001Welcome and good evening to everyone. Welcome to the May 12th board of education meeting for the Pavilion Lab Vista Community Schools. Could we please rise for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Roll call, please. Miss Butler, here. Mr. Madler, here. Miss Wit, here. Mr. Otis, here. Miss Wood here. And I'll make a motion to excuse the absence of Mr. Bailey. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Madler, second by Miss Butler. Roll call. Miss Wood. Yes. Mr. Lotus. Yes. Miss Wit? Yes. Mr. Madler? Yes. Miss Butler? Yes. So before we begin, I'd like to first say that our open meeting act is posted at
002the front of the door and that you hear a new voice tonight doing our roll call. That is Stephanie Sheller. She will be replacing Miss Kathy Baronco at the end of the month for our next meeting. This is her maiden voyage as our new recording clerk. Welcome, Stephanie. [Applause] Communications. Our first thing is recognitions. Dr. Rickley. Thank you very much, uh, Miss Wit, members of the board. Uh first of all, for all of our audience members who are with us live this evening, thank you for being here and engaging with your school district and board of education. Uh for those that may be watching online, thank you for joining us. We know everyone's lives are very busy and hectic, so thank you for engaging however you choose to engage with us. Uh tonight we have
003a slug of recognitions and this is one of the most favorite things that we do every single board meeting is we like to single out staff members and students who have really done something above and beyond the call of duty and brought honor distinction to their building, their program or the school district. Uh and we have a number of such categories. So because we have a whole bunch of different categories and individuals um here's how we'll kind of play this. We'll go through each of the three categories. We'll pause after each three. Uh you'll be recognized by your board of education. Uh I'll come around with the plaques uh with the uh the certificates. Uh if we have moms and dads that would like to come up and take pictures before we move on to
004the next category, that would be just fine. And we'll do that for all three different categories. Does that sound fair, Miss Whip? Okay, with that, we will start with our very first category, which is state journalism champions. We will start with monarch for first. We have Dominic Mangano, an 11th grader working under the expert toutelage of our own Joe Raachek, the voice of the Monarchs. Uh, and also state champion, outstanding Dominic. And from Pavilion L Vista South, we have McKenna Hixon who's an 11th grader, Adriana Ramirez, who is a 12th grader. Again, state champions. Three state champions from the same school district. That is absolutely unheard of. We have an outstanding writing program. We have an outstanding journalism program. Three shining examples of what it's uh what it's all about. Ladies and gentlemen, Dominic, McKenna,
005Adriana, please come down and be recognized by your board of education. [Applause] Perfect. Do we want to do one at a time? Everybody center ourselves. Congratulations. [Applause] McKenna and Dominic, congratulations. We're so proud of you. Uh and thank you for being here and representing uh the Titan Nation. On to the next category. State Skills USA champions. We have a number of individuals here. I didn't did I see Roger come in? Roger's right front and center. Thanks for being here, Roger. We have a number of champions that uh are toiling under your expert toutelage. So, well done, Mr. Campbell. We have a number of champions uh as well as an elected officer. So, more on that in a little bit. The the number of champions that we have from Pavilion Vista South High School, we have
006Rebecca Brooks, 11th grade. Luke Dolphins, 9th grade. Nolan Cassabomb, 12th grade. James Strong, who won the college division through MCC, 12th grader. Allison Watts, 10th grader, and then an elected national officer. Again, to have a national officer elected from uh our school district, that doesn't happen very often. We're incredibly proud of Brock Brock Davis who is elected the national office treasurer. He is a 12th grader from Pil Vista South. Ladies and gentlemen from South, please come down and be recognized by your board of education. [Applause] will save that for next Mr. Campbell, we need you in here. One, two, three. [Applause] coach and your charges. Thanks for being here. Uh really appreciate all you do to make Skills USA such a special special program for our students. And finally, last, but by no means least,
007we have a an academic category here. National merit schol scholar finalists. Um, I don't have these numbers at my fingertips, but I believe the last time I looked up these data, less than 3% of all test takers across the United States receive national merit designation. And it might even be less than 1%, but I don't want to overpromise. But it is an incredibly select group of students based on their test scores. It is an incredibly high standard. To have two from one of our high schools is absolutely amazing. Eleanor Nicholas, please come down and be recognized by your board of education. Outstanding work. No one. [Applause] Nicholas, uh, remind us what are your college plans in the fall? Outstanding. Good luck. Outstanding university. We're so proud of you and thanks again for coming tonight. Really
008proud of your accomplishments. And I believe that is it for our recognitions under recognitions, but I do believe we have student council coming up. Uh, Miss W. Yes. Um, we would like to thank our student council members who have come and presented their reports to us monthly and tell us everything that's happening at their schools, the different academic, the different fine arts, the different sporting events and the events that they're holding at their schools themselves. We've really appreciated and enjoyed having you here and we would like to you to come up and be recognized. Do you have some? Yes, I do, Miss Wit. So, it'll be the same drill as before. We've got Nova and Maggie, McKenzie and Abby. Please come down and be recognized by your board of education. Outstanding work this year, ladies.
009[Applause] Can we do a picture? Ladies, you join us with your new district. [Applause] Ladies, you've done an outstanding job providing comprehensive reports all year. We're going to miss you more than you probably realize and hope you have a great summer. Good luck with finals. And with that, Miss Wit, I would conclude our recognitions as well as our student council. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next item on the agenda is reports. Dr. Rickley, I'm probably talking too much here, but thank you very much, boss. Uh first off, I'd like to uh wish all of our mothers uh a belated Mother's Day. We had uh three of our board members uh all six board members were at graduation yesterday of course uh five of our six thank you uh Colonel Bailey was actually at
010a national competition with his flight students. So we had five of our six board members. Three of those five are mothers. So Lisa, Suanne, Eliza, happy Mother's Day. I know that there's no place you'd rather spend your Mother's Day holiday than Baxter Arena. uh saying goodbye to a thousand of our closest friends, but thank you for for your service. Uh it was a wonderful day. Also wanted to offer our congratulations to the approximate 950 uh combined Monarch and Titan graduation graduates. Uh it was a wonderful event. Uh Mr. Spilker, Mr. Ryan, you run an outstanding uh ceremony. Uh each one was about 90 minutes. Our kids are classy, our parents are grateful. Uh the weather was terrific. It was just a great celebration of all that makes this community and this school district such a
011special place. Uh it was a great capstone to a a whirlwind week. Uh we had all kinds of celebrations. We had honors nights. We had academy uh sendoffs for both the health systems as well as zoo. Several DAR graduations. We had Midland's Place scholarship. Uh I know I'm leaving some things out, but just a wonderful week. And to to quote former board member Val Fischer, um those events in that week uh leading up to graduation are kind of the payoff. Um the board members, as we're all well aware, do not get paid. One of the few elected officials in the state of ours that do not receive any type of compensation. Uh but being able to celebrate with our families and our kids and our staff is u is a pretty special thing. So, thank
012you everybody involved and uh again, congratulations to our graduates and happy Mother's Day to our moms. uh a couple of uh awards that I wanted to bring to the boards of attent board's attention. Jeff Spilker, our principal at Pilion Vista South High School, was recently named the region 2 uh secondary principal of the year. He will advance to the state level competition for the state uh principal of the year. So, congratulations to Jeff. Uh an outstanding leader. We've been so blessed by his leadership and it was on full display yesterday during commencement as he was uh gladhanding a lot of our students. Uh also wanted to recognize Dr. Deb Anderson who received the Nebraska State Mental Health Champion Award. It hasn't been formally uh bestowed upon her yet, but since Dr. Anderson is retiring in
013the next several weeks, u I wanted to make sure that the board and the community heard that before Dr. Anderson retires. Uh just a worldclass individual. She has moved the needle in so many ways for this school district uh in providing support to our students and our staff and our community uh in a muchneeded area of mental health support. So Jeff and Dr. Anderson, congratulations. Uh we do still have a couple of upcoming events uh before the week is out. We still have, I believe, three uh DARE graduations for our elementary school students, our sixth graders. We also have the ideal school graduation. It is at uh Titan this Thursday at 6 o'clock. So if we have board members that are interested in saying goodbye to our ideal school grads this Thursday 6 o'clock at
014Pilon La Vista South. Of course our last day is Friday May 23rd. But before we uh wrap up the superintendent report, there's two other personnel things uh I would like to announce. First off, our brand newest principal, though she's not really a new principal, elementary 17. We'll be talking about the new boundaries here in just a little bit. But after going through a rather rigorous vetting process, our own Monica Thompson at Hickory Hill was selected to be the new principal at ES17 and she has joined us this evening. Monica, thank you for your outstanding leadership. We can't wait to see the work that you do opening a new building. And last, but by Yes, thank you ladies and gentlemen. And last, but by no means least, while we welcome Miss Sheller with open arms and
015we can't wait to see the outstanding things she does uh keeping me out of trouble and uh keeping uh the board meetings running uh expertly as I know she will. This is the last official meeting of our own Kathy Baranko. And she yells at me when I make her cry, so I'm not going to get all sappy just yet. Uh but 12 years 12 years with me alone, ladies and gentlemen. She's spent several other years in the special education office and she's been a friend. She's been a partner. She has been a confidant and a whole bunch else. So Kathy, thanks for 12 really great years. And with [Applause] that and with that, I would conclude my superintendent comments. Thank you. Board member reports. I actually have something to report tonight. Y um I had
016a liazison lunchon at Prairie Queen. Uh there was a very long list of items that they discussed of accomplishments and uh things that they're working on. Uh and then as the rest of you uh yesterday I was at the graduation. So congrats to all the graduates and their families. Yes. So, it's been a a busy couple of weeks with a lot of items and obviously spring sports are in uh towards the end of their uh seasons already, which is amazing. Uh but uh huge congrats uh to some of they hadn't been done in many years, which is uh both the men's and women's track and field teams from Pilion Levista South uh both won the the conference titles and they were the first school in many many years to uh win uh on both sides.
017So, that's uh pretty amazing. Um, Monarch girls lost in a heartbreaker in a shootout uh uh this afternoon at the state soccer tournament. So, uh congratulations to a very successful season uh to the Monarch uh girls team. Uh played their hearts out today and unfortunately, you know, when you come up against the number one team in the state, you you took them to shootout and you know, you never know what's going to happen in a in a shootout. So, and then uh good luck to uh Titan boys team tomorrow at state. Uh they have a similar situation playing the number one team in Kraton Prep. So, uh I know track and field districts are this week and is it district baseball? State on Friday. Both Monarch and Titans uh made it. So, pretty successful uh
018spring so far with uh lots still to come with track and field wrapping up here later on. Uh and then one other uh item was uh I attended my son's uh sixth grade DARE graduation today at Walnut Creek. Uh so a huge thanks to uh all the DARE officers that you know give their time to come in and te teach great lessons to all of our our students across the district. It's it's u you know been a program they had the shirts on and I forgot what year it was established but they provided that on the shirts so it was great. So since 1983, obviously the DARE program has been around uh and and utilized within this district. Uh I'm a proud DARE graduate myself. Uh I had a former police chief Lost as my
019uh DARE officer at G. Stanley Hall way back when. So uh it's been great to have a relationship with him for for that many years. So uh such a great program. Uh it was it was fun to to see how excited the kids were. a lot of, you know, we don't do a lot of the schools don't do sixth grade graduation because they're not graduated. They're just moving on. Uh, and so this is kind of a fun little the their graduation is kind of their fun little afternoon. So, um, thanks again to uh get the all the officers and and obviously the police departments themselves and the leadership and continuing to support that program. Um I had the privilege to attend some of the um festivities over the last month which have been a a
020great honor to be a part of and see how proud and and how joyous of a time this is. Um at the two honors nights at both South and Monarch, you know, it was amazing to see $32 million of scholarship awarded to our students and what a huge accomplishment for kids and families. also had the opportunity to attend the health academy graduation, project search graduation and of course that culminated yesterday with both ceremonies being wonderful um at Baxter. What I did have the opportunity to attend Ashbury's purple star ceremony and that was the only purple star ceremony I was able to attend. But it was uh Colonel Klesiac did such a great job in speaking with the students um and not only recognizing the military families, but honoring all students and teachers for creating a
021welcoming environment and and and you know just just letting everyone know what a difference it makes for kids that are moving several times throughout their educational career. So that was also a great celebration. I collected all of the little brochures they give you when you walk into those. So, the first thing I attended was the um education academy on April 30th. There were 17 academy grads. Is that right? Uh from both Pilion uh South and and Pavilion High School and um like we always do, we invite those who continue through the education program to become teachers to come back and work with the district. It was fabulous. I'm sorry I couldn't get to the signings, but uh the project best cooperation, it was um the retirement of the Lois Ericson who runs the program right
022now. And um there were over 200, we have over 260 partners that she has cultivated throughout her career. And it's it was amazing. It was a really great event. 30 years of partnership with the entire community and even beyond, I believe. um honors night at Pilion High School and honors night at at um Titans. Like u Miss Wood said, there were um what was it about 230 uh winners over that, I'm sure, and over $30 million in scholarships, which is just a testament to the amount of work our students do to earn their um awards and the great job our teachers do with our kids. Uh healthmies, they usually do two programs. There's the um morning group and the afternoon group and they are both part of the biomedical and patient care fields. Um just
023an amazing group of people. We did learn I even brought an example. If even if you have fairylike fingers, your hands will not fit in a small exam. They were emphatic. Nobody fits in. Right. One of my favorite events is always the project search in the YetP event. The children or the kids are not they're young adults. are not kids who go through those programs build such confidence and their skill level is amazing. It's just one of the most heartwarming and rewarding things that I ever go to is the YATP and Project Search graduation ceremonies and then of course the Titan and the uh Monarch graduation ceremonies on Sunday. Um I think there were about over 900 graduates across the stage. Um just so proud of them all. I think every girl in this school
024has long hair. there are very few have short hair. It's amazing. But one more thing to do and um that is the ideal commencement. I'm looking forward to that. And I'm I'm able to go because I'm retired and and Miss Wood can go a lot because she's retired as well. And I know it's hard for other board members to go. But when you get a chance, you should attend as many of these as you can because it's something to be proud of. Okay. With no other reports, we'll do go on to committee reports. Buildings, grounds, and finance. We have not met since the last meeting, but we are meeting uh on the last day of school. Thank you. Human resources, student services. Yeah. So, the HR and student services met on May 5th. Um we
025discussed some staffing issues. Um the 4,000 policies were discussed and you'll receive more information about that this evening. And then uh they're preparing to begin negotiations with the maintenance and custodial staff. Thank you. And finally, curriculum and Americanism. And the CIA and American civics subcommittee met on May 8th. Um we had a boundary update which again we'll be discussing in more detail this evening. Uh we've also discussed the uh the early childhood program review which has been finalized and some of the steps that are being taken as they move forward with that. Um there are some curriculum decisions and choices that are being made uh by our our toolbox teams and um strategic planning um is moving forward. several groups have been met with and that will continue throughout the summer and then the 6,000s
026will be coming up in a couple months that we will review at that time. Thank you. Moving on to action items starting with the action by consent. I'll make a motion to approve the items listed under action by consent. I'll second. I have a motion by Mr. Madler and a second by Miss Wood. Roll call. Miss Whit. Yes. Mr. Lotus. Yes. Miss Wood? Yes. Miss Butler? Yes. Mr. Madler? Yes. Thank you. Motion carried. I see this is not in on the agenda. Uh it's Yep. It's on the Okay. So, it goes doesn't go. It's already been approved. We've done it on its own before, but we decided to put it because um the price go. We have a I didn't It's on the action by consent, but it's the ESU 20 driver's education contract. Does
027anybody wish to speak to that? It was approved through the action by consent. Okay. As as a matter as a matter of practice, uh we do this annually. Um, sometimes the price stays the same, sometimes it goes up, but as a matter of practice, very few of our students access um, ESU3's driver's uh, ed school. It's a high quality school from what I understand, but most of our students that elect to do driver's ed um, do through private providers. Okay, thank you. Next on the agenda, administrative salaries for the 202526 school year presented by human resources. Dr. Settles. Uh, yes. Thank you very much. We have not had any changes since this was proposed to you at the previous meeting. So, a reminder that um what has been proposed is to increase the base um
028$1,690, which would move the base from 72600 to 74290. Uh we would also allow for vertical and horizontal movement. um that for the certified administrators is an average package increase of 4.035%. Assistant superintendent recommended package would be 3.80%. And um I u also just again wanted to thank subcommittee for the work that they did on this and u making these recommendations. Thank you. Do we have a motion? I'll make the motion to approve the administrative salary and benefits as presented for the 20252026 uh years, including a certified administrator base salary of 74,290 and an average package increase of 4.035% for certified administrators and the 3.80% increase for the assistant superintendent. Second. Have a motion by Mr. Mr. Lotus, a second by Mr. Madler. Any discussion? Roll call. Mr. Lotus. Yes. Miss Wood. Yes. Miss Butler?
029Yes. Mr. Madler? Yes. Miss Wit? Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, the superintendent's contract for the 202526 school year. Dr. Settles. Yep. Thank you very much. Um, again on this one, no major changes since we last spoke. The only change um is on the transparency act. You'll notice the asterisks were added or moved around. Um, the one that was added was the district share of retirement and we made that asterisk just to note that that is the contribution at the time of this contract approval. We will follow all current guidelines at any given time from the state. And since the legislature did just uh make a change in the EMPERS, uh one of the things that you'll notice is uh this is the very max that we would be at because
030we're currently at max contribution, but we'll follow whatever the guidelines are at the time. Right now, we have not gotten our new guidelines from Empers, but we do expect that the contributions will go down. So you will actually see the total package will end up less than what you are approving. So what you're looking at today is the maximum that it could be. Thank you. We have a motion. I'll make the motion to approve the three-year superintendence contract with Dr. Andrew Rickley at a salary of $273,947.31 for the 2025 2026 school year. I'll second. Thank you. I have a motion by Mr. Lotus, a second by Miss Wood. Any discussion? Roll call. Miss Wood? Yes. Miss Butler? Yes. Mr. Madler? Yes. Miss Wit? Yes. Mr. Lotus? Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Next item is the
031issuance of the general obligation bond not to exceed $55 million as approved by the 2023 bond election. Mr. Richards. Thank you, Miss Wit. I'll ask uh Mr. Cody Wickham of DA Davidson to come forward in case there are any questions from the board regarding the resolution. Um and I know Paul Griger was at the last meeting and answered some questions there, but Cody's available tonight as well. Um, so I'll turn it over to you, Cody. Kind of give us a recap. Thank you. Thank you, Brett. Um, yeah, as as Brett mentioned, you heard from my partner, Paul Griger, at your last meeting about kind of the financing plan. Tonight is just, uh, the formality of actually bringing the resolution in front of you all for your consideration. Uh, as mentioned, it authorizes 55 million of
032general obligation bonds. I thought I'd give you a brief market update. Uh oftentimes when we have these parameters, resolutions, you might not be selling bonds for a week or two down the line, but we actually have everything teed up ready to go. We're going to go with our preliminary pricing tomorrow and then a hold our order period on Wednesday. So, since we've kind of taken care of all the u behind the scenes things, the ratings calls and all the documentation, we're ready to go and we're planning on hitting the market tomorrow. Uh the Fed met last week and we had three consecutive meetings now with stable interest rates. So, we're we're confident in the marketability of these. Um, we do have a pretty good pricing comp which I wanted to share with you. Uh, it
033was it was our competitors priced some bonds for the city of North Plat uh just last week. Now, they have a rating that's not quite as high as you all. Uh, but what they did was they purchased bond insurance through assured guaranteed which gives them a double A S&P rating. That's the equivalent of your all's Moody's rating which is a double A2. So very good pricing comp in the market on the maturities that um we're that are comparable to you all. We're pricing we're going out with this now. Again, rates can change in the next 48 hours or so, but we're going out anywhere from 38 basis points to 46 basis points tighter. And to give you an idea what that means in real dollars for every 10 basis points, it's $914,000 uh of interest
034expense. Now, I will say that the city of North Plat because they're a city first class, they're only allowed to have a 5-year call. you guys have a 10-year call. The difference there in in typically in the market is about 10 basis points. So, give it anywhere between 28 and 36. If you multiply that out, it's around $2.7 million of interest expense if we can execute at these levels. So, we're going out really really strong and aggressive. And if we're able to deliver, which I'm confident we are, um I'll report back to to this group and let you know how we did. But we also priced bonds for Elorn schools last week on these same levels. We're actually going out with your bonds a little tighter than Elororns. Uh anywhere from 1 to seven basis
035points tighter. So we're going to start out really aggressive and hopefully we can deliver for you all. Cody, uh the market today had uh some volatility. Uh did that that play into um these bonds at all? No, I actually got the update from my trader after the market closed. Okay. So that was after the MMD shifts for today and the tax exempt bonds didn't feel as much of the movement as the rest of the market. So we're looking good. Gotcha. Y. Now there is um the consumer price index comes out tomorrow. That could be could have a shift in some things. So um again what I know is this is what we're trying out for tomorrow and we'll see where we land on Wednesday around noon. I will make the motion to approve the attached
036resolution for an amount not to exceed 55 million of general obligation school building bonds to continue the current construction schedule for the 2023 bond projects as presented. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Madler and a second by Mr. Lotus. Any further discussion? Roll call. Miss Butler? Yes. Mr. Madler? Yes. Miss Wit. Yes. Mr. Lotus. Yes. Miss Wood. Yes. Motion carried. Okay. All right. Thank you all. I have some good news for you in two days. So, so Cody, what does it look like in your office when you're going out for bond? Are you like on the trading floor calling? And Well, I wish I could say it was that hectic, but um No, everybody's pretty calm. Our traders are talking to our sales guys. They're they're making calls to their various banks and institutions.
037Um, but no, it's not like you see in the movies where everybody's scrambling with tickets in the air in session. Pretty calm, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next item is under discussion. It is the new elementary boundaries. Uh, who's going to lead that? Dr. V. Dr. V. Good evening, Board of Education. Matt promises me that the clicker is in this drawer, and he didn't lie. It's right here. Oh, and it works. Good job, Matt. Shout out. Uh, so today I'm here to talk about our elementary 17 boundary process. It's been a process we started uh back in formally started back in October. So, I'm going to talk you through uh what the process looked like. Then, I'm going to talk you through the initial concept that we saw followed by
038the two concepts that we considered and took to our community. Then, I'll share with you the feedback that we got from our community as well as our administrative recommendation for the boundaries for elementary 17. So to start off the process that we went through, like I said, we started this back in October in a formal way where we had discussions in superintendent's cabinet to establish parameters and a timeline for our boundary establishment process. The criteria that we came up with in that conversation aligned with the criteria that we've used for past boundary conversations where we wanted to focus on a neighborhood schools concept where our schools are serving the communities that they're in. Uh we wanted to consider geography. So what um land features are around the school that might impact those boundaries. Traffic considerations.
039So how do the roads look around there? what does access to the school look like as well as traffic patterns during drop off and pickup and then what would the feeder schools look like going from elementary ultimately to high school and how would changing the boundaries impact that. So those were the initial criteria that we came up with and started the conversation around. Then in November, we decided to contract with RSP and Associates out of Kansas City to conduct both an enrollment analysis and a boundary analysis. Um RSP uses a customized student forecast model to do projections for future student enrollment in a five or 10 year time frame. So for us, they looked at the next five years and what our district is going to see with regard to growth there. And then using
040that enrollment analysis, they were able to give us these different concepts that you'll see for the boundaries. And initially they asked us, what would you like us to consider when we're drawing these boundaries? And so we had three key considerations that we provided to them early on in the process. The first was that if you asked anybody in the community what the dividing line was going to be between Prairie Queen and Elementary 17, uh they would very confidently tell you that it was going to be 114th Street. So to try and make it easy on ourselves, we said we'd love to see what that would look like. What would it look like to divide that uh Prairie Queens boundary down 114th Street? If we had to go outside of Prairie Queen's boundary, we asked that
041we not cross Highway 370 for an elementary school for the safety of our students in that area. And then we also asked them to give us some data regarding potential grandfathering options for students who may be able to stay at Prairie Queen Elementary. With all of that, we ended up going back and forth with RSP several times over several meetings to develop some boundary options. After we finished those up in February, we met with our internal boundary committee to review the proposals from RSP and Associates. In March, we met with our board subcommittees to review those proposals and collect feedback. And then in April, we established an external boundary committee to review and evaluate those boundary proposals. And that external boundary committee was made up of the internal boundary committee and then family representatives from
042all of the impacted subdivisions in the Prairie Queen attendance area and business leaders from the surrounding area as well and representatives from the city of Pilion and Sarpie County. uh then after we shared that information with them, collected some initial feedback, we hosted three community forums through the month of April to collect input and feedback from stakeholders uh to bring that information here to you all today. So as I mentioned, we asked for an initial concept considering 114th as the dividing line and they gave us what we asked for. So in a map form, this is what it would look like to divide Prairie Queen's current attendance area down 114th Street. In this map, the yellow area is Prairie Queen's attendance boundary. The blue area is Elementary 17's attendance boundary. And based on enrollment projections,
043they were able to tell us what enrollments would be at those two schools when Elementary 17 opens in the 2627 school year. And so from that, uh, Prairie Queen would have 192 enrolled students in 2627 and Elementary 17 would have 400. If you look at the projections out through the 2930 school year, um, the imbalance between those schools doesn't really correct and we're in a situation where elementary 17 is particularly large and Prairie Queen Elementary is particularly small. So ultimately we decided that this concept was not something that was going to work for our district and meet the needs that we had discussed in those earlier meetings. So we went back to RSP and asked them to come up with more ideas for us. And that's how we got to concept one and concept two.
044So in concept one they took that dividing line down 114th Street. Uh but they once it got down to Lincoln Road, it follows Lincoln Road to the east to Whitmas Drive and then Whitmas Drive south to Highway 370 to create those boundaries. And in this one, it has a dotted green line following Lincoln Road. That is our high school boundary line. So anybody in this attendance area that lives north of Lincoln Road is assigned to Pilion Le Vista High School. Anybody in this attendance area that is south of Lincoln Road is assigned to Pilion Le Vista South High School. And that'll come up again here in a minute. So our enrollment projections for concept 1 in 2627 when elementary 17 opens have Prairie Queen with 314 students enrolled and Elementary 17 with 277 students enrolled.
045Ultimately, over that 4-year course, Elementary 17 will exceed Prairie Queen Elementary in enrollment, but the numbers are far more balanced than what we saw in that initial concept. There are also 53 current 3rd and fourth graders that will be fifth and sixth graders in the 2627 school year that could potentially based on what the board decides have the option to stay at Prairie Queen Elementary which would have a swing of about then 50 students. Um that would impact those enrollment numbers for the year. One of the things I mentioned at the beginning was considering how this would impact our feeder system. And this graphic gives you an image of how our schools currently split ultimately to Monarch and Titan. In this concept, if you look at the bottom there, it shows that Prairie Queen Elementary
046would be split. 55% would go to Monarch, 45% would go to Titan. And New Elementary 17 would have 100% at Monarch and 0% at Titan, but that's a little bit misleading because that data is based on where students currently reside. And in this small area of the attendance boundary where Elementary 17 sits south of Lincoln Road is currently in development and they're expected to add 502 units to that area there. Um it's called Granite Creek, Granite Creek West and Granite Creek East. And those students in this concept would attend uh Pilion Le Vista South High School, bringing that split for elementary 17 closer to what we see for Prairie Queen Elementary. So in concept one, both Prairie Queen and Elementary 17 would be splitting uh between the two high schools. So then for concept two
047to get a different option here, uh they took that line from 114th Street and moved it east down to Lincoln Road again and then followed Lincoln Road west to 114th Street and then south to Highway 370. Once again, that green dotted line is the boundary in this attendance area for the high schools. So essentially looking at swapping the two subdivisions there um off of 114th and Lincoln. And our enrollment projections here in 2627 when elementary 17 opens would have 301 students enrolled at Prairie Queen and 291 students enrolled at Elementary 17 with that 5-year projection showing 337 at Prairie Queen and 321 at Elementary 17. So, a fairly balanced enrollment between the two schools there. And in this concept, we see 79 students that are current third and fourth graders who would potentially have the
048option to stay at Prairie Queen Elementary for their fifth and sixth grade school years uh should the board decide to move in that direction with grandfathering. And then looking at the feeder system in this situation, uh we have Prairie Queen Elementary at 98% attending Monarch and 2% attending Titan. Elementary 17 showing 50% attending Monarch, 50% attending Titan. So in both of these cases, those numbers um would shift just slightly. Prairie Queen would be almost exclusively attending Pavilion Le Vista High School. There are a couple of small low yield areas south of Lincoln Road around Warner Park that any school age students there would ultimately attend Titan. And then for elementary 17 based on current reside, it would be 50/50. Um, but as that area that I showed you in the last feeder system projection continues
049to develop, then those students would shift that balance a little bit. So it would be higher on the Titan side and lower on the Monarch side. But in this one, you would be closer to having one school um feeding exclusively to one high school instead of being split like in the other concept. So for just a sidebyside look at the two concepts, there are the maps. So you can kind of see what I was talking about where essentially we're looking at just flipping uh one subdivision for another in that area there on 114th and Lincoln Road. And then those enrollment projections are shown at the bottom of the screen. So once we collected all of this data and all of this information uh with RSP, we gathered some internal feedback. We gathered some external feedback,
050some feedback from the board. Then we took all of this and shared it with our community. We sent it out to the Prairie Queen community by email so that they had the opportunity to preview it. And then we hosted three in-person community forums. Uh at those three Inerson community forums, we had approximately 40 parents and guardians attend across the three events. We had three key questions that they answered during that time and we recorded all of the answers to those questions. The first question was asking specifically about questions or concerns that they have about these two concepts. The second question was asking which one do you like better and why? And the final question was saying, we know that people are going to be impacted no matter what we choose. So, how can we better
051accommodate and support our families that are impacted by the change? So, uh to share with you the results of what we learned at those community forums. First, uh that first answering that first question, what questions or concerns do you have about this change? Um I broke those out into three categories. The first being practical considerations. Um, transportation safety was one that continued to come up primarily. Uh, I forgot to mention this earlier, but we learned during this process that 114th Street is going to be expanded to a four-lane road. And regardless of which concept we choose, we're going to have students that are going to be crossing 114th Street, which causes a little bit of concern in safety for families. So wanting to know what we could do to help support transportation safety in that
052situation for whichever concept we chose to go with. Um traffic patterns was another one specifically looking at areas that are already congested around Liberty Middle School at drop off and pickup time and how either of these concepts might affect those traffic patterns. The third one that we heard quite a bit was kids club and child care um availability about whether or not it's going to be offered, if it's going to be offered at the onset of the school or not. And Dr. Rickley had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Danker at the foundation who has assured us that kids club will be available at the onset of the school, but we don't have a lot of information about what registration will look like or if you're a current Kids Club client, what that might look
053like signing up for the new school. And then the last thing that we heard uh was employment impact. So we had people who had concerns about their personal employment um outside of the school district as well as people who are employed within the school district at Prairie Queen Elementary wanting to know how either of these concepts might impact their employment status. Then the second category was family and community impact. One thing that we heard from pretty much everyone who had the opportunity to speak at the forums was that they are worried about those established connections that their kids have in their communities and in their schools and breaking kids up um as we split the boundary of Prairie Queen Elementary into two schools. What would that look like and would connections between friends be lost
054in that situation? And another was the impact of the impact of this change on military families. So um noteworthy we had um member of the military there talking about how with their different orders they're already facing frequent relocation. So it might pose a challenge for students of military families who are already facing frequent relocations to have to change schools um based on which concept we choose uh in this process. And then family logistics of pickup and drop off. If we did decide to do grandfathering and siblings were not included in grandfathering and one student or in that family, they allow one student to choose to attend Prairie Queen while another of their student uh attends Elementary 17, then that creates a logistical challenge for families as far as pickup and drop off goes. And then
055the final category was school organization. So, um, people wanted to know more about the high school pathways and what that would look like. Kind of looking at those feeder patterns, the feeder systems that I showed on those previous slides there. And then availability of clubs and activities. What clubs and activities will be available at the onset of the school? Um, especially if it is opening at a smaller size than our typical typical elementary schools. So, that's what we heard in response to that first question. The second question where we asked which concept do you think is best for us as a district? Um I would love to say there was a clear-cut winner, but it really was split. What's funny is in every situation where we had the internal boundary committee meet and we said,
056"Which one do you like better?" It was split. When we had the external committee meet and we said, "Which one do you like better?" It was split. And then at the community forums when we said, "Which one do you like better?" it was split. And a positive on that is in that split, most people said, "Well, my personal preference is concept X, but I could really live with either one." So, that's a positive takeaway from this. Um, these are the themes that came through and the reasoning for people's concept preferences. So, for concept one, uh, we heard about families wanting to maintain existing friend groups and concept one would allow them to do that. Some residents feel like established neighborhoods should remain at the established and existing school. So, particularly looking at Kingsbury Hills and
057Prairie Queen Elementary School. And then in concept one, looking at traffic flow, there wouldn't be any traffic crossing Liberty Middle School to get to elementary 17. So, it might alleviate some traffic concerns around Liberty Middle School. Then with concept two, uh we heard that people like the cleaner high school feeder pattern knowing that at Prairie Queen their students will attend Prairie Queen, their students will attend Liberty, their students will attend Monarch, and they'll be with their friends that whole time unless they move homes. um for the 98% of students that would live north of Lincoln Road in that area. Uh ultimately the enrollment projections show better balance between both schools in concept 2. And one of the things that came up was with 114th Street being converted to a four-lane road, um Mr. Richards is
058going to work with our transportation provider to have busing available for the families that would live on the other side of 114th Street to help address some of those safety concerns. So, those were their preferences. And then the last thing we asked them was how can we help support families who are going to be impacted by this change? And these were the things that they asked for. So, the first is grandfathering options. they would like the board to allow fifth and sixth graders to stay at their current school. The next was sibling consideration. So for those fifth and sixth graders, they would like to see an option for younger siblings to also stay uh at Prairie Queen Elementary School. Transportation support, which I just mentioned, providing bus service for students who would need to cross
059114th Street. uh even though it's not outside of the four mile radius that we do for typical transportation traffic management. So looking at Lincoln Road and crossing Lincoln Road, is there a way that we could work with city and county officials to have proper traffic controls at those intersections for crosswalks? Um before and after school care, making sure that that's available at the onset of the school. uh military family consideration. So, a request to allow grandfathering for military families at the school for all of their children. And then the last request was to um just allow families to choose what they feel would work best for them. So, with those additional requests coming in, I wanted to provide some data for the board to consider as well. So I had shared previously that um the
060grandfathering numbers for fifth and sixth graders in concept one we have 53 students who would potentially have the choice and in concept 2 we have 79 students who would potentially have the choice. I worked with RSP to also identify how many younger siblings of those fifth and sixth graders we would need to consider and then how many students in military families we would need to consider. So for younger siblings in concept one there are 30 additional students. In concept 2 there are 46 additional students. And then for the students and military families you see lots of little numbers on the screen there. So the big number is how many total military students um are in attendance that would be in fourth grade or lower right now. And I broke that out so you would see
061how many would be considered in those other options as well. So in concept one that 13 includes three fifth and sixth graders, one additional sibling and then nine other students. So nine students who in that count are exclusively military families. And then for concept two, we had 21 total students in military families with 11 fifth and sixth graders, six siblings, and four exclusively military family students in that count. So I wanted you guys to have those numbers for consideration as well. And then our administrative recommendation after taking all of the feedback having lots of conversations both in cabinet and in board subcommittees uh we would make three recommendations to the board. Recommendation one is to approve boundary concept number two. Recommendation two is to approve grandfathering for fifth and sixth graders which are current third
062and fourth graders. And recommendation three is to strongly consider grandfathering for active military families. And with that, I will take any questions from the board and Mr. Richards and Dr. Rickley may help me answer them. So, this is the board's opportunity to discuss what we've just seen and reviewed and have any recommendations or concerns that you want to voice at this time. We will vote on it probably I'm guessing the first meeting in July maybe maybe in June whatever the board yeah so um but this is the time for discussion to to determine what our thoughts are. Uh I appreciate you sharing uh the slides and obviously coming to the the building's grounds finance committee meeting and sharing similar information uh when we last met. Uh I did go to one of the uh community
063engagement sessions. Uh I want to thank the parents and the community that did come out to that one and share their thoughts. Uh you know it was 40 obviously wish you'd have more more people coming and sharing but still it was overall a a good number. Uh when I saw the two concepts uh and listening to all the information behind them I favored option two. Uh, I mean some of the information that you shared there on the reason why, but to me what was probably the strongest reason why I was going too was to to limit the schools that split then further after it. I I prefer uh for option two with Prairie Queen by far the majority right in 98% then on that path to Monarchs instead of that school also splitting along with
064elementary 17. Um so that's why I was favoring option two and I I'm still favoring option two and agree with the recommendation. the grandfathering. This is the first time that we're opening up a a new school with that that I've been a part of. Uh so I know that's been done in the past. Um and I'm I'm open to approving the fifth and sixth grade. You know, I do I do have the concern, right, we're trying to um relieve pressure on Prairie Queen and allowing two full grades to stay at their levels. Is that too much for that school? like do we need to help them and the staff and and relieve more of the pressure at Prairie Queen if we keep those fifth and sixth grade grade uh classes you know at the same
065level they are. So that does worry me a bit. Uh and then for the recommendation three, the act of military families, I think it was at I think the listening session that I was at, um someone was in a military family and just talking through like are these children go through so many changes as it is as far as like the number of moves and the communities they go to, the number of schools. And so I thought it was a a um a reasonable ask of them to to consider active military families to to keep the to also grandfather them. Um because again I think those those kids it's like if if we can why make them change another school if we don't have to. So I I agree with um all three of the
066recommendations. again hesitant on the the grandfathering for fifth and sixth, but I've asked the questions on class sizes already on what that would look like for Prairie Queen. It doesn't sound like we are we would be uh worried about it. Um but I appreciate all the information along this long journey that you discussed at the beginning keeping us updated obviously Dr. Rickley and and the staff going through and I mean I think what people will get from this presentation is all the thought that went into it, right? This isn't something that was just put together and say, "Okay, we need to make boundaries." The the amount of thought and consideration that's put into these decisions is is great. And I hope the community takes even if we go with an option that maybe someone would
067have preferred, we would have went the other way. I hope they can see that the the amount of work and effort and considerations that we put in was was, you know, for in the best interest of the community as a whole and in coming to these conclusions. So, thanks again for the information and and I do agree with the recommendations. And one thing that I forgot to mention about that active military family grandfathering in my data table, it very intentionally just says students of military families. The numbers for that data come from student verification. And in student verification, we just ask a yes or no if a family is military affiliated. So that number could potentially be smaller than what I shared with you because that would include like army reserves and things like that.
068So I forgot to mention that and wanted to make sure that I did. I appreciate the efforts that have already been taken to address parent concerns regarding child care, regarding transportation. It sounds like you've already, you know, made sure that those things are going to be in place for families. So I appreciate that. Um, I'll be real honest. I've waffled between recommendation one and two and and still um, you know, uh, am not 100% sure. Um, I'm very comfortable with both options, I guess, is how I feel. It looks to me like concept two is probably one that focuses more on the long range plan and it's getting kids all the way through in a in a in a format where they're through with their friends um longer period of time whereas option one or
069concept one maybe is focused on today or this upcoming year. So I think they're both very good options and I I am comfortable with concept two. I'm very much in favor of approving grandfathering for fifth and sixth graders. I do think that um that is uh an important move for those kids and families. Um and also allowing them to have the option if they choose to go to the new or the other building. Um, and I think since we've recently gone through the work of ensuring that all of our buildings are Purple Star, um, the focus of that is making sure that we're meeting the needs of our military families. And recommendation three, um, does that. Yeah. Know, the data has been great. I'm glad we partnered with KSP again just to uh though it
070doesn't feel like it's been that many years since we had our last enrollment study. Uh it had been so to get fresh data uh is always important especially uh in a developing area of our of our district. Um like a lot when we initially saw these first two concepts it was like okay they're they balance out uh which is uh the intent to relieve the pressure on Prairie Queen uh and kind of even out both schools not having one at capacity and one at below capacity or significantly below capacity. Uh, and so, um, I know I was a big proponent of, you know, it was real simple in my head. You know, we got we had natural boundaries with Lincoln Road and 114th Street. Um but upon seeing again the new the new data um
071I definitely uh agree with the you know shifting uh some of that boundary now a little bit further uh back to the to the east uh in order to to you know really truly balance things out. Um so uh I mean I can hear arguments for for either concept similar to to Miss Wood. Uh concept two definitely um I I kind of agree with the longer term vision. I think as we continue to split schools that's where we tend to get the most requests for in district transfers uh you know causing additional paperwork and uh you know somewhat heartache when they get to to 8th grade and then they request for that transfer to stay with their friends to go to South or vice versa. then, you know, whether or not it's approved or not,
072you know, is a is a big deal in in in a family's uh life at that point. So, uh you know, having it where you know, hey, I'm going to be with these kids uh throughout and not having to, you know, rely on uh in district transfers, I think, is is pretty important. Um you know recommendation two having gone through uh significant boundary changes um when we opened Ashberry um I think the grandfathering was was really important uh giving those those students the option to either finish out uh you know maybe where they've started or they moved into uh at a younger grade but or the option of being part of the first class uh in a brand new building. Uh and it and and it seems to kind of balance out. There's those that
073really uh you know want to stay and then there's the ones that wow it's you know three blocks from my house and I I would rather just go up the street uh and be a part of something new. So um I didn't really see any significant you know overcrowding by allowing uh those type of numbers to have the opportunity to stay. Um and recommendation three uh I'm glad that point came up. Uh unfortunately wasn't able to attend uh the listening sessions but having uh the information provided uh you know given the the fairly low number of those impacted and the fact that you know we have put such an emphasis now on you know our partnership with with offet air force base uh and our purple star designations. I mean, to me, that kind of
074makes sense. And again, it's it's gives them the opportunity to at least have that decision uh uh to to stay or to to to to move on. So, um definitely looking uh to have some conversations with uh those. I know a lot of folks in the impacted areas uh over in that uh region of the district. uh so to to gather some more feedback uh to potentially have a few more questions before we get around to potentially voting to set these boundaries. Looking forward to those uh additional discussions. Um so I guess I agree with all comments said thus far. My only deviation I guess is on the grandfathering. I'm sympathetic to if we allow grandfathering for fifth and sixth to allow the siblings as well. So otherwise it's great. Thank you everyone. Um first
075of all I'd like to thank Dr. Villa Riel for a great presentation. I know you've worked very hard on gathering the data and answering our questions and we've thrown a few at you that were outside of what you started with. So thank you for doing that. Um the parents who came to the forums, I went to all three of them. They had some very influent they were small but mighty group. They they had some real influential comments that they made that helped me guide the decisions that I'm thinking about and particularly our military uh father who was there. He made a compelling we had just finished a purple star presentation and and I'm like we you know this is what we do. We support our families and do the best that we can. So um
076I I agree with I've always liked concept 2 mostly because of the long-term balancing it does. Um I just think it has a a better long term and that's what I'm thinking of. This has to last us a while. It's not a short-term issue. So, um, for all those reasons that everyone has mentioned, I'm I'm a pro concept two person. You have anything else, doctor? Uh, just wanted to thank Dr. Viel and and Brett for leading uh, what I consider a really clean process. These are among the most difficult decisions that a board of education is called to make. This is the fifth one that we've done in my tenure here. Prairie Queen, Ashbury, Liberty Middle School, High School readjustment, and this would be number five. This has been by far the most clean. Uh
077so outstanding leadership from both board and Christopher and Brett. Um the one thing that we really haven't really touched on, but we talked about it briefly to set the stage at the three listening sessions was the growing disparity in enrollment between our two high schools. Uh the issue at hand that doesn't seemingly have anything to do with building a new elementary school, but uh it most certainly does. Um, one of the things that this board is acutely aware of is we have one of our high schools, Pilon La Vista South, uh, that is growing uh, at a more rapid rate than Pap Vista High School. Uh, we will open our doors next fall with about a differential of 180 students, give or take, uh, tighten to the good on the larger side. Uh, we're not
078going to allow one of our high schools to grow and one to stagnate. We're not going to allow one of our high schools to have a high uh poverty rate and another to have a very low poverty rate. We're not going to have one of our schools become the halves and the other school become the have nots. That's not what we're in the business of doing. And I'm very confident as long as this board is seated, they will not allow that to happen. So, please know that that is an issue very much at the forefront of this board and administration. We went into this process specifically saying this is only about the new elementary school. will tackle some of the other boundary questions including the high school at a later date uh probably as early
079as this summer if I were to make a recommendation. So again, just want to thank the board for really thoughtful process and and Christopher and Brett for their leadership. Any further discussion on this topic? Thank you. Our next topic is the superintendent's year end performance goals update. Dr. Rickley. Thank you very much, Miss Whit, members of the board. So, this is a conversation we have at least um two to three times every single school year. Uh just to refresh the board and the community's memory, um the way the process works is a board of education is required to evaluate a firstear superintendent twice. Uh and a superintendent in his or her second and third and fourth and subsequent years once a year. As a matter of practice, this board evaluates me or at least we
080have an evaluation conversation. uh at minimum twice a year. So typically what happens is uh we form the goals collab collectively uh late summer typically July August when we go through our board retreat uh we revisit those goals at the midway point in the school year typically around December and then uh the superintendent provides some type of a summary report typically in May and June which is the purpose of tonight's discussion. I certainly won't go through it line by line, but I I'd be happy to see what questions the board may may have. But what I've done is revisited the five goals, and I'll read them into the record just so that the community has them in case you don't have a board packet. Uh goal number one for the 25 26 school year, 2425
081school year. Restart the district strategic plan. Two, develop communication engagement plan for district families. Three, implement enhanced curriculum instruction and technology. Four, expand district staff recruitment, retention strategies. and five, implement a plan for bond facility projects. Underneath each of those five goals, there are a number of indicators. And then what I have laid out in front of the board that if those of you watching at home may not be aware is we've given examples of the progress made in each of those goal areas and indicators. Um the first uh update you'll see is in December and then uh the highlighted in red shows the the progress since December. So there are still a handful of things under each of the five goals that we'll be putting a finishing touch some finishing touches on. Uh and
082and frankly some of the goals will never be accomplished. Uh we'll we'll never get to a point where we will say we are done there. Uh some some of the goals clearly have very clear end points. There will be a time when the bond projects from 2023 are completed. Um I doubt we ever get to a point in the area of mental health where we say we've accomplished what we need to accomplish with mental health. It's going to be an ongoing thing. So very proud of of the progress that the team has made. There is not a single item on this list, ladies and gentlemen, that I could point to and say Andy did that. Um that just doesn't exist. U we we make progress because we have an outstanding team that are working really
083hard behind the scenes uh to make things better for our community, our families, and our kids. So I'd happily answer any questions uh about the indicators or progress or maybe things yet undone. Uh otherwise again just want to thank the team for their efforts and thank the board for their support during the process. I uh appreciate the updates going through and and reading them all. I do have a handful of questions on um two two for the develop communication engagement strategies for district staff and residents. The two I had as we are completing uh some of the different bond projects. Uh, one of those is the continue the bond communication plans including the bond squad series. Is that are we what are we doing with for those updates when the um projects are finishing up?
084Yeah, I would invite Dr. Valel to to provide some updates on this as well. So, one of the things that have has kind of morphed over the last couple of years. Uh, one of the things we wanted to do at a minimum was provide signage at our buildings. And I'm sure you've seen that at our buildings under construction. your bond dollars at work and we talk about we referenced the 2023 uh bond passage of course I think that's important and I think that's consistent with what you see with other uh government subdivisions your your highway dollars at work your construction dollars at work so I think that's a really great way of communicating with the families specific to the bond squad I think that strategyy's changed a little bit it's morphed a little bit as
085we transition from one um communications director to the next but Dr. V, can I put you on the spot a little bit with that one? Yeah. So, with the bond squad, um, we actually haven't used the bond squad since I started working here. And it's not that it wasn't a successful opportunity for us to promote the bond. It's just not been one of our priorities, but we are promoting the bond progress in different ways. Primarily, we are making sure uh we work very closely with Mr. Richards and his team to make sure that we know when development is happening on all of the projects. And so if you go back and check, you'll see that we have pretty robust social media posts for progress on all of the projects. We find out when construction is
086starting, when um new classrooms are opening, and we go out and cover those um just internally with our team and not necessarily with the bond squad students. The challenge there was scheduling because we don't have bond squad students at all of the construction sites anymore. Um they were initially aligned with our previous bond and we didn't change that when we brought on new bond squad students. So I love the concept. It's not something that we've been doing. And then we also have a bond section on our website that we keep updated as progress continues across all projects. Okay, I think that makes sense. I appreciate the update. And then I would say this one is probably also for you. The evaluate the effectiveness of the annual district staff and parent surveys to determine revisions. We're
087at the time of year that we've historically done both parent and staff uh surveys. Where are we? Are we is that still in the works for these last couple weeks or what was our game plan there? So one of the things and we did communicate this out to families and staff through our staff newsletter and through our family newsletter. Um, we are not doing the typical endofear surveys this year. We did an audit. Um, well, I mean, as a board, you know that we've been working on this, figuring out what our best methodology is going to be for collecting input and feedback from our community and from our staff. And as part of that exploration, we did an audit of all of the surveys that we send out uh to our families and to our
088staff members from all of our schools. And the number there was way higher than I was expecting it to be. And I didn't look it up just before this, so I can't tell you the actual number, but it averaged out to be about a survey a month that's going out to our staff andor our families. And so we really want to take a closer look at some of the things that we had talked about before where we're being more intentional with those surveys and we're being more timely with those surveys. So, at the end of this year, we are doing a staff reflection survey, which is technically three items. Um, but one of the items has several sub items under it. That will go out on Wednesday of this week and be open till our
089staff is off contract at the end of the month. Um, so we'll still collect some data in that way to help inform some of our decision- making. But one of the things that we shared with staff and families is that at the beginning of the school year next year, we're going to be issuing a survey for the strategic planning process and helping to guide that process and help us identify some of the tasks that we want to do under the new strategic plan. And we felt like that would be more timely and more actionable than our typical endofear survey. So we have that coming in the fall. So, a shorter uh a shorter, less comprehensive survey this spring that'll hopefully link back to some of those key questions that we would have asked in a
090more typical year followed up by a strategic planning survey that will hopefully uh inform what Miss Siri is going to be doing with strategic planning later this summer. Okay. Staff only this spring. Staff only. And will that be shared like it has been historically? Yeah. Typically what we've done I think all the board has been around for at least one of these. Typically what we've done is every fall is we've uh given the the district level results of both the parent and the staff. So I'm assuming we would do we would replicate that for one for those three items that Dr. Varal uh just mentioned but also um for the strategic planning survey. Now whether that would be the same board report or something different I think that's really up for the board to decide
091but I would assume we would share both data sets. And one of the things I've been working really closely with Dr. settles on the staff reflection survey for the end of the year. And so I would with one of our efforts being the timeliness of results, I would imagine that you all will hear the results of that survey much sooner than our typical timeline where we issue it in the spring and you don't hear that report until September or October. And in that September October presentation space, you should expect to hear the results from that strategic planning survey. Can I sneak in here before you go on? While we're talking surveys, I know that typically the administrators have completed an evaluation of Dr. Rickley that we use um when we do and it says May
0925th they were given that. Is that the same as what they've been given in the past or was that changed at all? It was I worked with Miss Baro on that one. It's the same as what they've been given in the past, those 10 items. Thank you for that. Uh Miss Wood. Um, one one noteworthy point with that is after we had some questions about concerns about two of the questions. Um, my visibility and then that this this notion of how well we collaborate as a school district. Uh, I think I put in one of the paragraphs we did bring in a an outside facilitator um, so that it was confidential and it was done in good faith and led the administrative team. I wasn't part of that. cabinet wasn't part of that and we
093dug a little deeper and at the end of the day we decided that the 10 questions that we had traditionally asked we would continue to ask. So I think that survey is still out Miss Barco is that or did it did close on Friday? It closed on Friday. There you go. Outstanding. Outstanding. Hopefully that works then. All right. Thanks for the updates and sorry for putting you on the spot multiple times. Any other questions about Dr. Rickley's goals? Thank you. Next item is policy 4000 series on personnel. Dr. Settles. Yes. Thank you so much. Uh the 4000 series is a pretty big one. So we've taken some time over this past month to go through. We do have some recommendations for you on policies for several of those items. You have those redlinined in your
094packet, but I'm not sure if you've had a chance to look at it significantly yet at this point. There's quite a few of those that are very very minor changes and u there's a couple that we've utilized KSB language instead but don't have a huge change in practices either. So, if you have a have had a chance and have any questions, I'll entertain those right now. I also will be available of course for this next month as you we've got a little bit of time here before the next meeting when we'll bring those back to you. Thank you. Any other questions for Dr. Settles on policy 4000? Our next is policy review for the 5000 series. Dr. Settles. Yep. In the month of May, the um board policy 5000 is due for the annual review.
095Um we will bring um some recommendations to you on this certainly. There are still a few things that we're watching in the legislature too that could result in some changes. Um, but we wanted to make you aware those are open right now to be able to take a look at. Please send a note to myself or Dr. Meyers or Dr. Steel if you have anything with the students that you are taking a look at in policy 5000. And this is where for the uh the recently passed legislation on student technology devices like the cell phones, smartwatches, and stuff. this would fall under the policy 5000 that we'd have to probably make some revisions to existing policy because of the new state law. Yeah, we go ahead. Yeah, the audio visual is in the 5,000s, but
096the 6,000 is technology usage too. So, it will be one of probably both to be honest. Okay. Thanks. Right. We've reached the end of our agenda. Our last item is the board calendar. We have May 15th, the ideal commencement, 6 p.m. at Pilion La Vista South High School. May 19th, the Pilion La Vista Foundation board meeting at 6 p.m. here at the central office. May 23rd is the last day of school. I can't believe it's so fast. Uh May 26, um I'm sorry I said May 23. May 26th, the holiday is Memorial Day holiday and the offices will be closed. May 27th is a staff development day. That was uh the calendar switch because of their snow day. And on June 9th is our next board of education meeting at 6 PM. And before we
097leave, can we all stand and say goodbye to Kathy? This is her last meeting with the board of education. And I know it's not her last day in the district, but it is her last meeting with us as a board. Well, I she told me she's coming June 9th for public comments for items not on the agenda. Yeah. So, that's what she's going to start. Yep. She's going to keep coming. Thank you, With that, we'll close the board meeting at 7:23.