001I call this meeting here to order on April 13th, 2026. Kevin, if you could please take roll call. Johnson. Here. Olsen. Here. Skelton. Here. Bosshard. Here. Winegar. Here. All present. Thank you. If you please rise and join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. 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 ask that you refrain from listing any student by name or any personnel by name. Is there anyone who
002would like to address the board? And as a reminder, no action will be taken this evening. All right. I'll go ahead then and move on to our visitors to be heard. Um we're going to kind of skip around here. Uh Mrs. Olsen, if you'd like to talk about um our hearing tonight. Tonight I'm just going to go over our Title VI grant public hearing that we have to hold for the easy grant. Um we don't have any solid numbers yet. Last year they granted us uh $16,675. So I'm assuming it'll probably be somewhere around that same dollar amount. And then Kevin, Damon, and I will get together and allocate uh salary and then um all the other areas such as um the out of district drummers, the student consumables, um student related activities, professional development
003as well. And then we're also using USD the grant there to help fund the quilts and some other things. Um Trinity Red Day was our Native American Liaison. She has taken on um a program at USD, so she'll be leaving us at the end of the school year. So we'll be searching um for another liaison to work with us next year. But she's I feel like she's set up a really good stage for us to continue to work with USD and um have those those outlets for drummers, um artists. This year we had um a few different people that came in that she managed to find and let's see. They were Oh, one was an author, one was a a musician that came in. And then uh we have a drummer group coming again uh
004for the um ceremony at the end of the year for the high school graduation, which will be on May 13th at 4:00. We're going to hold it at Prentice Park unless weather um causes us to go inside. Uh I feel like Trinity this year has done a really good job of trying to reach out to parents and get parents more involved. Our first parent meeting went very well. And then our second meeting, we only had one person show up again. So I'm not We're not quite sure what the barrier is there. Um the two ladies that we've had recently have been using native language and trying to get them to come and we're just not making any traction with that. So we'll have to make some adjustments next year. I know Damon and I talked
005about maybe just um doing one for the entire year, put it somewhere in the mid-year, um and do maybe a meal or something with that. We're just not sure what the barrier is there. Uh we did drop a little bit from last year. We had 73 506 forms. We've dropped to 66, but a lot of that is due to move in or move out. Um we've had a few kids go home school. And so we're thinking that that's probably why we dropped down a little bit, not necessarily that um you know I guess we're also not getting more 506 forms back to kind of make up for those people that have moved on. Um so that's a little bit of a concern as well. Um with our high school graduation this year, we're also going
006to add in eighth graders. And I know um this will be something new, but we're going to give them sweet breaths. Um and so they will be the the first to go in our ceremony. Um and Trinity will hand that out and recognize them as moving on into the high school. And then we'll follow that up with our seniors. And currently we have 10 graduates this year that look like we're going to be able to hold the ceremony for. So And then I believe Sarah Sully is doing the meal with her church this year. So that'll be good. I think I've got three questions for you. You have three? Okay. 506 Yes. Well, what's the purpose of that form? That identifies what tribe they come from. And so and and then also lets us know
007that they are part of a tribe so we can allocate funds towards them. So that would be only for new students. Uh not necessarily. We have a lot in the district. Um I can't remember exactly how many. I want to say around 150 total in the district. Um but getting parents to fill out those forms, sometimes they just don't. I don't know if they're scared. We don't know if they don't want to identify themselves. We're just not 100% sure why. Second question. Uh the money you're expecting, is that federal or state money? Federal. Okay. The other thing you were saying is including the eighth graders is a wonderful idea cuz that will motivate them to move on to high school. Right. That's our hope. That's our hope. And that was Trinity's idea was to bring
008bring that too. Oh, and then the other thing that we did this year, um kindergarten through second grade we provided classroom books, one classroom book um that talked about the buffalo. And when I talked with the teachers, a lot of them used that within one of their lessons. So So hopefully we can extend that into third through fifth and then hopefully middle school. So Thanks for all your good work. Thanks. Anybody else? Okay. Thank you. Good evening. Uh next up here, uh looks like Mr. Fry talking about bell schedules and ACT scores. Good evening. >> [sighs] >> Um I'll start here with this handout. A little over four years ago, we started the process at the high school of examining our course structure, taking a look at our courses carefully, identifying within the course what
009we felt were the key concepts and the essential learnings in each course, and making sure that as we identified those that they corresponded with the uh standards that applied to each course. And I asked each staff member to document these because they didn't appear anywhere um amongst the staff er within a document anywhere. When we were hiring a new teacher, we didn't have sort of a road map that we could provide that teacher. We wanted to do that. So um we started down that road and given the fact that we had been identified as a school uh for targeted uh assistance by Department of Ed in part because of uh math scores and and things of that nature, we thought we should dig deep into that. And we have began uh the process of exploring
010the response to intervention process uh which is also sometimes referred to as multi-tiered systems of support or MTSS. So if you hear RTI or MTSS thrown around, they really are are two different labels for the same type of support structures that you can put in place in a school system to support students who struggle to learn. >> [snorts] >> Uh few years back, uh we found out we were going to be the recipient of a four-year $100,000 grant um that was going to provide us uh funds that we could then use to provide additional training to staff in these areas. As we explore response to intervention and multi-tiered systems of support, one of the things that became very clear to myself and uh the group of teachers and counselors who were part of what came
011to be known as our our RTI guiding coalition is we did not have completely a a bell structure that worked ideally to support students in the way it needed to. There needed to be some adjustments. Some There was thankfully some things already built into it. Those things we didn't feel we were utilizing as as uh sufficiently as we could. Uh there were a few other things that it needed. So what you have before you is what we have gone back and forth on, looked at several times. Um, and then ultimately, a week or so ago, I had the staff vote on on two similar formats. And we settled on this one. And really, the staff was 50/50 divided, which was really great to see that they didn't really have a strong preference either way, uh,
012because both bell structures that we were looking at provided the supports that we needed. It was just the times of day that were different. >> [snorts] >> What you see in the top is our is is our Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday seven-period day schedule, very similar to what we do now. The only difference is, you'll see a period in there called Tanager Time, which, uh, happens right before the lunches, which are embedded in in in a lengthened fourth period of the day. Not unlike what we do now, except what we do now is we insert the Tanager Time schedule, uh, once a week every couple weeks. So, we would insert it maybe two Tuesdays a month. This makes it every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of every week. Um, to create that 30-minute Tanager Time, we essentially borrowed
0135 minutes, or just a little under 5 minutes. I think it was 4 minutes off each class period. Takes us from a 47-minute period to a 43-minute period. Or, excuse me. Back up. Takes us from a 52- to a 47-minute period. Uh, so we borrowed 5 minutes. What that schedule, like I said, basically currently exists. The one change we made is we moved our Tanager Time from, instead of after second period, we moved it one period later to after third. Currently, our Heritage class, uh, is our only is is one of it it's our double period class, and it runs from second to and through third period. So, we didn't want to break up Heritage in the middle of the periods and the kids to Tanager Time and then back to Heritage. >> [snorts] >>
014So, that would be our Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday schedule. Our block days would remain Thursday, Friday at this time. The blocks had been 95 minutes long in the current schedule, which anybody who teaches in a block schedule will tell you, even 95 minutes is getting on the long side. Um, we I knew we had room to carve some minutes out of our schedule on on the block side. And, uh, what you will see that we've done here is we've taken and borrowed a few minutes off off the block both on Thursday and Friday. We want to keep a parallel bell schedule here, so that Thursday and Friday work the same as they do now. Our even blocks meet on Thursday. Our odd blocks will meet on Friday. This takes the blocks down to a fairly comfortable
015about 85 minutes or so. And what it what it really allows for us to do here is build in 30 minutes of staff collaboration time from 8:30 to 9:00. Now, our bus students will continue to arrive by 8:30 like they do now. They will continue to handle that time as they do now, uh, which is they're a they're in the building, they're in the cafeteria, they can go to their lockers just as before. But this collaboration time is important because it carves out a a very definite period of time each week where staff are going to meet with one sole purpose, and that's to meet specifically, not for department meetings, not for business meetings, not for to-do list kind of meetings. This is a very targeted meeting where they are going to meet in instructional
016teams about kids. And specifically, which students are struggling to learn in their classes. Freshman teachers will work with other freshman teachers. Sophomore teachers will work with other sophomore teachers. As needed, content area teachers can work together on some items, but what we really want to do is get teachers who share the same students in the same room together to talk about how best to reach that student who's struggling. The advisory period that appears on Thursday, that doesn't appear at any other time in the week, is is a unique period in that this period will be used in ninth and 10th grade, um, as we do and it'll essentially function as a once-a-week meeting. It's the same group of kids meeting with the same teacher that they have for their Tanager Time, but instead of this
017being Oh, by the way, I should have mentioned this before. The Tanager Time where you see that located on the schedule, that's a 30-minute, essentially, drop everything and study period. That is going to, in the first year of implementation, 2026-2027, be quiet study hall. It's going to look like like it does during the finals week in the building during that period. No students in the hallway, no students running errands, no students doing anything but focusing on on instruction or on their homework or whatever needs to be done that day. Um, but in year two, we we it's our goal to make this more targeted. So, the math teacher that really needs to meet with a certain student or a small group of students can assign those students to meet with them during Tanager Time, and
018those students will know in advance, "Today during Tanager Time, I'm going to the math teacher." Still won't be any travel during the period cuz the goal will be they will know in advance they have to go to that teacher. But we're going to need about a year to figure out uh, the logistics of getting those kids where they have to be ahead of time so that they all know. Uh, but we'll we there there actually are software solutions out there for that. So, we're going to look into that. Uh, but the advisory period is different. Um, in the in the, um, in the ninth and 10th grade advisory period, we're going to use this as a time period for students to build their personal learning plans, their four-year high school plan for what courses they're
019going to take and what year they're going to take it in. This is going to function basically as an opportunity for the teachers to interact with the students about their grades, about their transition from middle school to high school, about the challenges they face just as students in this environment. In the junior year and late in the sophomore year, the focus will shift towards preparation for the ACT, and in the junior year, this will be one period a week that they are going to meet for intensive ACT preparation. And what we have determined is students will rotate you will have the same Tanager Time teacher in ninth grade and in 10th grade. In 11th grade, you will go to a different teacher, and we're going to have two science, two math, two English teachers there,
020and they're going to be our specialty ACT trainers. They're going to be their sole purpose is to get the junior class ready for the ACT. And so that those those will be the junior advisors. The senior advisors will be a group of teachers then who are going to kind of head our senior experience or our senior capstone, which is going to kick off this next year as well. Every senior will receive a half credit towards graduation for completing a senior experience or a senior capstone, uh, piece. We will also, um, incorporate our current internship project into this, too. So, seniors who complete the internship process are already doing what will be part of this, but it'll allow one of four options for each senior to choose. They'll work with that senior advisor on on doing
021it, and essentially, they're going to have three-quarters of the their senior year to to complete that project. And this is something that's being done in a lot of schools our size and around the state already, anyway. Uh, but we'll kind of pattern ourselves after, uh, Tea, Harrisburg, some of the schools up north that that have been headed down this road a few years longer than we have and learn from their experiences on it. So, on the back side of this schedule, I gave you kind of the glossary of terms, Tanager Time, schedule table, advisory, and collaboration to kind of familiarize yourself for what the exact purpose of that is in the bell schedule. Um, I'm not immune to the fact that I've heard over over my time and my tenure here in Vermilion that the
022high school schedule is something different every day. It's it's different all the time, and you just never know what's going on at the high school. This should eliminate some of the guessing. Um, doesn't mean that there still won't be a need for some changing schedules here and there, uh, on days when we have a special speaker and we can only get them at 1:00 or something like that. Uh, those kind of things happen, but, um, this should allow us to really standardize the beginning of the week and the end of the week, uh, pretty uniquely and and keep it quite stable. So, I'm pretty pleased with it. I think we're going to we're going to get, um, our students should benefit greatly from this structure, but I also believe that we've addressed some of the
023things that that we believe we could be doing better by finding time in the in the regular day to to make that happen. I know that was a very lengthy explanation, but any quick questions here before I go on to the other bit of news? Very good. Okay. The other bit of news I wish to share with you is as you are aware, the our juniors switched from taking the smarter balanced assessments this year to the ACT and that was a statewide change that happened. It only affects the junior class, but the goal was to try to see if maybe scores would look a little bit different if if senior juniors, seniors to be, saw saw the test that they were taking as something meaningful and something that they could benefit from. I'm pleased to
024report that our our complete junior class was tested. We we were able to test 100% of the students in the junior class and Vermilion High School received a composite average score on the ACT of 19. Okay, that um in years past we have boasted that we've had a a building score of of 22 23 sometimes even as high as 24 and when you deal with a handful of college bound students and you're going to you're going to see those numbers are artificially higher because you are you are testing your most astute students and often times they're taking the test more than once. This was a one shot score. Okay, if these students took it again it wouldn't change Vermilion High School score, but my hope and and the hope of a lot of us in
025the building was that that that we were able to score north of an and we did and and I'm thrilled with that. I think we've got both a good starting point and a good bar to shoot for for coming years. Um I I I can't say enough positive about our juniors and the challenge they took on in in being the first class to sort of set this bar and rising to it, but the one of the best bits of news I want to share here is the individual score breakdowns. Our English and reading scores have always been good. Our composite on this test and again remember every single member of the junior class was tested. We had a English score of 18.1 average and a reading score of 20.1 average, so right at 19.1 if
026you combine English and reading. Science and math, our science score composite was a 19.7. Our math score was a 19.0, so our STEM average was a 19.6. Now, you might recall that well, in my entirety of the years I've been here in Vermilion and I'm sure several years preceding that with smarter balanced scores, our math scores have been low. They've been suppressed they've been behind the state average. And I've stood before you every year during that time as we reviewed scores and said we really think it's the test. I'm here to tell you tonight it was the test. Okay. [snorts] Our math scores tucked right in here nice and neat with our science and our English language arts scores, right where it belongs. Our students are just as capable in math as any other students
027in the state and probably more and the the numbers back that up. So, I feel our math teachers have been vindicated and at the same time I'm just I'm again, I'm I'm very proud of the effort that this junior class made. They embraced the challenge and I believe they really stepped up and did a heck of a job. Thank you. Just as Mr. Fry is wrapping up there, you know, just a uh kind of a shout out to the high school staff and to uh Mr. Husk and Mr. Fry because of you know, looking at our data and looking at some of the points from our surveys and things, we we wanted to shine a light on some of our graduating kids, attendance. Um and so we're looking at ways to improve those experiences in
028the school and that's sort of what led to this this schedule change. The schedule at the beginning and the end didn't change any of the time of our start or end times, so we had some constraints to work within there. Uh but the what I will be fascinated to see will be the Tanger time in the advisory over the course of time, how will that improve the student experience and relationships with teachers and will we have students that are better prepared in those content areas or better prepared in their plan through high school as a result of building in dedicated more dedicated time than we currently have. So, I think those are two nice pieces of that. The ACT was another pleasant surprise and there was a lot of work behind the scenes with that
029from the high school team to make that happen on a day where we couldn't have school in the building and the board let us have remote learning day, a learning day for students that might have needed some time or maybe were failing a class. Those students came to one portion of our building, we shut off all the bells and the high school staff worked specifically with the juniors that day, so there's a lot of things happening that day and we we appreciate the parents and the kids and the staff being flexible cuz it appears that we we got the desired outcome as a result, so this is the first year, it's a good baseline and we'll just hopefully improve from there, so. I appreciate this schedule. As I look through it, I am just reminded
030of the conversations that have been had over the years about the appropriate use of a block schedule and addressing some of these advisory topics and are we having the conversations that we should be having with our high school students and so I um I can appreciate the amount of time that this took and to be delivering these things to our students during dedicated time when they are in our school, so thank you for that and also also congratulations as you were reading through those scores and math was the last one and yeah, that's been the one that has always given us a little pause, so thank you for that for sharing that news and thank you to all of our teachers. I was just trying to recall where we at in that what year in
031that grant in that four year grant? Are we that >> [laughter] >> Okay. Okay, thank you for that. All right, next up here we'll move on to Mrs. Sanderson here with uh summer school middle school. I'm guessing you just came from soccer, right? Yeah, we I was all over the place. I'm wearing my nice bright shirt. >> [laughter] >> Um so, of course I left all of my stuff in the other vehicle, but summer school we're moving forward with that. I think we're in a good place. I kind of I have my list now of kiddos that I'm going to start reaching out to. We're still at about 20. Um that's that list again starts with attendance and those that are missing 20 or more days and then going through those and looking at why
032they missed those days cuz again there's very valid reasons why kids miss large chunks of days and so we want to make sure that we're still honoring that. Um I'm looking at that, looking at their grades specifically in their tested classes, so reading, language arts, math and then science just as those nothing against our history classes, nothing against our encores, but we have to start somewhere. Um and so starting in those tested classes is a good way to reinforce to the kids, to the families, to the parents that it's the attendance is important and then these classes we're getting tested on it. We we need you here, we want you doing well, we want you feeling comfortable when you take these tests. Um and then I think that's the conversation I'm trying to have with
033these middle schoolers whether it's getting missing work in or whether it's for talking about summer school is we want to continue to set you up for success in the future, next year, two years down the road, high school when they are taking the ACT and doing all these things, the better we can prepare them in middle school the better we are setting them up for success down the line. Um so, that's kind of where that focus is there. I have a handful of teachers that have expressed interest in it, which is fantastic. Um we're looking at kind of aligning time wise with I was talking with John with his and his starts kind of in May that week after we get out, so start right then and do our four weeks and do mornings, go
034into lunch if as long as we have that lunch program and then we can easily teach them classes, feed them food and then send them on their way so that they're not they still get that afternoon time as kids in the summer because that's important, too. Um and then I've started having some of those conversations with kiddos and they are receptive to do They're like, so if I start doing my work now, if I if I get my grades up, if I do those, then can I not do summer school?" Like, that's that is our goal. Like, that's where we want we want you to Obviously, we don't want you to wait until the very end to do this. Um but as we as we build this program as well, that becomes an easier thing,
035too, because then kids know what's expected. We have it built, and so I'm I'm looking forward to this summer, but then I'm also looking forward to future summers where we can really expand and build it, and hopefully see that growth from kids, and ideally, the focus during the school year so that we don't have as many kids over the summer that maybe need that. So, that's where we're at. Questions? Just uh as a follow-up, um the reason uh Ms. Anderson's here again is because you this was introduced a month ago, and she's been working with kids and families to kind of familiarize them that this is this is a potential that's coming. Of course, you want to continue to have discussions with staff and parents and talk about um how this could look. We will
036come back in May and ask for a formal um approval from the school board, so we'll have one more meeting on this in the meantime. So, if you've got questions or specific things that you're looking for that you need answers for to make an educated decision, reach out to Ms. Anderson or I, and we'll we'll make sure to get it. But ultimately, it's about students being ready for the next level, which she articulated. Uh but it's also to help our middle school staff because they've expressed some frustration that we've got kids that aren't attending class or that they're not prepared or they're not doing work, and they go on to the next class, which ultimately slows the teacher and the whole entire class down while they're trying to keep uh one, two, five students caught
037up. So, it's very challenging for our staff. We'd like to be able to provide an opportunity where kids can get some recovery, get some skills during the summer months that will allow them to jump right back in with their graduating cohort, and and and hopefully um pick up good skills, and then they go on to the next level, have success, and see that this can be contagious. Sometimes failure is contagious. We want success to be contagious as well. So, uh again, thanks to to Becky and her staff for for looking at ways to help make that happen, and then we'll come with you guys next month with a formal proposal at at the May meeting. So, I think the other thing that I'm hoping is that it will validate to the kids of why working
038hard in middle school is important. Um the number of times that I hear, "Well, it's just middle school. These classes don't count anyway. I'll lock in when I get to high school." And this always hurts. "I'll lock in when I get to high school." Um but the reality is they're building habits right now, and in middle school, like they they're in that transition from elementary to middle school where they're maybe getting the like some serious homework um that they didn't have in middle school. And so, this is where they're building those habits of what does studying look like? What does homework look like? You know, where where is your own personal acceptance of doing the work, and am I going to hold myself accountable to it? And we're building those habits, we're building those skills,
039and it's it's really hard to lock in in high school if you haven't been practicing it for 3 years. So, um but they don't understand that yet, so we have to find other ways to help make that important to them. So. All right, thank you. Thank you. All right. Um next up here, we're going to move on to our agenda approval and conflict disclosures. Um item A is our agenda changes. Dr. Albers, are there any changes this evening? >> No, the only change was um that we weren't able to get our Transform Ed folks here. They had a conflict, so they'll come in May and speak at that time. Wonderful. Um hearing that, I would take a motion to approve the agenda. I'll move. First by Mark, second by Jacob. All those in favor, say
040aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion passes. Uh next up here, we have indication of conflict of interest per South Dakota Codified Law SDCL 3-2-3. This is Rachel, and I have none. This is Carol, and I have none. This is Jake, and I have none. This is Mark, and I have none. This is Ryan, and I have none. Oh, wonderful. Um we'll be moving on here for our consent agenda. Um we have approval of our minutes, resignations, new hires, open enrollments, and bills. Um first up here, we have our minutes from March 9th. Um next at resignations, Garrett Olson, band instructor. Colby Colver, middle school wrestling. Paige Krell, sped aide. Olivia Grants, sped aide. Um Sarah Sevon, middle school student council. Kelly Stone, sped teacher. Now, I forgot to look. How many years is Kelly? 28.
041Um and I believe all within the Vermillion district. Is that correct? So, want to give a big shout-out uh to Kelly Stone for 28 years within the district. That's quite an amazing um time with us here. So, you'll be deeply missed. Um >> [clears throat] >> next up here, then we have Bridget Thill, first grade. Tiffany Jones, counselor. Linda Backes, sped aide. Kaylee Olson, sped aide. Kinsey DeHaven, sped aide. Let me ask you, lead nurse. Trinity Ready, Native American Liaison. Liam Schneider, behavior room aide. Jolene Smith, fifth grade. Paige Chapman and Brandy Wallen, junior advisors. Um as well as Sierra Sully, uh fifth grade. Um next up then for new hires, we have Lily Oh, thank you for putting that up there. Um Lily, now I can see what I'm really saying their names wrong.
042Um Lily Bischoff, chemistry. Uh Jenna Jones, lead custodian. Michaela Kleinsasser, sped aide. Charlotte Krell and Audrey Job, middle school council. Um Reagan Bye, head boys wrestling coach. Lucas Anglin, assistant wrestling coach. Uh followed by Kinsley Prescott, um speech-language pathologist. Um Zachary Van Meter, instructional music band director of bands. Uh Gretchen Solbrig, um summer school teacher. Uh Jasmine Heisinger, summer school substitute teacher. And then um Paige Chapman for summer school teacher. I think that is my complete list. Did I do a good job? Did a great job. What do you >> Just a reminder to everybody out there that this is uh an unusually long list, and it's typical this time of year that uh especially in our sped uh department that we lose a lot of our paras because some of them are college kids
043that are now going to be student teaching or doing other things. So, while some of these are staff that are moving on to different things, uh certified teachers, uh many of them are in our sped departments, and they're moving on to different places in education and other jobs as well. So, uh long list tonight, so good job. Um would anything like to be pulled from the consent agenda? If not, I would take a motion to approve. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Okay. Second. First by Carol, second by Ryan. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, motion passes. Thank you. Um next up here, we are not in need of any unfinished business, so we're moving on to new business. Uh the first thing we have here is approval of our facility agreement um
044with Vermillion Community Theatre. Um and while Sandy Dickinson is coming up here, we'll also do um item B, which is approval of the facility agreement with the VCT Youth Camp. Yes, I'll be presenting both. I'm Sandy Dickinson. I'm on the board of directors for Vermillion Community Theatre, and have been since we started. >> [laughter] >> That um and we have been in your uh theater uh for oh, I think 22, 23 years, ever since it opened. And so, uh we we really appreciate having that facility. Um I am uh presenting two requests. One is for um our summer production of Little Mermaid. Um that will be uh um July uh 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th. Um we will start rehearsal uh the end of uh of May, and then we'll do cleanup afterwards. So, we're
045asking for use from May 26th through July 18th. Then we're also asking for um use of the theater for our summer youth camp. Uh it's a day camp that runs um 10:00 to 2:30 um Monday through Friday for 1 week. And then on Friday night, we have a performance. Um Space Pirates is the show this year. Um [clears throat and cough] our partners for this uh are theaters uh 605. Um and that was pre previously Dakota um Dakota Theatre. Dakota Players with um the uh Black Hills Playhouse. That was their outreach. They've rebranded. And you'll be pleased to know that uh >> [clears throat] >> my daughter, Jennifer, is now heading up that program. So, we're very excited about that. Um So, we would be using the the the space, um which would be the
046theater, and um the auxiliary uh rooms like band and chorus, uh the green room, and then we would serve lunch in the uh commons. And we would go and get that lunch and bring it back for the uh for the kids. We have um slots for 50 kids. We already have 38 signed up, so we're excited about this program. Um in the past, for many years, uh the fees for the use of the facility have been waived by your organization, and we would ask that that happen again because the show Little Mermaid is very expensive. [laughter] I I would just to kind of go on with what Sandy's talking about. Yeah, she's correct. 22-23 years we've had a great partnership both with the the campers as well as the the VCT for the being able
047to put on a a great musical during the summer. And the only thing that we've ever asked is they do a great job of cleaning themselves, but we do assign a janitor to be present especially on those the nights of the performance to make sure restrooms and other things are kind of clean to a to the school standard. So um I I we would recommend that they we waive the fees again minus the the fees for any custodial fees which they've done in the past. Sure. >> [laughter] >> We wanted I was asked by our board to remind you that we in um in response to being able to use the facilities that we've been very active in improving the facilities over the time that we've had it. And this year we're looking at new
048monitors for both the pit and the green room. And um there is was um some of their sound stuff that they're working on. We're also working on two grants. One is um for a a a close captioning system for people that need it for for hearing. And the other one was for um another kind of hearing assistance. So we're working hard with those. Any other questions? We're so lucky to have such top-notch theater in our community. The productions and then the opportunities for for kids. So I'm in full support of your request. There's not very many things that kids and adults can do together as equals. And so we're working Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We'll save the date for that second weekend in July. So after the 4th of July, stick around Vermillion. Thank
049you, Sandy. I'll just get to the top next up here. We have approval of staff transfers. We have Kaylin Wagner, behavior room teacher. Douglas Weldo, high school sped teacher. Kim Berklund, junior kindergarten. And Laura Chandler, early childhood. And these are in placement of some of those earlier resignations and transfers you saw. And so these are internal candidates from within the district that wish to be transferred to another location and we would recommend you approve. All right. Next up here, if there aren't any questions, we'll move on to our item D which is approval of health rates for health insurance rates for 2026-2027 school year. Mr. Kocher. Yes, we approve this every year at this time. This year we took a 1% increase in our health insurance rates. We are with the NPIP pool. So we
050pooled our risk together with them. Some years we are helped by the pool, some years we helped the pool. This is one of those years that we had a pretty good claims run for our local district. We helped the pool out and that's why we were on one of the lower bands with the 1% increase. Remind me when we'll have our dental rates due. Do you have to approve those as well? We just received those. I believe we'll be finalizing them. We will likely have those for the next meeting. Thank you. Any questions on the NPIP? Right. Moving on to item E which is approval of our FY26 budget supplement number two. Mr. Kocher. Yes, this budget supplement is entirely with the capital outlay fund tonight. Um These fall into one of two categories. The
051first is additional things that we have taken on this year because we have had either donations or grant funds that have covered the cost of certain programs. We're doing some things at the middle school that through a grant with the partnership with the foundation public schools foundation that we're able to take advantage of some of the opportunities that they have there along with our athletic booster club being able to help with some of the athletic programs that we have in our district. The other item here for some of these additions are items that we had already always planned on taking on this summer or during this next school year. So they we had planned for them out of next year's budget. However, the way things are lining up, we're likely taking care of these in
052either May or June this year. So we are moving them forward to this current year's budget which is why we have to do a supplement for it rather than including it with the budget that we will pass in July for anything July 1 forward. So expenditures we're going to take on either way. It's just that we're going to get them done a little bit sooner rather than later. We still don't know we we've got a bid in here that we'll be looking at in a in a bit here for the high school parking lot. We don't know exactly when that work will take place. So you very well could have another supplement in front of you next month. But that would just be to take care of that work prior to the end of June
053rather than in July. Any questions regarding that? Be nice to see that high school parking lot get wrapped up as well. Good project to get completed. Next up here, we have item F, approval of Algebra 1 waiver. Every five years we're required to update our Algebra 1 waiver eligibility for students in eighth grade taking high school credit. So those folks that meet the criteria that Mrs. Anderson and the middle school math department has put together are eligible and this motion then gets signed and approved by the school board and then it goes on to the Department of Education for their approval. So this is a standard thing that you'll see about every four or five years on a board agenda. >> [snorts] >> Any questions? Perfect. I'm moving on here to our adult volunteers. Looks
054like we have three great volunteers helping with our spring sports. We have Annika Sorenson with track, Tara Oren with softball, and Christian Moser for softball. So thanks for getting those turned in and helping out. Busy spring here. Next up we have approval of surplus items. Yes, we have basically intro to business books and accounting books that have are being surplused out while we're updating curriculum. Thank you. Next up here, we have I guess more discussion on the high school parking lot asphalt bid. Those of the board members that have served on the building committee in the last couple years, namely this year, have heard us talk about the need to upgrade the high school parking lot. It's held up remarkably well over 20 years which is sort of unheard of at this point with with
055asphalt and things like that. But it is time for us to take that down and in your program in your packet there you notice that we went out to bids the last two weeks and we had eight bidders which you have in your board packet. And our lowest bidder was Ballard Asphalt out of Sioux Falls with a bid of $211,312.18. That will be to grind down the top surface of the of the asphalt in the entire high school parking lot, come back and reseal that. And we'll have a new parking lot, new striping. And it'll be uh as soon as we can get them in we'd prefer to be first on the list rather than last because if weather turns bad in the middle of summer and it gets wet, it could push into the
056start of school. So that's the budget supplement that Mr. Kocher was was referring to that we've given them a time frame in June that they could come and then a vacated window around the the theater time that they cannot be on campus and then a time after the theater's done that they could come back. So we're hoping that way obviously we hope we're in the first round in June and that we have a brand new parking lot to to celebrate all summer. So your motion tonight just gives us permission to move forward with Ballard Asphalt and complete that project. Since I'm not up to snuff with asphalt, what's the timeline for years it can last now? Is it about 10 six to seven years? >> every four to five we'll have to recode it seal
057it and put new striping down. It used to be that if you could get 12 to 15 years out of that you were really good shape. We got 20 years out of the what we have. Now we have some significant cracks in there now which is why we're doing it. But quite honestly, you're not hitting big potholes in our in our parking lot. You know, there's a lot of traffic, a lot of things that from gigantic buses to garbage trucks to cars and stuff that are on that thing every single day. And so yeah, we're still hoping 12 to 15 years that we'll get out of this new one. I know finance look at it too. But just to give me a sticker shock, what was the price of concrete for the entire parking lot?
0581.2 million. Thanks. So thank you, finance. It's one of those things that it's a it's tricky. I mean >> It was. You know, hard thing but I think that's a good choice. >> have a little more sustainability of life in it than potentially but we had such good luck with this one we're hoping. Plus it allows us to do the other projects that you've seen in in uh in in our packets so. You can do this six times for the cost of Yes. We do get asked that a lot though the asphalt versus concrete so thank you. Any questions for that? Wonderful. Next up here we have approval of our teacher of the year classified for 25 26 school year. Yep. This was just a again a a second round of this but when a
059person classified employee or a certified teacher of the year candidates are honored with this they do have a cash prize with them as well as well as their certificate. So just a quick reminder at the elementary we have our teacher of the year Gina Marzola at the middle school Aaron Fader and at the high school is John Schloss. With our district teacher being Aaron Fader and our classified employee of the years employees was Elizabeth Franken Franken at the elementary, Charlotte Carroll at the middle school and Ashley Steenek at the high school. So once again thanking them they'll be a we'll be honoring them appropriately at the end of the year celebration but because this does require a stipend that goes with it that's why you're we're seeking formal approval this evening. I would comment too
060on there you notice 35 years for Todd Moore and looks like 25 years for Mary Begley. So. Yeah. We have we have good longevity. Okay. We have two discussion items up next so if willing I would take a motion items A through J for approval there are no discussion. First by Mark. Second. Second by Carol. All those in favor say aye. I. All those same sign. Motion passes. Next up then we have item K which is discuss staff satisfaction surveys. You betcha. Um the board has received the the staff satisfaction survey that was given out in it was given out in two time two different one at the elementary middle school in December the high school in January. The board has had the entire satisfaction survey staff satisfaction survey sent to them with their comments
061and everything attached. So the board has seen that a few of you reached out for some questions but I did want to make a public comment on just some averages and some things that we've noticed from this year's survey. We had a 97 responses were anywhere between usually 90 to 105 110 of our 170 160 employees. So you know a little over half of our people tend to fill this out. It's almost a 50-50 split from people that have been here five years and below or five years and above that for their tenure with the district. And looking at the the basically the categories talk about school climate the things that they they like about the district things that we can improve on how are they satisfied with the school board response to items the
062central office administration and colleagues responses and I'll I'll give you a brief a feel of what that was like. Overall the um district climate 60% of our staff said it was very positive or positive with 30% being neutral. When you go through you're going to find you see that there's a lot of neutrals and I always look at neutral as it's sort of neither here nor there. Depending on the question you will either have a strong opinion on agreement or you don't and so neutral sort of that middle ground that could probably have gone either way. So 60% of our people don't feel like we have a a very positive or positive climate in our buildings. They feel valued for their work. 59% felt very valued or valued with 21% claiming neutral. Supervision communication from
063their direct supervisor 68% of our staff strongly agree or agree that they receive good communication from their supervisor with 20% claiming neutral. Now I also have to remind you that the staff is not broken down by certified or classified. So a classified staff might be talking about their teacher directly above them in this particular type of question or it could be a certified staff member talking about a principal could be a principal talking about a superintendent. So it doesn't really delineate necessarily a specific group of people it just gives you the overall climate or our satisfaction of the building. This one was referring to our mission statement and the people feeling inspired by our mission statement. 57% said they strongly agree or agree and 26% being neutral. And again that that leaves about you know
06419% that are uninspired by that particular one. So you can read into it there's a few folks at each of these categories that might have put disagree on some of those. Satisfied with their instructional resources available to them in the buildings 63% strongly agree or agree with 24% being neutral. Invested in the success of the school. This is a school board question they feel like our school board is strongly invested. 69% people agree or agree strongly or agree that our school board is strongly involved with the success of our school and 24% being neutral. So if you put add the neutrals with that's 93% of our folks had some comments on that question. Invested in the success of the school from central office 57% strongly agree or disagree or agree or agree and 26% are
065neutral. Invested in the success of our school building administrators portion of that 76% of our staff strongly agree or agree that our principals are highly invested in the success of the schools. Invested in the success of the schools by their colleagues in each of their buildings 77% of our staff agree or strongly agree that their colleagues in the building help lead to and are invested in the success of the school. Feeling support from the school board 54% strongly agree or agree that they feel support directly from the board with 24% being neutral. Feel support from central office same numbers there 54% strongly agree or agree with 24% being neutral. Feeling support from their building administrator 74% agree and strongly agree with 17% being neutral and then feel support from colleagues 80% of our folks feel
066strongly agree or agree. And I think that those numbers are probably pretty typical for an organization. The closer you are to a group most likely the stronger you feel about something. So naturally colleagues who spend eight hours a day working together have a strong bond and then their next up would be their administrators and that's the was the next highest number and then a little further from that would be the superintendent and the school board but they they still feel support from those groups but we're just naturally further down that line there. So overall those were the basically the the categories of things that were discussed in the survey. But here's the really the three takeaways that came from the the best things about working. What we did is we took all of the comments
067that you saw we had seven pages of comments on the survey and we basically lumped them together if they had a common theme. This is almost identical to what was found on last year's survey by the way. Last this year the best things about working in the Vermilion School District continue to be working with their colleagues the colleagues support and the teams that they've integrated within their their working environments. The second thing that was most the highest response was the students working with kids within their buildings and the third most common response for the best things about working in our district would be the community administration facilities and resources. That was sort of a lump of the things there and then there was a handful of other miscellaneous things that didn't reach the top three.
068But those are almost identical to the things that were mentioned last year as well. Things that could be improved fell into these three categories. First thing was the one that received the most comments in the the general section of the comment section was holding staff and students accountable with consistent reinforcement. That was brought up in in past years and it's something that we continue to work on. You heard principals talking with staff about it and staff talking with each other about holding everybody accountable staff for staff students for our staff for students whether it's dress code or attendance or anything but those are the number one response was in that theme. Second highest one was that there are some staff climate issues that are impacted by some of the minority of a few I I
069call them squeaky wheels. A few squeaky wheels sometimes cause a disruption or a climate shift in buildings and so like any organization you're going to have some of those things that rise to the top but now that it's shown up on a staff survey it will be the job of the principals to help deal with that and of course naturally teachers will have to deal with it with their colleagues if if there's a grumbler or a squeaky wheel there that needs to be visited with. And then the third thing that was the highest theme was the practices with our leave. This last year we've done a lot of work with our leave policies. Things from um you know, can you have time off for professional time for school events. Needing more times than than there
070a lot of time can we do time unpaid or be use flexible time. So the flex time and the leave practice that we were working on this year has gained some positive traction but it also still has some negative connotations as directed here in the staff survey that we're working towards. And finally the last three real takeaways from the survey itself is we had lots of uh good individual comments that recognized individual efforts of some of our staff. They were named personally in the staff survey. There was lots of constructive comments about ways to improve and things that were manageable, things that were realistic like hey if we did X or Y we could achieve this. And so our our administrative team has looked at this and we spent one of our administrative team meetings
071going through each of the results and talking about ways that some of these things can be implemented. So that way people know that that their survey is being looked at and being worked on. Another takeaway was transform Ed. We talked a lot about that. Both the pros and cons and we need to continue to visit the the transform Ed, the Finland project that we're working. We had comments about we didn't really meet the expectations of our outdoor learning spaces quite the way we had dreamt for that at this point so there's still some work going on there. Some commented on the fact that they like the fact that this year we uh designed the Finland project to be a much shorter, much more direct over a three-week project versus over a five-month project. Some people
072appreciated that. So we did see some comments on that and we're going to continue to address those. And then finally um we needed it was mentioned in from some of our administrators that next year that maybe we need to meet about the survey before we administer it in preparation so the staff know it's coming and the fact that they can we can talk about some of the desired outcomes, things that we've hoped that it will gain from it and that specificity on the on the survey itself does become very helpful because we we will attack those specific line items when we get a chance to. So anyway, that's that's sort of the results. There was there any questions? I know you guys have had them for over a month. Was there any more questions or
073thoughts that you needed from myself or the administrative team? Okay. Um next up then here we will move on to the school board election coming up here on June 2nd. So I think we'll report to Mr. Kocher. Yes, we did have two board vacancies this year. One was a one-year term and one was a three-year term. We had two petitions turned in for the one the three-year term vacancy. So we will have an election on June 2nd. The individuals there, Ryan Johnson and William Ames will be on the ballot for the one board position. And then for our one-year term we only had one petition that was turned in and that was by Phil Terwilliger. So he will be joining the board in July during our reorganization. This this being an even year we will
074be combining that election with both the county and the city. It's much more efficient use for dollars and for the time and effort that's put into it. So the county auditors for both the Clay and the Union counties will be sort of taking the lead and then we'll be there to assist in the election as well. Wonderful. Congratulations Phil and good luck Ryan. And William who is running so. All right. Next up here we're moving on to our superintendent reports. All right. Just a few quick things here for few things for the board. One to thank Miss Rodi and her internship class for preparing lunch in the learning session. Some of you've been to those in the past and what a great luncheon to learn what the kids are learning in their internship classes and
075also the many community partners who not only make that class possible but also come to the luncheon and share the outcomes that they get from the students of our high school who come to their their businesses which has been great. I wanted to thank our VEA for the productive negotiation sessions we've we've had over the last several weeks. We've concluded with the with those negotiations which has been good. Wanted to thank our transform Ed committee. I mentioned them a little bit ago as one of the things that we're working on but wanted to thank the committee from each of the high school, middle school, elementary schools that helped put that together as well as our community experts. We'd hoped tonight you'd have heard a pretty detailed um review of that but because of a scheduling
076issue you'll get that talk on next May 11th when we have our next board meeting but I think you'll be impressed by some of the things that were accomplished with that. We wanted to thank Feeding Vermillion for providing a free lunch or actually it was our school holiday meal to all of our students on March 26th. And I also wanted to thank the Vermillion Fire Department for coming to our rescue on Friday when we had a accidental truck on fire in our high school parking lot on Friday right when school dismissed. Unfortunately one of the older vehicles in our students fleet when it was driving out accidentally started a fire and we needed the assistance of of our Vermillion Fire Department so I wanted to thank them for their quick response. Everything turned out fine
077except for the young man's pickup. That wasn't fine but everybody was safe and and it got dealt with. Now now Dr. Ellie I saw a photo that was forwarded from a you know it had come from a student to a parent that I believe I I believe I saw you out there with a fire extinguisher. Were you out there I was. >> pitching in? Yes. Yeah. So Mr. Kocher comes to my office and says hey there's a fire on truck on fire in the parking lot so we grabbed the fire extinguishers and out we went but it didn't really do much for the type of fire that was happening but You're a full full service a full service admin office. >> Yes. >> [laughter] >> We try. We wanted to congratulate our sixth grade Rotary
078essay winners. Wanted to to thank Mrs. Olson for the allowing the sixth graders to do it again. The four-way test. Our third place winner was Eva Peterson. Second place Cadence Hill and Charlotte Robb was our first place. Once again lots of students in the sixth grade did the essay and the Rotarians had the pleasure of reading them and determining winners and once again three really outstanding choices from the sixth grade class. Congratulations to our Educators Rising national qualifiers. Some of you've seen the information out on the Facebook and in the paper about that but in our inaugural year we had this group of students. There was others that went but these were our national qualifiers or our our young man there with Hayden was was a gold star winner but Katie Neighbor she received a
079third place at state for creative lecture. Ruby Wilson is a first place for children's literature book. She wrote her own book. It's been published. Madeleine Eisenby Byce and Reese Williams for an interactive bulletin board were all three chosen to represent South Dakota at the national convention this June in Portland, Oregon. So congratulations to them and then Hayden Praster there also received a outstanding gold award at state for his interactive bulletin board. And again thanks to Sarah at the high school and and Mr. Fry and [clears throat] the high school staff for getting the the Educators Rising club program going. We've been wanting to do that now for a couple years. And the whole idea behind Educators Rising is to get young folks in high school interested in education and hopefully fall in love with that
080and get an opportunity to work with in our elementary, middle school or high school as high school students and then turning it into a career. So we're pretty pretty excited to send them off to represent Vermillion High School in Portland, Oregon. Did you hear how their Easter egg fundraiser went for them in preparation for their trip? I did not. Did Mr. Fry how their Easter egg hiding fundraiser went that they're trying to raise money for? Okay. I think they're in pretty good Wonderful. Yep. And as part of that we'd certainly like to thank the school board for allowing them to go as well as have some funds to do so and of course the Vermillion Public School Foundation has come through once again to offer another experience to our students. So thanks to them. And
081then finally Mr. Fry had already talked about that the high school is taking their ACT as the state assessment. Elementary and middle school are in full swing with those things happening in the remainder of the month. And then included in the school board report was the education bills that were approved by the state of South Dakota this year. Which of course included a 1.4% increase to state aid. Thank you Dr. Ellie. Now, we can move on next to school board reports. Anybody have any reports for the last month? Negotiations, that was a great session. I do want to thank everybody for the professionalism. It's really really tough. I mean, you ended it Dr. Ellie on the state legislature giving a 1.4 increase. So, another reminder to reach out to those legislators. It's really hard to
082work with 1.4% in state aid. So, appreciate it all the work the staff did, too, especially from the admin office in getting ready for that. So. Can talk to we had a Boys & Girls Clubs meeting. We are kind of working with the school district for some preschool updates. I did hear about 28 kiddos so far registered so far which is good. And then just give a little shout out there in their annual raffle right now. So, if you see any fundraising for that, they're giving [snorts] away a Bronco. So, if anybody's got a future driver to be soon soon that's in Mr. Suttle's driver's ed, it would be good time to get some of those tickets. And locally want to thank AMS. They also donated a shed this year. So, it's a good collaborative
083with all of the units this year. So, a lot of big prizes are giving out. What else? The Booster Club Hall of Fame will be happening on I believe Saturday the 25th honoring Roger Heirigs and Jim Maguire and Alicia Brown. And tickets are available and please go out and support the Boosters and our Hall of Fame awardees. All right, seeing none here, we'll move on to our financial report at Mr. Koscher. Yeah, financial report in your packet again this month. I don't have a whole lot to highlight on that. But, if you have any questions, just let me know. I did want to note that with next month's meeting being the May meeting, we do have to provide a preliminary budget at that meeting. So, we'll have to have a finance committee meeting at some
084point between now and then. I also wanted to mention since it wasn't really anywhere else in here to do so, the summer food service [snorts] program, you know, we work on that application every year around this time. We are looking at likely the middle school this year for the location of the summer food service program. It had always been discussed that once the elementary was all set and that kitchen was all done, that we would likely move it either to the elementary or the middle school location there. This year with some of the work that we're doing over at the high school, we felt like this would be the natural year to move that over. So, that is that is where we're headed with that most likely. Wonderful news. Any questions on the financials? All
085right, seeing none, I would take a motion to approve. So moved. First by Mark. Second. Second by Ryan. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed same sign. Motion passes. Next up, future agenda items. Anybody want to think for a May meeting? Wonderful. Next up then, our future board meetings. We will have a meeting here on May 11th followed by June 8th. We are in need of executive session this evening for South Dakota codified law 1-25-24, South Dakota South Dakota codified law 1-25-241, which is for negotiations and personnel. I would make a motion to enter an executive session here at 8:13. So moved. First by Carol. Second. First by Second by Jake. All in favor say aye. Aye. We are now in executive session. Thank you.