001Maybe. All right. Good evening. I'll go ahead and call this meeting here to order at 7:03. Sorry, Mr. Kosher. We're three minutes late. Um, Mr. Kosher, if you could please take attendance. >> Johnson >> here. >> Olsson >> here. >> Skelton and Vos Ward are absent. Wine >> here. >> We have a quorum. >> Great. If you could 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
002so, 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 would like to address the board? As a reminder, no action will be taken this evening. >> Hello. My name is Mattea Yolom. I'm a senior at the University of South Dakota. >> Hi. My name is Melody Scott. I'm a junior at the University of South Dakota. >> We're here representing Tio Bay Student Council at the University of South Dakota. Um, Tio by Student Council is a group of native students. We basically plan events for the community, for the university. We planned the USD Wipe. One event that we're going to be having, hoping to have here soon is the Halloween bash. Um, yeah. Do you want to explain? >>
003Yeah. So, the monster bash um is what the event is called. Um, we had this last year um at the elementary school, different elementary school. Um, it is open to the public for everyone um to come, but it's kind of just like community engagement. Um we have a bunch of games, we have food. Um sometimes we have like prizes and stuff like that. So um yeah. Oh, and it's also for it's on October 28th from um 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. >> So today we're here to request a fee waiver to utilize the elementary gym to host the Halloween bash. and it is uh under number two under new business um for approval building request. So I know these young ladies have another meeting to attend too. So >> thank you. >> Wonderful. Thank you
004for your efforts. [Applause] >> Moving on then um under visitors to be heard uh we have tan manager happenings this evening Sarah Rodie and a few others >> and I'll say Mad Dog, but Matteline, I think. >> Yeah. >> Hi. Um I'm Ruby. >> I'm Maline. >> And we're seniors at Vermillion High School and we are leaders in um a new program called Educators Rising. And we've come to talk to you a little bit about today. So, we wanted to start off with a question. >> Um growing up, like who is a teacher that you really like remember and recognize as being your favorite teacher? Maybe this is like a teacher who inspired you um or made you want to become a teacher or maybe you just had the most fun in their class. So,
005who would like to start on the end? >> Well, I'll start. >> Okay. >> My favorite teacher and the most important educator in my life was my track coach, Wally Walo, who taught US history. >> Great. Ryan's new equipment. >> Uh yeah, when I hear that question, my mind immediately goes to my high school geometry teacher, uh Mr. Mr. Oleason. He was also the high school basketball coach. He was the varsity coach. Um I was never I never rose to the level of varsity. I think I I topped out after my sophomore year. So he was never directly my coach. Um, but he was just the mo he made that class so interesting and it was just he a lot of a lot of probably at the time dated pop pop pop culture references that
006I just ate up and I just loved it and he just made it such an interesting class and just made it so much fun. So certainly my favorite. >> We could have talked forever on this but um I'll go to the college level. Um there actually three locals because I did my undergrad here at USD. So Dr. Carr, Dr. Fairholm, and Dr. Yaki are my three uh favorite uh professors in college and a lot of them is because they all taught different levels of leadership. Um and you even 20 years later they're still active in our community serving. So I thank them for their leadership. >> I had a lot of influential educators in the middle and elementary and high school years. Uh some of my coaches were really influential uh here at the university
007as well. Dr. Bob Woods um at the school of education. he's he's passed on now, but uh uh certainly he had a way of getting to young educators and helping them uh make good decisions and try to foster good instructional strategies. So hopefully I learned something from his class as he was a good one. >> Well, my dad was actually my high school business teacher, so uh didn't didn't follow in the footsteps with teaching, but uh school business nonetheless, I guess. >> Awesome. Um, so we have like a little slideshow. >> Yeah. Is that for you guys? >> There we go. >> Yeah. So, we're going to talk about like what we've been up to and our goals for this year. So, as of right now, we have monthly meetings and we are attending learning
008expose at different colleges and we went to a leadership expo and a whole bunch of us are seniors are interning at the middle school and elementary school and we're also preparing to perform at the state contest and hopefully the national contest. So, like we're making interactive bulletin boards and children's novels. Yeah. Um so we attended a expo in Sou Falls and it was a leadership expo so we got to learn about how to um help guide our program which was really helpful for us considering we have never done the 7 million so it was a lot for us to learn. Um we talked about um strategies the um things I guess that um like we should make our program by. So like leadership, education, those kind of typical club um ideals and we talked about
009the competitions at the state level so we get people involved and how to fund raise better so our club can function well. >> Right now we have eight senior leaders and about 18 total members. Um we also went to a learning expo at USD. This was about like 2 weeks ago, so fairly recent. And we got to participate in some cool activities and learn a lot. Um, there was a lot of interactive things. There was something for physical education. There was something for special education. So, it was a really good spot for a lot of us to kind of learn a little bit more about the field we might be interested in teaching in. So, and then we were also doing a fundraiser. So, we're selling candygrams at every school level. At the elementary school,
010we're selling like a juice pouch and a ring pop for $2. And at the high school, we're selling a pop and a fulls size candy bar. So like parents can order for their kids and like in the high school level students can order for students like whoever they want really. Yeah. And this is to fundra so we're able to travel um to Spearfish for state competitions and just for other expenses of the club and for kids next year. So >> yep, that's all that we have for you today. >> Let's give it up for these girls. Thank you guys so much for your time. Do you have anything questions for our girls? >> So, if we missed the QR code here, is that available elsewhere? >> Yeah, it's on the Facebook and it's posted around
011the schools. >> Okay. Excellent. >> I know an elementary schooler and a high schooler would be very interested. >> Yes. >> Wonderful. Thank you, ladies. >> Yep. >> Thank you. >> Special special shout out to Miss Rodie and and Mr. Fry for helping put this together. Uh this is in conjunction with a statewide initiative to help bring young people into the field of education which we need and we appreciate. Uh we want to keep our best people right here uh teaching other bright young people. So thanks for those initiatives and we look forward to seeing you guys down the road. >> Thanks. And as long as I'm up here, I want to highlight our other high school CTSOs. They include HOSA FCCLA/Prostart. We're trying to start Skills USA and we do attend the Art Wars
012competition every year. So, go CTE. >> Are there any other visitors to be heard? Not moving on, we'll do um approve our agenda and our conflict disclosures. Um are there any agenda changes, Dr. Elvie? >> There are not. >> Great. That would take a motion then to approve our agenda. >> So, move. >> First by Mark, second. >> Second by Ryan. All those in favor say I. >> I. Motion passes. Next up here, um item B, we have indication of a conf conflict of interest per South Dakota codified law 3-23. This is Rachel Olsson and I have none. >> I'm Mark Wigger and I have none. >> I'm Ryan Johnson. I am employed by USD and I filled out the appropriate paperwork for that. >> Thank you. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Ryan. Um next up
013here we have our consent agenda. We have approval of our minutes, resignation, new hires, open enrollments and bills. Um, we have our minutes from our September 8th meeting, new hires, maybe Nash Hayes, um, part-time custodian, Abigail Schneider, PT Sped Aid, Shelby Wolf, lunch aid, Stephanie Lind, lunch aid, and Chris White. Welcome back, Chris. Uh, for our preschool driver, um, would you like anything pulled from the consent agenda? Seeing none, I would take a motion to approve. >> So, >> first by Mark, second. >> Second by Ryan. All in favor say I. I >> motion passes. Um next up here, um we have our unfinished business. Item A is discussion of the cell phone policy. >> Yes. Uh we're just continuing the discussion uh for the rest of the semester with the school board about our
014uh recent practice of uh cell phone changes at the high school, middle school, and elementary really have stayed the same. Uh just as a quick review, um really we've we've done nothing much different than what we've done in the past except for the fact that we have students that use the uh cell phone caddies at the high school level when they come into the classrooms. Elementary, middle schools still don't uh or still keep those cell phones in their locker. And as anticipated, we've been working with students to just sort of figure out if there's been anything that needs to be done or tweaked. And anecdotally, when we've talked to high school kids, it's been a really um a resounding there hasn't been any real issues. So, knock on wood, we've been really proud of the
015way our teachers have administered the program. Uh but even more proud of our students for helping us along and doing the work to to put their cell phones in there without having any kind of um issues with that. Um, a few of the comments that are just anecdotal comments kids talked about is um, last week I just went around and talked to about 25 kids at lunch at the high school. And about um, four or five of those kids said that they're actually getting more work done in study halls now because they're uh, not distracted by having a phone. We don't allow them to have cell phones in study hall. It's just like a classroom time. And so I thought that was pretty interesting. Um, but the real thing was is the comments was almost
016unanimous through every table I talked to was that the they're finding that it is not that big of an issue. They a couple of the comments were not addicted to our phones. This is not a a big stretch for us. Now, for some students it is and we understand that and we're working with those kiddos, but uh we've been very pleased with that. Um, and of course this is, you know, the book that that we're working from, uh, the anxious generation. uh our school board is working on that and our administrative team is doing a book study of that uh ongoing for the rest of the semester. So, uh we'll just bring up the cell phone topic from time to time and continue to monitor it with kids and staff and uh address any issues
017that might come up, but right now we've been pleasantly surprised and appreciative. >> You know, I think we benefited in this transformation by all of the teachers who had caddies in their classroom already. >> Absolutely. Thank you very much for doing that. >> And I just wanted to add one one humorous anecdote. My daughter is in Spanish one and her teacher apparently refers to their caddy as it it is what the Spanish translation for uh phone jail. And so it's mole I believe is like cell phone but yeah so it's something jail. So she came home on the first day and and and informed me of that and I like good. I like they're having a little fun with it. >> Yeah. >> Thank you Dr. Aldi. Um, next up here, we'll move down to
018our new business item A, which is a state assessment discussion with our administration team. I'll jump up for joy here, guys. >> I guess I can just go. I'm point is just to share some of the results of what our averages are. Um, we do have I was talking to Mr. Fry about this. It is kind of interesting because when we look at our English language arts, our school average is 39% and the state average is 52%. But our district average is 52%. So at some point it does start clicking on, you know, however that stuff rolls out. But when we talk about mathematics, school average is 38%, district average is 41%, and the state average is 44%. And then we look at science at the elementary level. We only uh test our fifth graders.
019So our school average uh is 46%, our district average is 53% and the state average is 44%. So I'm not really sure what to think about with the English language arts because that is uh quite the disparity between our school average and the district average. But again at some point I don't know if things just start clicking or if there are changes to you know the the test that is taken understanding of what they need to be doing or what that you know what that actual rationale is behind that. But >> um so I have the middle school data and I think it starts to click in the middle school. Um because looking at all of ours um our school averages are actually all above the district and the state average. So um way to
020go middle school staff. Um so our English language arts is 59% uh were proficient with the district average being 52 and state being 52. Um, our math was at 45% which again is above our district at 41 and the states at 44. And our science was 56% which is above the district at 53 and well above the state average of 44. So um, while this is just my first year here, I'm very proud of my staff and really happy to walk into this. So we will work on keeping that up. Well, even though the uh high school students aren't addicted to their phones, I clearly am, but um I thought I would just keep my presentation here and not bring a laptop up. So, you'll have to forgive me. Um I I've got a couple
021slides here. The first one just is the snapshot off the state uh or off the Department of Ed website that gives our data. And when you look at it in this format, what you see in the blue and the green are the highest performing segments of the student body in each subtest area. So I tend to look at when we look at proficiency, we're looking at students who score fours and threes or that would be the blue plus the green. So, we're looking at uh a 54% uh total there. It appears in the science category area, we're looking at math uh only being uh 34% and uh we're looking at, if you could go back to the first slide for me, please. And we're looking at um ELA, which has been the highest performing area
022in the high school in my time here. that number is up in the 63% range. To me, the numbers in a snapshot are one thing, but if we go to the individual uh subtests, let's go to the the next slide, which is English language arts. This gives us a three-year uh look at the numbers. And the trend data is what I've I've laid out in red there. And as you see, there's there's not a big fluctuation in in our English language arts numbers. They were up a little bit last year, but we're hovering right in that upper upper to mid60s, low70s range with those numbers. They've been pretty stable, and that's our strongest test category. If we go to the next slide, you'll see these numbers are a lot lower on the chart. This is
023our weakest test area and these are our math numbers where we've been really I thought we had actually continued to take a step backwards and then when I re-examined the numbers here actually this last year we rebounded in math a little bit moving back up to that 34 percentile range. These are not on par with the state average. Uh but the state average is also below what they consider proficient on smarter balance. Um finally if we go over to science it doesn't get much more flatline than that. That is one exciting graph to look at there. um when when you see uh data running that steady that and that's very reliable there at 53 and 54% two years in a row at 54% proficiency. The one thing I want to point out here is we
024have to look at our our current data through this this last school year as one data set, but we have to know that going forward we're going to have a new data set and they're not going to be necessarily all that comparable. We're going to have because we're moving to the ACT as the assessment for juniors going forward. We know that our students are going to be tested in in those categories, ELA, uh, math, uh, reading and writing, um, and science. And so as a result, our scores as a school average, we expect to see a two, maybe as many as a three-point drop in our overall school average because now not just the students that see themselves as going to a 4-year university are going to be taking the ACT. Um, we're going to
025be testing all of our juniors. And so it stands to reason that students who don't plan to go to college may not score as well as students who have always planned to go to college. Um, so that's likely to to to drop our scores a little bit. But I'm really excited to see what our math scores look like on the ACT as compared to Smarter Balance because I've always believed if the entire state of South Dakota's math teachers aren't good enough to score proficient on the test, then to me that really tells me that um there's something a little haywire with with the test itself. Um I believe we've got quality math educators all over the state of South Dakota. And if if as a state we don't score proficient to me that says something
026about the assessment. So and then next steps for us now at the end of this month we have our district data day. And so this is one piece of the whole picture um for our our students, our teachers and uh this will give them an opportunity to look at the data and see what's meaningful from it as well as our building level data that um may speak more to what we're we are um applying as well. We will have our three-year trend report by that time which will also break down this the performance very specifically into specific gap areas, specific weak areas that can help um teachers look at how we are instructing in those areas as well as align it to how the test presents those questions. There's different types of questions. There's uh
027uh different types of ways you should answer to get full credit. So, there's so many different parts of the mechanics of the test and as Mr. Jacobs mentioned, you know, there as a third grader taking the test for the first time, there's much more than just content there that ends up affecting their score. It's the digital platform. It's uh knowing how to navigate the test platform. It's knowing what what it's really asking for for a correct answer. So, in grades three through five in middle school, since high school is transitioning to ACT, there are there is a plethora a library of resources and tools for teachers in the state assessment portal. It does have interim assessment banks which has sample questions um past questions that have been retired and and rewritten but are still relevant
028to how the standard is assessed. Uh there's a lot of information there that can be helpful for teachers in um preparing our students for being prepared for the test. And every year we take some teachers to the annual interim assessment workshops and then they can come back and and help teach others, you know, teach others around them of how we can use those interim assessments. We don't have to give the whole test. We can identify those weak areas and take those focused interim assessment banks that really narrows in on that specific strand, that specific target area and just assess our our kiddos on what is their understanding of that specific area. And then we can do that again in in another month and see if we've we're progressing towards understanding. just some tools that can
029be helpful and aren't uh time consuming to give, but we want to give our uh our teams a little more awareness of what's out there and a little more time to explore. And I think that data day is very helpful for that to give them that time. I think the more we can familiarize the students with the mechanics of the test, the the better we can equip them to be successful. But again, we know that this is just one one data point, one piece of the of the puzzle of the big picture. And the mass standards actually are currently under review and revision. The draft updates are on the state website. They're in the review process where they go to public hearings for feedback and comments. So, um you can find that information on the
030state website if you want to compare the current standards with the proposed new standards. Um a team of educators, um math specialists throughout the state worked on that all summer. So, um they've devised that draft. So, we're interested to see what those changes may look like, too. So, thank you. >> Sam, take heart. As you know, I love visiting your early grades, prek and kindergarten. I am absolutely amazed by their understanding of phonics and their ability to read at a young age. Keep doing what you're doing. Okay. I guess I would just add to to to the points is uh while we know that assessments are important and they're a marker for where where students are at and where where education instruction is at, uh we also kind of pride ourselves that uh one day's
031test probably doesn't outweigh the fact that we have a lot of honor students, national merit scholars, kids that go on and get distinguished um you know offers to go to to places to work or to military or to college. So, we know in the end we have wellprepared students. Sometimes the assessments along the way aren't as quite as u as important or maybe as valid as we'd hope. So, that's something that we'll continue to put our our fingers on a little bit. As I reported in August to the board, uh South Dakota still is one of only 11 schools in the nation that takes Smarter Balance test. And of this, of the 11 school or states that take the Smarter Balance, South Dakota's number one or number two in all three assessments. So, while that's
032uh we'd like to uh see our our data go higher on uh on on our national uh comparisons of the the groups that are taking that our kids actually do very well. Um there like Kim said that we do have uh the math standards are being reviewed currently. Uh and there's a potential that the assessment will change as a result of that. uh when DOE was here um on uh September 30th, we talked with them a little bit about the assessments that are being used and there's some um willingness to consider maybe a change in that, but you don't just do that overnight. So hopefully we'll see an assessment that aligns better with the curriculum. So thank you. >> Thank you. Moving on here under new business, item B is approval of a building agreement
033as our visitors to be heard mentioned. Um, Dr. Elvie does have the um form filled out for the USC Native American Group for their Monster Bash. >> Yep. And that'll be October 28th, open to the public. And uh the board approves that. I'll make sure to fill out the paperwork uh with the fee to be waved except for custodial fees, which is typical for people that get to use our facilities for for nothing. So, >> so moved. >> Would you like? >> Perfect. All right. first by Mark, second by Ryan. All those in favor say I. >> I. Motion passes. Wonderful. Thanks for the group. Um item C here is approval of our early graduation requests and we have three of these this evening. Um we have S Sienna Mount. That one is Reed, Dominic
034Herrera, and John Beacon looking to graduate here in December. >> Yep. and uh those folks have all met the early requ uh graduation requirements. So, >> okay, >> wonderful. >> I'll hold on that motion here. I think we can do a few extra ones coming up. Um item D is approval of adult volunteers. Um we have Jaden Barnett um for um working with Mr. Hayes for school counseling. Zachary Benin um with Elizabeth Skies with Vermillion High School. Then we have Nilda Lameisa and she is assisting with Todd Stefins. We have Kelly Kusson's classes which is uh about I don't know 20 to 30 of them. Um our volunteer to help with recess lunch duty at the elementary or middle school and on special Olympics at the high school. Um then we have a few late
035additions. Carly Welch um will helping with Brooke Bchold and Mil um the sped. Gabrielle Stewart um help with Patty Swinginger um at the middle school. And then we have a Kayn Aneski um helping with Kelly Stone at the Vermillion High School. And lastly, we have McKenzie Fox also helping with Kelly Stone at the Vermillion High School for her SPED internship. Um that's a great group of volunteers that we have and we thank them all for spending time in our schools. Any questions on those? Excellent. Um, moving on here, we'll go to approval of our group that we had just speaking here. Um, approval of our educators rising trust and agency account. Mr. Kosher. >> Yeah, our group gave a pretty good uh understanding of what what their plans are and they you've u noticed that
036they talked about doing some fundraising and then some possible expenditures for travel and registrations for different uh events. So this would be to create an account so that they could operate and use those fundraising dollars specifically for the expenses that they have planned. Uh we do have some things in place. They have to have bylaws. They have to have elected officers. Um and then they have to comply with meeting minutes that anything that comes into the this account or goes out of it has to be approved by the group. And they are uh aware of these and and plan to comply with those. Excellent. Hold on that one, too. Um then, um item F is approval of our surplus items. Looks like Ashley, um our district technology coordinator, has a few amps and speaker servers,
037um 25 projectors, and some of them are broken. Um and a VGA monitor. So, any questions on sending those to surplus? Excellent. Um, so with that, well, we can probably talk about Johnson Controls. So, let's go with item G here, which is approval of a Johnson Controls service agreement. And this is new for us this year to include elementary. Correct. Because last year we had like a one-year >> correct >> kind of buffer. >> Yep. Uh, because everything was under warranty there. Uh, however, we did not add Johnson Controls to the elementary this year. we the the crew that was with us that installed and and did all the warranty work for us have earned that business. So we are basically um updating our Johnson Controls things with the middle school and the high school
038tonight. Um just a you know a brief overview they basically take care of all those HVAC and air handler questions that we have. Um, for those of you on the capital uh projects, you'll notice that we've got air handlers and uh things on the five-year budget for the middle school to upgrade those uh because they've reached their functional life. So, they have done some adjustments on this to uh include some warranty work with some of our newer items, but also taking some of our older items offline. So, uh but basically, this is our standard agreement with Johnson Controls to help us out. they can do things remotely that sometimes we have to call them for and they can handle just by adjusting through the computer and other times they have to send a technician um
039to the the work site. So So I was going to go in and tell you thank you for saving some dollars because it used to be around $90,000. So scratch that, but I do see it's only for one year agreement. Are we hoping that we might go out to bid for the entire >> Yeah, the the good news is you'll have some leverage to >> to to put the competitors against each other. So, >> and how much is the elementary then after our warranty for the year just to manage that side? >> Yeah, the service agreement that we had on that was approximately $11,000. Um, so we will see how that goes for the year and then develop a plan from there. So really as a whole we're still sitting kind of routinely but as
040a combination. So thank you for that. Um any questions on Johnson Controls >> which is not a conflict of interest right Ryan? >> Yeah. Okay name company. >> Yeah. Perfect. Um no conflict. >> Excellent. Um so um I would be looking for a motion to approve items B C D E F. Just C because we did B. >> You're right. So C through G. >> All right. I will move >> second. >> I'll take a first by Ryan, second by Mark. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Postium sign. Motion passes. Next up here on our agenda, we have our superintendent report. >> Yes. >> And the students themselves for for all the great things that have been happening, whether it's been uh on the stage or out on the field or in
041the in the gym in some way. We've had a really nice fall of uh activities. Again, I also want to thank the high school students uh particularly for their work on volunteer day uh during homecoming week a few weeks ago. Um we're one of the few schools that allows students to go out into the community and give back. And we think it's an appropriate um time and place for kids to uh give back to the community that gives so much to them. And so kids volunteer to go to the elementary schools, they go to the uh the the care centers, they end up going to people's homes and helping with projects there. And just a lot of neat things happening in our community. But it wouldn't happen if the kids didn't do it and help
042us uh to make that a popular event. And of course thanking the staff for organizing it and making sure they're supervising on those days. I also want to thank a little shout out to the USD Coyote crazies. that group's been following us around a little bit coming to some football games and they come and they're going to come to a future volleyball game here near the end of the month uh as we make a run towards the end of those two seasons and uh so yeah we want to thank those guys it's been fun having them around. Um, we uh just an update on our our parent square, our platform that we use. Our staff and our and offices send out pretty regular messages to homes about what's happening in the school district. And we've
043heard good feedback from folks for the most part, but we're always wondering about uh any new communication device, what what it um what its payback is or what what's is is it worth the money that's invested in other words. And uh what we're finding is is that so far the dashboard for parent square says that we're reaching 99 a little over 99% of our intended audience. So when we're sending it out um the cell phones aren't always up to date, but the the the the other forms of communication are are there. So, we feel really good that most messages are reaching 99% of the intended audience, which is good. When we send out a lot of important messages to home, bragging about the kids and the school and important things such as, you know, weather
044and other things, we want to make sure that parents get those messages. Uh, right now, we have some preliminary data back on our student enrollment. As you know, September 26 was our count date with um the state of South Dakota. that will be the number that we're funded on for our student count. Unofficially, we're right around between 1308 and 1310. So, we will um we'll be able to get that to you. Uh and once we get it back from the state of South Dakota's official numbers, they take partial students, homeschool students, students we service at St. Agnes, all in that formula. And we'll have official confirmation in the coming weeks. Um Daniel, you can go ahead and put up our annual report there. I see you had part of that up. The annual report. Uh
045this is the revised version um as part of our initiatives to sort of um put out new data to to folks in a new way to kind of make sure that people are taking a a good look at the things that we're putting out there. We revamped our annual report. This would typically have been a two-pager with some narratives and pictures and things that would have been in the newspaper. We condensed the major facts and the major findings down to one page which was still hit all the important topics. It talked about the the district snapshot there from enrollment to the sizes of our schools. Um scrolling down a little bit, it talks a little bit about our state um district data there that the folks uh from the principal group and Mrs. Johnson talked
046about earlier. Uh it talks a little bit about our budget, where we get our money from and what we spend our money on. These are great talking points for our community. Uh as a superintendent, this is a good document to take to different organizations in the community and share how we compare to others in the across the state. And of course, this shows a little bit about where people uh tax dollars go, what funds public education in South Dakota. Largely, it's the public uh that you serve. And then there's just a couple visual graphs included with our annual report that talk a little bit about our personnel. Um, as you can see, the vast majority of our um staff is is paras and um teachers who are directly in the classrooms working with students on
047a day-to-day basis and then a bunch of support staff. And I don't know if there's any more, Daniel. Nope. And then there's just some more state data on state testing averages there. Uh, but I guess what we wanted to share with you is that this was out in the paper two weeks ago. This is the the annual port that I take to many organizations in town and it's up on our website. So, if somebody wants to take a quick glance about some really neat things about our district, they can go to the website and find it there pretty easily. Um, as we're looking at this time of the year and talking about uh data, we have been informed by the uh state of South Dakota Department of Education that we did have uh a couple
048subgroups that have uh that did not meet the intended target um for state assessments in last year's state assessment. this designations is a uh as a result of inadequate growth by a subgroup or that not enough in that group participated. So we would have an opportunity if we um had a number of students in one of our subgroups, it could be an ethnic group, it could be a social economic group, it could be um um a bunch of different categories that our students are placed in underneath these test guidelines. If not all of the students or 95% of the students in that subgroup uh if they don't uh take the test then we get dinged and get put on targeted school improvement to make sure that we get more attendance in those tests the next
049year or if a subgroup didn't meet annual growth measurements for the state of South Dakota we could be placed on that. So, right now we do have um two, one group at our uh elementary school and one group at our high school that we will be having to do some extra work with. And as part of that, the state of South Dakota puts on trainings and workshops and webinars for educators to to work on those things. So, that'll be our goal for this year will be to get our schools off of any kind of targeted school improvement status from the state. Uh that being said, um the the Vermillion School District uh has once again met a different standard for the teacher accountability index. As you know, Mr. Kosher reports to the board and through
050the financial committee here at the school district. uh how the district is required to put all dollars that are given to us from the state of South Dakota through um the teacher accountability platform that we have given those dollars to uh improve teacher salaries. Once again, uh we have met that that index and we received notice from the state of South Dakota that uh that we're in good standing there. So, it's just another measure that the state will take that the dollars that they are giving us through the legislature are going to their intended um recipients there. Um couple congratulations. Congratulations to our school board for once again achieving a gold level um award for what's called all award. So this is an award given to school districts across the state who have um accomplished
051a certain level of state meetings um had land um legislative action network participants have um gone to the associated school board's professional development trainings taking the legal webinars during the school year. There's nine of those through the school year that we participate in. and then also being part of the um delegate assembly which comes up uh during the legislative session along with some other things. But uh our school board has won four awards in a row, two bronze and two golds uh the last four years and that's uh a testament to the folks that are sitting up here tonight and and of course Jacob and um Carol who are gone this evening but the fact that you guys put in a lot of extra time. So, we'll hang that up and and put it out
052on our Facebook account and thank you for your work. That's not an easy task for a school board to get that when you've got all these members doing their own lives and doing other things besides just schoolboard work every month. So, we appreciate that. Um, and I guess just other things uh off the cuff uh the committee work. You guys have got your committee dates. We've got coming up um in the next four weeks. We've got four or five committee meetings coming up. The Department of Education visited the school district um a week ago, week and a half ago now. Uh we had the pleasure of being one of the schools in Southeast South Dakota that they chose to visit and uh they had the opportunity to tour classrooms, talk with teachers, talk with students,
053visit with administrative panel, and then that evening they participated in a superintendent round table with the regional superintendents in the area. Um, and couple of the comments they talked about and I think um, you know, we kind of expected them to be uh, pretty uh, appreciative and and and notice our new facilities at the elementary which they were like most people very um, you know, kind of in awe with the size of the building and the things that were happening there. Um, and of course the the unique things that we offer at at different levels, whether it's the rack and some some things that we can do for middle schoolers that are different than other middle schools in the state. At the high school level, our CTO offerings, uh, e offerings are growing. Our animatage
054table, which is one of the only ones you'll find in the region for anatomy and physiology. All of those things were great, but I think the best compliment I received was when they pulled me aside afterwards and said after walking our halls, talking to staff, students, administrators, um when they they could see the passion and hear the enthusiasm from everybody they talked to and and and we didn't prep the people other than to say, "Hey, we're going to have some people coming through from the state and they're going to maybe ask you some questions. Would you be willing to say something?" and our folks and our kids um did what they do and they showed great enthusiasm and pride in our district. And as a superintendent, when you get compliments from the Department of Education
055about enthusiasm, passion, and things about your school district, that's uh about as good as it gets. So, wanted to thank everybody that was involved with that visit. But, uh other than that, lots of great things happening, but um I'll save some for next month. >> Thank you, Dr. Ellie. Uh, next up here then we have our school board. Um, I think Dr. Elvie mentioned we have several committees coming up. Um, I was going to say for Boys and Girls Club, we did have our raffle a few weeks ago. Um, the exciting thing is the individual who won the shed has donated it back and it'll be re-affled here at um, Toby's is having a harvest um, I can't remember what they're calling it. Toby's harvest break here October 25th. um I do like a chili
056cook off and they'll be doing um donations towards the Boys and Girls Club and they're going to be reauctioning the uh shed off. So for those of you that didn't quite get a chance to win or were really close um head out to that event. Um and just want to remind you that the tutor club is free for students. And then um fun fact, they started a Pokemon club which they had I know before. But as I'm cleaning out my house too, if anybody's got any Pokemon cards that they don't like anymore, donate it to the club. Um it's a big hot thing right now is Pokemon Club. So, it's a good time to clean out your closets here in the fall. >> Any other >> I'm glad you mentioned the shed because I when
057I was driving back from uh to and from Yankton this week, I saw it in the Toby's parking lot and I was like, you can't miss it. That was like that looks that looks like the shed that I saw every day at Boys and Girls Club. So, good to know again, Ryan. >> Any other groups? >> All right. Um, we can then move on here to the financial reports. Item A is the funds. >> Yeah. Uh financial report in your packet again this month. I really don't have a lot to highlight but would take any questions if you've got them. Um I did want to on item B there authorization to pay claims through the end of the month here. Um if you recall the last several years we have had some excess funds due
058to esser dollars that we've brought in and it has been um something that we've needed to do to remain uh in compliance with accountability for cash balance. Um it's it's looking like just on my preliminary um calculations here don't I don't believe we're going to actually even need this. But in in the case that you know we've got revenue that's unexpectedly high um from either of our uh tax collections or state aid um I guess I would we would like you to still approve that just in case but likely we will not even need that last bill run to to be able to be in compliance. So good and bad news out of that obviously but uh um any questions I'll take them. All right. Seeing none, then I would take a motion to approve
059um both the funds and the authorization to play pay claims to the end of the month. >> So moved. First by Mark. >> Second by Ryan. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion passes. Um next up here we have future agenda items. If anybody has anything looking good. All right. Um we move on then. Our next uh board meeting will be November 10th here at city hall followed by December 8th. Actually made me ask, are we doing a Veterans Day program? So that'll be followed then November 11th. >> Perfect. At the high school. >> Yep. >> Wonderful. Um we are not in need of executive session this evening. So I will go ahead and take a motion to adjourn here at 7:49. >> I will move. >> First by Ryan, second by
060Mark. All those in favor say I. >> I. And thanks for coming. >> Have a great evening. Thank you.