001I'm going to >> [clears throat] [clears throat] >> Yeah, cuz I don't know why that was allowed. Is it anywhere in the building? There's specific locations. Okay. Specific addresses where they check. >> Sure. Yeah. What is 18 years old student thing? Do I have to be a student to be in my area? You got to be turned on. Yeah, we're right here. We still got to move it. Sure. Right. Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Well, it'd be interesting to know They're trying. Right. Well, Like it or not, it's going to been doing this forever. It goes on forever until somebody until you cry enough. All right, welcome everybody to our meeting tonight. I'll call us to order. Will you stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
002United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, next item on our agenda is the approval of the meeting minutes held on April 13th, 2026. Move to approve. I'll second. First by Jason, second by Karen. All those in favor of approving the minutes from the April 13th meeting, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Motion carried. All right, do I have any persons wishing to address our school board? Seeing none, we'll keep moving. Uh Mr. Demore, do we have any items to adjust our agenda tonight? No, no changes. Okay. We need a motion to approve our agenda as presented. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. Second. I have [clears throat] a first by Angie, second by
003Matt. All those in favor of approving our agenda as presented, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Motion carried. Do we have any conflict of interest disclosure Next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. Questions or comments at all from the board? I will just say that you'll you may be noticing a change. I did move our Hayden Committee meeting minutes to the consent agenda. I think it's just a better fit there. So, uh you'll see that the minutes will be there and um uh their budget was also in our board packet. You can go and look at that. Even's budget is really set on what they bring in and what they pay out. Rachel does a great job of managing that and uh uh extremely humble when it comes to giving herself
004increases in wages. So, uh you know, if you get a chance to say hi to Rachel, tell her how great of a job she's doing and shake her hand and tell her thanks for what she does because she's done a fantastic job um just bringing that back to life. You know, that's more employees back there coming back [clears throat] to work and our assistant that was here before is back too. She does a great job with them. So, give Rachel a high-five when you see her. Tell her thanks for what she's doing because she's doing a great job there. Do you know if she's often there during the before school program? Say say anything. When is she there most often there? Like Uh Is she there for the whole before and after school program? >>
005Generally. Okay. Yeah. Um she's there in the morning pretty early. She goes through her whole run around you know, mid-morning. Kids are gone. Um and I'm sure we crazy busy during the summer time. Sure. So, I'm sure she'll be on all the trips and everything else. But All right, if there's no other discussion, we need a motion to approve our consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Motion first by Matt, second by Angie. All those in favor of approving our consent agenda, please say I. I. All those the same sign. Motion carries. All right, next item on our agenda under old business is strategic planning. So, just wanted to make note. I did add um talked to Jason a few weeks ago and talked a little bit about trying to
006develop some type of a checklist just to show where we're at or where we're making or where we're making progress on and if we check some things off the list. I don't think you ever really check them off the list necessarily because it's ongoing. We have to revisit them, but it gives you an idea of kind of where we're at in those goal areas. But we visited again today, too, and we think the committee needs to meet here before we uh you know, at the end of the year just to maybe lay the groundwork for new goals or revisit where we're at or what we need to do or what we need to talk about going forward. So, I'll be working with Karen and it's Karen and Jason, right? On the strategic planning [clears throat]
007and we'll meet sometime here when the school year is over and just get on the same page. I do have a planning meeting with Joel as well. Joel and I are picking a day here in June that we're going to spend a day together just kind of working on things and this will be a big piece of that. That's my little update on the strategic planning. Yeah, I think just talking about talking a little bit more about establishing some sort of framework for the evaluation of what we've got done and and the things that are measurable and some of that we're going to have to do with the new leadership when they come in. But just so that from year to year we're comparing against something that's set rather than creating a new evaluation for
008every other year. So. And then just, you know, incidentally, I was going through the strategic planning. >> [clears throat] >> It's a good thing we didn't print it, I guess. That's right. But that because each one of these little stickies represents something that's going to change. So. We'll have to do that, too, but that's probably more like a July thing after everybody's here, you know. In anticipation of of printing it before the new school year starts, but nothing crazy, just the things you would expect. Adding bylaws and changing things. But do you got? What do you got? Anything yearly you'll have to do that anyway because as you accomplish some of those goals, other ones will move up and become priorities. Mhm. Yeah, I think that's a good idea because that's actually something that's a
009living, breathing, working document. It's not just a throw on a website. Right? And we are conducting the staff and student surveys. The staff and student surveys we did, the student surveys are done. I don't know if that's in there too. We have So, that should have been in [clears throat] your that big end of that folder I gave you last month. That was the month prior to Okay. But there's a there's another one I have I have to look at these things. We talked about community survey, but I can't remember what we wanted to collect as far as data. Jason and I talked about maybe it's just a simple like what do you like about our strategic plan and what what would you like to see get done? Mhm. We can work on something like
010that. And I and I would probably more than likely actually talk with Joel about that because it'd be a great opportunity for him to get to know the community. And we can talk about working together before him to be able to get the results and him to be able to disseminate and see what those results are. It'd be good and start for him. Mhm. >> So. Have you guys when you think about printing it, have you guys had a number in mind? Or is it something planning just planning to be digital? I don't know. I'm curious. I think it's important for us to print it once for sure. And then if it were to change significantly 5 years from now or whatever, we would talk about it again. But I mean from my point of
011view, I think it's important to me to hand a copy to every staff member. And whoever in the public wants one. Sure. I think our estimate was 250 before we put the brakes on. I think that's a sound estimate. And then we would you know know, would be a little 100 copies sitting around somewhere for anybody who wants them. And if for some reason it became a best seller or something, we would just Thank you. Anything else for this meeting tonight? No, I don't think so. Okay. All right. Next under new business, uh item A, 9A, a second reading of policy DFAA. And I guess I'll throw in there uh item B, which is second reading of policy KG as well. Yeah, and we can do them separately, but DFAA, just to remind you, was
012uh our investment, which allows her to and celebrate those accounts for interest earnings and transfer within. And then the second issue with our KG was that uh uh facility use agreement and and policy were changed. Um and item one, you know, coaches that will scare the game if they were taking some money home. And do we get the official verbage in there? Yeah, I added What I ended up doing is adding like you know how they have the stars? I added the four asterisks that just says a for-profit school employee user is a user, person, or entity who is a current employee of the Delaware Area School District who will profit individually from the facility use. An annual one-time fee of $200 will be required to give back any profit over $1,000. That's really the
013only thing that changed. changed. >> [clears throat] >> So, any questions, comments, feedback? And we had as much in between last meeting and this one, so I just wanted to check. Do we need to have motions for each of them? Yeah, we should do it separately. So, I did talk to Dr. Burke at length about the KG policy. Cuz I have misgivings about putting ourselves in a position to take money away from teachers. He sort of >> [clears throat] >> walked me back from that. But, I guess I would just personally like some sort of commitment that we, you know, maybe review this after a year or whatever from the board. And see how it is handled. Mhm. Um, I don't know. But, maybe it's just a a vestige from my time in the army.
014There's an adage, never, you know, never put yourself in a position to take money from your soldiers. I think that's sort of how I'm viewing that. And to keep that lens, I understand all the work you put into it and it's logical the way it's set out, but that concern still lingers. So, it has my support, but I would just maybe like us to take a look at it or after it's been used for for a year or whatever, we talk about it again. Well, it's only primarily used during the summer months. >> Yeah. So, we could even schedule a a review this fall. But, either either annually or like, you know, whatever is fine with me too. I Yeah, I know what you guys I mean, talking to Dr. Burke, I mean, you guys
015did a lot of research and he's the way he explained it, there's not really like a set program anywhere. Like, every school kind of handles it differently. So, I don't know. I don't have I I hate to come to the table with not an alternative solution. Cuz I thought it's not that I think anybody made a bad choice. It's just I don't know what else to do, but it has my support nonetheless. Thank you Clark for perspective. Any other comments or discussion? Hearing none, we need a motion on the floor to approve first policy DFAA which regarding is regarding our school investments. I motion to approve DFAA. And first by Angie, second by Karen. All those in favor of approving policy DFAA as presented, please say I. I. I. All opposed [clears throat] say sign.
016Motion carries. All right, we also have on the floor a need to approve policy KDG which has to do a dollar amount for facilities by staff who are for profit. I make a motion to approve policy KDG. Second. All right, we have a first by Karen and a second by Angie. All those in favor of approving policy KDG as presented, please say I. I. I. All opposed say sign. Motion carries. All right, item nine standard new business, fiscal year 2017 preliminary budget. Yes, you have your preliminary budget here. All funds are balanced for now. We can make any changes we need to up until its adoption for the official budget hearing in July. We usually adopt it. You don't have to adopt it until September's board meeting. Um you can see on here our transfer
017summary. Transferring from capital outlay to general fund, we're at 29% which is actually lower than anticipated when we were going through with negotiations. Um capital outlay used for transportation is around 4.8%. That's just up slightly just due to increase in the um cost per presentation. So, a total of 33.8 for now. What were we at last year? Um 30 4 and 1/2, 35. Okay. And is that where we ended up? Or where we'll end up? What do you mean? Like, so we projected that we would be at 34, 35. I'm just wondering if we kind of stayed there, or if we ended up higher or lower. Uh you're lower, 33.8. Okay. That was this year's? Yeah, this is all for next year. This is what we're projecting. Okay. And you don't need a motion, just
018review it and let me know if you have questions, and then the official budget hearing will be in July. Thank you. I'm just going to ask a couple questions. Do you do you take uh Do you take into account the facility review that the AD put together? This does not include any of those expenditures at this time. No. Okay. No decisions have been made. I only go by official um quotes and things that have been turned in as we are doing this for a preliminary budget, and I have not received a for sure from anything on that. Any other questions? >> [clears throat] >> Yeah, after that, there's a couple of things that we that I think needs to be talked about and looked at down the road is how how deep do you want
019to get into the school safety stuff? Like, where do you want to address buzzers? And how how deep do you want to get in that? Buzzers I mean, buzzers the buzzer system is the best way we might go. That's we've got quotes for that. And we're ready. All we have to do is make one phone call and that's It's It's not a huge significant price to do those things. That's not any big change in the long time. [clears throat] It's if you want to get a little deeper into that one. Do you want to fix the camera systems? Do you want to Do you want to You know, like all these windows technically should have mesh in them. You know, do you want to get that Do you want to start putting barriers in front
020of the schools that don't have them like the high school? Do you want to talk about backpacks? Do you want to add lockers? But that's when you can get into a little deeper discussion on you know, the whole school safety aspect. Let's start with buzzers. We can do that tomorrow. Just to clarify the statement, what is like the mesh for example? Was one of the recommendations? Just recommendations. It's not It's not a It's mandatory. No, not at all. No, not at all. All that is just recommendations of safety officer of the campus. Dennis, what's the debt service in capital outlay? That the debt serv- the debt service in capital is all your certificates that you have. So, like the turf would be one. Some improvements in high school middle school high school. >> [clears throat]
021>> I thought we did a new elementary school. That the new elementary The like the turf was the only thing that was done. The new elementary school is the elementary bond reduction which is a different bond that has to be tracked separately. So, there's no certificates in middle school? What's that? Are those certificates for the middle school? Yes, there's the middle school. >> So, this is just >> There's three or four left. Just directly to this. This improvement. Yep. Also, these improvements that were done a couple years ago were we're on the subject again, too. Okay. And of course the roof credit we did last year what is not a subject. And there is another Yeah, that was the second thing I was going to say that we're we're looking at it and she doesn't
022have it on the official budget but we are in our mind budgeting for the roof over here that we put an $8,000 fix on. You know how that works. Water finds holes so there's still some issues there. We have them price out for us to fix that fix it the right way and I think it's in the $600,000 range, maybe a little more. Um but we have them give us a send us the we want them to send us a quote because we'd like to do the same thing. They'll put it across two fiscal years so you can pay 400 for one and then in another fiscal year the next year so it'd be fiscal year '27, fiscal year '28. I did roughly budget half in this one right here right now. And I and
023I would you know once you guys look at that I would absolutely recommend you do it because these are they need to be done. I mean there's in the next five to eight years there's going to be a number of them that need to be repaired. So and we have a capital improvement and that's all individual fixes on the high schools other than the roof. There's some in the high school, there's some in the elementary schools that need some work here so yeah. There's a lot of them that haven't been looked at for a little while. So like with the safety stuff, are we do we need to set a meeting to sit down and like look at that so that we can make a recommendation with which direction we want to go? Yeah, I
024think the facilities committee should be involved in that. That's something hopefully we can look at. And you might want to wait until you set the joint committees since those are changing here in a month or so and then do it again. Again, there like that's a recommendation but those are the ones that they can come do it today. My back water almost been knocked out of me. So, if you want to grab Charles or someone, go for it. I'm very well now. Yeah, that's good luck. Yeah, yeah, just let me know. Early in the Yeah, let me know too. I can come and I'll bring I can bring some numbers in. Okay. That's very least we can go through that piece of it. Yeah. No problem, then. Okay. Anything else? Came for the budget at
025all? Mhm. Any other discussion or questions at this time? Okay. Thank you for bringing them to us today. Yeah. All right, then. May be approved at South Dakota High School Activities Association ballots, which Uh which there are two. Okay, so I'll ask for a little feedback on these. The first ballots on the amendments, they are I'll just go through this like amendment one. I won't waste your time reading these. I'll just kind of explain. Amendment one is essentially avoiding a situation where seventh and eighth graders are both varsity starters that played for them their seventh grade and eighth grade year and they decide they want to come back and take eighth grade again. So, it's basically saying >> [clears throat] >> you only get four semesters or six trimesters for your middle school career. What's
026happening is, you know, they got people are trying to redshirt. So, they're taking and trying to get another extra year of eligibility. So, now they're saying now they can instead of just you know, the rule in high school is you have eight in second and third semesters as well. Now, they're doing the same thing in middle school where you have four in second and third semesters. So, that's that's that one. Of course, I would recommend a yes on that one. Number two is with some of recent schools closing, we just kind of talked about one earlier, there's questions about whether they can transfer their eligibility without having to sit out 45 days in just preparation of them closing, and that's just cleaning up some of that language saying you you can you can transfer or
027open enroll somewhere else and not sit out of the year after the off- it officially closes. So, if a school would close at semester time, then they could go without penalty. Because at the end of the year, obviously, if that school year and those athletic teams have finished, they can't just go from one like softball team to a waiting softball team. So, they'd have to wait. So, that cleans up that language. And then number three is just cleans up the graduation piece where if you have students that are graduating early, we have a number of students some years that graduate at semester. So, at Christmas time, they they can no longer participate in athletics if they have officially been in the program and graduated. Uh and then it does, you know, reiterate that doesn't count
028seniors that graduate, you know, Saturday and then state softball, state golf, and some of those state events are after. If they participated in those, then they can finish up. So, So, those are those those are the three amendments which I would recommend say yes on all of them. And then follow over, and then the the ballot is just pretty easy. It's only one. So, it's Jack O'Connor's from Fredericktown School District that's filling that role of that school site. So, that was pretty simple. So, that answers it. the government. Is that People repeating the eighth grade, is that really a problem? It It's been It's like anything else. It's The reason it's being [clears throat] brought forward is because somebody's abused it. Seems like a pretty big problem. Yes, but I don't know that. I don't
029know I don't think it's a I don't know if it's an issue, but I do think there's people that have utilized it before. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Well, what they're running into is like people kids will participate seventh and eighth grade in one school, and then they'll do the eighth grade in a different school, and then they'll try to participate in varsity there. And that's where it was really being taken advantage of. That's a lot of other programs. Yeah. [clears throat] Do you think that motion to approve So We can do all together. I would recommend Mr. Costers. Obviously, it's one, and then I would recommend a yes vote on the other three. We can do it all. Okay. Any other questions or comments or discussion amongst those? Okay. So Let me rephrase that statement correctly.
030All those board members in favor of approving the three amendments as proposed, as well as Jeff Costers, uh, District 4 representative, uh, for the for the HPS S8 SAA ballot, please say I. We need a motion. I'll move. I'll make the motion that we vote yes on the three and Jeff Koster's four. The nominee. Thank you. You all say Who was the second? Again, Nita. All right, we have a first by Matt, second by Davidson. All those in favor of voting aye. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. All right, motion carries. All right, uh next item on the agenda is superintendent report. So, a few things here. Graduation 2:00 on Saturday, as many of you know, you have graduates. You're our You're our guy on the stage, right?
031It's a while. I guess so. I'll be there and so Yeah, he'll be there. So, you and me are going to have Um As I told you before, I'm I was appointed to the board of the extraordinary cost fund. So, our meeting to approve those extraordinary cost fund dollars is Wednesday. So, I'll be there on Wednesday. Then Friday, I will be meeting in Pierre with a regional group that's looking at um trying to join a preschool coalition. One North Dakota's going to come down and kind of talk us through some things. We're one of the two states that aren't in it. So, basically trying to develop some legislation, trying to push our legislators to fund preschool. >> [snorts] >> So, I'll be working with that group. Um And I do want to just throw out
032some thank yous. Uh teacher appreciation was last week. So, I just want to throw out how much we appreciate our teachers, but also our principals and our assistants that did something for them almost every day, whether it was meals or drawings or games or whatever. So, just want to thank them, our principals and our principals' assistants in the office. Um admin assistants, they do a great job organizing that, too. So, Connie and Eva and uh Heidi. And then also just our custodial staff, our activities director. I mean, it's it's just banquet after banquet after banquet this 10 years. So, you walk through our school and it's always cleaned up and it's set up and it's ready to go and we have food out that booster club bought us for this last Sunday night. So, we
033have that out for teachers today, but just a shout-out to our custodians and our facilities and that club that athletic club for doing all those things for us, too. So, we want to thank them for that. Uh that's all I have. I would say pay attention to Well, last thing was just pay attention to Sounds like there is a push to get the property tax bill on the ballot in November. Um I think it was it 245 was the um Was that the I can't even I can't remember if it was 98 or 245. Anyway, the one that reduced from 2.6 whatever to 1.67 or 667. Um looks like there was a push to get that on the ballot in November. So, that would change that property bill. The um which was which was Hansen's
034bill. And then of course, Governor Rounds' bill was the any county can add half cent if they want to. So, I'll just say to pay a little attention to that. Look at If you guys would like me, I can send you an email you uh the people that are running for the legislature right now, what their voting record has looked like. Might help you at the at the ballot box as well. It goes. So, I'll I'll send Give myself a little note to send that out to you guys. Pretty good. So, you have that. Um could be a big year, you know, this year with what governor gets put put in. And I know there's a lot of really good legislators that are running again that got knocked off 2 years ago. Um and I
035say really good meaning they're huge proponents of education. Um so, hopefully they can get them back in there. Avoid the 8-7 votes in the committees and and the 5-4 votes. So the current law you said rock and tax reduction passed in his legislation right? So they're agreeing they're going to try to repeal by referendum. >> Correct. Got you. Yeah, so July 1 it will take place and then there there's I'm hearing a petition being circulated to put that on the ballot to counsel basically reverse that in law. So Now whether that comes to fruition or not. I think what is it 25,000 signatures or something like that? Something like that. There are very few sources of revenue in the state so Yeah. ditching one of them by Yeah, 80% is probably >> Well, they want
036to add to the sales tax, right? So now you're talking if you have to do sales tax plus the half cent sales tax that more than likely comes we live in and you have will do I don't even want to walk it up to 5% sales tax instead of four. So Yeah. >> [snorts] >> Anything else Dr. Ford? I don't. I'm good. Okay, thank you. Item 10 B any committee reports and or other board comments. Um I just wanted to I was invited to attend a PTO meeting um just to kind of get an idea um around what it is that they are working on some of their projects. And so I just wanted to give a shout out to them because they're pretty busy doing a lot of things throughout the year at the
037elementary school. Um they do a lot of things for the students and their teachers. Um there's a lot of work and time and things and effort that goes into that so I wanted to give a shout out to them. Um also just maybe keep an eye out for some of their social media posts and things. They're going to try to work on kind of that big project or keep things in motion with that outdoor classroom. And so, just having our support and our willingness to share that information when it gets out there on social media to try to draw more attention to that and support for that would be much appreciated by the parents, so. You know, if we can get them a little more throughput on the app, too. The app is awesome, but
038it's still 95% high school, middle school. I don't know. I don't want to give them another something to do, either. They got enough on their plate already, but I don't know how you do that throughput from social media to application. What you give them a space on the app? >> Yeah, just more more more pushing information from them in that platform. Cuz I go to the app often to check things. Yeah, I think PTO's working really hard. This is more of a complaint than just wanting to leave it. They've got great ideas and I think they're working hard, but just think they wrestle with the system and PTO. Yes. They just It's It's hard to get them to make a decision um sometimes and I don't know if that's Cuz the kitchen or it's just
039a little leery about spending money they have and doing it right, but but they work hard and they do a ton of fundraising and they're excited about what they want to do, but um you know, Their support is way more than just not just monetary. They can bring in copies, they can bring in stuff to teachers in any way they can. So, it's just They're really boosting them along and we appreciate it. And I'm sure they would take more volunteers if anybody out there would like to join. Enough. I know I enjoyed the fifth and sixth grade concert, band and choir concert. Absolutely phenomenal. Mr. Michael Black basically put on a mini musical, which was incredible. And Mr. Jim Jimberley's work with the students is just incredible. The change from the third to sixth grade
040is I was blown away. And knowing everything that he had on his plate this year and he still just rocked it. It was hats off to them. Very impressive. We're very lucky to have both of them. You get to see them once again tomorrow night. So, they're playing tomorrow night. So, if you're looking for something to do. I'll be going to that one. It's going to be quite good. [laughter] Looking forward to it. They really do. Just to have a show and and just to go do a great job with the kids. They really do. And then so, I went to see the Susan B. Anthony Romeo and Juliet, which was weird but a lot of fun. >> [laughter] >> It's meant to be weird. I don't think that that's going to surprise anybody. I
041was a little disappointed that Romeo doesn't die in the end but >> [laughter] >> I don't know. It's kind of a modification. Yeah, well, you know, it's supposed to be happy. >> [laughter] >> I guess that wasn't Shakespeare's idea of Romeo. I think I kind of missed that part when they rewound and ran through it all again. Yeah. >> What did I miss? Did Did they set that up with something? It had to match the prologue. So, the lines had to match the prologue. They had to redo it quickly to match. Okay. Okay. I missed the line there where they fast forward. But just appreciated everybody, all the teachers and students months and months of work distilling the three two-hour moments in time. Very impressive what they did. So. All right. Thank you everybody. I
042have fancy calendar of school events. I sent an email to you guys this morning. It's all [clears throat] pretty much listed there then. Big ones don't forget graduation coming up. That's Saturday. I always One of my biggest things of anxiety is I have set about 10 reminders on my phone because Saturday I always think I wake up and I have hot sweats thinking that I missed graduation. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you. Yeah, I have a problem calling in. Yeah, I have a little problem. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, I have a couple of things going on. I have some of those credit update graduation already. All day long almost. Everything's going off in my head. It's going well. All right. Last item on our agenda tonight is the next regular meeting is currently scheduled on
043June 8th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. I'm just double-checking that that is time is still okay for everyone. It should be. My name is Michelle Burke. Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> All right. Okay. Just so we can have it also on video. We are our next regular meeting will stay on June 8th 2026 at 7:00 p.m. Yeah. All right. Do we need to go into executive session? Do not. All right. With that we need a motion for adjournment. Motion to adjourn. Councilor First, Ed with the second. All those in favor of adjourning our meeting please say I. I. All those in same sign. Motion carries. We are adjourned at 7:36 p.m. Thank you everybody. >> That was the shortest meeting ever. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. >> [laughter] >> Um, yeah, I would say So, the
044first part of the weekend after graduation one of those mornings. I'm just thinking for him. I shouldn't even speak for him in the middle of the room. I'm available whenever, but I'm assuming you're probably going to wait till Monday. Yeah, I mean I We can start on Monday afternoon. Even after Throw it against the wall. It won't work. I I can do I mean