001Good evening and welcome to the Pila Vista Community Schools Board of Education meeting for October 13th. Let's rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of Americ. >> Thank you. Roll call, please. Miss Butler, >> here. >> Mr. Madler, >> here. >> Miss Wit, >> here. >> Mr. Lotus, >> here. >> Miss Wood, >> here. I would make a motion to excuse Mr. >> Second. >> I have a motion from Miss Wood and a second by Mr. Madler to excuse Mr. Bailey from tonight's meeting. Can we have a roll call, please? >> Mr. Madler? >> Yes. >> Miss Wit? >> Yes. >> Mr. Lotus? >> Yes. >> Miss Wood? >> Yes. >> Miss Butler? >> Yes. >> Before we begin tonight, please note that the open meetings
002act is posted at the front of the door. Uh we'll begin with communications and recognitions. Dr. Rickley, please. >> Uh, we don't have any formal recognitions this evening. We had one on the agenda that I'm going to get to in my superintendent report. And the reason we didn't put it on the agenda is it was a big secret until 8:00 this morning. So, if I can keep the board in just a bit of uh keep you hanging for just a few warm minutes, but I do have something exciting to share, but we didn't want to put it on the agenda. So, if with the board's permission, I'll cover that during my superintendent report. We love surprises. Okay, then we'll go on to our student council report. Maggie Novak. >> Hi, good evening everyone. Uh my
003name is Maggie Novak. I am the president of the Pista Student Council. Uh my vice president is out of town so she can't be here tonight so it's just going to be me. Um a couple updates from our student council itself. Uh we threw another successful homecoming. This year our theme was Hollywood and at the last minute we moved it to the north gym but we got a lot of good feedback from both students and admin about the decorations and setup of everything. So we're planning on keeping it in the north gym moving forward. Today our student council attended the state student council convention hosted at the Vista South. It was a lot of fun. We got to communicate and share ideas with other student councils and attend a couple breakout sessions which was awesome.
004And then we have a leaf raking event on November 2nd where we're going to be uh cleaning up the neighborhood around Tara Hills Elementary School. Terra Heights Elementary School, sorry. Um updates from our building. Uh the outdoor classroom was completed. So we have an outside classroom with tables and some shaded area so we can now host a class outside which is really cool. uh not necessarily teach a lesson because there's no whiteboards or anything but activities where students are able to move around and things is going to be awesome to have outside. Uh our construction in the auditorium was completed so we have new seats, sound and a stage which hosted our first choir concert of the season which went well. Uh the PLHs band competed at Pellion Lewista South competition. They're led by believer
005and achiever nominee Vicky Woo, who is also our homecoming queen. Uh they're doing well this season and are going to continue to compete in competitions. Uh we're ending the near the end of our fall season for sports. So cross country, softball, golf are either in districts or state this week. Uh tennis as well. Football and volleyball won't finish up till November, but they're still competing and doing well. Uh we had some couple ACT practice days. So the sophomores and juniors skipped their normal routine and did a practice ACT while the seniors and freshmen kind of went along with their normal schedule. That's just to get them comfortable with the ACT format and get some practice in before the real test in March. That's a good initiative they started last year which I got to partake
006in. Uh, it definitely helps to see the test beforehand instead of being surprised during the actual ACT. And then DECA brought back our school bookstore, so they never had that before. And this year they started selling sweatshirts and things. They also sell Otis Spunkmire cookies as a way to raise money for Deca. Um, they're making a lot of sales and they sell out almost every time. So, they're definitely excited about that. And then Empower Her raised over $400 at the last football game by selling wristbands and photo opportunities for Project Pink to raise awareness for breast cancer. So, that's just a couple updates from our school. Um, any questions for you guys? >> No question, but a little birdie. Uh, did you guys win a few awards today at the state student council convention? Um,
007yes, we won um closest because it was hosted at South. Um, but then I had to leave so I don't know what other awards. Yeah, I had a doctor's appointment so I don't know what other awards we won. >> Yeah, they were named one of the um outstanding student councils. Um I think the uh make a they received an award for Make a Wish and um Miss uh Kimell also was one of the nominated um adviserss for um state advisor of the year. So So she was one of those that got to go up on stage to be recognized. >> Very nice. >> Well, and Maggie and that was an outstanding report, but thank you especially for coming in on a day off. I know that with heading back to school tomorrow, you probably had
008other places you would have loved to have been, but coming in and delivering a report is much appreciated. So, well done. >> And you don't need to hang around unless you want to. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Have a good night. >> You, too. >> Next item is reports. First up is superintendent. >> Thank you very much, Miss Whit, members in the board, and happy Monday, everyone. Uh, for our audience members that are here in person, thank you for being here. For those that are watching online, thank you for engaging with your community and your board of education. Uh today represents the end of first quarter. Uh we say it every single start of the school year, the first semester, first quarter, but first semester even is is just a blur.
009It's amazing how fast it goes. Uh we celebrated the end of the the quarter mark by having all staff off on Friday. All students of course as well. Today staff returned for professional development day. Students are off. students return tomorrow. Uh in addition to this being a professional development day, we had the semianual parah conference and I just want to congratulate Dr. Settles and her team, Dr. Bell uh and others who helped put that conference together. Um so we offer it once in in the first semester, once in second semester, and we rotate it around between different uh district locations. It's it's staggering the amount of work that goes into one of these conferences. Um it always has a theme. There's always lots of food. Uh the training is provided in-house by our own staff.
010Uh I was able to hit about five or seven uh different sessions and they're very farreaching. They're everything from uh how to deal with student behavior. Uh we had a session dedicated to sign language. I attended a session with new mental health coordinator Stephanie Hazing on um how to identify and and support students that are going through trauma. um just lots of different strategies that paras can take back to their buildings and use tomorrow. So, not only is it a great community building event, it's a great way for our parents to connect with one another. It's a great training opportunity and heaven knows we can always uh use more of that. So, just again, Dr. Settles to you and your team, thanks for all the good work that you did there. Uh, also wanted to
011remind the community and the board that we've got a couple of additional family engagement opportunities coming up on Wednesday and Saturday. Wednesday 5:30 at Monarch. Saturday 9:00 at Titan. We are doing a viewing. Uh, it is open to students. It is open to parents. It's open to community members. It is open to staff. In fact, the staff uh qualify for some professional development credit if they attend. Uh, the viewing of the film is called Screen Aers Under the Influence. I haven't personally seen the film yet. It's approximately uh 70 minutes long. Uh has a particular emphasis on the dangers of social media, but it also talks about some of the other issues that our teens are dealing with today that they didn't deal with even a generation ago. So, some really great tools for our
012parents, our educators, community members that are just interested in how this next generation of students is dealing with some of these challenges. Again, this Wednesday at Monarch, this Saturday at Titan, they are identical showings. You don't have to be a Monarch to show up to the Monarch. You don't have to be a Titan to show up at the Titan showing. Uh come one, come all, we'll gladly have you. Uh also today, besides it being PAR conference and professional development day, we had a staff welcome back at Hickory Hill Elementary. Um, so we had not only the founding principal Jim Malonus attend, we had former building secretaries, former pair educators, former teachers, uh, that were just going up and down the hallways at Hickory Hill and they just could not believe it was the same building
013that opened in 1985. Uh, it is a beautiful building. The lighting, the flooring, the the paint, uh, the way we've reconfigured some of the classrooms, it's just a very gorgeous building. and it was fun to be able to see some of the original staff that made it the outstanding building that it is today. Also wanted to remind the board and our community that we have our second community closet event of the year is this Saturday at L Vista Middle School. The particular focus is on winter clothing. So think scarves, think gloves, think winter jackets. This is done in collaboration with the city of L Vista who has been an outstanding partner in doing coat drives for us. I don't know how many coats we'll give away, but it'll be several hundred based on past history.
014So again, nine o'clock at L Vista Middle School community closed event and the event that I originally had under recognition that uh I was prompted to pull. So we were uh at Anderson Grove Elementary School this morning for a really special uh ceremony. We had uh Lisa Wood, our own board member, Lisa Wood. We had Pam Louns, recently retired principal at Prairie Queen Elementary, and all of the Anderson Grove staff, and they didn't know what was going on either. So, it was kind of a fun opportunity to surprise them. Anderson Grove was awarded the US Special Olympic Committee National Banner Unified Champion designation. So, the board knows all what that is, but if we have community members at home, you may not be aware. So, the United States Special Olympic Committee has this program. It's
015a nationwide program that allows individual buildings, not necessarily districts, but individual school buildings to be recognized as basically friendly to students with disabilities, which has strong implications for the US Special Olympic team. Um, it's special for a whole bunch of reasons. Uh, we had the first two class A high schools in the state, uh, Titan first, Monarch second, uh, that received this design designation. Pam Louns when she was at Prairie Queen Elementary was the first PLCS elementary school that received this designation. So AG is now our second. There are only 20 such schools in the state of Nebraska. So we are an extremely select company. So it was fun to be there. Lisa, thanks for being part of the celebration. Uh super proud of uh Ms. Morehead, Principal Brook Morehead, and the entire team that
016put it together. Um, you may recall that Anderson Grove was also the first elementary school in the district to receive the Purple Star designation. Pan Vista South also received it the same year. So, they're an innovative building. They're not afraid to push the envelope. They're not afraid to go through a little bit of extra work for their kids and community and we could not be prouder of them. So, if you see Brooke or anybody from Anderson Grove and the Fighting Quail Nation, please offer them a hearty congratulations. And with that, Miss Wit, I would conclude my superintendence report. >> Thank you. I recall being there for liaison lunch and they were talking about their unified sport program and that they had more people almost double the number volunteer to participate than they expected. So, it
017was it was really welld deserved, I believe. So, congratulations. Okay. Next, we have um board member reports. >> All right. I had a liaison lunch uh last week uh at Prairie Queen uh with Dr. Rickley and Dr. Siri and the the team from uh Prairie Crane including uh a few teachers, some counselors, uh school psych, uh the lead teacher, and obviously Seth, the principal. So, um we had a a a fantastic discussion. um you know they kind they came at us with different questions than we you know we had been seeing. Um and so the focus was more on you know as that as that building um you know has been at capacity for for years and um you know the first question was like what do you think about when you you hear Prairie
018Queen Elementary and and we went through lots of descriptions and and discussion and and I just said well aren't aren't you excited for next August when at at for the first time in a very long time you may not be at capacity. So, um, they were more interested in just where the district was going. So, we had a a good discussion led by Dr. Siri on where we were at with our strategic planning process. Uh, she kind of laid the road map for uh the rest of the well the plan um going forward. So, that was um great discussion. They asked some really really good questions. um spent quite a bit of time just talking about uh what the future of teaching uh looks like in terms of numbers, what what do the pipelines look
019like? Uh what does our district uh look like? Um you know, we're always pleased to state that, you know, for full-time inclassroom teaching positions, you know, we started the year full. Obviously, as you uh Miss Wit always say, we're always looking for paras. if you're looking for something, we we do have openings. Please contact HR if you do. Uh and and other just uh hard to fill positions. Uh so they were very interested in that. Uh talked about some things going on at the state level uh as well as they they wanted to kind of hear about our vision for what early childhood education looks like uh going forward. So really fantastic. We probably could have spent another couple of hours uh with that group uh having uh very good conversation. And so again, thanks
020to Prairie Queen for for hosting. It had been a little while. Uh I was at that building. My niece and nephew went to Prairie Queen, so they're no longer there. So it was good to be back. >> Those were tough questions. Anyone else? >> I can share. I had a liazison lunchon at Golden Hills uh a couple weeks ago. Uh we talked about a lot of their accomplishments, but I guess what I want to highlight is that they are celebrating their 50th anniversary. They opened in 1975. So, congrats to them. >> Anyone else? No. >> But moving on to committee reports, building grounds and finance. >> We just met this last Friday. Uh, a lot of the discussion was the ongoing bond projects. Uh, talking through where they are in the process and and the
021handful of projects that still need to get going. Um, I think the we'll have a couple more items coming up for bids here in the next uh couple months. Uh, and then spent time uh talking through potential land purchase uh figuring out what areas would make sense uh for the next middle school, which was also part of the the last bond project. So, trying to narrow in on on where we think uh that would make the most sense for the district. That's it. >> Thank you. Human resources and student services. We have not met since the last meeting but we do have a uh initial meeting uh to start uh negotiation discussions uh coming up here in two weeks. >> Thank you. And finally, curriculum and Americanism. >> Yes, we met on September 30th and
022at that time Dr. Siri gave us an update. Um the state of Nebraska did receive a comprehensive literacy state development grant and of that funds uh our district received around $400,000 and many things have been put in place uh using those funds uh we've hired a literacy coordinator um and they're focusing on uh the science of reading training of teachers. Uh preschool's going to start working on a modified toolbox at the secondary level. The grants are going to focus on literacy interventions. Um, literacy nights will be hosted and we also have some uh facilitators that will be going to a conference in Chicago. So, a lot of great things happening in the district those funds. We also uh had an update. Um, one of our schools, uh, one of our elementary schools, uh, is classified
023as being in the comprehensive support and improvement level through Aquest, uh, which allows us, uh, to give some additional support. And we're able to receive some additional funds to to support that school as they work to uh, continue to develop and grow. um they're using their their funds to also look at uh coordination of uh intervention efforts. Um we will have a rule 10 audit that's coming up in early December 2nd through the 4th and at that time we'll have NDE staff coming on site and visiting our high schools, both high schools and some of our middle schools and elementary schools. Um and then we will uh receive more information about that in the future. As far as our strategic plan, uh later tonight, uh Dr. Siri will give us an update on our mission
024statement, but there's also work being done with the action plan teams and uh training of the leaders of that. Um last year during the frameworks accreditation visit, uh we received feedback around um our SIP goals and so um all buildings have successfully had um ongoing uh goals for their buildings. Uh but now that we're starting to look at a more consistent and standardized framework to to look and utilize. Um the last group of uh staff that will be getting new devices is our classified staff. And so currently uh they're reviewing possible replacement uh devices and we'll be um adding approximately 250 devices in the near future for our classified folks. And finally, there will be an open position in the um curriculum department. And so at the end of this year or sometime ear in
025the spring, we'll be looking for a new director of curriculum and secondary education. That's it. >> Thank you very much. >> Oh, and Miss W, sorry, I don't because we we have that new ad hoc committee on the uh industry transfers option enrollment. Do because we met, do we have to bring it up at the full board meeting? Like should we discuss that committee meeting as well? I'm I'm not sure if we how that works. I think it's on the agenda as far as the option enrollment resolution is part of it. >> Indirectly, I think if there's questions or if there's comments from the board, >> I just wasn't sure because we met if we had to share and I just thought of it. Sorry. >> A great question. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> All
026right. >> It is a different item. Okay. Never mind. >> But if you have questions as a board member that are even tangentially related, that is up to you to ask that question. We'd be absolutely prepared to answer them. >> So, thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Moving on to action items. And we have action by consent. Do we have a motion? >> I will move that we approve the action by consent items as outlined in the agenda. >> Second. >> Thank you. I have a motion by Miss Woods and a second by Mr. Madler. Any discussion? >> Roll call. >> Miss Whit. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lotus. >> Yes. >> Miss Wood. Yes, >> Miss Butler. >> Yes, >> Mr. Madler. >> Yes. >> Motion carried. >> Thank you. Next item is the property
027tax levy resolution for 2025 through 26. >> Mr. Richards. >> Thank you, Miss Wit. Good evening, everybody. Um, tonight we conclude a summer of meetings and hearings um with our final property tax ask for 2526. Um we are asking um from the general fund to be $92,272,726. Uh from the total bond fund we have 17,650,55 and from the special building fund $1,616,162. Uh the levy does drop to $196547 uh with this property tax request. And at this point, the administration recommends the board approve the property tax ask resolution as presented. >> I'll make the motion to approve the attached tax request resolution for the 202526 school year as presented. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. I have a motion by Mr. Madler and a second by Mr. Lotus. Do we have any discussion >> or
028questions? >> Yeah, I just want to say thanks uh to Mr. Richards and the the staff and the team. I know this is a long process. Here we are in October and we these conversations started months and months ago. So, it's a long process. Uh I'm glad we get we got here. Uh and you know it's I think you and the team and administration as a whole do a great job in trying to balance the the needs of the community the expectations of us of this district from our community along with you know the burden that we do put on the tax to try to meet those expectations. So, thank you for uh again the team putting this together. Uh I'm looking forward to getting it passed. >> Thank you. Thanks to the board of
029education too for all your time and participation and input on the process as well. >> Yeah, and I just want to echo Mr. Madler. Um, you know, having sat on the uh buildings, grounds, and finance committee for for years now, uh, you know, the administration listens very carefully to our feedback on again what the expectations we're hearing from our community, from our students, from our staff. uh and founding finding a way to balance that with also either over the last seven, eight years uh either keeping the levy equal or uh being able to utilize some of the new state dollars and different things uh to really take our task of uh managing property taxes as it's a crucial issue in the in the state of Nebraska and finding a way to do our best part
030to lower that levy almost every year over the last seven or eight years. So, um really appreciate um the administration uh and especially your team uh Mr. Richards uh and in aligning us uh with with the goals that the the board and the subcommittee have uh and again finding a way to decrease uh when costs for everything including uh teachers and pencils and computers and building new buildings uh continues to increase. um you find a way to keep a very balanced budget uh and reduce the levy once again. >> Thank you. Roll call, please. >> Mr. Lotus. >> Yes. >> Miss Wood. >> Yes. >> Miss Butler? >> Yes. >> Mr. Madler? >> Yes. >> Miss Wit? >> Yes. >> Motion carried. >> Thank you. Next action item, the Pillian Levisa Community Schools mission statement
031update. Dr. Siri. I love saying that, by the way. Good evening. Okay, so as you uh recall at our board retreat, um I shared with you some of the work that was done by the community advisory committee um that was formed as part of the strategic plan development um that we are currently working on. And one of the tasks that they are charged with is to evaluate the mission statement for the district and make sure that it still aligns and um if it needs changed or updates. And as we discussed at that meeting um the mission statement really just had two minor changes. And so tonight, I bring that back in front of you um with a recommendation that we approve these two changes uh the changing of two words um in order to tweak
032our mission statement to make it um more aligned with actually where we feel we are as a district. So if you have questions or additional comments, I'm happy to try to answer those for you. I just uh appreciate the work that you've already done as we've started this strategic uh round. Um and you know this these two words it seems maybe uh not important but I think that words do matter and I think that the discussion that was held by the by the group of people um was very purposeful and intentional and that these uh two words uh do uh meet the the changes that I think the group felt was necessary to not maybe improve our mission but to maybe closer or align it to what we see as our goals moving forward. So,
033thank you. >> Do we have a motion for this action item? >> I'll make a motion to adopt the recommended changes to the current mission statement. >> I'll second. >> I have a motion by Miss Wood and a second by Mr. Lotus. Any further discussion? I just want to say that as it is continually looked at and reviewed, it's always improved and these improvements also have meaning the way that they have been changed. So, thank you for that effort. Roll call. >> Miss Wood? >> Yes. >> Miss Butler? >> Yes. >> Mr. Madler? >> Yes. >> Miss Wit? >> Yes. >> Mr. Lotus? >> Yes. >> Motion carried. >> Thank you. Our next action item is open enrollment resolution. Miss Siri or >> I will take that one. Y she I'm walking and she's not
034here. Okay. I'm sorry. >> Y I'm I'm here in Missy's place um this evening. So as we discussed last time um this is an annual uh resolution that the board does take. So, as we've met with our board subcommittee and looked at the various trends that we've had with growth, as well as the tools that we need to use to be able to open a new school, um we have determined that we have three schools that would meet capacity guidelines established by the board. That would be Prairie Queen Elementary, the new Lincoln View Elementary, and Ashbury Elementary. Uh not super unusual to see this as two of those Prairie Queen and Ashberry have been our largest growth um fastest growth um elementarymentaries in these last several years. And then as we begin to open Lincoln
035View planning um just well in advance for staffing and making sure that we don't have a situation where we're opening a building um with too small or too few students. And uh same thing with um that one's very important with planning with Prairie Queen as well with Prairie Queen feeding into Lincoln View. Um so uh it's a management tool that's available uh for you to be able to utilize with the guidelines established by the board. Um so it would be unavailable for option enrollment and indistrict transfers unless there's an exception that has been determined and those exceptions are laid out as well. Um the great news on that is we certainly will be able to make other um choices as options available to applicants that we get. So no changes on this since you last
036heard it at the last meeting. Thank you. And um we know that with the opening of a new elementary school, that doesn't mean that the capacity at the feeder school may or may not be optioned depending on the staffing issues. So, there are many things that go into consideration when you're making those recommendations. Do we have a motion? >> I'll make a motion to approve the option enrollment resolution for the 202627 school year as presented. Second. >> Thank you. I have a motion by Mr. Lotus and a second by Mr. Madler. Any further discussion? >> Dr. settles. Just in case someone is out there uh that is not currently a member of the district that is potentially looking to option, can you just uh high level talk through what that process would be for those
037families? >> Yeah, so that's already open now and we're already receiving um those applications. Um we do process those beginning on March 15th, but then the the application remains open and um we see um all the way to the start of the school year people applying. Um and it's a simple application. It's on the district website and there's a variety of things that people mark off on there regarding um their statuses and what their needs are, the buildings. Um but the when you option in you option into a school district not a particular school. Um there is a possibility people request specific schools though too. >> Thanks. >> No further discussion. Motion please. >> Call. I'm sorry. Roll call. >> Miss Butler? >> Yes. >> Mr. Madler? >> Yes. >> Miss Wit? >> Yes. >>
038Mr. Lotus? >> Yes. >> Miss Wood? >> Yes. Motion carried. >> Thank you. Next action item is custodial contract tenative agreement. Dr. Settles. >> Thank you. Yes, no additional changes on this either, but um as you are aware, there is a um recommended increase of 3.94% in year 1 and 3.8% in year two in this 2-year agreement for our custodial warehouse and drivers. and um their health and dental um plan options remain the same, reflecting the increase that we did see of 5.49% in our plan cost. They also received $25 extra dollars for their uniform allowance at $225. Um their uh personal leave and bereavement leave did experience slight changes um based on several other groups and we wanted to fall in line on those pieces. Um, this agreement would take effect immediately and then
039um the November 15th paycheck would reflect back pay from September 1st onward. >> Thank you. Do we have a motion? >> I'll make the motion to approve a two-year agreement for custodial warehouse and drivers, including a wage increase of 3.94% in year 1 and 3.8% 8% in year two with all other provisions as presented. >> Second. >> Thank you. I have a motion by Mr. Lotus and a second by Mr. Madler. Any further discussion? >> Roll call. >> Mr. Madler. >> Yes. >> Miss Wit? >> Yes. >> Mr. Lotus? >> Yes. >> Miss Wood? >> Yes. >> Miss Butler? >> Yes. >> Motion carried. >> Thank you. Our last action item tonight is voluntary separation application for approval. Dr. Settles. >> Yep. on this one. No changes other than the dates have been updated to
040reflect the 2526 school year. You already um participated in the discussion where you heard that uh the subcommittee u from HR and student services recommended a max of 15 and if there are any more than that I would bring that to the subcommittee to determine um whether or not we should bring more applications to you. But we have we do have 76 people eligible this year for early retirement and I have begun having those meetings and I'll keep um subcommittee updated on number of applications and then December 1st is the deadline for those. >> Thank you. Do we have a motion? >> I'll make the motion to approve annual updates of policy 4143 temporary early retirement incentive policy. Second. >> Thank you. I have a motion by Mr. Lotus and a second by Miss Butler.
041Any further discussion? >> Roll call. >> Miss Whit. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lotus. >> Yes. >> Miss Wood. >> Yes. >> Miss Butler? >> Yes. >> Mr. Madler? >> Yes. >> Motion carried. >> Thank you. Moving on to discussion information items to the staffing and student enrollment update. Dr. Settles. >> Yep. Thank you. So did just want to provide you an update. As you know, October 1 is our big um date that is used every year with our state reporting. That is not yet the official count. It is ongoing and then you'll hear from me in early January um possibly even in December with what our official count ends up. But knowing that we're pretty well close to being there as the state um data is submitted this month, wanted just to kind of give
042you an idea of where we landed. So, um, at elementary, middle, and high school, we did see growth at each of those, uh, levels. So, you'll see in the first column, um, as of last Friday, 1010 where we were sitting at each of the levels, elementary, middle, and high school. Um, so we saw a growth of 23 at elementary, 27 at middle school, and 28 at high schools. Um, so total K12 growth was at plus 78. Preschool is the one that we see the most changes on throughout the year. Um, at this time we actually are a little bit down in our preschool. Uh, just 21 students, less than last year, but that makes our total um, prek through 12 um, a growth of 57 students from this past year. And as of October 10th,
04312,126 students. Uh, again, we'll get you an update further on that. U, but I think we're getting pretty close. Um we we this is growth we like to see. It's growth that uh looks like it um falls in line with some of the trends that we expected to see with um the previous studies that have been done. Um also wanted to just share a little bit about staffing for you. So we were able to fill all of our classroom teacher positions. Sometimes we have ongoing needs throughout the year and thus far we've been able to fill those. Um we did fill all of our special education teaching positions as well. When I last reported to you, we still had a position open in special education. We have now filled that. Plus, we have used a
044growth in special education as well. Um, as uh this is a popular place for people to send their students with special needs. And so, we have continued to um have some moveins and things like that. And uh Dr. Voisen and her team do a great job of evaluating that every single month and making recommendations to us. Um, we are still doing ongoing recruiting for a school psychologist position. We've already begun um, looking for next year for our school psychologist and our speech pathologist position. Um, we have school nurse um, one position open. We actually just had an interview for that though. So, um, maybe some news coming on that soon. Health paras um, paras in general always are a regular need, but health paras being a little bit more specialized. Um, we have also started
045hiring some of our behavior techs. So, those are ones that we're able to be pretty highly selective in though as uh the level of experience and um skill in the area of um behavior techniques is very important. So, we have two already hired for that and have some more um interviews set up. And then um I didn't I don't have it on the list, but we do currently also have three food service openings. So that's also one that we see some ongoing needs, but are great for people who are looking uh for something like between two and six hours. So some of the more part-time needs. So that's where we currently are at on our staffing. Uh any questions at all? >> Dr. settles. When we do the prek number, is that the students, our
046three and four year olds that are coming in or does that include the birth to three as well? >> Yep. That number includes all of the uh special education that are in that birth to three and the preschool. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I had a question on the behavior text. How many looking how many are you looking to hire totally? So, behavior text is is the area that with when we have our um person that is working on getting behavior um the BCBA certification um when she has completed with that we will be able to supervise our own registered behavior texts without her being completed in that yet and she's really close she's at the testing phase of it but it's a long process u so we have identified also some uh paras in
047the schools who have specific interest in behavior and some specific skill in the area of behavior and she will be able to take them through some additional training. Um so we'll be able to offer that here and as well as bring in some outside resources for them. Um, right now we decided we're starting kind of slow with this as we bring that on, but uh it's one that I wouldn't be surprised if you see um some additional recommendations come as um but we would also have to do some additional staffing adjustments elsewhere. >> Dr. Settles, you may not know this off the top of your head, but when somebody receives that BCBA uh certification, is there a maximum load of behavior tax that he or she is qualified? Is it five? Is it 10? Or
048is there an upper threshold on what they can supervise? >> Yeah, great question. So, I do believe there's a maximum of RBTs that they can uh supervise because there are certain number of hours required each uh week for them to have specifically with the RBT with the behavior tech spot. That is one that does not require the uh license of the RBT. So, uh perhaps that one's just a little bit different and some of our um our behavior coaches as well as our um school psychologists would have some experience to be able to um help supervise them as well. Right now, they are a part of our team. So, we're placing them in some of the um areas with some higher needs with some specific cases. Uh I believe at the most last year we
049had four Thank you. No other questions. We'll move on to no public comment tonight and future board calendar. On October 14th, leazison lunch at Ideal with myself and who which administrators come? Dr. Siri. October 17th, liaison lunch at Anderson Grove for Mr. Madler. October 18th, community closet free runner code event again at uh Le Vista Middle School. And I noticed on Facebook that Cavalry Christian Church donated like car- sized bags of coats. >> They're enormous. Three bags, but they're enormous bags. >> It's amazing. Thank you, Cavalry Christian Church and family and friends from that area. On October 21st, liaison breakfast, not lunch at Patriot with Miss Wood. And on October 27th is our next board of education meeting at 6 PM here in the central office. Uh Dr. Rickley, I have one more question. at
0505:30 at Propellian La Vista High School for that screening. Will you be serving popcorn? >> Uh, Spike and I is actually my candy of choice, but I we do have a district operated popcorn machine, so I don't know if that's going to be made available, but if my bosses tell me it'll be made available, then it'll be made available. So, how about that, Miss We? >> Well, Pluto always brings people in. So, >> yes, it does. >> Seeing no further business, we will adjourn the meeting at 6:41 p.m. Thank you. And thank you, Doc Stephanie. and Dr. V and >> Matt over there. There you are.