001Right. Good evening. I'll call this meeting here to order on May 11th, 2026 at 7 p.m. Mr. Kosher, could you please take attendance? >> Johnson, >> here. Olsson >> here. >> Skelton >> here. >> Boss Ward >> here. >> Wineer >> here. >> All present. >> Thank you. If you could please rise and join me for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance 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. >> At this time, any visitors who wish to address the board may do so. We ask that you sign in when you enter the room and please list the topic. If you have not done so, please approach the podium and do. I do ask that
002you refrain from listing any student by name or any personnel by name. Is there anyone who'd like to address the board? As a reminder, there'll be no action taken this evening. Seeing none, I have move on um to our first agenda item a taner happening. Uh Lenny Bilberg and Cammy Dibbley for transformation ed. >> Good evening. Thanks for inviting us. We have something to to show you. Lenny uh it just feels so natural in her hand. Um so this is the I mean it could be used at your track meets too. I suppose it's a baton and we made this uh before we went in February to visit our friends in Olu where cities and cultures come together. And then they brought it back. I'll show it to you. Um they brought it back to
003us this time. They said well you know it's your tag. >> Yes. Exactly. So, just a little hint that uh >> that Yeah, we're also it it makes it really easy because we got stuck in Dallas on the way over and if you are detained more than um if you how many hours is it? 4 hours. 6 hours. If your flight is delayed for more than 6 hours, um the European Union is required to pay you. And we were on a thin air flight. So each we each have tickets well vouchers for €600 to go back. So there you go. And it's thin air. So where else are we going to use it, you know, go back, >> right? So well, thank you for having us here. Thank you for uh listening to all that
004we have to say. We really intended to keep this brief, but it probably won't be because that's how we function. So um we do have some slides to show you. >> Yep. were >> um just a starting first with a wrap-up of this year that just kind of the highlights and the order of the way we did things and then um we added a lot of things if you want the want to hear more um from the last couple years and kind of where we think we're going. So um this year um transform ed I guess is the over branching title um from year to year and we're starting to get people to use it. that I know we kept changing our name and and then everybody would call it whatever they thought of but
005transfer med is the o the the big title and then every year we have a smaller um focus theme. >> Yep. Uh this year was leave your mark and um we used a design circle and this is what we really want students and teachers to become very familiar with. I know they get this a lot in middle school when they have the exploratory class with with Charlotte Krell. um she teaches them and so by now by the time kids get to the high school this should be pretty familiar to them. It's very similar to the scientific method that you'll get in in lots of different content areas as well. Um so this year um the idea was to benefit the community of Vermillion and help students find ownership in the community as well. >> And
006then so then within this we took we had two themes that you could choose. One was create Vermillion, one was solution Vermillion. And all of these themes actually came, they were driven mostly by the things the city has asked for. Um, we want to become and we are the city of murals and they asked for some more mural ideas. Um, we have some things that our students in our community have been begging for. Um, all kinds of things and I got to tell you, if they don't get a bowling alley soon, our students are going to lose their minds. Um, I think there were at least a hundred students with the idea that they wanted a new bowling alley. So that is some something they really want and um a big a big push there.
007>> The students have spoken >> um and they they also got to choose this time the size of their group um and within a little bit of boundaries um who they were going to work with and it it was uh really exciting. There were some fun things and we just stayed in our building at the high school. We didn't transport over and we had some really fun fun things happening within the school. I know um as when we get to the design challenge, we'll kind of talk about our calendar, but um one of the coolest things that um Cammy and I have discovered this year is while this is stressful where we deal with a lot of things, this the people of Vermillion are so fantastic. The judges are fantastic. The um people afterwards saying,
008"Oh, oh, I love this idea. We're I'm taking it directly to the chamber. I'm doing all these things." And they want to come back and that's what kind of rejuvenates us each year. And if I got to the job this last year to stand and visit with the judges on their way out and um that was the best job ever in the world because they were so thrilled with our kids um learning to talk to them and opening up up whole new ideas but also telling the kids well that was kind of you didn't really think about this path and we want them if um when we're thinking about the design circle we want them to fail a little bit. We want them to see some of the challenges and that is what the adults
009gave them and we're going to show some pictures of the judges this year and all you're going to see are grins. So it it's going to really make you happy. But you can see on the screen now is actually our um the two paths they could take and you name it, the idea was there. We had a new parking garage in downtown Vermillion. We had uh uh a skate park. We had you name it, they had the ideas and it was really fun to see them come to uh fruition. One of the third grade classrooms they actually tied it to their reading curriculum. So each student actually did their own individual project and they presented it and um one student only got to present once and their teacher reached out to me and and right
010away another judge said, "I'll go to the elementary school. I'll hear what they had to And and it that's one of the just coolest things I get I get the feedback for that um to hear those kind of things happening, >> you know, and it's I feel like it's probably always hardest for the teachers, you know, they're they're in the trenches. They they have more management that day and throughout. Um and they most of them don't get to have the experiences of hearing the judges or the experts as they walk out the door, you know, grinning from ear to ear. Um, a few of them I had had some social media posts afterwards about how it was the best day of their year and man those are those are really good things to hear. >>
011One of the other great things actually Jose Dominguez was a judge and we kind of placed him towards infrastructure things and um Mr. I shouldn't say his name but a fifth grade classroom um his class had all kinds of really fantastic ideas but they didn't get to see Jose. So, um, I actually messaged him and he said right away, "I'll go visit with the whole classroom." And he spent a whole afternoon with them going through their projects again and and then our kids feel heard and that's what is really the kind of connection we want here. Plus, they get to meet a face in the community and they recognize them. Um, and that that's been thrilling for us to see that kind of connection. >> So, yep. Um, culmination. Um, it was similar yet different.
012We've had at the SCSSE two years in a row now and we think that is the right spot. Um it seems to work very well. Um this year we had all of the groups upstairs around the top. I know a number of you were there helping out and it just seemed like it was the right um setup. Um there were some issues with hearing um with that many people. I think a little bit of um echo uh having the experts here and so on. Um but we would have been able to use the the floor below too. We just had kind of shifted some things around. Um, we've mentioned it, I know, to some of you already. Um, but the Oh, um, >> Shane, uh, what are the names that >> Oh, uh, Chad and
013Jacob. >> Okay. I >> Chad and Jacob at the SCSC, they're in charge of actually facilities there. And it's one of the coolest stories. Um, when we went because USD was still hosting basketball, they said, "If you can't don't have to be on the floor, could you please not?" And so we said, "Sure, we can fix it. That's not a problem." But when we were visiting with them, we meet a couple times throughout the year to kind of strategize what we need. And the first thing they both said to us is, "This is our favorite project of the year." You know, how often do you have guys who have to set up tables and take care of 1,700 people coming into their facility for free? Um, how of how many times are you going to
014hear that? And, um, Chad's wife actually teaches in Yankton, and he he said, "Why don't you guys do something like this? This is so cool. You should come and see this." And um so we know that here are two young guys in their 20s that were thrilled about this. You know, we're doing something right. So that was such a cool thing for us for them. >> We know that they have more prestigious people come in there. So we just I think Yeah. I think it's you know it's it's a real compliment to to how the students behave when they come, how um how there's just joy and people see it. So uh we made a quick list of pros and cons. I'm sure we forgot some after maybe a month or so afterwards. We had
015a Zoom and and Dr. Alvie said, "Let's meet soon as as quickly as we can so we don't forget all of the things that we have heard and talked about." Um, and there are some staff and student surveys that went out, especially at the middle school. They got a lot of responses. Um, these were some of the things that kind of seem to stick out. Please, um, uh, Dr. Elie, if there's some others that we that we forgot that you remember, um, let us know. pros. Um, well, actually I'll back it up just a little bit. Um, every year that we have done this, this was the third design project year. Um, we have feedback and we listen to the feedback from the the students and the staff and we try to make it a
016little better, make it easier to to orchestrate um and and make some of the changes to makes it make it a better experience for everybody. Um, this year we had heard um start later. So, we had bumped that up, you know, farther. So, it wasn't right as the school year started. And, um, that makes a lot of sense. People getting to know their students first before they embark on something like this. Um, because of some budget issues. Um, we decided we were going to keep them in the own their own schools. Um, St. Agnes was part of this also and they opted to stay in their school. Um, because of our close proximity, we could have walked back and forth to the high school. That wouldn't have been a problem, but they said, "Let's just
017work in our school this year." Um so some of the things that they liked, we started much later. We started second semester only. We got going in February and we finished in March. Um the first year that we did this it was um started right away in September and ended in January. Uh last year it was I think October to March. Um, so this was a very fast process. Just the same design circle just, you know, shrunk and we did not expect full prototypes finished. We just wanted, you know, the the basic ideas and the the outlines to talk about. Um, so, oh, thank you for the schedule. Yeah. Um, if we could go back to the pros and cons list. Um, so people did like that it was shorter. However, the flip side, people
018said, "Well, that was too short." So you can see kind of where you know it's there are some difficulties here. Um definitely the schedule was easier to manage when it was in our own buildings period. I mean I think everybody can see that. That doesn't necessarily mean it's it's the right decision every time in my opinion. Um but yes absolutely more efficient the flexibility for the teachers. The teachers if they decide to work only in their own classroom could do um their meetings to work on at any time of the week. We just had asked for one per week. Um there are some some grade levels in the elementary school that maybe the all of third grade would work together. Well, then they could find something in their their time frame that worked. High schoolers
019have the tanger time um on Tuesdays, but that's pretty um functional uh schedule for us too and a good time for us to meet. Um students enjoyed working with their own friend groups. They got to choose who they worked with. Some kids absolutely love that. And as you can as you can imagine, some people worked better that way and some people worked worse that way depending on me. >> Yeah. One of the comments was from a lot of the younger kids, "Oh, I miss my big friends. I miss them a lot." But even many of our high schoolers, they miss the youngers. And and what's funny about it is they begrudgingly admitted that. Um but they really did miss it and they missed the we kind of had to push them to do it, but
020they miss it. and they don't know. Sometimes when we push it's a good thing. Um and and it also one of the ultimate goals is to force yourself outside of your group to collaborate with other people. Um and uh and that that part is good and it's good for us teachers as well. We're meeting people from other buildings that we would never interact with um at um all different levels. And so it's a good push for us as well. Many high schoolers at high school teachers collaborated. some of the younger groups collaborated, but it really was much more open. And the funny part is most people said, "Well, we like being told what to do." So, uh, you know, so we have to find the balance with that, uh, to figure out how much, you
021know, the give and take for those kind of things. >> One thing that I personally I had seniors this year and and at the high school, you you follow them through. So, I've had the same group every year, but this year there were seniors. And I noticed with the seniors less I couldn't quite come up with the right word, dedication to the younger members or um guilt if they skipped maybe. I I had more seniors that opted to not be present on some of these days than the years before. Is it senioritis? Maybe. But also, it was only their buddy that was they were going to leave in the lurch, not the seven-year-olds. And I think that's significant. I really, >> you know, one thing that I've noticed is in two cases >> Mhm. >>
022mixing the grades has brought autistic children out of their shell. >> Yep. >> We have heard that from encourage you to keep doing that. >> Yeah. 100%. Actually, we are grabbed several times by um parents of people on the spectrum. For sure. 100%. Um but so what when we met with Dr. Elby um one of the things is we have been kind of following our five-year plan. We started with you guys a long time ago um to go to Finland to learn some of their things. We took the bigger group um we came back. We have begun this process and now it's really we have lots of Finnish friends. This is really for millions project. We have made it our own. It's different than what they do. Um it's they actually like that we can
023force the high school to do it as well and it's because we're at the high school. They struggle getting high school teachers to buy in. Um and we're very lucky we have that and they have talked about that quite a bit um at their level up till grade nine. They got things really really going there. But after that they run into the teachers that are in their specialty that don't want to really branch out. So we have really made this our own. So you know everybody says this is Finland. Well, not quite. It's really Vermilion um that we have made it something that works for us um especially in our community. Um but then we have some o other dreams coming up as well and to continue our five-year plan. When we met with the
024all of the principles, which was really really great. We got to visit with all of the principles. One of the things we heard and is that we want to continue this project. We want we heard that they want to continue the design challenge. Um, and truthfully, USD lets us use it for free. We got the most glowing glowing letter from Dr. Jestering. Um, she wrote us the nicest letter about um what she thinks about the design challenge. She had to miss actually. She would have been a expert for us this year, but she was in Washington DC and I didn't know which one was more important. I kind of measuring that, but um so we have USD support and that's a really cool thing. Um and we found that even our principles said they want
025to do it. So if that's you know they have to deal with grumbling um from others and so that was a really fun thing for us to hear in spite of all the other things we get on the backside as well. >> Right. So we you know we have referred to this five-year plan a number of times. Um, I started thinking, yeah, this is my five-year plan here. And I started thinking, oh, we'll just do these quick little bulleted points of all the things that we've done. And as you know, then they just kept going. So, if you want to flip to the the next one here, uh, 22 23 that that was the initial year that Lenny went crazy and signed us up for this, you know, program and then we were selected to
026go. So, that was 23 was the first time we were there. Um and then when we came back and we met and um prior to going they had said okay well we'll help you know finance this the foundation and the schoolboard and and said what are you going to do for us? So um here we go. Um 2324 was our first design project um and that was the represented little um things that the students made that could be memorabilia and so on for the town. >> And just know that those tic tac toe boards are literally across the globe literally. um they come uh and ask me regularly where do I buy them? They sell them at the chamber. Um and they're going everywhere and we find out more and more. We've given them away,
027but other people are now giving them away as well. It's cool. >> Um then uh Dr. Alli came to us uh toward the end of the year and said, "So is it possible? Can we get some people going back again?" And we said, "We'll try to make this work." So we had talked to the people who led the the full steam that we had gone to in Olu. They did a customized tour. Um and that's when we were able very wonderful wonderful experience with some more teachers from the district and then also we reached out to the ed department and uh Dr. Schwinley was on board and she said yep we're doing this. Um so the the ed school um professors also were able to go with us and it's it's an example of collaboration
028upon collaboration upon collaboration. Now these people we know them by name. I feel a connection to the ed school that I haven't had since I got my masters there. you know, it's now I know these people. This is this is something I'm not, you know, I'm very willing to reach out when I need some help for things as well, and I hope they feel the same. So, this was the group that went in May of 24. Um, we went into schools, three different schools. Um, so the first time that Lenny and I were there, it was three different schools. And then, um, one of the schools in this particular trip was the OSYK, the school that is now visiting us regularly. um they met us that day and they said, "Yeah, it just felt like
029a good fit." And so they are the ones that messaged us later and said, "Would you be interested in in uh continuing this?" So, yep, we can move on with the slides. Um then we have 2425 school year. This was the Envision Ed, the outdoor spaces. Dr. Elby had had ideas about that as well. These are um some parts are finished, some are in progress. I actually overheard a conversation of some teachers the other day in the lounge talking about how they started using the one at the the space at the high school and yeah, you know, we could do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and and that was a good feeling just to to listen in and that's it being discussed in positive terms even though I think
030we have a few things would like to finish there yet. Um we also went then and spoke with Dr. Alvie and Kim Johnson at the Associated Principles Conference. Did I forget part of that title? school. >> School board go. Yep. Sorry about that. Oh well. >> And um and that was that was a fun experience. Talked to some different principles and and superintendents from the area and a superintendent asked um for our materials and and we shared it and so hopefully that's being spread around the state. Um then Lenny and I had gone uh she she went along with me. was the uh ACTFL um foreign language conference but talked about using kind of some of these Finnish concepts in the classroom. Uh we talked about that first and then some of the things that
031we had each done in our classrooms and that was a very good experience that was in uh Kansas City and then um of course we had our first visit from the you get the rest of it lio means school I got we know about five words in Finnish now um but um Eve was the one that we met the first time we were there and she's the one who reached out to us and then um they applied for a grant from the US embassy in the um Finnish government and they were able to renew that. The first theme was focusing on indigenous peoples which was something that we had already kind of thought about too. It was a really good fit and we took them out to the Black Hills and we met some local
032people at the university and um two of the students that had come had connections to the indigenous people in the Sami people in Finland also and so that was a really nice cultural exchange for them. Um, oh well there's some envisioned ones out of out of order just a little bit. Oh, one thing I was going to say about that middle picture. Um, I am with the teachers that I worked with. This was not this school year but last school year. And this was when we still um had I guess quote forced the different grade levels together. What I like that about that picture is those are teachers I had never worked with before either. I had never known some of their names. I had heard their names. I didn't know what their faces looked
033like or who, you know, I'd see the face and name and not know them. I think the collaboration that right there is significant too. Um I think for years and this was probably a long time ago since I've been teaching a long time, but that was something when the um oh people what was that the Jolly >> Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And um when people would come in for accreditation, that was always something that we got dinged on as a district. Well, you've got these pods and there's no working together and I think that is improving. So, um, yeah, you can go ahead. Um, and this was when they were, uh, visiting last year. We took them out and saw a sundance ceremony, which is incredible. I had never seen that in my entire life. So,
034um, and then we are on to the 25 26 school year, of course, the Leave Your Mark, create our solution, Vermillion. Um, and then, um, the visit, of course. Um, did I forget our visit? >> Oh, yes. Well, it's coming up actually, so we'll talk about that. But we did go to Finland in February, but we'll come to that next. But in regard to what we're doing at our school, um, Eve and Mina, the two teachers came with three young students um, this year, some high school students, and we had three host families, and, um, Cammy hosted Eve, and actually Gretchen Burbach hosted Mina. Um, and it was really, really a wonderful experience. We just did a local cultural tour this time. So, they stayed around and we have some pictures coming up, but they
035got to go on a private tour of Spirit Mound, a private tour of the Wilson homestead. They got to have a beautiful experience here that they absolutely loved. And now that they're home, they just got home. They were just here. everything they've been posting for from their school, from everything is um how Vermillion feels like home and how they cuz they went to New York City after this and did a special visit at Colombia, but Vermillion feels like home and over and over again. That's what their posts are that they loved it here. They loved the people that everybody talks to them and they enjoyed really everything about it in spite of being jet-lagged and all those things. So, it was a really great visit and we finished it off. We did do a a
036Missouri River plunge. >> It's called the transatlantic cold plunge crew. Now, you may certainly you may >> you can join you can join. Um so we did make that. Um but on to next year um as always at the end of the year we kind of get our group together and see what people are thinking. But we also want to say what do we need in Vermillion? What should our theme be in 2025 2026? Um because each of our ideas we've always kind of felt a spark towards them and now we want to say what what are other people thinking. The idea fest this year we called it idea fest instead of design challenge. There were some fantastic ideas really outside the box thinking. Yeah there were some really not so great ideas as well
037but but that's okay. We they you know they had to present those to a judge and then be a little embarrassed about that. And that's okay. Um and our kids need to understand you know I can take it serious or I can't. But so we're looking for ideas if you guys know um uh or something we're missing, something you've been just thinking about and have a big dream. Um we like to say we can make it happen. So um but then coming up we did want to talk about our um visit just recently to Finland and we have some pictures about that and we were super super super lucky to have uh Dr. Jackie Wilbur join us again this year and Dana from Duck and Cat. um he was on a food tour and we
038were on an educational tour and but he was a former English teacher actually as well and so he toured with us in all the schools and we did get to see um uh a really wonderful experience with them as well spoken educators um that um live kind of a different life than us outside the classroom. But on the screen now you can see some of the judges and some of the joy. So if you want to scroll through some of these pictures, they really are fantastic. If you look at um what's going to be happening, um you look at the kids and how serious they're taking it, how the judges are really trying to uh kind of grasp um what's going on. Um and uh and I just love their faces. If you see high
039schoolers really paying attention like that, you know you've hit your mark. >> And I love watching the the faces of the experts. I mean, look at how intent they are and how they're giving so much to those students. Oh, and that one, too. you might recognize somebody. He's doing all right too. Yeah. >> Um so then uh when we were in Finland this year, we they asked us specifically to come this particular week because um Olu this whole year is celebrated as the European cultural capital, but this particular week they were having a number of events with their school. So one of the days we I called it is this is my term the day of the dance. But um it was the neatest thing. the high school walked I like literally what it would
040be from our high school to walk all the way to the elementary. The kids on their own walked across town in the winter, okay, in February um to show up for the day of the dance. They didn't take attendance, but the kids were there. It was the neatest experience. And they had a a local professional folk dancer that performed and taught them four dances, and we got to participate as well. And um well, Cammy is a dancer. Um, I'm not, but I learned some folk dance and it was a really great experience. Um, and to see every principal participated, every teacher participated, the kids, maybe they weren't necessarily comfortable, but all of a sudden they just got they went all in and and to see that shift because the teachers were showing joy, then the
041kids jumped in. >> There were some teachers that were a little overly confident in their abilities as well, but they just had a blast. So, >> and then one of the next things we it was actually the day before we got to see actually some a folk concert where they played um four um different uh Sami and northern uh Lapland tribes music and um it was I think it even surprised the school. The these musicians were some of the best I've ever heard playing instruments that they built themselves from u made out of uh elk horns or not elk horns it would be reindeer horns and you know you name it and they made them and they're they were it was so amazing. In fact I have to tell um Dana Chef Dana's story. We
042were listening to the concert at 10:00 in the morning was actually the first day we arrived because we were a day late because of our flight issues. And we're listening to this concert and all of a sudden we look over. >> We hear this sniffing >> and they're like and everybody next to us is they're just crying like their eyes are whatever and we were >> so moved by this music we couldn't even understand the words. It wasn't even finished. I don't know what it was. >> And so they we stood up after the concert and we're like what was going on? And they both said I wasn't ready for this many emotions by 10:00 a.m. >> So if you know Dana um that he was the one who said that. envision that. >> Yeah.
043So, yeah. So, a really great experience there. And, um, we do have some pictures coming up. We did um these this is actually a kind of a representation of our stay. We did do the polar plunge and yes, that's ice. We did jump in. Um, if you zoomed in on Cammy, she's actually grinning, so it's actually quite a good photo. Um, and one of the purposes we got our crazy idea actually happened from the upper right hand picture. Those were um that was a design of some fourth grade boys and this is what really drove us from the beginning and sparked all of our ideas. They got to design this for people to go to during the cultural fest. Of course, the boys had it in solid gold. >> Original ideas >> and it was
044going to be on top of a mountain, but there are no mountains. >> They worked they got to work with the actual builders of this and put it together, these fourth grade boys. And um it was really cool. So, we were so happy we got to go to the letters and take some pictures. Um, the coldest it was when we were there, the first day was about 8° and then it warmed up each day um as we were there. I think it finished off with 30 on our last day. Um, and the lots of snow. We got to have lots of snow. Um, but you can see then we also, we were so lucky. Um, Jackie through USD and the Vermilion Schools group brought the blanket, you guys can see, and they gifted the school
045a blanket from us. Um, and and they were literally again crying because it was so exciting. And then the folk music on the bottom right. And then because we did have to spend an extra 16 hours in Helsinki, you do get a picture of the Helsinki Cathedral cuz we had to wait and we decided to go downtown since we were sitting in Helsinki airport all day. But um >> so and just a few p pictures that yeah the we had the most wonderful day. Um we met uh Jeffrey at Spirit Mound and Grace Freeman if you know who she is. Um and then she brought some of her friends and we got the local sort of you know tour of of Spirit Mound. They talked about the the grasses and the natural habitats. Um and
046then Grace and her husband Harry are so generous. They said, "Why don't you come back to our house? We'll make you some rhubarb bars and and serve you some tea." But we got up there. There was an entire buffet set up for us. Harry had made chicken kebabs and we had salmon soup and everything you can think of. And these girls and the teachers, they were just overwhelmed by this generosity. They said they just couldn't believe it. And it was it was a wonderful culture experience even for me. I had not been part of it. Um I had called Joy Moore if you know she she has um been a law professor. Her husband Tyler uh works at the law school and she does some poetry. She has two books of local poetry and we
047invited her to come out. She gave everybody one of her books and it was it was just a really really nice experience. So we felt fortunate to be part of it. >> Yeah, we're just we can't really say it enough how really the Vermillion community has embraced these ideas. Um, uh, it truly is a gift that we have a school board that has supported us, but a community that they're begging for opportunities to do it again. And we never expected it to go that well in regard to that. And um, I actually like having that job of being in charge of finding judges. I really do because it's such a great opportunity to visit with people. It actually opened up some avenues. We're headed to Germany with students this summer and they said, "What what
048help do you need here?" and it gave us actually helped us kind of close the gap on our funding there and um it it really is a wonderful place. They people just show up and want to help out. So, we're >> probably didn't schedule it over USD spring break next time. >> Yeah, that is >> that limited a few of our expert panel that um that said, "Oh, please ask me next year, but I'm out of town." >> Yeah. But any questions that you guys have for us? We know we covered a lot and we do talk a lot, but >> I can never share this with you. Come over to the house. >> Seriously, if you're going to serve if you serve us rhubarb bars and tea, we'll be there. >> She's she's got
049some ear. >> That would be awesome. That would be awesome. >> Yeah. But anything else, you guys? I guess I have a comment, a couple comments about the idea fest. U so I was proud to be uh one of the experts there. It was a great experience. I thought the students all did a great job. I felt it was really well done the the event in general and and you were talking about the location. I really, you know, I didn't have any frame of reference. This was my first year. I liked it on the concourse. It's then it's like kind of only one dimension of movement, you know, that you're not like no one was wandering around and and you know, looking behind them. It's just kind of move in one direction. And that I
050thought that really helped the traffic blow really well. And we had some um a few of the administrators positioned strategically by exit doors and and that was perfect because we needed that and if they would wander a little too close and say, "Hey, why don't you go this way?" So, and but the other really cool thing we've discovered is, you know, the high schoolers drive themselves, which we're thrilled about, and they show up. You know, there really isn't an attendance because it is and they show up. And that's the thing that and even though they might grumble, they think this is important. And when you see some of those senior boys that um showing up, you're realizing that okay, we're we are on the right path. And we I gra got to grab kids on
051their way out and I made them present to me on their way out. And um slowed them down, but they were ready. And that's that's a cool thing. In just really four weeks, they were able to accomplish some great ideas. And there is a mural. um hope the chamber is looking at uh uh for sure one idea maybe two ideas that came from it. So we're hoping that they take it to the next step and go from there. >> Did you bring like 10 20 ideas to the chamber then at all? >> Um >> like did you formally give them a packet >> and they requested certain ones and it was part because Patty Rosdale was part of we had her on that section. We kind of broke off the judges into more of their
052expertise areas. um and she literally flagged them and said you're you're coming and which was great but then also um you know just some of the ideas when the city officials that were working um for sure Mayor Cole and Jose was like I think we need a bowling alley you know and it was really it was good because they're hearing from the kids and they are hearing that that's where they go they drive to Yankton and go bowling you know >> this it's an opportunity right there that the kids are doing it regularly they could you know drive less Right. So, >> you know, Dr. Elvie, there's that annex we're talking about between the high school. That's probably a nice long area that could be four or five lanes. Okay. >> Love it. >> That's
053the right. That's fine. >> Well, we have our budget uh proposal for the year here coming up. So, we'll see. Write that in. >> Well, there you go. >> I guess wrap up. >> Sorry, I got the wrong one there. Sorry, just to wrap up. Uh well, first of all, thanks, you know, Cammy and Lenny for for their leadership, but there's a whole committee that they've created with the principles in each building. And you know, this doesn't just fall together. It takes a lot of work from these folks to make sure it happens. But each time that we do this, we one, we learn a couple new things, which is important. Two, we create and reinforce those relationships as you mentioned several times in here. But three, you know, some of the most fun I
054had was u, you know, two years in a row, I've met with the same staff from Olu coming >> to to our school with kids and to interview kids from their communities and their teachers and talk about the same similarities and kid issues, social media issues, cell phone issues, whatever it is, there's a lot of really neat things that we've had conversations about, which we've taken a few nuggets here and there and offered a few nuggets back. So those are that's what this is about is being able to create um opportunities for a unique educational experience. So thanks to the board and our community for supporting it. So thank you guys for helping. >> Thank you. I suppose we do need the >> do we need that back. >> Oh >> okay. I want to
055see a proper handoff here. Well that was >> Thank you. >> All right. Well go ahead then. get on along with our agenda here. We have to approve our agenda and our conflict disclosures. So motion for item A, agenda changes. Uh Dr. Elie, >> uh there are not. >> Wonderful. I would take that a motion to approve the agenda. >> First by Mark second. >> Second by Ryan. All those in favor say I. >> I. Post same sign. Motion passes. Uh next up here we have our indication of conflict of interest for per South Dakota law 3-23. This is Rachel and I have none. >> This is Carol and I have none. >> This is Jake and I have none. Mark and I have none. This is Ryan and I have none. >> Wonderful. Uh
056we'll move on here to our consent agenda. Uh we have approval of our minutes, resignations, new hires, open enrollments, and bills. Uh first up here we have our minutes from April 13th. Resignations, Madison Roadies, bed aid, John Demick, 8th grade, English. How many years was Mr. Dimmick here? What did his >> I think it's 18. >> 18. Okay. Congratulations uh on your retirement. Uh Joey Nelson. um assistant football. Uh Tessa Douly, sped a uh new hires, Jerry Bartles, assistant boys and girls tennis. Aubrey Jove, assistant high school vocal music. Christian Swenson, special ed teacher, Mark Netski, a summer custodian. Jasmine Stewart, summer custodian, Tegan Worms, Grace Voss, Carly Maxwell, Tyen Tagert, all sped aids. Loretta Jorgensson, behavior room aid. Orin Kamicos, fifth grade. Uh Monica Stratmeer, 8th grade, English. Would anybody like anything pulled from
057the consent agenda? If not, I would take a motion to approve. >> So moved. >> First by Carol. Second. >> Second by Jacob. All those in favor say I. I. >> Post. Same sign. Motion passes. We are not in need of any unfinished business, so we'll be moving on to new business. Um there are quite a few items here this evening A through N. I'm looking at it. We might be able to take it as one motion, but we'll kind of go as we can here. Um our first um approval is approval of a staff uh transfer request. U Mrs. Husco. >> Yes, she was u Sue has been working now for us for three years and she would like to uh move to the lead nurse position uh that Amy Ascu vacated this month.
058So we would recommend that you allow that. Wonderful. Thank you, Sue. Uh, next up here, we have approval of our high school JAG program trust and agency account. Uh, similar to our high school ed rising and science olympied groups that have uh come before you earlier this year, uh, the JAG program is also going to be doing a little bit of fundraising. This program is a little bit different in that the uh they have a couple of different grants that pay for most of what they do, but they do have a handful of things uh outside of that that they want to raise some funds for and then that those funds will be placed in that account. Um we've had the discussion and they can abide by all the requirements for having that trust and
059agency. So we recommend approval tonight. I >> saw they kicked off a big school big school was it last week when we were there, Ryan? All right. Then next up here, item C, we have approval of some surplus items. Looks like um Ashley Jacobs has some Vizio, TV, Dells, and some various monitors. Any questions on those surplus items? Um then we have some elementary reading materials. >> Uh yeah, actually, yeah, it's uh high school intro to business. Some um business. Oh, and and both of the technology and the booklets uh or the curriculum are at zero value. So, >> wonderful. Uh next up here then we have approval of our food service management contract renewal uh with Lunchtime Solutions. Mr. Kosher. >> Uh yes, this would be the second renewal. We've had we had our
060original contract a couple years ago and then we can have four renewals of that contract. This would be for renewal number two. Um the contract does specify that uh allows that CPI increases for the pricing which based on the US data that we have used it's 3.9%. So the price that uh LSI charges the Vermillion School District will go up by 3.9% for those meals. >> Can you help us Kevin with the new pricing then? So is it >> Yep. That is the next item there for you're talking the student meal pricing. >> I got it. >> Yep. There you go. >> Any questions on the contract? Now we'll talk about the meal pricing, which is probably what most of us are looking at. >> Yep. Uh the proposed meal prices that we discussed with
061the finance committee last week would be moving the breakfast up 10 cents and all lunches up by 20 cents. Uh really the the need for this is to keep pace with the increased cost that the district has charged for the price increases. Uh again based on uh inflationary numbers um this is we think pretty reasonable. It doesn't cut into any sort of deficit that we're it just kind of keep continues to keep pace. We do still have a healthy food food service fund balance. Uh so that is why we are recommending the the 10 cent and the 20 cent increases rather than something more significant than that. >> And just >> uh the yeah the prices would be $210 for breakfast, 355 for elementary lunch, 370 for middle school lunch, and 375 for high school
062lunch. And then just as we're looking at our packet, I know I asked this in our meeting, the contract price is 524 for lunch, but it's all the um different federal subsidies that correct >> we get it to that $3.70. >> Yes. Uh we do get reimbursements of course for free uh meals, anybody who qualifies for the free meal program and the reduced price program as well, but then we also get some reimbursement for any paid uh lunches as well. So they also subsidize th those lunches there as well. So that's why there can be such a wide gap in between what we're paying for those meals and what we're actually charging. >> Yeah, it's nice enough to see that $524. It's better to see that $3. >> Just for a just a point of
063interest, I received a call from a superintendent in the northern part of the state who was looking to they're they're going out to food service RFPs and their leading contender is lunchtime solutions. And so they were asking about pricing and all the things that went along with our proposals and they're paying over $4 for lunch already. So they're hoping to see some management changes and some things that LSI can bring to the table that will help them manage that differently hopefully in the future. So uh that's just it's different everywhere in the state that you ask. So >> especially with all the changing requirements, it's really nice to have that team. >> Absolutely. >> The expert at that. Well, any questions on Lunchtime Solutions? >> I'll just say I appreciate um our partnership with their
064with their company and their program. And I also appreciate that I know in the past we look at what the rates are for our um other peer districts. And so, thank you for the work that goes into that. Wonderful. Next up here, we'll move on to the approval of the South Dakota Comprehensive Plan for 2627. >> Uh that was in your Google Drive, but if you're ever interested, this is just a document that Mrs. Olsson puts together for to meet all of our recommend U requirements for IDEIDA and and uh special services. So, uh she signs off on that as do I. And then we send that into the feds is our agreement to uh how we're going to perform the services that we get our federal dollars for. All right. Uh, next up then
065we have approval um of the South Dakota High School Association election ballot and resolutions. Looks like there's an election and then there are three amendments here that we need to make um a decision on. Do you want to lead us through those? >> Absolutely. Yes. Uh the election is pretty easy. They uh the they have representatives from principles and uh superintendent and and uh other members of their board. This year they happen to have a superintendent vacancy and only one person was uh uh interested in the position. So our recommendation would be Jeff Coers from Frederick Area School. The uh first amendment u was basically uh to amend part of chapter u one subdivision there and that's a clarification for the eight semester rule for high school sports at high school and four semesters in
066uh middle school. So, what that means was there was some gray area that if a student was participating um once you start that clock in middle school, you're eligible as a seventh grader for high school gymnastics or golf or things like that. So, they had to clarify uh this amendment from last year to change some language there and it was basically just a clarification on the high school eligibility so that how it would look going from middle school to high school. So our recommendation would be follow their their recommendation with a yes vote. Amendment number two and that was basically again just an amendment to clarify the transfer students when a high school is closing. Um there's a few incidences in the state where a high a community might be choosing to close a high
067school but keep a elementary or middle school program. Well, what was the eligibility of those high school students was a kind of a gray area. So, they clarified that if your high school is closing, you could transfer at the end of the year of the year you're closing. So, um, in case that would ever happen in a small rural district someplace, they would now have a amendment to follow that. So, our our recommendation would be a yes vote on amendment two. And finally, amendment three, that was uh a a clarification for what constitutes graduation from which programs. Some students that participate in high school activities might be graduating from another accredited uh school outside of their public school. Instead of Vermillion, it could be an accredited online academy or school. Um, as you can imagine,
068these days there's a lot of names and a lot of brands out there that people can get their educational needs met. And so, they're constantly trying to have to revise this to make sure that they're being fair to all students. So they outline how and who what programs that students must participate and graduate from to be eligible. So I would recommend again a yes vote on amendment three for clarification. Wonderful. Any questions on these ballot changes? All right. Uh we'll fill out those documents here at the end with those suggestions. Uh next up here then we have our summer employment agreement. Um, this is I'm sorry, got my notes mixed up here a little bit. Uh, >> yep, that's the one first. >> Yep. Okay. Uh, oh, sorry, Kevin, if you uh we've got our
069summer um school program that we uh have for our special special education program. Um, we propose a certain budget based on the number of hours that are expected and the the students that we expect to participate in the program. It's a little bit of a guessing game as to who will all be there and for how many hours, but we set this number as one not to exceed. Uh, so based on this, uh, we've got a budget of just under $55,000 there. We set that as not to exceed. Um, last year we came in quite a bit lower than that. It was a little bit under 30,000. Uh, we expect we'd be a little bit higher than that this year, but this sets forward the uh hourly rate for all of those individuals that would
070be working there uh in that program as well. >> And looking ahead to our next agenda item, right, that that summer school for middle school is not part of this proposed 54,000. >> Correct. Correct. >> Okay. So then we can move on if there's any if there's not any questions about the large bud budget, we can move on to the middle school summer school that Miss Sanderson has been talking with us about. >> Um just a clarification on the one previous to that that's our birth to three and all of our special services uh education services. Those are um students that on their IEP requires that they receive yearround schooling. So, um it's not necessarily because of a a need of of or an attendance issue. These are students that because of the needs on
071their IEP um meet in that category. The following one would be a recommendation to add summer school experience to our Vermillion Middle School. Um as uh was stated um Mrs. Sanderson has uh come for the last couple months and shared what we would like to do at the middle school would be to follow a similar plan that we have at the high school. Uh at in the summer we offer some credit recovery for students and opportunity to keep um up with their studies so that they could stay in their graduating cohort. We would like to transition that down for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade for the exact same reason. We have students that have missed an a large amount of school and maybe has impacted their educational progress and this is an opportunity to gain
072the skills necessary to move forward. Uh for year uh several years now, we've had some uh concerns brought to us from our uh instructors at the middle school that said we've had students that have been put into the next grade level that did not have the skills to to really uh do the work and to to transition successfully to the next grade level. and they've uh experienced frustration and failure and and and been um maybe not the academic I guess the academic experience we would hope for them and teachers have also had to change their instruction or slow down the instruction for all students as they're trying to keep students afloat. So this year we would propose that we would offer a summer school experience at the middle school that would start uh about May
07326th and go through June 26th. Uh this is the same calendar as the high school. Students would be um invited into the program based on missing um a significant number of days of school. We're talking probably 20 or more and or failing one or two core subjects. And we would take our atmost uh at risk students that that um would benefit from this program and we would require their attendance at this uh summer school experience to give them the very basic needs to move forward and be successful to next year with obvious hopes that they that would get contagious and they would come into the next grade level more successful, ready to learn, and then they would catch fire with with with this process and and maybe it'd be a one-time hiccup for their educational
074career. Um, so we we would ask the board for uh a $6,000 investment for hiring two teachers to be there for those four hours, for those 20 days of summer school experience uh for a targeted group of students. Uh Mrs. Sanderson and her group of teachers are working on that group of kids at this point. Uh it could be anywhere between 10 and 20 students throughout that time. Once the student has mastered those concepts that are required, they could be gone. So, we might have a student that only has to come to half as many of those days because they've accomplished the task that they needed to do. Others will be asked to stay the full-time. Uh, so we're asking the board's permission to move forward, asking for a about a $6,000 investment to pay
075our staff to do this. Uh and then probably as important will be to be uh supportive of the fact that if students don't attend this, we will have consequences for them in the fall, which would be we won't promote them to the next grade level. If they've been offered the opportunity to improve their situation and refuse to do it or don't show up, then we will be prepared to retain them in that grade level that which they had failed. Uh so that's not something that we would take lightly and and would not be hoping to use, but we do need to know that that is a possibility when you offer a program in the summer. Um so thank you for your attention with that. Any questions I could help with? >> I believe some of
076these families are aware that this is a possibility coming up as she's been talking about that for Absolutely. Great. Yeah. >> This isn't going to be a shock to somebody, >> right? Won't be a request coming up. Uh there's been personal meetings with those folks with Mrs. Anderson or teachers. Uh in fact, some of the students I I think probably are working their way off of the list. Yeah. >> Because they started to see that this was a real possibility and that she was serious and the team shares were serious that that this was going to happen this year. And so I I think some of the kids have really picked up their game and made some nice improvements at the end of the the last four weeks here. And we talk about just overall
077attendance, but the 20 days or more. What are some of the high numbers you're seeing? I mean, I've heard around in the 40s. >> Yeah, we have correct. >> Yeah, we have students that have anywhere between um zero days and 60 to 70 days of school missed. >> And now, like Mrs. Sanderson said before, there are some that have absolute legitimate reasons that they've been ill or other uh requirements that kept them out of school. Those kids don't fall into this program. These are students that that uh have a different u reason to be involved in this summer school experience. >> Can you talk a little bit about Egenuity? >> Oh yeah. Egenuity is the software platform that we use at the high school for credit recovery. So, if I were to fail my my
078freshman English class, for example, um uh Jasmine Heisinger and the teachers, they can put together a special program for me designed on all the lessons in South Dakota standards that would be missed as a freshman English course. Then I would go to her room. Uh I can do it during school year, which during some of our study halls kids do that. and I can take that course and I I I just basically go through and let's say it was in English, it might it gives me a lesson. I read I watch a video, it gives me the uh desired uh notes that I'm supposed to have. It asks me to apply some sort of skill and then it gives me a quiz and it does that for each of the standards. So there might be
07940 or 50 lessons that I need that concept retaught. It also allows us to shrink and mold that to each kid's personal learning plan. At the middle school, we won't ask kids to go through 60 lessons of of English. What they will do is go uh Mr. Dimmick, for example, as eighth grade will say, "These 10 lessons were the most thing most important thing out of out of uh my eighth grade English class." And then we would gear egeneuities uh lesson planning to those 10 concepts. And you can imagine the same with math, the same with science uh or whatever it is. And we're really most interested in math, science, and language. Uh we're not interested in social studies and some of our other uh non-core areas. We want kids to learn those things. So
080once those kids have signed in and used that, uh we hope that we'll have a content expert. One week it might be a math teacher, the next week would be a language teacher. That would be the supervisor. So if I'm stuck and don't understand something, we'll have an instructor on hand to to help get through that. And the structure of that platform gives us the flexibility of, you know, kind of determining the roster. >> Absolutely. >> Um >> Yeah. Thank you. That's good clarification. >> A little more last minute or Yeah. And being able to to accommodate their needs with the two staff. >> Correct. Correct. And and um Mrs. Heisinger, our credit recovery teacher at the high school, is meeting next week with the instructors from the middle school and Mrs. Sanderson to say,
081"These 12 kids will be in the program. What does it look like for the three seventh grade kids in math, the four eighth grade kids in English, the three sixth grade kids in reading, what will ingenuity look like for them? Yeah, good question. Thank you. >> And since it's like 20 days away, she has some teachers that are eager to get their application into us. >> Yep. I as far as I know, we have two that have already volunteered. Yep. And >> so we don't have to worry about timing of approval since we don't have our next school board. You'll be able to do everything you need to to get them going. Yep. >> Wonderful. Any other questions? Right. Um, next up here we have approval of additional staff insert inservice training called BAR. Yes.
082Is that how you say it? Or BR. >> Bar. >> BRA. >> Yep. >> BAR stands for building assets and reducing risks. >> Couldn't have guessed that. >> Yes. And uh so uh before you there was a lengthy kind of a description of what bar is and bar is really an educational model that was I'll give you the short version was it was developed by a counselor in in um uh the late '9s in Minnesota because it was in a failing school and she she wrote a grant for the US Department of Education to try to start connecting with kids and getting kids more engaged. They found out attendance was poor. Um, engagement was low. Kids were failing. They weren't coming to school. Graduation rates were suffering. Standardized test scores were low. And so she
083started this with a small school in south in Minnesota. It went from Minnesota to California and then Minnesota California to Texas. And now there's over 210,000 kids across the nation that are part of this. we were invited to be a part of the program or consider to be a part of the program uh when we we were we fortunately I was at a conference where I ran into the former um department of education secretary of education uh director for South Dakota and we were talking at the same meeting uh about I was there to get some information about uh how to improve engagement and attendance rates and things like that and she said you should really check into this bar group there's a lot to it so we hooked up and and started to have
084a conversation. Uh, but it was very spendy. Um, to bring the model to your school is $80,000 a school per year and they it requires you to do some very intensive before school training with your staff. It requires during the school year training. It requires your staff to do some extra visits and things about kids. But what it does do, it falls very neatly into our MTSS um programming, our multilevel uh tiers of support that you heard Mr. Fry and others talk about in the past where we intentionally talk about kids and what's causing them to maybe struggle and things like this. So, um we were invited to participate with a bar group this spring and send uh three administrators to a national conference paid for by the state of South Dakota because we're we
085were a targeted assistant school for our high school at our elementary last year. And so they invited us and another school district in the state to go take a look. And once we got there, um, our principles became instantly engaged with this, became excited about what they were hearing from these schools across the nation. Schools similar in size of us, smaller and larger. Uh, regionally, they're in Minnesota and North Dakota now. Uh, so it's not just big states in urban settings or rural states with with small populations. It's North Dakota's a lot and Minnesota are a lot like South Dakota. So, we found some really good niches there and places that we could talk to about what what to see there. Um, when we got back from bar, we met with the Department of Education.
086In fact, Mr. uh Kosher and I just met with them again today, which caused our proposal to change a little bit for this evening. Uh because be uh what the state of South Dakota was prepared to do was to pay for our middle school or excuse me, our elementary school and our high school to become bar schools for three years at uh $80,000 each for the entire uh three-year program. Uh and they would do that because we're on targeted school improvement. And so this would fit neatly into dollars that they would invest in in initiatives that were going to be new and exciting to to drive instruction. Um we found out today that in meetings with last week we were trying to find out if we could get some professional development dollars from them. We
087talked about adding the middle school. The middle school really wasn't on the radar because they didn't fit the qualifications. Well, they went back to work and today they called us and said, "We've got two proposals for you. One would be to just do elementary, middle school, and then we'll pay for some professional development outside of school time for your staff or we'll put the middle school in the mix with the high school and the elementary school. And that was the missing link for us because we said, how are we going to ensure the middle school gets the same quality instruction that the middle elementary and high school were getting. Uh so to uh we uh have basically been offered a three-year grant, the only school in South Dakota to receive this for $240,000 a year
088for three years to invest in bar to come to Vermillion and work strictly with our kids and our staff. And so tonight we're asking for permission to continue forward with that. Uh however, what we do need is an additional day of inservice for our staff this fall because bar needs a minimum of two for them and we have three at the beginning. Two which are are days that we do things with our staff on whatever training we need and then the third is the orientation day. So, what we would propose is that if the school district were so inclined, you would offer us uh a third PD day for our staff for approximately $15,000 for that day to bring them in and let them get chances to work in their classrooms because if we use
089two full days to do bar training, we won't be giving our staff much time to work in their classrooms. And as you know, we need to be ready when kids come the following week. So uh the investment we're asking from the district is permission to go forward with bar and secondly to get an extra inservice day paid for by the district so that we could get the teachers an opportunity to be back together and work in their rooms. Um so I know that was a a mad dash. What we're hoping to see what makes bar different bar is really uh what kind of sold me is uh when I was talking to the folks was that most of the time in education unfortunately we look at uh an outcome and say how come our math
090scores aren't very good how come our reading scores aren't very good well we better change the curriculum let's just change the curriculum that will solve the problem and generally that might be helpful in some ways but that's not always the problem and so what bar does is it causes intentional thoughtfulness with the teachers. It brings teachers together and it asks them to create relationships with kids. Meet intentionally on every kid in the building, your lowest functioning kids and your highest flyers. Don't let those kids that aren't on your radar slip through the cracks because they seem like a good student and you don't talk about them because you're concentrating on the lower functioning students. So intentionally meeting and visiting about every student in your buildings with a team of instructors to talk about what's driving
091them those kids. So once you've done that, pretty soon student engagement starts to pick up on this. If you can see a continuum here, pretty soon the teachers are working together. They're engaged. They're they're getting to know kids and kids are getting a s sense of belonging. Next phase kids are starting to feel this sense of belonging in their school. They know people care about them. They know people are talking about them and deep down they're starting to feel a little bit more connection to the school. Uh by the third block of this continuum pretty soon kids engagement changes and they start to become a little more engaged in school. Well, I'm seeing a little success. So I want to come to school. Fourth block my attendance changes. So now I'm in school a little
092bit more. My engagement continues to be good. My teachers are still talking about me and helping to helping me to be successful or helping me working with my parents to maybe change some things I need to change. And now I'm in school more. My engagement's better. My attendance is better. The fourth block of this continuum is suddenly I'm starting to be successful in school. And then by the fifth continuum, the outcome has changed. Our scores get better, attendance rates are better. We report to the state that smarter balance scores are better. We see graduation rates increase. So their model is really just creating an atmosphere, a climate that kids thrive in. And it's not about curriculum. Curriculum is important. However, it's about teachers and the relationships and the climate that we create that makes the
093difference. And so bar is going to come for three years and teach us that and and make us uh understand that relationship and how it fits into what we're already doing. We do pieces of this all over our our schedule. They're going to make us do it together and they're going to ask us to do it for all students, not just our lowest students. And so uh it it will be about things that teachers do and just making it intentional. So uh our principles are very excited about the fact that this isn't just another program we're throwing on people. This is a change. This is a cultural change. This is a an invite to do things differently with the results that will hopefully speak for themselves. And the bar literature that I gave you is
094published literature that shows documented improvements in all three areas that I mentioned. academics engagement, attendance. So, um, we're excited to be a part of it. Glad to be the only state or school in the state of South Dakota that will be doing so. Uh, so, uh, we're excited to see at the end of three years where we're at and if it's made the impact that we really hope it does. But, uh, so tonight I'm asking for for a lot for permission, but also some dollars to move forward with it. And then, of course, we'll keep you posted along the way. So this PD is this um every year then at the beginning of the year so it's so it kind of carries through the three years. >> Great question. Um the first year Mr. Kosher
095you can help me if you remember hearing this anywhere. Uh first year is two year two days before school 4 days within school. Um and then there's an on call basis that we do. So it's a pretty regular rigorous meeting schedule. second year, I think it's one day before school and then two visits within the school year and then Zoom visits. By year three, they just visit the school. They don't have anything else before school. Uh you they're always on invite. You can bring them in if you need to. Uh but it wouldn't be something that we would ask for more days. And knowing now next year that we would want to spend one of our two professional days on bar, we would just rearrange our schedule to accomplish that. We're a little late in
096the game uh because we had settled on a a calendar back in January when I didn't even know that we were having this conversation with bar in January. This has kind of come up since then. So, um anyway, yeah. So, the long a long answer is we shouldn't need any more days added to the calendar next year. Well, I think for a 700 plus thousand grant basically over three years of $15,000 if you spread it over three years, it's a good investment just like summer school is a good investment. >> Uh I agree. I I we're excited and our principles that uh we sent uh Mr. Jacobs, Mrs. Peterson, and Mr. Fry to that conference along with two department of education folks from from Pier and uh they were I got a text from Mr.
097Fry at the very first session the the next day that they were in session cuz I was at home here uh doing some things at the elementary school to help with Mr. Sanderson and or Mrs. uh Peterson and Mr. Jacob's absence. So right away I got a a text from those guys saying there's something to this or this is this is exciting. I can't wait, you know, the next two days to see more about it. So it was it was pretty interesting and and when you see that kind of buy in, it gets you excited. So we'd love to make it happen. So, did you reference that there would be visits from folks that are within this organization that supports FAR or Yes. from the state department of education or maybe both? >> Actually, probably
098both. Yeah, since the state department Jordan, those guys with working with Mr. Kosher and I never mentioned exactly what their part of this looks like, but certainly for their investment, they're going to want to see it. They'll want to showcase it. they'll want to be uh probably asking us to present and do some things on it which we're happy to do. Uh but for sure bar association will send somebody's going to be assigned to our school for the pre-ervice time before school and then that team will they'll send two people to our district four different times during the year to observe to coach us to to uh train us on things that they might see that we need some help with. >> Yeah, that's really exciting for our district. Um, so yeah, and I'm so
099happy that we're in the position to take advantage of an opportunity like this. >> Yep. >> Kind of similar to that. Was it the yellow school bus? We read about the magic school bus. What was that book? >> Yeah, the energy bus. >> Yeah, that's it's kind of what it reminds me of. Thank you. >> Yeah, you're right. Yeah, the energy bus is a lot like that. >> I mean, it's a program built around culture and your kids. So, >> yeah. >> All right. Anybody have any other discussions or comments? All right, we'll move um on to next item K, which is approval of our FY26 budget supplement, which we just made some changes. >> Isn't quite as exciting as the last topic there, but um I'll start with the capital outlay portion of this
100because sort of set this up last month that we thought that this was likelihood that we would be bringing another supplement for this. Um, just so happens that we're going um looking at a few different large projects this summer, finishing up the middle school roof, taking care of some of the HVAC equipment at the middle school, and also redoing the high school uh parking lot. Well, all of those are going to happen in at the tail end of May and into June, which would be the current year's budget rather than planning for next year. um we figured we would take the opportunity to get those done early rather than waiting until the next budget year starts. So we have to attack that as a budget supplement here versus planning for out of next year's budget.
101So that is the majority of the increase there. On the general fund side above that we just had some u more insignificant overruns in a couple different areas there. um audit services, some of our uh general um maintenance and repairs. The elementary building electricity, we've already adjusted this once because of some rate increases. Um we didn't quite get enough there, so we are looking at another increase of about $7,000 there. And then the other two uh items were being impacted here with the last couple months of our school year by increased fuel costs. So, um, we are having to supplement the budget, uh, there for fuel and for our transportation. >> I see they showed up for the high school parking lot, it looks like, huh? They're ready to go. >> They plan. Are they
102kicking the kids out here sooner than later or they wait until >> Yeah, that portion of it with the the concrete there was a a small detail that we wanted to get done a little bit in advance of the asphalting which should be >> the Tuesday after late after Memorial Day possibly that they would be coming >> busy project. >> Yeah. And and the middle school the rooftop units came a little early. They're there. They weren't supposed to come till the end of the month, but they're there. So they're in the parking lot taking up some space, but we're rather be early than late. So, uh, we're glad that they're that they're willing to get us done early. So, >> so for the middle school, does that mean we're have some bigger we hope to
103have some better regulation in our temperature at the middle school? >> And so, you'll see us talking on next year's budget and uh, building committee that we'll have another group of rooftop units and then we'll have replaced all the rooftop units at the middle school uh, and their entire new roof all within these next two years. So, >> we'll have that entire campus will have all new equipment. Um, so we really hope that we'll have them in a really good spot. >> All right. Any questions on the supplemental budget? All right. Well, that goes into our next um tenative capital outlay budget plan, which is then just following um about the prelim budget for 2627. I won't mention too many things in here other than u the bu building committees goes through this this three-page
104document. The $3 million that we spend on capital outlay projects uh varies from year to year. But what it always has in it every year is uh the normal maintenance stuff. I want people to realize we never short change the district by doing big projects. We just plan well for them. For example, the desks that that get replaced, we have a a cycle in every building for new desks, new carpet, paint, general maintenance items that we always do, and that's never at risk just because we're doing a $300,000, uh, you know, uh, parking lot project or something like that. So, uh, our, uh, computer project, our security, uh, processes, our curriculum for Mrs. Johnson. All of those folks are are are basically uh items that are set in the budget. We just have to change
105the amounts from year to year. And then we look one to five years down the road to talk about big projects. So, as Mr. Coacher said, this year parking lot, rooftop units, roof at the middle school, um all came up and they all ended up kind of plopping in right here at the end. Uh next year's projects you'll hear us talk about is concession stand at the uh uh at the football field. We're going to add restrooms to the concession stand so folks don't have to walk all the way across the football field to go to find the restrooms out there. Uh we've got other things on our 5-year plan that would include the track resurfacing project or the auxiliary gym walkway that you've heard us talk about. Those are all on a piece of
106paper that we're planning for. We just have to find out when they fit into the budget appropriately and that's when you'll hear us talk about them, you know, saying we're going to move it up to year two or we're moving it back to year four because it's just not in the cards. But what I do want you to remember from our discussion is that, you know, um there are all the the small general items that we see every day like a new lawnmowers or a new uh sweeper for the elementary or or book orders, things like that. Those are those are in safe. well established things in our budget that don't get bumped. So, >> thank you. Mr. Kosher, you want to keep talking about the prelim budget for next year? >> Yeah, we'll roll
107right into that. Um by law we have to provide preliminary budget in May and then we will continue the discussion here uh in in June and then um really hammer home a lot of the details of it uh at the July hearing that we will have to have um just some really high level things here um fund by fund in our general fund we do still have our $880,000 opt out that is in place here uh again this year which is a a key to our general fund budget. We got a 1.4% state formula uh increase u from the state. Um unfortunately that 1.4% doesn't cover the increase there doesn't cover enough uh to cover the decrease in what we're reducing for our student count. Um last year, if you remember, we passed a budget
108of estimate of 13 or 1,340 students. We ended up at 1,35 students. This this year we are looking at a budget of 1,280 students is where we are going to uh estimate that. Um we hope that we end up higher than that, but uh that is that's what we're building our re revenue based off of. Um we also have incorporated in that a $300,000 transfer into the general fund from the capital outlay fund. If you recall from those years that we were spending down ESSER and trying to stay underneath that cap, we paid a lot of expenses out of general fund that could have been paid out of different funds. So, this would be looking at sort of reversing that and and bringing that back into the general fund from capital outlay. Um in capital
109outlay we do uh we are continuing to look at um areas that we have either ors that ones that traditionally had been or or at least for the past few years had been general fund expenses looking at moving those to capital outlay. Um one of those examples is the 15% of our bus transportation that we moved over. Another of those items is just brought to us next year uh through legislation that passed this current year, which is property insurance premiums that uh passed that we are now able to take that property insurance premiums out of capital outlay rather than paying that out of general fund. Uh we think that that makes a lot of sense just because you are really protecting your buildings and your capital assets with that that uh property insurance. So, why
110wouldn't you be able to pay that out of cap capital outlay? Well, now we can. Um, couple of different factors went into uh Dr. Alvie and I discussed, you know, do we look at moving that way this this current year right away? And and we were thinking maybe not uh right off the bat, but couple of things that we have working for us here. In uh Capital Outlet, we do have uh some obligations for debt that will be falling off after this year. It's $120,000 per year that we will make the final payment of and then that'll no longer be there. So that frees up some ongoing dollars every year that we can put towards that. The other item there is that our valuation in the district increased by 17.8% in this past year. A
111lot of that is new growth in the district. Some of that is just um looking at the appraised values of existing uh properties. We are capped based on current legislation both on the growth and on that um the uh reappraisals. Uh so we are capped pretty much at 6% increase in the capital revenue. However, even at a 6% increase, that's substantial dollars that sort of open up to us. Now, that's, you know, even if we had the opportunity to to increase by 17 uh percent, we likely wouldn't even want to just because of the tax impact that that would have. Uh but we it still does allow us to uh increase our revenue while keeping the levy uh pretty much steady for uh that capital outlay fund. For special education, we're actually sitting in a
112pretty good spot there as well. Um couple of different reasons for that. Number one being that even though we're seeing a decrease in our um uh count for our students uh as a whole, we are actually holding steady with our special education student count. Um then we also did get some uh valuation increases. So we are able to take advantage of that a little bit as well. And then um probably the largest factor here is that as we are spending um spending down on what we had been holding as excess reserves, we are actually getting more and more state aid every year because we are uh had still been sort of penalized by having excess reserves in our special education fund. Well, we've been paying that down every year to the point where now that
113general that special education state aid continues to rise. Uh so we are in a pretty good spot with that uh fund as well. For our debt service fund, really the only thing that I wanted to highlight is this is the uh debt service payments for our elementary school bond. And through most of the discussion that happened prior to the bond election, uh it was centered around $1.6 uh dollar per,000 of valuation that would likely be impacted there for a tax increase. Well, based on what our current valuation is, this would actually be 1.11 levy uh as opposed to the 1.6 which had been advertised quite a bit there. So, uh good news as that continues to have less and less of an impact um on each of the taxpayers for food service fund. really not
114a lot to discuss there because as as our student numbers decrease that just means that we are paying less money to our contractor for that. So um it it sort of works itself out uh in the end there and for our enterprise fund which is our driver's education and preschool program. Driver's ed is pretty much self-sufficient. uh our preschool program. We are partnering more with the Boys and Girls Club this year and that's had a pretty good impact so far on our registrations. We will see how that works uh this current year as far as uh the the number of students enrolled and how that impacts the finances of that program. So overall, I think we're in a pretty good spot. We'll get more into the weeds on this here in a couple of months.
115Um the the general fund is an area that uh the the key number there will be the student count and we'll just have to wait and until next fall to see where we go with that. Right. Thank you. Any questions on that prelim budget? All right. Um, moving on then we have our um 20 2627 school district hearing date time and place. Do we need to read the notice of the hearing? >> Uh, we you don't need to read it exactly, but this would be to set that as July 13th, I believe. I'm trying to find it here. >> At 6:30, which would be pretty much corresponding to how we've done it the last couple of years. It would just be a half an hour before our reorganization meeting and it would be here um
116yeah on the 13th of July. >> Sounds great. All right. I think here if I did it right we could take a motion for items A through L. Skipping Hang on. Skipping skipping M. Right. Because that's just acknowledgement of the hearing. We don't of the district budget. We don't need a motion on that. Is that correct? >> You did one last year. Thank you. >> We did. Okay. All right. We can make it easy then and go through items A through N. Take a motion. I have a first by Mark. I have a second by Ryan. All those in favor say I. >> Post. Same sign. Motion passes. Uh next up here then we have our your report, Dr. Eli. >> Yes. Uh lots of thank yous again as we get near the end of
117the year. Thanks to all of our staff for a great year. Really uh you know it's winding down fast. Thanks to the seniors. uh they have uh practice on Thursday for their final day of the final event which will be graduation on Saturday. So um yeah, thanks to all the supporters who came out for our awards day. Um this last week uh there's a lot of lot of scholarship opportunities in this community and and and they came uh probably 25 people were on stage offering scholarships to kids because of their grades or their attendance or activities they were in or their future plans. But um lots and lots of great accolades for our graduates there and really want to thank the community because our kids get a really good opportunity to earn scholarships while they're
118at our school district which is great. Uh kind of a special thanks to Michelle from LSI and Mr. Kosher for working out the details of our summer food service program. Uh at this point we're planning to be at the middle school uh starting uh May 26th uh right after uh Labor Day or Memorial Day, excuse me. um and go through August 12th. Um and then there'll be, you know, a couple days off there for uh July 4th, which will be on the July 3rd Friday, things like that. But those will be posted. So, thanks for their work with that. Uh thanks to the elementary student council and the junior um history class for participating in the 250 year celebration and flag raising uh that was held uh last week. Uh that was pretty neat to
119see a giant flag uh representing South Dakota and America's birthday at 250 uh over at the um uh gas station on the west side of town and that's a big flag and our kids got to be a part of that. That was pretty neat. Um, thank you to also Representative Kassen, uh, for last a year ago, he had was initial sponsor for House Bill 1092, which was, uh, a $500,000 allocation to pay student teachers in the state. Well, we had 17 student teachers this year, and they each got a chance to to get some money. It ended up being about $180 a semester. So, if you did two semesters with us, you got $360. Uh, so that was just free money given it to them by the state of South Dakota for being an educator
120in South Dakota, which we appreciated. Uh, all of those folks did subbing for us and made money from subbing opportunities throughout the time, but it was just another thing that was a one-time shot that the state gave. We wrote the grant, got it, and then we were able to pass it directly to those student teachers. So, uh, congratulations to Nathan Vic and Caleb Chasinghawk for being named National Merit Scholar Finalist. That's a huge attribute to those uh two gentlemen and of course the the education they got at at our school district. Um I think if you've got that picture, Daniel, you can put up the picture of our welding class that was at the uh that earned the top honors. There you go. shows some of our kids that placed specifically, but also that our
121group that went over and did an expo, a welding expo at Yankton and came back with top honors from the CTE uh welding exhibition, which was pretty neat. Uh we continue our attendance matters campaign. You've heard me talk about it throughout the year. We'll continue into next year with more meetings with families, more engagement with kids, radio advertisements, maybe another commercial with USD. Who knows? We'll figure out some things to try to shine a light on this. but just really trying to talk about what's important with education and and attendance. And I guess if you would throw up that last another picture, there's what really matters is uh at the elementary, Mr. Jacobs and Mrs. Peterson awarding the second grade who had the best overall attendance in the elementary with a special Spongebob day where
122they could throw water sponges at the principles for their their good attendance. So, uh they did different things at the middle, high school, and elementary. This just happened to be one we caught a picture of yet last week. So, thanks to our teachers and our principles for being good sports and really promoting uh positive uh attendance miss messaging to kids. Uh important dates coming up the last few days of school here. Native American honor ceremony is this Wednesday at Apprentice Park at 4:00. If you're interested, we have Indian tacos for community meal afterwards. Short program to honor eighth graders and uh graduating seniors this year, which is always fun. That same evening, seniors get a balora discussion by the ministerial society at the Dakota um at the pizza ranch Dakota what whatever their >> event
123center Dakota event center and so that you're welcome to attend that as well. Graduation at the SCSC this Saturday at 1:30 we're excited about that and of course the last day of school is coming up next week with the 20th uh with an early dismissal for kids and that's the day of our staff celebration. And of course, the board and and others are welcome to come out and we'll honor our retirees and uh years of service folks plus our classified employee of the year people as well as district teacher of the year folks. And uh then event there'll be two staff days then the 21st and 22nd uh for the staff to finish up their year and we will be done on May 22nd. Just one more kickoff for the uh Boys and Girls Club.
124If you haven't purchased your raffle ticket, maybe Rachel, maybe you and Mark were going to talk about it. This is a great time to do it. Um, and there's just a few more days left of that raffle. So, I'll let you guys finish up that infomercial when you get to that bus. >> Yeah, continue on with board reports. There's four days left to get that Bronco. So, if you have a new driver next year, great new Bronco. Um, but also again, locally, AMS um contributed again to another beautiful shed. So, it's out in front of the club right now. um from being a previous winner. I do have to tell you the secret is buying your ticket at the end. So um number one is buying from Dr. Quail. That's another ticket winner. I'm He's
125a big winner. But now that the QR codes, you can just go right online and take that. Uh but the last >> Yep. >> So uh doing really well for that. But um on the Boys and Girls Club, just looking at transitioning over here till um to summer. They're closed for a few days before they open up, I believe, on the 26th. Um, kicking off some early childhood, so three year olds. That'll be great. And then, of course, with the partnership with the uh preschool program. So, looking forward to some opportunities there. I know a lot of good chatter about the opportunity to have that childcare assistance funding available for them. So, hopefully that opens up um a lot of opportunities. And then we had finance meeting, but these guys pretty much were at like
126seven of your items tonight. So, any questions on those? Um, any other um committee meetings or outside? >> Well, you pretty much covered everything on the building. >> Yep. >> Yes. >> She's also took all the money for that. >> Essentially, the job associated school board of directors met for their annual meeting just finalized the year about two weeks ago and things look good. We had two employees that left. We didn't fill those positions. They were tasks were taken over by existing staff until it became a problem, which it did not become a problem. Good. >> So, we have money ahead. The building is fully leased out. So, >> we're in the money. >> Staff at the associate school board group. Okay. >> Yep. Sorry. >> Oh, sorry. >> Uh, yeah, I was three days.
127A lot of it was, to be honest, it was rather boring. I got a chance to race across South Dakota so I could have dinner with my nephew and did some laundry and jumped on a plane to North Carolina for the Boys and Girls Club. And that was the fun. >> Yep. >> Got the shirt to prove it. >> Yep. Wonderful. >> Anything else? >> Uh yeah, uh VPSF met a couple weeks ago. Uh some fun news. They got a $5,000 grant from the Dakota Hospital Foundation for the Angel Fund Hygiene Corner. Um also talked about their tailgate fundraiser for the fall. Uh tenatively looking at September 25th. I don't think that's locked in, but I think it's at least pencled in. >> Yeah. And uh also they plan to provide some funds uh to
128sponsor a couple students for the Germany trip uh this summer who had a financial need. So uh was happy to see that too. So we had a nice report from uh um Lenny and Cammy written report for that. >> All right then. Um we can now move on then to our financial reports. Um item A funds. Mr. Go >> financial report for the end of the month is in your packet. Um don't have a whole lot to highlight but would be willing to take any questions you might have. Um if you do pay attention to the um the end of the month fund balances that are on the bottom of that um summary sheet. I will note that though some of those that's the lowest they'll be for a little while because we did already
129receive our uh property tax payment here from Klay County which is one of the more substantial uh sources of revenue that we have for for the year. So uh those will be quite a bit higher once we get into once we close for next month. >> Okay. That's one one more thing just to add one more thing as we're thinking about calendars. Um, in the fall we typically when the principles report back sometime in early August, we typically try to have that 4hour schoolboard retreat. Oh, did you have that down? >> I just wrote. >> Oh, anyway, I'll be sending out a doodle or something that would just ask if you have a preference, but in the past we've done a Tuesday from 8 till noon at the high school where you guys have an
130opportunity to meet with the the principles. You have a little uh chat with them about what they're seeing or plan to see in the fall. And then we have our initial school board retreat that day. So, uh, I'll be sending some information out about that. >> Wonderful. Any questions on the funds? Not. I would take a motion to approve. >> First by Jacob. >> Second by Ryan. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Post. Same sign. Motion passes. Um, next up here is any future agenda items, which that was mine, too, but retreat here. So, all right. Seeing none, uh, we have two upcoming meetings here. Uh, June 8th, followed by July 13th. We are in need of an executive session this evening. South Dakota Codified Law-125-2-1, uh, which is personnel. Um, I would
131take a motion to enter executive session here at 8:37. >> First by Mark, second, >> second by Carol. All in favor say I. I. >> Um, same motion passes. We are now in executive session.