lower I think and I think Jordan has like
019I said in my reply right I think we've seen from the older kids the seventh through 12th graders it's those kids that are in the middle that bounce back and forth that we feel like we're targeting with an incentive program and you know those kids that are on IEPs those kids that are in that urgent intervention those kids you know if they're great if they reach that incentive great but that's not the target there it's those that's the kids that we're targeting with that I made a bet with a kid on one of our interim assessments was like hey if you get to a score the level three on this like whatever the bet would be and um he was two points away well the first time he took better scored in the level one.
020Like that just shows like hey I was like how come you guys can't do this every time? Well, you gave me something to shoot for there. Like I was like like it's just like that factor of it just giving something there. So even a kid that you would look at and see oh like they're at that urgent intervention they're actually capable of getting that. It's not every case but right Um, I just want to say thank you to Jordan and you guys are working your hands off and the teachers and Mrs. Helton for all you guys work that you're putting up with us. So, well, these guys are the ones that do the work. I just report on it. I know I've been there. We appreciate all you're doing to to help me. Um, we'll
021move on to item three. We've got a very very lengthy consent agenda. I'm sure you guys everything. Yes. Oh, can we have a motion to accept the progression and second? All in favor say I. All passes. Moving on to our consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Do I have a second? Second. Um Carlson, yes. Dave, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Zero. Item number four. Everybody had reports in their packet. Um no needed on that. number let's see item number five um items for discussion and possible action the first item on that is relationship with vendors discussion and I had asked Anna to um add this to the agenda with our facilities committee that's been meeting and just with the board as general we thought it would be a good time
022to review um relationships with vendors as a board and as committees of the board. Just a reminder to everyone um we have policies in place for this. We have policy BA which is our schoolboard ethics. Um just being aware that the strength of the board is as a board not as individuals. So board members have no authority or empower to act up behalf of the board whenever made out of meeting commitments. Number 15 under that um being vigilant against the appearance of a conflict of interest. Also under that BA-BR1 schoolboard ethics regulations um avoid making pledges to members of the public concerning an upcoming or past board agenda item. Raise your board meetings after having a chance to hear all perspectives. Um not represent themselves to the public or school district employees as having official
023authority to act on behalf of the board of us delegated. Um we also have policy debe which is employee relations with vendors which doesn't apply to us as the board but does employees. So just a reminder to all board members all committees of the board um not to be making any commitments on behalf of the board not to be reaching out on behalf of the board on anything. Um if you have anything that you think should be reached out um that needs to go to Mrs. shell and she needs she needs to either delegate that or do that herself and that needs to come to the board as a recommenation and pressure change. Anybody have any questions on that? No. Okay, got that cleared up. Um item number or item B on there, approve contract
024with Icon Architects. Um Patty and Brian, would you guys like to bring that recommendation forward? We would like to the committee has signed papers and then um contracting out icon and we have the majority of the committee that is signed. So we'd like to go forward approval from the board to sign a contract with it. And I think I threw that that was the entire committee correct there was somebody missing signatures. So we've got a unanimous um recommendation from the committee to hire on icon architectural group lead the planning and design facility improvements for our district and that was dated on April 2nd 2025 with all signatures present on there and all the committee members. So could I get a motion to approve the contract? Do you want to hear from their first? Thank you.
025I will pop this on the [Music] screen. Okay. Um, so again, my name is Kyle Gami here. I'll My name is Kyle Gami. I'm one of the um principles at ICON. I lead the pre-referendum efforts for all of our projects, working on maybe 15 16 different K12 projects right now between um North Dakota and then you have one in Montana and one. And so, um, my role through all these projects is generally to help the the communities come to some sort of consensus, make sure that whatever that consensus is something that's derived from the community and not from necessarily the board or the administration or the architects, and help go through that whole process, which we'll show you um, kind of in in in brief, but then we can go in detail based on what
026kind of questions you guys might have and how we can explain better. Yeah, I'm Travis Jordan. I'm a new Tai. I joined last June. I served 20 years in education. Most of those years as superintendent or administrator. Most recently, I was superintendent for the last eight years. Your discussion on testing. It's all too familiar with um I serve and I serve to serve. Basically, I serve in a role that I can I've been on both sides of this spectrum. icon did some work for for BUA starting in 2016 ending in 2020. So we worked four years um and so I was on that side of it and was very green and never went through the process. had no clue and now we're going through it uh both sides and so I'm here basically to help
027you guys as a board and superintendent have as less of anxiety as possible throughout this process. And on there too is one of our our principal architects. We have a few different architects that work on um K12 projects as leaders and then a bunch of support staff. So depending on on timing um we'll have additional people at meetings. Sometimes it's the two of us, sometimes there's three or four of us. It really just depends on what we're trying to cover. Uh I'm going to in an effort try to go through um how we work, I guess, if if that's all right. And and I would say the main presentation is maybe like seven slides and then I probably have like 45 slides just based on what kind of questions you guys have to maybe be
028responsive to answer your questions. Um, the situation that you guys are in, I guess just to start with, is just very normal. Um, I don't know that there's a single district that we're working with that's just been like, we've already got it figured out, we've got the money, just get in here and design it. Like that's never the case, right? It's always like there's a need. How do we even get this done? Right? And how do we understand it? Um, a lot of the work that we do. Oh, I should just give you a little background. So just 10 seconds just we have you know we have six offices um across across North Dakota and one in Baiji and we've been around for about 23 years. We have a staff of just a little under
02950 and we uh spend a vast majority of our efforts um as a company working on K12. So this is just like uh uh this isn't even a complete list but just a smattering of maybe I'd say the high highlights or the larger projects. Um, we work on everything from, you know, Emoro, we added a music classroom for, you know, less than a million dollars all the way up to we're still wrapping up the high school mandate. So, the gamut of of projects. Um, you know, there's no project that's too small or anything like that, but at the same point, we are able to work on bigger projects. uh just to give you just a little bit of um so I would say I'm gonna maybe go to the most of the projects when we
030start our process it's what what information do we have and how can we use all the facts to drive the community to tell us what it is that they want us to do and we have been immensely successful in referendums specifically because we try to take the emotion out of it We try to take the prescription of of engineers or architects out of it and we try to give as much data as possible to um a group of citizens and in this case you guys have already formed that which is amazing and already have that and empower them with the facts to make decisions and that tends to lead to projects that just pass way more often. So whether it's, you know, Dickinson where they had three backto backto back failed votes and then they
031bring us in and we passed or Grand Forks that hadn't passed a vote in 38 years and we got a vote passed there. And I would say very difficult um situations where there's communities that maybe felt like there wasn't enough information shared. Maybe there there wasn't trust in how money was being spent. Maybe they felt like there wasn't enough um people at the table involved in the decision-m. Those are all very normal things. And as I've read through everything that that you guys have done and accomplished up until now, I don't think I'm surprised by anything, right? This is just this is the world that we live in right now where um everything that we do is scrutinized and questioned and we support that because if you do things the right way, it shouldn't matter.
032You should be able to answer questions and be transparent. And so, um, what's great is that through this process, um, it tends to take the pressure off of the architects and the board and the administration because ideally none of those parties should be driving the decision. It should be a group of citizens that have representation from the administration and the board and and and professionals, but it should be a a group decision versus, you know, we're sitting here, you know, thinking about what needs to be done and then just the taxpayer gets gets a a letter in the mail that there's a vote, right? So, um, as we go through this process, and feel free to chime in. Yeah, I was just going to say as we go through this process, at the end of
033the day, like your data should tell your story, right? It's not the opinion of the superintendent. It's not the opinion of the board. It's not necessarily opinion of a committee member or somebody out in the out in the community. As we go through this process, your data will become so real that it tells the story for you, right? and and your data shows that you have close to $30 million in deferred maintenance for the next 10 years. And so um that data will be apparent to everybody that looks at it and it at the end of the day it's not an opinion. It's this is our this is our reality and how we move forward. So this process takes us through that and it's a whole process. Yeah. the and you know I shared with
034the committee in the little over a decade that I've been doing this the process changes in every district you learn something almost every time and I'd also say there's only one pro one district ever that we've been hired and then just nothing happened we've always found a way to make some sort of project make sense to the community and so because of that that's why you know if you look through our contract we do things a little bit differently you know there's a lot of of um our peer firms that come in and do um a lot of reporting and and you know have a fee for that. And for us, we've found it's a much easier discussion when we talk about the months that we've invested in the community that we don't get paid
035until the taxpayers say pay us. You guys don't pay us. The the you know the administration doesn't pay us. It's only when the community says, "Yep, that makes sense." Do we get a paycheck? So because of that, it tends to take a lot of the, you know, out of town consultants that are just trying to, you know, make a buck and then disappear because literally we're not right. Like this is the the our goals should align with the community even more than you guys because that's how we function as a business. And so it's been very successful. But I'll just kind of go through these steps and and talk about it again at a high level and then feel free if you have questions to stop at any time and we'll kind of go through
036it. But the assessment, you guys already have a facility assessment. Um, you know, one thing I would recommend and and then we did talk about it in the committee is that we would like to review it and potentially maybe amend it and potentially maybe bring in um, you know, our partners that we work with to just review it and see different things. You know, we have structural so Icon we're architects as is that's our main business. We do have a couple of structural engineers um, that do some of our projects, not all of them. And then we do have an interior design team that does some of our projects, but not all of them. But our main business is architecture. And we purposefully don't have electrical and mechanical engineers in house. There's other firms that
037do it all. There's other firms that there's different strategies to that. And our strategy to that really is that you kind of need some constructive back and forth. And when you think about engineers, we love them. My wife's an engineer. Um, but sometimes when you engineer the perfect solution, you miss the human factor of, okay, if I'm willing to put a fan on in this room one week out of the year, can I save 10% on the budget because it's not perfectly designed or we're we're not designing the the absolute perfect load under the worst case scenario. Um, we don't believe in that with structural engineers. We do believe like buildings should just always stand up. We're opposed to collapsing buildings. So that's a non-negotiable. But we we have lots of our partners where we
038talk about different solutions as we look at mechanical solutions and say okay we get this is the perfect thing and this is the right way to do it but what's the balance like what's the different ways that we can kind of um attack the problem that might give us most of the benefit and and reduce the cost. And so sometimes um sometimes and I just say generally and this is not uh in relation to to the firm that you worked with I would say there's half a dozen firms that are more engineeringled assessment firms and part of that issue could be that you know if you look at the amount of of dollars you know associated to classrooms or to to common space or to student improvement of outside of mechanical you know to me
039that it's just, you know, how are we? It's really hard to tell the story of fresh air. It's a lot easier to tell the story of your classroom now has this space or you now get this advantage or you have a new shop or it's so it just gets very difficult. And so when you look at how we balance that, it just again we want to have team members, you know, we aren't mechanical electrical engineers. We bring those in, but it's always a good dialogue. And that dialogue isn't behind post doors. that dialogue is in front of the committee or that dialogue is shared via email so that everyone can understand, you know, what we're trying to work for and what what the um what the goals are. And point being is that we would
040review um you know, understanding that, you know, looking at the the purple one, so the the community committee kickoff, it's just so great that you guys already have. We normally have to to come in and say, "Please board, hand over responsibility to helping advise you." Granted, the board still has to make the call, but can you get a citizen committee and empower them to make some decisions and bring those back to the board? So, you guys have already done that. We always recommend, you know, not too not too much staff, not not an over representation of, you know, students with or parents with young students or older students or, you know, make sure you have business owners, folks in the ad community. You just you've got to have a good mix and I feel like
041you guys have that um already, which is great. Uh and then as you see through the master planning process and discussions so the green so that's really you know your committee's established and that's when we're working with okay you know we we do tours you guys already done that we present the assessment and we say okay here's the problems and we ask the committee what's what's your priorities right and then we say okay how are the different ways that we can address those priorities and sometimes that's three meetings sometimes that's 10 meetings it really just depends to get to the point where that aligns with a budget and a tax impact. And those things can't happen in a vacuum. It would be great to build a whole brand new school, but you know, your debt
042limit probably doesn't support it or doesn't support it. And your um taxpayers would never pay for it anyway. So, let's establish what that would cost, which you guys do have some of that information um and then move on. But due diligence says that we still need to answer that question, right? And then go through it. go through it and understand what our different opportunities are. And then ultimately, you know, we we try to be as um we try to integrate with as many independent consultants as possible. And the and it's just like how do we keep you know the the cooks from working together and then for us that's isolating so that you don't have too many like if you come to a meeting and there's 10 icon employees that's probably something's wrong, right? So
043what we say is you know we have independent people that we work with with the electrical mechanical engineers. We also do believe in um doing an independent survey. You guys do have some survey data um and actually quite a bit of survey data. And so sometimes I'd say most of the time once we get a recommendation from whatever that group is, we hire an independent company that does statistically valid, you know, individually numbered um surveys that go to each residential house. And what's great is that you, you know, just like you've already conducted some, you know, you accidentally inform a bunch of people about your school and you get them to weigh in on what's their priorities, what would they support and how much would they pay. Um, that's been immensely powerful from, you know,
044the Devil's Lake vote. You know, if you go back and look at their their vote that they had two and a half years ago and look at the board meeting, I stood in the board meeting and said, "This will not pass." I said, "My recommendation is do not do this." and they did it, right? And then it didn't pass. And then we made a couple changes and it passed. And what's great is that, you know, I have the relationship with the board members where they're like, "You're right. You know, we should," right? Like the the survey gave them some really good information about what to do and how much the the district was willing to pay. And I do think you have some of that. And I don't necessarily need you think you have to
045redo that. But I think when we get a little bit further down the road, we can talk about if that's something that you want to spend dollars on because it will cost normally cost about the same amount as a special election. So I like to say you can either have a vote and roll the dice or you can do uh you know this survey process and then you know and then you'll still you know you do a you know you you hold an election if that's necessary. Um and so going through this process the light speeded version is like you know seven to nine months you know we've had you know in Kilder it was two years from when we were hired till the vote and it just really depends and what's amazing there is
046that and I think I did tell the story is that we were working for so long and did the survey and all these things and the the meeting that their board called for a vote was the same meeting that they closed the school and the vote still passed within half a percent of what the survey said it because we took the time. We we had to do like like all Zoom public meetings and it was just horrendous. But we had had so many prior meetings. We had a strong committee. We went through all the due diligence that it passed. And so we just we just have a lot of faith in this process of what we go through and all the different things that we do. Um, so based on that, you know, what we
047try to make sure we understand is that does everyone understand the process that we went through. Sometimes with a lot of data, you just lose people. You know, you've got to get the bullet points very clear. You got to make sure that the average person can understand these five things, right? Did did did they explain the process of how they got here to me? Do I understand the needs? Simply, right? Do I understand the goals that they've got? Because the needs and the goals should never be the same because that means you're asking for too much. You should you should be prioritizing and phasing and planning. Um it's just you're never going to have enough dollars to do all the things, but you should show people that you have plans and you're thinking that. And
048then people should understand if they're reading something, they were they are being engaged, but they should understand all the different ways. It might be that we go and we um talk to a book club or nights of the Columbus or whoever might be a group. They they are hearing us, but do they know that they're not it's not a special thing, right? We're we're talking all the different people and then ultimately planning for future growth and sometimes that growth is, you know, in Jamestown's case, we're planning for their enrollment is declining, but that doesn't mean that there's actually not ways to change their facilities that will actually allow them to operate more efficiently. And it's very backwards, but it's like we're going to build a school to save money. And so their survey just got
049went final on Monday and it'll be hitting mailboxes next week. It'll be really interesting to see where that lands. But if if your public can't see these steps and then it's just it's not going to pass, right? And so we've just had a lot of success going through all of these different things. Um, one of the things that I would recommend that came up in our conversation, oh, and I guess I should just go back to what we right. So you have a lot of HVAC mechanical issues, right? A lot of things that need to be replaced and I would say even in this group uh the the community group there was debate on how to solve it, which comes first, what's the right solution? What do you break up? What do you do now?
050Um it was a healthy debate. I would say a heated debate and lots of strong opinions which you know is um better than people sitting around the room saying nothing to be honest, right? We want people to care and actually speak up. Uh but we do feel like there probably needs to be just another investigation of how you are solving for X. Basically, you have these needs. Is is there a different way to attack this? One of the things that that is really interesting and we brought up that we have different consultants, but there's um a company that we've just recently been hooked up with and you know they they haven't even bought us a cup of coffee or anything so this isn't a pitch and we don't get any money or anything like that
051but um they use like drones and thermal imaging and AI and I can't explain it as good as they can to go around and they can actually look at each wall and window pane and give you the R value or the value of of um insulation, how much heat loss you're having. And they can even go down to they'll they can go into the with the administration and say, "Okay, what are your utility costs? What are you paying for X, Y, and Z?" And they can say, "This window is costing you $12 a month. This window is costing you five cents a month." You know, based on what an optimum performance of just a standard. And what's great, too, is we can set what standard is. We are not going to put triple pane windows
052in the school. It'll be great. It's not going to happen though. That's just the the truth of it, right? So, why compare it against triple pane windows? Let's talk about what what means and methods and constructability that we can actually do and the taxpayers will support. So, um I I told them about the it was really spontaneous because we met and the next morning I met with them and I said, "Oh my gosh, you know, this group was debating on windows or units or this." I'm like, you could settle that really quickly. Um, so they're very eager to work with us. And so they wrote a proposal that's very aggressive that they would model your whole school and turn you over a dashboard that shows where your money is going and how you could change
053it. They aren't tied to construction. We have no connections with them at all. Um, to be honest, it's a very interesting um piece of of software. And after speaking with them, we are working with Barnard public schools and they're they just hired them for their first building as a trial as well. And um they come in and they they will look at each space. And so they've already spent time um they've mapped out the school. They've sent a proposal. I've shared it with with your superintendent. Um and I have all of that. We can go through that. But that's a perfect example of, you know, how can we get an independent person in here that will never make a dime off of construction or design. Their goal is just to provide you good information so
054that you hire them again. Um, we love that, right? For us, that's that's powerful. And so something like this is uh an option that I would say along with us reinvestigating the information that you already have. We would strongly support if you were to um engage these folks and have them come out and provide this information. I think that your committee would probably chew through all of this because you do have some very technical folks on that committee that understand systems and buildings and it's really neat. So, it's just an an example of of something that I think we should um consider as we go through this process. And when it masks building too, they will find or it'll find the cracks in the building and some areas that they've had deficiencies of the building
055itself, right? Yeah. And and the roofing and Yeah. Even like they'll say, "Yeah, the tough pointing here is cracked enough on this brick to where it's leaking." like they can identify that which short of getting ladders up there and like scoping like it's just for we're very excited. I plan to to bring this to like all of our clients that have I'd say 8200 year old buildings which is most of North Dakota schools, right? Um so again taking the guesswork and they are not they don't care. All they want is to provide you with good data. And that's the other reason we like using independent surveys and not there's nothing wrong with Survey Monkey or there's nothing wrong with integrated solutions of um of of surveying but if if anyone can gain anything there's there's
056just that conflict of interest that you can the public will never get away. So that's why we've come to the point here where we're saying let us work don't pay us because there's hard to argue conflict of interest when we're spending our money to try to to do something for the community. if if they're not doing a good job, we don't get paid. They're the one that pays us. And so that's not something we've always did done. That's something that maybe six, seven years ago is just evolved because we stand in front of enough of these meetings and realize, you know, that 10 or 20 grand just isn't worth it, right? Like because now we're automatically the outsiders that are just getting a paycheck. I can speak for Ba I didn't we didn't pay like
057four and a half years. Yeah. I mean, we they came I don't know how many times you were at our school, but we didn't. Another thing I have to say because he's thought obviously you had a failed referendum a year ago and you know as a speaking not from my but as a former superintendent that's got through this like you know it's very common to see uh bond referendums fail in their first time. just talked about Davidson in Grand Forks. And so, you know, you may have folks out there saying, "Well, maybe you messed up." Well, I'm here to tell you as a board, you know, you haven't messed up. I mean, messing up would be doing nothing, right? So, you you've engaged the process. You're trying to get as much information out there as
058you possibly can. And so, when it comes down to it, you shouldn't feel bad that you that you had one fail, right? It was the tax impact, which your surveys indicate the tax impact was too high. and maybe some some misinformation went out there, but as a board you're you're doing exactly what you should be doing regardless of what other people are telling you or not telling you. I mean, you you engaged in the process. Not engaging would be would be wrong, right? The last referendum that passed here that was a general obligation model was over 50 years ago. So 51 years ago, your taxpayers haven't had the excess tax taxes that they could have for the last 50 years, you know, and so as a board, I think you're doing a great job. I'm
059not speaking for ICO, just speaking from what I see and engaging in this process is a smart idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to go four years without getting a paycheck generally. Had to basically make him quit his job and come work for us to review that. Um anyway, so I just I'd love to hear your thoughts or questions. That was super super high level and I again I have like 50 slides because I'm anticipating some sort of questions. I can show you communication things. I can show you survey stuff. I can show you how to report slot I mean presentation materials on for public meetings. You just how can we help you? Um you know make sure you feel confident that again doing something is the right thing. The committee could say do
060nothing but you guys have done the right thing by by asking a committee to look at. Um yeah. So what what kind of questions do you guys have or thoughts or concerns? a couple times. Okay. So, I've had a question from people of what happens if we don't go to a referendum and it's the decision is made to do something else for finances. What happens with you guys are getting paid? Yeah. So, if our contract says that we don't get paid until a referendum passes or the board authorizes us to work on a project. So then what's your role after the what what would be your role after let's say represent passes where we decide to go before the project? Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Once once it passes shovels hit the ground, Kyle and I
061don't necessarily go away. He he probably goes away more than I will. Um, I'm there to to help you like through the process because like and I go back a little bit on that as not speaking for archive again, but I would never do a project without professional services. So like if I go back to superintendency, there's going to be no way, shape or form I'll ever take something on myself as as superintendent. My job then I I will be there to answer any questions that you might have, help uh the architect world, understand school finances and help uh the school understand the architectural world. So I stay there. We also have obviously other team members that come in and we have bi-weekly meetings um that go through the process. And so we are there
062100% of the time pre-referendum referendum passes, another group comes in, but that doesn't mean communication ends. You'll see less of Kyle probably, but you see a little bit more. Yeah. Then would I come and become our architects? Yep. Yes. So we become your architects. So on the screen right there um so this is just the different phases. I'll go um so once a referendum passes then you we actually go through the traditional phases of of design. So programming during a referendum process we'll we will do we will go through the programming exercise and we'll go through part of the schematic design but we'll redo that once the referendum passes or projects authorized. So programming is how much do you need? What kind of space do you need? Where should it be? You know, adjacencies, you
063know, you know, as you look through your spaces, you know, you kind of have that red, green, blue assessment. What we do is very similar. We kind of just look at DPI recommendations and compare to what you have. And what often happens is you'll have too much of the wrong space and not enough of right space. And so how do we solve for that? Schematic design is just, you know, I'd say our your building plan would normally be two sheets of paper schematic design. It's like or three. It's first floor, second floor, third floor, right? And it's just understanding what we're doing at a very high level. Design development is then when we go a step further and those two or three sheets become like 40 sheets and that's where we actually are making sure,
064yeah, all the the doors are swinging the right way and you've got appropriate ADA access and all the different things. And then construction documents that 40 sheets will go to about 600 sheets. And that's where it'll go to, you know, where exactly does this go on the wall. You know, where does each outlet go? Um, you know, specify the colors of the paint, the colors of the carpet, all those things, how things attach the construction documents. Then that's what actually gets bid out. And then during bidding, even with the construction manager, there's questions. what'll h you know a a contractor will say hey I know you got this um tile but I can get this cheaper can I use this as a comparable so that comes to us and we have to approve it right
065and say yep go ahead submit that you still don't have to accept it but they we just allow them to submit it and then finally construction administration so if you have a construction manager they have a site superintendent that's here every day that's their full-time job you know 8 to 5 8 to whatever right they've got to be here um for us we are construction administration Um, so we're checking um we're authorizing pay. So like they're saying, "Hey, we we installed all this this flooring, so we want to get paid on it." So then we we come out once a week, once every other week, and say, "Okay, yep, they installed it." Or we'll check things like, let's say they're pouring a slab, we would check things like that. We come in critical times, but
066we're not here every day. Um, that's what a construction manager is for. So, we're just make again making sure that that project goes through um according to our specifications, but we're not checking each room. Um we would do that at the end. We would do a punch walk where we would check each thing that that is part of it. So, go ahead. Yeah. And if you choose construction manager Everest, we facilitate that process. So, like if you have to hire construction manager, you want to hire construction manager, centric code is very specific on how you do that, who needs to be in the room and that sort of thing. We will facilitate that process with the school district to make sure that it's done. Did you hire one of you recommend it? I would never
067do it because what happens if you don't is is she gets your superintendent gets tied up doing things that she's not necessarily trained to do and it takes away from the stuff that you talked about at the beginning of the meeting. the educational stuff takes to take you completely out of that and consume you. So I I never do a project without a construction manager at risk. Yeah. We say if it's a project that's less than $4 or5 million um isn't a messy renovation or isn't where there are students um occupying a building then those are like the three triggers. Like do you have those three things? And I'd say you guys probably have all three of those, right? So, under no circumstance would I recommend that. You guys can do whatever you want to
068do. Um, but I think it makes a lot of sense in this case. And they, a good CM should provide input and value as we're going through design. A good CM should also go out and get bids. They they their job is to sell it to other contractors and get as many people bidding on projects as possible. Um, timing, you know, is also great. You know, we just had Dickinson bid two weeks ago and we had huge huge responses and bids came in way under um like 10%. Like amazing amazing bids because the current state of the world right now public projects really are all that's going on. So we've just s seen a lot of activity for the projects that we have going on which is mostly schools. So that's another positive thing. But
069again the CM went out and sold it to a bunch of you know Dickinson is is hard to get bids. I imagine that, you know, you guys are in a spot where you'll probably actually pull north and south and you just you probably want a CM that's actively marketing your project to just get as many bids as possible. Um, the other positive to using a CM is that let's say, you know, we're working in Hatton and Hatton has Hatton Granite and they have a a window covering as a wines company. We were able to pull those two pieces out of the bids. So like there was one bid just for grant and kept every penny local versus if you just bid it out and you get like multiple tri multiple prime which would be a
070general contractor and electrical and mechanical that general contractor you don't have any say of what's under them you know you just take the lowest responsible bid so um the the century code is very strict even on who's in the room I mean you need to have a licensed architect a licensed engineer a licensed contractor representation from the school um so the questions that you ask the waiting of the questions. It's when and we do it, you know, multiple times a year. So, it's very very normal and we can help through that process. I think I know the answer to this because I watched video with um Hillsboro, but when we have these community committee community meetings is icon the ones that are up front and it's not the school, but you guys are there presenting
071community meetings. So it's a it should be both and ideally it should be um superintendent, school board and ideally committee members that so Valley City for example we have our first public meeting next week. You know there's a couple of committee members that are actually taking a slide that this one makes sense to me, this one makes sense to me or I feel passionate about this because they're all educated. They should be just as educated as as the board is on on the issues really. We should be there to make sure that you have facts behind all the questions, provide, I would say, um, professional opinions and professional input when needed. But it shouldn't be, and this is another thing we've learned over the years where it shouldn't be, as much as I love to
072hear, you know, my own voice, I shouldn't be the one saying everything. It should be that we are your adviser, but on the same along the same lines though, we do make the presentation because that's our job, right? your your world isn't making a public presentation on on facilities. So we work together, we make the presentation, even the committee will have input on the presentation and then um ideally we present it all together. So if let's say it's 10 slides, there might be one slide that's icon but we're standing there right next to you because every slide will have a question and sometimes that's us. If we able to get a construction manager hired, you either want to hire them right away or you hire them after the vote. Those are kind of our two
073opinions. If you have a construction manager on board right away, then they're at the meetings. If you don't want to hire a construction manager, you could even hire just sometimes we hire them as just a cost consultant. Just, hey, will you please pay them a thousand bucks? They still have to go get the get get the work if they want it, but can you do costing and can you come to the public meeting? So, those are all things that you can do and options. We've done it without, we've done it with it. you know, we will roll with it. And even if you don't have those partners, we'll still end up calling a few to get costs because that's we do design. We have lots of historical data, but we still like to ping people
074that are actually in the construction field to just get the most up-to-date numbers. We'll be at every we'll never be at Unless you don't want us there. So I guess my question would be how does ICON different from like ICS when we tried to put this information out? Um school finance is incredibly difficult to understand. How do you put that out to the public so that they understand it? Because I feel like that was one of our biggest hurdles lastum is that people just truly did not understand how school finance works. Yeah. Uh 100%. Yeah. And I think, you know, so here's a graphic. I think you had all of this information, but I think sometimes um it it it might have been too much. You can have too much wording and you cannot have
075it explained simply. And so what we try to always do is like can we get a chart or a graph or something to break down in a simple manner? Okay, so you have $30 billion of needs upcoming and 21 of that is mechanical. And then you can break down, you know, the different parts of your building to understand, you know, here's the different pieces. And so for, for example, looking at the this Mandan um graphic, you could see like the Brave Center, the top line, there's $82 a square foot of needs. And if you're if you're trying to build a school and let's say school's 350 or $400 a square foot, well, at $82 a square foot, it makes sense to keep maintaining that, right? But if we get to the point where it's a
076higher number, then you can say, "All right, well, let's have a logical debate." Um, I don't think that it makes sense to try to say you need anything new here. I think it's just how do we find the right way to break down the information um to get it very clear. Uh, let's give you some more. I'll say this, too. Honestly, it there's going to be people out there that they they're not going to believe it no matter what. Like, you can put it in front of them. Like when we did our referendum, I we had Zap, Golden Valley, and Dodge. All three communities consolidated into Bullet. So our community meetings, we had one in Bullet, one in Zap, one Dodge. And I can remember showing slides just like the one that he just showed,
077which was very clear, but people still didn't want to believe it. Finally, I pretty sure I broke down at the meeting and I basically just said like this is our issue. Like I'm not lying about our issue. These are our issues. You can't afford it. And there's some, you know, if if you're if you're in the egg community and you can't afford it, then then by all means, I respect you to vote no. Like, go ahead and vote no. But I I'm not up here to tell you that our that our information is incorrect. It is what it is. This is our issues. This is what's going to happen if we don't do anything, but go ahead and and and vote no. I'll respect you. You can please respect the numbers, but you know, we're
078going no. So, we had to have a human moment. And I think in that moment, like I think it sold people like look, they're not here to buffalo us. They're here to tell us their issues and we as as tactic have to go back and decide, can we afford this? Can we not afford this? And so regardless though, people are going to I one guy absolutely hated me. Like took us to the took us to the attorney general three different times. Um luckily he failed, but I mean we had a guy that was just totally against the project. Didn't want to believe anything. They're going to be those people that just are going to vote no matter what you put in front of them. So yeah, you Everybody knows everybody. There is no sarcasm in
079that. But so like here's an example of you know we often will go in and people will just say why does it cost so much? I don't understand. And as a public entity there's rules that you have to follow that the average person they can build a closet they can build a shed. They don't have to worry about electrical, sidewalks, um, you know, legal permitting, you know, making sure that you meet ADA codes, sprinkler systems, like, so, you know, this was a transportation facility and, you know, we had some some folks that are like, well, I can build that for a million dollars. Absolutely, we can build it for a million, too. But then you have to do all the other things that the school has to require. And so for them, you know, this
080was in Krookton, actually, and the vote failed at $3.4 million. And then we were hired, we brought it back at 3.2 million. Not a huge difference, but with better ways of explaining it. And it it passed very easily. And the the key was the first time they tried to pass, you know, they didn't I would say they didn't have enough simple information and they also didn't have a group of people that were understanding how the decisions were made. So, you know, here's another example of this is again this is just Krookton, but just to give you an idea. So the group sitting around the table, they were like, "How can we build what we need?" You know, there there's a very there's a lot of different ways to solve this problem. So we went through
081it as a group and said, "Okay, well, we can build one building that's pre-engineered. We can build one that's heated, non-heated, we can do stick frame, we can do this." And at the end of the day, we said, "All right, what do you want to do?" You know, and they picked the solution that was kind of in the middle, not not necessarily the cheapest and not the most expensive. Um, and it just uh it's it's how we need to just give people the data in a way they can understand and they will tell us what to do. If they don't tell us what to do, we're not doing and you're going to have folks that are just going to be like, well, I can do this for this much or I can get this and
082do this. And at the end of the day, DPI and and the centric code is very specific on what you have to have, right? If it's above a certain threshold, you have to have professional services. and and we we know that there are creative solutions to maybe let's say break apart projects or let's say do things differently to skirt the rules and and I would just say that there's absolutely ways to do that. We just don't support it because ultimately the rules are there because you guys are a public entity. You guys are going to be liable if anything happens. You know, if you replace something and it's the best job ever, but that thing that you replaced fails and it leaks and it destroys something, your insurance company is going to say, "Okay, let's
083let's see your your your specs." And because they the insurance company wants to sue whoever did it wrong, and you're going to say, "Oh, our specs are there aren't any specs, or we don't have stamp drawings from an engineer or an architect or whatever." And so then it's just going to be the school. We don't like it, but it's just this way the world works. And so we would just strongly recommend and we will deal we will work through that with the committee that yes there might be different ways to attack things and some things might be acceptable and some things might not. Um but at the end of the day we do think that the rules are there for a reason and um to try not to deliberately script them. expect to pay college.
084Well, that too. Yeah. And and you know, another example I think I shared with the committee was, you know, ADA accessibility is not a not a choice. All you need is one community member. It doesn't have to be a student. If a community member can't get access to a space that should be public by law, you have to accommodate that. Um there was a a family that challenged Dakota Prairie School District and they went to the Supreme Court and the school district lost. So you you don't have to you don't have the ability to say no if someone demands it. So most districts are working by the grace of their community and I know that most school districts are trying to do the right thing are trying to get there and so most people will
085work with them. Um but just know that again that's not like our agenda, it's the law. You know, that's the other reason why I would never not have a CM or professional services because school districts should never have to fall on that building should not school districts. School districts are trained to educate students, right? You're trained to look at budgets as board members. We're not trained to do construction. So that's the other reason I would never do a different professional services so they can 100 times I realize in the icon. Yeah, I mean so when we leave here, we're driving to Valley City to go meet with superintendent there and he texts us before 7 a.m. sometimes and yeah, so it's fine. It's fine if I see it all. Um but yeah, so it's this
086is just what we do. Like the vast majority of our our days are spent solving these same problems. And I just say, you know, we don't have to you don't Oaks doesn't need a new wheel. the wheel will work. We just have to kind of trust in the process and at the same point understand that our job is regardless of what we're doing here is just to earn their trust. That's all we're trying to do. We earn their trust and then we get made whole. So, we're going to do everything we can to make things clear, to share the information, make sure people um feel like their voice is heard, make sure we answer all the questions. Like that's that's our business really at the end of the day. We do that right and then
087we get to be guarded. So, if we all agree to the contract meeting this morning, what would the next step be? Um, next step would be for us to to meet with the committee and then we would um we would get a couple of um engineer consultants that would come walk the building with us, start reviewing documentation. We would strongly recommend you look at that proposal. It's $3,500. I mean, that's a steal based on what they normally charge. I think they're very eager to work with us and so I would just love it if you guys did that because the amount of data and that's a year of their dashboard too. So it's like it's really and just a reminder when we bring engineers in or whatever that's that's that's not a bill to you
088this other service. We we will tell you before we don't nickel and do I mean the a great example the Mandan High School that's like our ninth project with Dr. Biz. We started working with them in Hillsboro 23 years ago. And it's like you got to pick up the phone and you can't nickel and dime. Like if you just do those two things, like generally people keep hiring. So we think that's worth spending money on. We think like a survey might be might be worth spending money on. It might be worth spending a little bit of money on a on a contractor to just be our cost consultant. But again, like we're going to walk in here with electrical engineers and and mechanical engineers that think like us and they know they're not getting paid
089either unless a system comes that or unless a solution comes out to the community. So when you see us with engineers in here again like you're not paying them. We're not paying them. They just they believe in our process to where they they'll drive out into the middle of nowhere and and do it with us too. Not in the middle of nowhere. Actually saying they'll go anywhere. They I mean I don't know if you've been to Baneville, Montana, but yeah say they don't know we're in the middle of nowhere. Yes. So that that Yes. And even that's not um all I'm saying is you guys are you know if you do something you're doing the right thing and if you you have no risk other than you guys are going to let us spin our
090wheels and try to find a solution. And if we can't find a solution, then I mean that that is what it is, right? Any other questions, comments? All right. So, I will entertain a motion to approve the contract with icon architects. Carlson moved. Do I have a second? Second. Second. Can you call the roll, please? Day. Thank you. Yes. Patty Carlson. Yes. Sheila Nagel. Yes. Brian Sire. Yes. Monica Huck. Yes. Motion passes 5. Moving on to item six, future meetings. Um our next regional meeting will be on Friday, May 16th, which is also the last day of school. Um regular meeting for June 23rd is what we have set. and we have that set because our election is on the 10th. We by law we have to count us the vote 13 days after. Um
091being as it's a Monday, we have tenatively set it at 7 p.m. if that works for everyone else. Yes. And then our next regular meeting will be Tuesday, July 8th. And I believe that's a little bit off from our regular schedule just because I think both Shannon and Anna will be be gone then. Um and then that'll be our reorganization meeting as um we will have that will be the beginning of our new year. So 7 a.m. that day or do you just want to wait for the time later? Okay, let's just keep it at seven. Yeah. Um and then one more item sort of the order. We have graduations coming up on May 18th and we need number hand out diplomas. I think in the past S has anybody have a strong urge to
092do so? I I will do it. I just didn't want to take that away from anybody else. remember that I didn't anything else for the governor? Okay, we will adjourn this meeting at 8:09 a.m. Thank you.