001Order here on June 9th, 2025 at 700 p.m. Mr. Kosher, would you please take attendance? Olsen here. Palin here. Skelton here. Boss Ward here. Wine here. All present. Thank you. you if you could please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 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 appro approach the podium and do I ask that you refrain from listing any student by name or any personnel by name. If there's anyone who'd
002like to address the board as a reminder, no action will be taken this evening. Whenever you're ready, Renee, you can also fill that out later, too, if you need to. Sorry. No hurry. I gave a um copy to um one of the members, so hopefully everybody gets a copy. Um, so greetings, greetings, members of the Vermillion School Board. My name is Renee Halper. Many of you already know me, but if not, it's a pleasure to meet you. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today. As a concerned parent and community member, I come before you to share my family's experience, experiences, and concerns related to the native honoring events at Vermillion High School, particularly surrounding my son's participations in 2022 and 2025. In May of 2025, my oldest son graduated from Vermillion High School, from Vermillion
003High School, our family's first high school graduate. We were so proud of him, but that joy was marred by a deeply disappointing experience. Despite his involvement in school and native student groups, he was left out of the native honoring ceremony. I submitted a formal complaint regarding this exclusion, as well as concerns about two individuals involved in the process, one of whom was reportedly connected to the school's native honoring events. In response to my complaint, the superintendent and principal acknowledged the error. On May 16th, 2022, I was told, "I'm so sorry to hear that your son, Blank, was admitted from the invitation list for this gathering. His name appeared on every native student list I saw this year. So, I have no explanation as to why Blank would have missed inviting him. We will currently we
004will certainly endeavor to do a be to do better as a district going forward." And I believe this was a response from the principal. And on May 17, 2022, quotations, as I stated when we talked, I will make sure to bring your concern to the next Native American parent group meeting for discussion. I am confident that moving forward, we will have systems in place to improve communications. However, the same individual involved in the 2022 oversight was again a part of the 2025 event, leading us to feel these actions were part of a repeated and strategized pattern of exclusion and retaliation. Although the school acknowledged the 2022 mistake and assured us of improvements, our experience in 2025 showed otherwise. My second son, who graduated this year, has been subjected to continued discrimination and social isolation both
005within the school and at public events. We approached the 2025 Native Honoring with cautious optimism. Due to the past events and a civil protection order involving another party, we took every measure to comply with the court's guidelines and respected the school district's discretion. A week before the event, the Vermillion High School superintendent contacted me to suggest holding a separate ceremony. We declined, confident in our ability to attend respectfully. Despite bullying my son experienced after returning to Vermillion High School in the second quarter, allegedly from the other party and her friends, he remained focused, maintained excellent grades, and stayed on track for graduation. During the week of the honoring, the superintendent contacted me again and asked that we not attend the meal portion of the event in the commons. I agreed without hesitation and assured him
006we would be respectful throughout. He also told me that several girls have decided not to attend in solidarity with the other party. I reached out to the Title 6 program coordinator who later called me. She did not provide much information and I did not press worried that doing so could bring more negative attention to my son. She confirmed the girls would not be there and I replied okay thank you I will see you there. She said okay but never mentioned she also would not be attending. The day before the event the superintendent called again to confirm that all the other native students have withdrawn. When I asked if it was a boycott of my son, a boycott of my son, he confirmed it was. He assured me the event would still be held and that
007the space would be made available in case others changed their minds. I asked if the Title 6 coordinator would be present and was told she would not. That was incredibly dev disheartening. On the day of the event our family attended, my son was the only native graduate honored. Despite the painful circumstances, we were grateful to the Vermillion High School staff and the special education team for their support. We quietly left as agreed after the event concluded. What followed only added to the emotional toll of that day. My younger son later told us that a teacher had discussed in class that there were two Native Honoring events, one apprentice and another at the University of South Dakota. We soon discovered a public social media post shared by the other parties titled quotations standing in solidarity. The
008post confirmed that a separate event had indeed been organized at the university at the same time as the school ceremony clearly intended to exclude and protest my son's presence. This was deeply painful. We also learned from another parent that someone affiliated with the school district had attended the university event and was met with suspicion by those present. Yet, the school's response to my concern stated that no district personnel attended, which now appears to be inaccurate. More concerning is that the district knew about this event and never informed us. The alternate event appears to have been intentionally planned to exclude and retaliate against my son based in part on sealed juvenile court matters that should never have been used against him. The result was public humiliation and emotional harm during a milestone that should have brought
009pride and joy. My son became withdrawn and depressed for the days after the event. Adding to this, my son's name and photo were left out of the local newspapers graduation section despite turning in his materials on time. The person overseeing the process was present, and when he submitted it, she had full access. We believe this exclusion was deliberate and fits into a troubling pattern of targeted eraser. The harassment did not stop there. On graduation day at the Coyote Sports Complex, members of the other party's family and friends harassed us verbally, shouting profanities as they walked past us before the ceremony. Even more disturbingly, the mother of the other party walked directly toward me and made a threatening motion as if to strike me, then deliberately walked through our family while we gathered for pictures. This
010aggressive, intimidating behavior violated the civil protection order and made a joyful day extremely stressful and traumatic. What was supposed to be a moment of celebration became an emotional exhaustion and humiliating experience for our entire family. Instead of feeling seen and honored, my son's achievements were overshadowed by exclusion, retaliation, and a communitywide display of discrimination. It is heartbreaking to realize that during one of the most important milestones of his life, my son was made to feel unwelcome, his name omitted, his presence protested, and his character unfairly judged. No child or family should ever be treated this way. We are calling on the board to acknowledge what has happened, take this seriously, and commit to ensuring no other native student or family has to go through what we did. Thank you. If anybody has any questions, Thank
011you, Renee. Thank you. Next. Next up here, we have item A, tannager happenings, and we have none this evening. So, we will move on to approving the agenda and conflict disclosures. Item A is agenda changes. Are there any agenda changes, Dr. Elvie? There are not. Thank you. I would take a motion to approve the agenda. So, moved. First by Mike. Second. Second by Jacob. All those in favor say I. I. Post. Same sign. Motion passes. Next up here we have item B which is indication of conflict of interest personal Dakota codified law CL3-23. This is Rachel and I have none. Carol I have none. Jake and I have none. Barb none. Mike I have none. Thank you. Um moving on here we have our consent agenda. Um this evening we have approval of our minutes
012resignation new hires open enrollment and bills. Um, first we have our May 12th meeting resignations. Terry Canahine, librarian. Dakota Hayes, bed aid. Paisley Sierra, Native American leaison. Pam Smith, sped aid. Kaden Elder, middle school girls and boys basketball. Chris Ein White, preschool bus driver. Uh, new hires. Tessa Douly, summer ESY. Trina Meredith, middle school boys basketball. Jasmine Stewart, summer custodial. Jenny Moran, sped aid. Taylor Klein, SLPA. Reagan Stalk and Molly Schultz, third grade. Tiffany Jones, elementary counselor. Kelly Kudson, middle school girls basketball. Jerry Bartles, summer ESY. Sarah Ericson, summer ESY and Solution Free, which is an invoice that uh Mr. Kosher can explain as well. Yeah, we did have one late addition to the bills list uh for solution tree total of $955.50 did not make the original list. Um it is for professional development
013materials and we can get re reimbursed from a uh title grant as long as we get this one in here. Great. Thank you. Are there any questions or anything that you'd like moved from the consent agenda? Just a question. What does ESY stand for? Extended school year. Thank you. the summer stuff. Fun stuff. Continuation of services. Good question. Any other questions or I'll take approval for the minutes resignation new higher open enrollments and bills. So move first by Jacob, second by Mark. All those in favor say I. Post same sign. Motion passes. Uh next up here, we are not in need of unfinished business. So we'll be moving on um to new business. There are um several items this evening. We may be able to do it in one motion. But we'll start with item
014A, which is approval of the business manager to allocate special education interest and the best interests of the district. Mr. Kosher, this is one that um historically had been on the agenda in June for a number of years. Um it had normally been that we would allocate the interest earned through the special education fund account and uh bring that back over to the general fund. The last three years because of the ESSER funding that we had and some concerns over that general fund cap uh temporarily we have left these the interest funds into in the special education fund. Um now we are getting back to the point that we uh it would be in the best interest of the district financially to uh move those back from the special education fund into the general fund.
015So that would be the action tonight. if you would uh like to follow that recommendation. Any questions on that? Okay. Um I think moving on, we'll go to approval to transfer from general fund to preschool. As part of our budget this year, we had included $22,000 transfer from the general fund into the preschool fund uh to co help cover the cost there. Um, as far as subs subsidizing that program, um, we are bringing forward a recommendation for a transfer of that full $22,000 this year. Perfect. Any questions? Just a a point of interest for that particular one that uh naturally if we have our both of our preschools full uh both morning and afternoon that that number would shrink. Naturally, we would have to subsidize it less. Going into this fall, we're already at less
016than half capacity for the fall. So, we're we're really really short this year for preschool numbers. We have 18 in our PM classes and we have 10 or nine in our elementary or excuse me, in our morning AM classes. So, we need to do a really good job of recruiting this summer so that we can sustain having two of those positions. uh if we find that this is um a continuing this is the third year in a row that that number's declined, then we're going to have to need to have to revisit that preschool program um over the course of the winter for next year. So, just a heads up that this conversation will continue. Usually, it's around that 15 to 8 most years, isn't it? Yeah. And be honest, we could get a big
017influx in the summer. People just might not have taken advantage of our early registration. So, we're not uh you know calling the alarms yet, but it's it's we need to we need to get the the the notice out that we need more of the students to come in. So, great. Um probably keep it keep at it. Uh Mr. Kosher Medicaid administration agreement. Where are this is? Is an annual agreement uh that we have with the uh uh Southeast Area Co-op and they help us with some of our paperwork on Medicaid uh reimbursements. And for that they uh bill us 6.5% of the income that comes in. That number has been 6.5% for the last several years. And uh there aren't any real substantial changes to this agreement this year. They can have all they want
018of that. Next up here is approval of adult volunteer. We have Tara Orin uh with softball and good time to congratulate them. It might be in your thunder later, but I believe a sixth place at the state championship. Um then we have a following that we have item E which is approval of a transfer request. Uh Laura Chandler, Mr. Koser looks like um Yep. She would like kindergarten. Yep. she'd like to transfer from her early childhood preschool position up to kindergarten. And um both Jennifer and Sam have approved that transfer request. I think that'll be wonderful for her. Congratulations, Laura. Surplus at that time of year. Item F or surplus items. Yes. Lots of things here. Uh they're just basically bulleted. uh several emails from staff here, but basically we're getting rid of um riser
019platforms that are uh decades old from the high school show choir. We're getting rid of um miscellaneous library books. The librarians uh did a good job of trying to weed things out uh as they moved into the elementary, but also the middle school and high school uh came in for a couple extra days after school was out to do some uh cleaning and purging of of damaged or books that aren't uh are no longer being checked out. Uh Mrs. Jacobs, Ashley Jacobs had done um some technology there with some laptops and Chromebooks and all these things are surplus at no value so that we can um move forward with them. And then we also have some Holt physical science, environmental science and physics textbooks from our science department that will be surplused and discarded. So
020the list any questions regarding those? All right, moving on to item G, which is approval of the South Dakota High School Association resolution. Yes. Last month, you guys had the opportunity to approve some um um resolutions for the um I guess the activities association handbook, but you also voted on a few ballot issues with some principles. There was um um a runoff that was selected for the East River Atlarge principal group. And so the runoff is between Ryan Rollinger, the secondary principal from Harrisburg, and Britney Idy, secondary principal from Corsica Stikney. And the first time around, we did vote for Ryan Rollinger. So I would recommend continuing that. Good luck Ryan in the runoff. Yeah, pretty intense for high school high school. That's good that people want the job. So that's good. People can keep
021continuing their work. Um uh next up here we have the approval of the FY25 budget supplement number three. Yeah, we've we've talked a little bit about this in in previous budget supplements. Um this this one right here that we have in your packet will actually hopefully going forward in in years after this will be quite a bit closer to what they look like going forward. We have we've had more budget supplements over the last couple of years just because of ESSER programs and and some of those things where we're shifting from one fund to another. Um this one right here that we bring forward to sort of wrap up the end of the year um is a lot of catchup on some grants. You know, we took on additional expenses in some areas, but it
022was only because we had grants to do those things. Um, a couple of the opportunities that we've had here were uh TSI grants and then the cops security grant both in our general fund and capital outlay fund that we were able to take on some additional projects and and purchase some additional materials through those two grants. Uh we also saw some uh budget overruns in a couple different areas, legal services, um some utility rate increases that we've uh experienced. And then any anytime that you're uh having success in some of your co-curriculars, there's going to be some additional expenses along with that. So, we've got some budget supplement to go with that. We also had for our um Finland project this year, we had some additional busing from from the high school around. The foundation
023has been uh generous in that they are helping uh cover some of the cost with that. So, we've got some revenue to offset that one there. um already discussed the capital outlay with the cop security grant. Um we've had a little bit of additional um need for PT services and special education. So we're uh supplementing the budget there. And then in food service u just additional participation in our program has driven some additional costs but then offsetting revenue as well. Um and then we did have some additional miscellaneous expenses. One thing that we are seeing, we've talked about this through the finance committee a little bit, is um more and more a higher percentage of our payments that come in to us come in through online payments. Well, as the fees continue to tick up
024on those processing um fees there, the the district food service account has had to dip into it a little bit more to cover some of those costs. So, we are looking to supplement our budget here for offsetting some of that. But then going forward to next year, we'll have to look at our free fee structure as to what what parents are charged for that and whether or not we look to cover more of that cost on those transaction fees. So, you're saying it's not helpful like every other week I just go online and do the $2 fee? I do the same thing. So, yeah, but uh I mean I can send an oldfashioned check if that helps better. It's it is helpful to pay either cash or check, but I get it cuz I do
025the exact same thing. So, just easy when they forget to tell you and those good reminder though to set up those alerts y so that they come very frequently when you get to that balance. So, great. Any questions um regarding the supplemental budget? No. All right. Um looks like finance committee was busy and got the workman's comp um premiums for uh this coming year. Yeah, this is actually a new one to the agenda. We haven't done this in previous years, but part of the reason that what we're having this on on this month's agenda is that our July board meeting is not until the 14th. It's as late as possible. and we we will pay our work comp insurance premium in the year the fiscal year that it's actually due which would mean that if
026we would do it on our normal board meeting the check wouldn't be sent out in the mail until after the 14th well our our policy renews prior to that and we want to make sure that we get that payment in on time so we'll actually process that in one of the first couple days of July with your approval what is the increase from last year to this year is it for workman's pump. We uh in total dollars, we saw about an $8,000 increase. Um not not great, but at the same time, we were bracing for possibly most. Good. Thank you. Next up here, um, we have item J, which is approved negotiations for certified administration classified with the exception of PAR professionals, education assistance, building administrative assistants, and school librarians. Dr. LD. Yes. So yes,
027uh basically we've uh approved contracts for all of the groups um with the exception of the pair of professionals who were still negotiating with next week, the librarians and the secretaries. So the ones that you've listed in Jay there have already had their contracts adjusted out and signed and returned. And uh we'll go into executive session at at the end of the meeting and share a little bit about the upgrade uh with the um negotiations with the final group. But today we can for now we can approve the group that we have listed. Great. While we finish the work on the others. All right. Um last item here is K approval of the engagement letter with Oh, kill me on that. Isn't that our accounting form yellow for the FY25? Uh, we still do not
028have that engagement letter, but I guess what we would request tonight is that you would approve just our engagement agreement with with ELO. I don't anticipate that it's going to be a big change. Um, we'll just have to see on the pricing. At this point, we've already got our our audit scheduled for about a month and a half from now. So, we fully anticipate they will be here. It's just um that we don't actually have that letter in front of us, but uh we ask that you uh approve that based on the past relationship we've had with them in anticipation that the letter does not u deviate much from our previous relationship there. And the letter just kind of sets pricing out as well. Correct. And we have to formally uh have that signed and
029sent into the state department of legis legislative audit prior to the the audit. So, if we wait until the July meeting, it will probably be pretty late at that point. So, but as long as we get it before the audit happens, correct? If not, we push the audit back, right? I hope not. Just saying. Great. All right. So, that uh was a lot of items. We had items A through K. Any discussion or anything like to be further discussed on any of those items? Not I would seek a motion from items A through K. So move. First by Mark. Second. Second by Carol. All those in favor say I. I. Post. Same sign. Motion passes. Um next up here then we have our report. Starting off with Dr. Ellie. Yes. Um, just wanted to um
030acknowledge Amy Richardson again, you know, and thanking Sanford Vermillion for supplying her services to us all year. Um, she's been busy. We've had a lot of really good uh postseason runs in our athletic department, which Amy's been a part of and and got to go to those events for um our school district. So, we appreciate that. But we appreciate the fact that Sanford supplies that service to us as well because uh it's really nice to be able to have a certified athletic trainer on on your site each night. Um we talked a little bit about this in executive session, but we're continuing to develop the budget um around the 1.25% increase from the state uh South Dakota legislature. Uh it's been a little bit of a challenge, but we're we're getting there. And of course,
031we'll be prepared with the finance committee to prepare that budget for its hearing next month on on July 14th at 6:30 p.m. here before uh next month's meeting. Uh negotiations uh with most of our groups are complete. We're still working with um the secretaries, Perez, and librarians, which will meet and hopefully be able to uh wrap up on Monday of next week. Uh we're working on a a facelift for our school website. So, right now we're working with one of our vendors that provides our parent square communications uh platform inside the district that uh they're going to work on it behind the scenes. So, over the course of the summer, they'll be building out all the pages and we'll be um taking care of those things and then we'll hopefully will flip the switch um
032in early August or mid August to have that new look, the up up uh updated fresh branding and some of the new things that we wanted to have available. Uh but we'll continue to run our other website until then. So people can still go to our normal website and find new information. Uh some of the things that they could find on that are part of the next um item there which is our 202526 calendar. Uh last uh month when negotiations were complete, we actually reduced a day from the school calendar from 180 to 179 which is reflected um on the calendar that the board has before them tonight. It's also reflected on the board on the calendar that's on the school website. Uh but it basically outlines the the inservice days and uh all the
033breaks that the students and the teachers experience as well as the last day of school. Um along with that, we've put out a tentative 2627 school calendar, which is really a mirror of this year's calendar. Um, if you look back at our history, we haven't varied by a day or two really with our our days. So, uh, in an effort to help get people notice, uh, really early, we've put out a a tentative 26 27 calendar with the idea that we would likely be starting and ending on the same dates. Some of the dates in between might have a little bit of of work to be done, but folks that are interested in looking a year in advance would at least get a really good look at what the calendar would likely look like. um
034not only next year but the year after that. And then um we're working and I think tonight I think we we're kind of working on our final dates there, but we're working on um a tentative date for a school board retreat. Uh in listening uh to and finding emails from the school board members, it looks like the Tuesday the 5th is the date that works the best with a morning um shift. So, uh, if you just double check your calendars again and I'll send out a reminder, but we would be looking at Tuesday, August 5th from 8 till noon at the high school for a school board retreat. And then we would follow that up with another four hours after school has started in August, probably late August, like we've done the last couple years.
035So, um, I'll send out a an email reminder of that just so you can just double check your calendars and make sure it still works for you. Um committees have been working steadily. Uh finance committee is a result of a lot of the things you see in the packet tonight. They do have a few more assignments coming up at near the end of the month here as we look at finalizing the uh budget and getting the final preparations for the budget hearing uh next month. Uh the budget uh excuse me the building committee is kind of on hold now. They've got some some vacation time here till the fall when we get ready to start the school year. It will reconvene again once school starts for our technology committee. Uh policy committee will be working
036in the coming weeks to talk about um uh any policy changes or legislative changes that the district is seeking. Um and we'll have that ready for the July meeting. And uh finally, the camp invention. Uh the picture that you see in your packet there is a thank you from the camp invention kids. uh Mindy Whistler and her friends uh were uh in school for the that week of June 2nd through the 5th and had approximately 27 28 campers uh most of those days um and serviced four communities in our area. So another uh good thing that we brought back. It was off for a year in the hiatus of changing from Jolly to the new elementary school, but Mindy and her crew re resurrected it and it sounds like it was a hit. So I
037want to thank Mindy and the the people that brought that back to us. So otherwise, uh, that's all I have for tonight. I was curious about that parent square. Is it something that'll be coming to the middle school elementary here? Because I know it was kind of a trial at the high school. Yes. Yes. The parent square will be uh communication platform that um the high school sends out their uh weekly newsletters and other communications directly to the parents. it has some unique um abilities such as, you know, we can filter it down to say just girl basketball players or all freshmen or whatever the filter might be. And so, um, yes, Rachel, you're right that, uh, Mr. Fry piloted it at the high school this last year and seems to have enjoyed it and
038now he's kind of gotten the rest of the district on board with moving forward with it. So, we hope to see the benefits at the all the buildings. I heard great things. So, good. Yes. Five. Good. Okay. All right. Um, moving on then. If there's anything else, Mr. Elie. Uh, nope. You're good. Okay. Um, any school board reports, finance? Anything more that you haven't already tucked up on? Nope. Neg, that's your show. Your annual show. Negotiations were still in the works here, so hopefully getting wrapped up here very soon. uh public school foundation uh met end of May there. Um wanted to thank them again for all the things that they do for our district. Um they gave out over $2,000 in scholarships to our middle schoolers both for governor's camp and for the music
039camp at USD. Um they had scholarships uh again for graduating seniors. And just another note to the community to apply, have your kids apply next year for all those scholarships. uh they had four scholarships that did not get any applications uh specifically for them. Um every kid, my understanding is every kid who applied on time and pushed the submit button at the end of their application um did get some scholarship. Apparently there were a couple that didn't quite make it all the way through the process, but um and they are also um foundation um helping send a group of teachers to Colorado this summer for some extended training. So, I'd be curious, you know, to how many of the experiences they did. I know our fourth graders got to go on a trip there to
040the zoo. Um, but I think there's a lot more experiences that they helped do as well. So, thank them for that for Carol. All right. No, I know Boys and Girls Club is in full force here with their summer programming and I see the bus zipping around all over. So, and then their summer school program as well. Excellent. Um, there's no other reports, we can move on to the financials. Um, item A is the funds. There's about 10 pages there. I really don't have a whole lot to highlight uh as far as the reports go there, but would take any questions. Think of that. All right. Seeing none, we can look at item B2, which is which I'm guessing is a motion. Um, authorization to pay the FY25 claims through the end of the year,
041June 30th, 25. Yes, this is an annual one that we have, uh, especially with the early timeline of our audit. Um, we get approval here to pay bills through the end of the month so that we can wrap that fiscal year up a little bit quicker than we otherwise would be able to. uh so that we can prepare for the audit in the third week of July. Great. So I would take a motions for items A and B. So moved. First by Mike, second by Mark. All those in favor say I. I. Post same sign. Motion passes. Um next up here we have our future agenda items. If anybody has anything, we'll have any time during our annual meeting. Budget first, as a reminder, at 6:30. Um then followed by our 7:00 regular meeting. Um
042I think this is July 13th, but is it the 14th? Correct. I think 14th. Just cross check that. Perfect. July 14th. Um, we are in need of executive session tonight for South Dakota codified law 1-25-2-4 and South Dakota South Dakota codified law 1-25-2-1. So, I will make a motion or so I take a motion. Take a motion to um enter into executive session. So, moved. Second. I'll give it first by Carol, second by Jacob. All those in favor say I. I. We are now in executive session here at 7:36. Thank you.