001Mhm. >> Okay. We'll call the meeting to order. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Well, good evening. We will get started with our good news report. Does anybody have the good news Oh, yeah. >> [laughter] >> I'm just kidding. Well, I do want to take a moment to report some really good news. Um, first I want to thank those who helped put together um, a nomination. Um, it was truly a team effort. Um, and I appreciate the time and the thought that went into sharing Dr. Knoll's story. As a country boy from Chester, uh, Chester, South Dakota, he picked cucumbers. >> [laughter] >> Three acres of cucumbers up hills both ways. Just kidding. I am really proud Yeah, he's like, "What the heck? This is What is going on?" Well, I'm very proud to
002share that Dr. Jamie Knoll has been named the Rookie of the Year by the South Dakota School Superintendents Association. >> [applause] [cheering] >> And I just want to say it's kind of an oxymoron because, while he's new to the role, he's been with the district for 30 years. Um, and you know, just at the time though when he stepped into his new role um, as superintendent, we really had some challenges at both the national and the state level. And you have led with real steadiness and purpose. You've brought people together. You've kept us focused and helped strengthen the relationships um, from our class all the way from our classrooms to the state capital. And we just really wanted to lift that up. And what I appreciate most is that you keep the priorities right in
003front of us. You keep our teachers, our staff, our administrators, our families, our um, well, what's most important is our kids. You keep our kids front and center. And um, with that focus, we continue to to deliver a quality education to all students. And that's something that our community can be really proud of. We are a bright shining star across the Midwest, and um, that is something worth recognizing, and most definitely you being Rookie of the Year and being a great leader, um, for the district. Um, so tonight, I also want to recognize your wife, Tammy. There's Tammy. Um, because leadership like this takes support at home, and we're just grateful for that as board members as well, the support that you give to Dr. Knoll. So, thank you. We have a gift for you
004and Tammy right here. Heard you like to go to Minerva's. >> [laughter] >> So, an evening out for you two, well deserved, and >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah, there we go. Aw, yay. Well, anyway, we are just really honored to get to celebrate this, um, well deserved recognition with you, Dr. Knoll. So, here you go, Rookie. I forgot this week to ask Deanne what was on the good news report. I will not do that again. Uh, and thank you. The story of the cucumbers was from just just sharing some of the background this last weekend, uh, as we're at some conferences on on growing up on a farm and some of the things that that taught us as we went through and hard work in life. So, it was some great conversation with some other
005individuals, and that taught me why I wanted to go and get my education cuz I did not want to do that for the rest of my life. Uh, I have great respect for those that do farm. So, thank you. But, I would also say that that hard work ethic you bring into your into your job every day, and don't think I didn't know that you don't go home on Friday night until all the work is done. So, we really appreciate you. Um, we have another good news report. We have Miss Hairball that's going to give us that good news. >> Tough act to follow. Congratulations. So, I am here tonight to provide you all with a follow-up good news report for the Everybody Reads initiative for the Sioux Falls School District libraries. So, this year's
006initiative ran from March 1st through March 31st, and the theme for this year was Tales on the Trails. And it was an excellent theme to be able to connect literature to the outdoors, which is also something that, um, is widely collaborative within, uh, the individuals who live in South Dakota. And so, with that, our schools spent the month of March participating in the initiative. And so, they led way with creative student-led displays. And so, we took students on various adventures going through the state of South Dakota, sometimes on foot, sometimes on hoof, or paw, as you can see, and then sometimes even on a road trip or two. With that, why Everybody Reads? Well, it's simple. The purpose of this initiative is to be able to build a collaborative reading initiative so that students are
007able to see the importance of that partnership between reading in school and also with the community as well. And throughout that month of March then, our students, families, community members, they spent their time reading books, logging books on the live tracker that was provided by Libraries, and eagerly watching that tracker to be able to see whether or not we were able to meet this year's lofty goal of 500,000 red books. And by the end of the month, we had read 495,123 books. So incredibly close to that 500,000 red book goal, and we want to applaud all of the individuals, all of our students and families who really championed this, and pursued that lofty goal. For comparison, last year's goal was 300,000 books. So, we far surpassed a goal that we had set just 1 year
008ago, and it just shows everyone's commitment to this initiative and also to increasing it, um, and strengthening it as we go as well. Now, with this initiative, not only, as I've stressed, is it important for students to be able to see the value of the partnership with reading in school and in the community, but it's also important for students to be able to see themselves as readers, get those books for fun in their hands, have that love for reading, and that is where we have a guest tonight, Sarah Becker. She is one of our librarians at Hawthorne Elementary School, and she is going to share with you an experience that occurred at Hawthorne that allowed just that for the students to see themselves as readers and to also grow in their love of reading. Hello.
009My name is Sarah Becker. I am the librarian at Hawthorne Elementary and I travel to teach classes at Hayward, also. I have served as on the Everybody Reads committee now for the last 2 years, and I'd like to take a moment to thank my partner at Sioux Land Libraries, Leah Tannis. She's right back there. And then we had a new person join our community this year who was Alan E. Jiao, who's right over there. His wife happens to be a librarian at Robert Frost. Um so, Reach Literacy reached out and they said that they wanted to give back to the community. He explained how the community had been so generous to them and they'd like to repay the favor with service. So, in the past, Reach has tried to do virtual events called Be a
010Reader that kind of left a lot to be desired and it was a response to COVID trying to get in to read to kids even at a distance, but it turns out that reading in person leaves a little bit more of an impression on the mind and the heart of a reader. So, Alan and Leah and I worked out a plan and a schedule that was sent to Reach volunteers in February, and I worked with my students on how to show belonging to guests and make them feel welcome in our school, and they were pumped. In the words of one fourth grader, "They'll read any book I ask them to read for real? Let's go!" It's exactly how he said it. Excitement was in the air on March 9th and 10th, and another community partner,
011Promising Futures, had donated money so that kids could have books to keep and take home. So, we handed out those books on that day as well, and the Reach volunteers helped kids write their names on the insides of the books and they were marked forever with that loving book ownership. And then the reading began. Some students invited volunteers to read with them, others were a little more shy. The volunteers and students read books for 25 minutes uninterrupted and then enjoy the conversations, the quiet kid kind of coming out of their shell was all evident in those two days. The feedback was immediate with one first grader leaving the library quietly singing to himself, "Best day ever." It was so cute I almost didn't catch it and then he looked at me and kind of smiled.
012Volunteers gushed about how much fun they had and how kind the kids were, and others asked if they could come back again and they offered their services for helping with other special school event. So, this event put the everybody in Everybody Reads. At Hawthorne, we teach the values of belonging, generosity, mastery, and independence represented by the Circle of Courage. We like to say that we show these values by living in the circle. The circle was full of joy and stories during Everybody Reads, and we hope to replicate this experience in other schools around the district and share that same joy. So, thank you to Reach Literacy, to Alan E. Jiao for his wonderful idea and his collaborative spirit, and thanks to all the volunteers who shared their time, their energy, and their passion for reading.
013We truly lived in the circle that day. I had another picture. Here are some of the volunteers we had reading with some of our kids. And thanks to Tori Stolen for taking pictures and putting our story out there. So, thank you. That's outstanding. How many volunteers did you have read to the kids? 35. Oh, that is something. And some people came and stayed all day. Like they signed up for multiple time slots and they just stayed all day. So, it was pretty great. That's great. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And then one last thing that I would like to add is that through this initiative, even though we didn't meet our goal, we were incredibly close, Reach Literacy will receive a $1,000 donation on behalf of the Sioux Falls School District to be able to
014use those funds to continue to promote literacy throughout the community as well. So, we are incredibly thankful for their partnership and all that they did for us for this initiative, and also to Sioux Land Public Libraries as well. Just another example of wonderful giving community and staff we have. So, thank you very much. And what a great partnership with the community they get them to come in and read with our kids. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. All right, thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you. Okay, well, an exciting fun night. Okay, let's see. Can I get an approval of the minutes of the meeting held on 3-23, 3-25, and 4-1. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We have approved the minutes of those meetings. Um we do not have anybody wishing to address the
015board, so we'll move on to approval of the agenda. Can I please get a motion to approve tonight's agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. We have an agenda. Uh seeing no conflicts of interest, we'll move on to approval of the consent agenda items. That would be items A through Let's see. Or excuse me, no. It would be A through C. A through C 13. Okay. Oh, hang on. Let me click Oh, good. You don't have an actual report that time. Okay, thank you. A through F. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? We have approved consent agenda items A through F. Reports of the superintendent, Dr. Nold. So, we do have one report and then we'll obviously have the the FY27 budget public hearing after that. Uh this report that we
016have that will be given is the social studies curriculum adoption, and Dr. Zeek will be giving that report as we go through. Uh this is a long process. It goes over a few years uh and obviously is a very significant process that we utilized to establish what the curriculum is that is taught to the students in the Sioux Falls School District. So, Dr. Zeek will go through that. Uh you can see by the length of the process it also results in a long report. Uh this is 11-page report and he will go through and summarize those for us at this time. So, Dr. Zeek. Thank you, Rookie of the Year. It's like my grandma It's like my grandma always said, "When you have the Rookie of the Year in front of you, make it your
017best." So, this is my first curriculum adoption report. I'll do my best. >> [laughter] >> The As usual, the uh social studies curriculum adoption began a couple of years ago and just want to thank all of the people who put in uh their time and efforts and talents to work through this. This is a an amazing process, one that will be replicated. We'll do math next year and then we'll do ELA after that. So, I've got some more coming up in the coming years. Our district priority area is academic success, and like every adoption, we go through a a vision and mission revision and then work on some goals. So, the vision statement for the Sioux Falls School District social studies curriculum will prepare students to become informed and engaged citizens who uphold equality and
018democratic principles across economics, civics, geography, and history. By exploring diverse perspectives, we are committed to fostering lifelong learners who lead, contribute, and thrive in an interconnected global society. And our mission, short and sweet, the Sioux Falls School District prepares students to succeed in a changing world by fostering critical thinking through social studies. Mission uh mirrors our district mission. And our goals, students will develop critical thinking by analyzing history, economics, civics, and geography, and you hear that time and time again in those content areas. Students demonstrate knowledge and skills necessary to be wise and responsible citizens. Students gain a geographical understanding of nations and cultures and how their community, state, and nation fit into the global community. Students apply basic economic literacy concepts to make sound decisions, and finally, students engage in historical analysis using evidence
019to communicate cause and effect relationships and multiple multiple perspective on historical events. We begin with the standards, a review of the standards from uh our steering committee, and we looked at the 2023 South Dakota social studies content standards, and also the Oceti Sakowin essential understandings and standards. Now, we didn't do that in the beginning uh with the current version cuz that just recently came out, 2025. So, we used the old version, and with any curriculum study we will put into adoption next year, and we will look at it and revise as we go along and see what's actually taught. Here's a look at the subjects from kindergarten through 12th grade. You can see we begin [clears throat] with the world 2315. That's long, long time ago, and then we go all the way into high
020school which you'll see some of the classes that are that we offer to the high schoolers. The thing to note is that these standards are chronological and they spiral through the study of the subjects. Students, you can see in high school will study a world history and all throughout four times and American history or civics five times. And we take this and then what we do is develop an instructional framework or otherwise known as a pacing guide or curriculum map. And again, we spiral spiral in that key content of history, civics, geography, and economics. Here's a look at our elementary periodicals that were purchased by the state to match the standards. This is the cover of week one second grade. You can see that it's colorful, it's vibrant. Kids really like them is what we're
021looking at. And even though I'm presenting this adoption now, we're in the first year of the elementary adoption. And we'll have five remaining years left after this for six total. And again, the state purchased these materials for us except for Spanish immersion where you'll see that we spent $86,000 working with Studies Weekly to mirror these exact periodicals in Spanish so that they can learn in that language. Here's another look. You can see this is second grade again, United States government goes through the executive, legislative, judicial branch. And we have 32 of these weekly periodicals. Again, organized chronologically. And due to the limited time that we have in the elementary with the emphasis on reading and math and science and social studies and everything else we have to put in, what we did was do alternating
022units of study with reading. So, we'd have reading for a couple of weeks and we'll have social studies for a couple of weeks using these materials. And this leverages the rich content while still integrating our critical reading strategies to strengthen comprehension. Now, if students were at grade level, that's great. But if they're below, we have an online option that they can they can use and it will read it to them so that we do not we do not really take the the information where it says and differentiate down. What we do is scaffold up so that we always hold high expectations for our students. Before I get to the high school courses, I just wanted to say that the newcomers in middle school also use Studies Weekly. These are from the national standards though. These
023weren't specific to South Dakota. And that's in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade and that gives them the background knowledge and vocabulary so that they can really focus in on. Sixth and seventh Sixth grade will focus on world history and seventh grade and eighth grade on American history. >> [clears throat] >> And then when we move into high school, you can see all of the courses that they have from ancient civilizations, banking and credit being with economics along with economics, government, sports and society, world history. On the right-hand side, you'll see the sheltered courses for our English learner students as well as the AP offerings that we have throughout our high schools. In high school social studies, here are the graduation requirements and then the endorsement requirements. You can see that the first three are the
024same, but when you get to the advanced honors endorsement, that's where they really are more specific in the electives. And instead of 1.5 credits for social studies electives, they break that out into world history, geography, and then you get one choice of 0.5 credit for your elective. Here's our budget. This budget to note is just a little over $2.5 million and and it goes through elementary, middle, high school, special education funding, and then professional development. This particular professional development line item is for writing assessments. The teams are are taught or are received that professional development because writing high quality assessments is not easy. And so, we we walk the teams through that training. And to note, we are trying to get to an 8-year cycle. This is a 5-year cycle. We were intentional about that
025because that's when our Studies Weekly ends. So, we'll we'll probably go a couple of years before that when we start the study, work with the state. Are they going to continue that Studies Weekly periodicals or will we make have to make an adjustment? And if we went 8 years, we'd be behind the ball. So, we're just going to make everything solid at 5 years and then we'll be on an 8-year cycle after that pending any standards changes. Can we ask [clears throat] questions as you go for a second? Sure. >> Quick question. How will we factor in a Are you already looking at the budgeting cost since we know what it cost us here for looking at that 5-year cycle if the weekly studies doesn't come through? Is that something we should keep in the
026back of our mind? If if we would need to then provide an adoption for elementary. Yes, then it would be more. Okay. Thank you. I wish I could give you a percentage on what that would be. I would say probably leaning more no at this point than yes. But again, we are 5 years out. It's a long time from now. Dr. Zick, sorry. On the budget, can you just clarify? Is was there state funding put into any of this? State funding for elementary. Yes, and I don't have the number of how much it cost. Yeah. But even for like the Spanish immersion only, is it again clarifying question that 86? Is that coming from the state to supplement for us or did we pay for that? >> Good point. We paid for that a couple
027of years ago in the development of Studies Weekly. They were great to work with. Yeah. But yet, $86,000 to have those materials in Spanish because that's how they learn. Not in English. I knew that, but I just wanted that to be clear that that came out of our budget and that was not supported even though it was mandated for us to implement. Thanks. >> Thank you. Here's our committee participation and again, a big thank you for all the work and time and effort that they put into going through all of the standards and all of the materials and vetting things and writing their curriculum maps and developing assessments. We're excited to look forward to adopting this into next year for secondary and continuing in elementary. So, I ask the board to approve the K-12 social
028studies curriculum adoption for the following school year 2026-2027 and I stand by for questions or more comments. Can I get a motion to approve the adoption of the social studies curriculum K through 12 for 2026-2027? So moved. Second. Questions. Yep. Dr. Zick, I struggle personally a little bit with an 8-year cycle on curriculum materials and curriculum you know, buying new curriculum. And I know that you had the caveat of while I'm case there's any more developments from the state as far as curriculum guides or whatever. Um I don't know. I guess my question is are you comfortable with an 8-year cycle? With myself, I've had a lot of conversations about this. You know, this is my first curriculum adoption. The one thing that we're struggling with right now is if it's seven, I've got social
029studies, then I've got math and I've got ELA behind. And in secondary, that's completely fine because I am a social studies teacher and I don't have to worry about math or ELA. But if I'm elementary, that's quite a load for those teachers just to continue to go through. It doesn't give them a break. At eight, it gives us our four core and then we can separate those. And there always need to be adjustments because as I look and we went through COVID and the state revises its revision cycle. I was like, okay, so what do we do? Do we follow their standards revision? And it's hard cuz it constantly shifts and then we have to shift. Making it just eight, we'll use those current standards and then the process that we have would be to
030revise, review, revise if they update, and we can make those revisions. That helps. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thanks for Dr. Noll. >> One additional thing on that, when we had the teacher listening sessions on what can we do to look at for budgetary constraints, that was another thing they brought up is maybe have the full study separated out a little bit more with the 8 years, but do some kind of review and revise in between there cuz some of the things don't change as much in certain areas. And so to look at that to review and revise. So to go from 7 to 8 obviously does save money when you're talking studies those four large ones. A couple of other ones mix into there as well. But that was another thing that came from that
031group of individuals that we met with and talked over. Don Marie? Um are all districts in South Dakota required to put in Oceti Sakowin or was that like a district decision? Uh to my knowledge, we have our state standards and then the Oceti Sakowin essential understandings and standards go right along with. So yes, we have that as part of the curriculum study and they have a review as well. So they just mirror up right with social studies. So it's like we did two in one. Yeah. >> For social studies. Yes. We're all just going to have to talk loudly cuz we don't want to pause the meeting. That's applause that's applause from the Rookie of the Year outside. Yeah, exactly. It's raining baseballs. >> [laughter] >> Just for you. Gail. Okay. No, he didn't. Okay.
032Yes. Um okay, can you remind us or I think some people might be interested in um you know, the the differences in this curriculum adoption and the state's role in in setting some of this curriculum versus how you know, where it would typically go. What are those differences and you know, how did that kind of affect your process? Are you talking like a vetting process for the curriculum or choices for the curriculum, I guess. So a vetting process for curriculum at the state level. That's interesting. >> Yeah, yep. That's a great question. When we look to well, first I'll not elementary, but for second can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Uh for secondary uh what we do is we look to a quality. So equity across the board and we don't uh
033we don't look to materials if if we find that there's any kind of bias or any kind of political agenda, those are automatically out. So we try to keep as straight objective uh as the materials are and and I believe we did that. Um I could. Um I Yeah, I'm going to have to just yell. Um I have I I will motion to adopt. I'll be a part of all of this, but my skepticism comes in how the process was done statewide and the fact that we as a school district had to bring together so many people to make it work and fit into our day and just from the hearings that I attended and my observations and feedback that I've gotten from teachers, administrators, like there wasn't a true collaboration when this first came
034out and that's where my disappointment lies and asking the question about the budget was merely because we weren't kept in mind when this social studies standard came out. We were not kept in mind that we have a whole different Spanish immersion course that we will now have to pay for without getting allocated dollars to pay for it. So I'm going to support this only because I know that our staff has worked really really hard to get this up to speed with everyone across our district. My disappointment lies in the fact that we weren't brought into that conversation to begin with to get ahead of some of these things to curb that cost, to collaborate more. And then furthermore, my skepticism is that even though Native Americans have been reportedly been featured in this social studies
035standards more than the average curriculum the curriculum is so huge. I don't think that's a fair statement to say. Although it's embedded in there, I know that our Indian education worked really hard to put in feedback and quite a bit of that feedback was not embedded into this curriculum. So that's where my my disappointment lies in not our district and my excitement lies in the fact that we have the best experts in our district working extra hard to fit this in their day and make it appropriate for our kids. And fortunately, we are getting good feedback from administrators saying weekly is going well, but we had to get to this point where we didn't feel like we were heard, where our Indian education worked really hard to submit something and then got turned down on
036what their submission was. So again, my skepticism is not anything we're doing. It's that we weren't a part of that conversation some years ago. I think yeah, I want to add some clarification that this came to us by the state. So though that when they said they, that's what it's referring to not something that was internal with talking about the state. >> [laughter] >> When you look at >> thing. When when you look at the state standards, that's what we're held to to teach the standards and then we have the Oceti Sakowin essential understandings and standards as well. I know that our office of Indian Ed with Anna Broken Leg worked really hard on that and then if we just take elementary for example, we have the reading and the social social Am I shouting
037now? The reading and the social studies uh flip flop. So they have these units and then we also have worked hard to get the Oceti Sakowin lessons embedded throughout the year through the pacing guides and that that would be the curriculum part of you know, standards come down and then you have pacing guides and and included in the curriculum curriculum maps. And can you talk a little bit more about that flip flop with social studies and reading and how that works and was that you know, um just creative thinking on the part of the district or yeah, what where did that >> a testament to Lena McDaniel and the elementary team. They worked really hard to to take the entire reading continuum all the way across through the end of the year and see where
038could unit one for social studies fit in. How do we take what we were going to miss with maybe some other materials. So we just have the the studies weekly as the materials and then we teach those skills and embed those comprehension skills. So we have some really good material there that's chronologically aligned and with the skills and we put that and we blend those with the reading skills. So then we have to take other like other topics of reading out to make room for that because the standards are so Right and I would say that there wouldn't be topics, there would be stories. So we just inserted these stories and then wove this the reading skills all the way through. >> that's really a brilliant way to to get done what we have been
039told we need to get done. So Because in my day uh years ago reading and math under rule the field and how do we slip in social studies and and science uh had 40 minutes and social studies had 30 minutes a week. So we tried to get that in. This is so much better of what they've done to embed that in with reading. I thank you. Good, very good. Any other questions? All right. All in favor? I. I. I. I. Opposed? We have acknowledged that report. Thank you, Dr. Z. Okay, we are moving on now to the public hearing. And I'll start with the information on the public hearing for the FY27 proposed budget. Just to give a little bit of a a recount of the information that we've gone through over the last few
040weeks because we have besides the committee meetings that have been held, we did have a board work session number one to introduce the the proposed budget and then the second work session and now this being obviously the third time that this information will be proposed to the board. So just a uh review of some of that information. Uh first of all, we start this off with the the state allocation because much of what our budget is is based off of what the state allocation is. This year the state allocation was 1.4%. Uh the rate of inflation was 2.54%. So when we look at that, we were behind on the rate of inflation, but we were utilizing those numbers to make sure that we set uh the budget for the FY27 school year. And so we
041had the first work session on March 25th and as you know, we had originally gone through to propose a reduction of 2.36 million uh ongoing budget cost. Some of that was through some savings um that we'd made especially through the the changing of the lights, um the LED process and then multiple other things including uh the change of the phone system and and technology supports. Uh the rest of which was a reduction in some positions it had, but again held very high to the fact that no individual was losing a position. All had a position within the Sioux Falls School District. And so we made sure that we we took care of our staff on that. Uh so that 2.36 million was the amount of the reductions that was being proposed. Uh that would from
042the 1.4% allocated by the state, that would allow a negotiated agreement of 1.95%, 1.95% uh of staff salary increase. And so that was the basis of the the first budget work session. The board had asked at that time to go back and look at two very specific things. One elementary class size reduction in some format and two uh to see if we could do more with the staff salary increase. And so we came back after working through that uh through that week's process and presented at the second budget work session, which is April 1st. Uh the changes that we had there with the elementary class size reduction, the proposal there most specifically was adding three uh class size reduction teachers, and through the title process, so that'd be through uh title one, and it would
043go towards schools that qualified for title programming. And then we'd add four additional general teachers above the formula. Uh, those two expenses, the the title one expense would be 258,000 approximately, and the general teachers above the formula would be 100 344,000. And so we looked at that as a resolution. There's a couple other things we had in there. One would be something we would work on administratively as far as the guidance, and the other part would come through policy review, and we'll we'll bring that up as we go through to first make sure we address the budget piece, then we'll look at the policy. Uh, the second thing that we looked at was a staff salary increase, and so we did recommend to the board at that time, uh after being asked to go back
044and look at that, to go from 1.95% 1.95%, uh which was the negotiated rate, uh to go to 2.54%, which equates to the rate of inflation. And so that would add an additional point uh .59 onto uh the salary increase for staff. One other thing that we did bring forward to the board is to reduce the proposed FY27 opt-out by 1.5 million uh of the unused revenue. And so we had originally were going to recommend 12.5 million on the opt-out for FY27, and there's 17.6 million that we could have allocated utilized. We have only been using 12 million of that this year, and it was going to go to 12 and 1/2 million. We're recommending recommending that goes back to 11 million. So those three things that we had discussed at the last board work
045session, uh we did and and Ty Beek will go through that with you, but we did incorporate that into the budget. So what you see this evening will have those incorporated in. Obviously we will open it up to the the board discussion on that to see if you wish to maintain that after Ty goes through his information with you, but those three things have been incorporated into the budget. So in effect that that reduced the amount of reduction that we had from 2.36 million to just over 2 million. Uh, so there's still a significant savings in reductions. Added the three through title the three elementary teachers through title one, four elementary teachers through general budget. Uh, the salary increase would go up an additional .59% at least that's what we're projecting in the budget you
046will see. And then to reduce the opt-out uh by 1.5 million of what was proposed to what we'd recommend for this next school year at 11 million. And so Mr. Beek will go through that information with you, but just so you know that is incorporated into what he will show. Thanks. Okay, I'm going to try not to repeat what we just heard. Um so I'll fly through some of these a little bit faster. This is this is the slides here are basically kind of a recreation of this front page. Uh, so why Dr. Nold talked about our process. Hard to see. Here's the meetings we had and it's been going on since November. Um, this is an overview of the general fund. Our revenue is no change from last year, 232.3 million. Our expenses are
047down by about 1.2 million. So we improved our budgeted deficit by 1.9 million. Um, our budget reductions and efficiencies, the uh total impact is about 2.4 million dollars. These are what Dr. Nold said. I just have them listed here. The main some of the main ones. I'm not going to go through that again. Uh strategic investments, the the added added some teachers to maintain small class sizes at elementary and keep the upper elementary grades under 50 students. State aid and salary impact, our state aid increase was 1.4. Um, salaries and benefits are over 80% of our of our general fund budget. Our revenue is comprised of the state aid formula, about 90% is within the state aid formula itself. Uh, the no negotiated increase uh was 1.95%. The board approved to go to earlier tonight,
048by the way. Board approved to uh increase salaries by 2.54, and that number was picked because that is the number state aid the inflation factor that state aid should have gone. This is our financial outlook. Uh I'll spend a little bit more time on this. Um Yes, I can this pointer can drive around here. So this is the opt-out. We had it at 12 million last year. This is last year or the year we're in right now. Going up originally to 12 million, so we've lowered that to 11 as Dr. Nold said, and then we have an in crease built in. We have an increase built in of 500,000 a year going forward. That can always change. Our transfer from capital outlay is up to 10 million from 8 million this current year to 10
049million, and that's declining over time. Um the capital outlay is our goal is about 10 years from now to get it back to about 4.2 million dollars where it was at. Um but uh we had some savings in the capital outlay fund during the COVID time, and that money is being used to help support the general fund as we efficiency our way, you know, to a to a little bit better level. Our uh So bottom line is this year uh for the year we're budgeting for FY27, we expect to have a fund balance at 9.9%. Um, I'm sorry, 11.1%. And at the end of the five-year period out in 20 FY31, we expect it to be about 5.8. That's a little lower than we want it, but uh I think there can just be some
050adjustments made along the way. The but uh that's you know, we'd like it a closer to eight, but that's a little lower than we want it, but you see without doing those efficiencies, that's the red figure there, we'd be at -1.4 if we weren't doing the efficiencies, and we've already had two years of a lot of efficiencies. So any questions on that five-year plan? I think we've looked at it every time we've met, so. Uh, total budget summary, the the complete um tax supported budget, which is the general fund sped fund, capital outlay fund, and bond redemption is 343 .12 million dollars. The uh that budget is up only only uh 300,000 from last year. Uh, tax impact of this, as you know, we watch a house in the Sioux Falls School District. We've been
051watching it since the year 2000. I think it's value its valuation now is about 280,000. 80,000 dollars. So um there was a very large levy decrease passed by the legislature this year, and uh and that levy decrease is it's not 1.75, it's a dollar 75. So it's not cents. So but it's in in a dollar 75 per thousand. Property tax for that house is estimated to be down 23.3% next next year. The 27-year average now on that house, the increase is 2.2% per year. Um And then one thing about yeah, the legislature did pass that, but one thing about state aid and property tax relief, and uh board member Moran, our vice president, Moran and I have had a few conversations about whatever happened to that half cent. Well, that .3 cents that's in and
052out, that's part of that half cent. So that half cent that was uh reported to go mostly towards increasing teacher salaries and a little bit towards property tax relief, it's been the other way around. Now it it has gone uh a lot of it towards towards reducing property taxes and a little bit towards increasing teacher salaries. So that's what happened to that that half cent. Um The recommendation is to acknowledge the public hearing that we should have right after I finish speaking, and then tentatively approve the 27 budget. Do you want us to first acknowledge the public hearing, and then we can stand by for comments? Uh I'll I'll get back at it, but we need to conduct the public hearing. >> I'd just do the public hearing first and close that and then we'll
053have questions. Okay, excellent. We are going to open this up now for public hearing. Okay. Anybody? Let's take note of that. Okay, we are now coming out of public hearing. Uh yeah, I would just say are there any questions or you guys can make comments. Okay. Well, just an overview to remind us and just going back to what our goals were with this particular budget because over the past 2 years we're looking at a $5 million decrease in revenue. So, with that our goals was number one, no cut in jobs. Nobody lost a job. Number two, that we didn't take um small cuts to a lot of people. And number three, that we maintained the same class size. Well, we checked all those boxes off. So, congratulations Todd and and your group. Put a lot
054of effort and um a lot of effort and persistency to make sure that we didn't take an easy path. Um number three, the board then coming back to say, "Hey, the state gave us 1.4. Let's go to the 2.5 so we meet the rate of inflation." So, that's on the table, you know, that was on the table. We incorporated that in. So, want to acknowledge yet again that the administration met the feedback that we were getting from our constituents to make sure to try to take care of our people and meet the rate of inflation for our staff. Um so, we want to acknowledge that. And then um our school visits, we're in our classes, our our elementary visits um that we were noticing um that we wanted to make sure that we were maintaining
055but if we could reducing. So, given that we have seven teachers, new teachers, three the reduction title one, four with the general teachers from the general budget. I would say given the guardrails that were put around us from a revenue side, and not having a lot of wiggle room, we most definitely prioritized what's most important to us and that's our people. And that they're the they influence and impact the life of a child every day in their journey in public education. So, getting back to what our goals were uh for the district and how we can the best way we can actionably show what is most important to the district is through our budget. So, I want to acknowledge the work that the our leadership executive leadership provided given the goals that the board um
056had come up with. Uh there was some real work put into that um but it was easy because we know what our priorities are. And that's our people and our kids. And this budget reflects that given the constraints that were put on us. And one thing I do want to put out there is that we're doing our responsibility but that has to be met at some point because we're getting to a point of a slippery slope. Right now, we didn't have to make cuts. But this is not a sustainable um this isn't a sustainable funding stream for us long term. Exactly, cuts to staff. That is that that will not help us to achieve the goals for the district. So, um Do you want a motion? Does anybody else want to comment on that? I
057think it's from a board standpoint. Do you want a motion first or do you want to Well, we could do a motion. Then I would move to tentatively or to approve the tentative and proposed fiscal 2017 school budget. A second. It's hard to hear, I know. Second. Any more discussion, thoughts? Gail? I'm going to sound like I'm echoing what you said, Nan, but I want to thank everybody in the district who's worked so hard for this and all of the people and all of the committees since November who have met and figured out ways to do this. You know, it's we have a lot of kids in our district, we have a lot of staff in our district and we have a big budget. But to find the efficiencies to be able to find the
058efficiencies and still honor our staff and our students class sizes, I think is very important. And so, a lot of people did a lot of work and I want to really acknowledge that work that that happened and thank them for doing it. And I thank my fellow board members for having the courage to say, "No, we need to take care of our people and we need to take care of class sizes." So, good work, everybody. I guess I'm always going to talk when it's like aggressively loud outside. So, sorry if I'm screaming in the YouTube video. Um I'm nodding my head aggressively with what Nan and Gail and everybody's been saying because we have we didn't just arrive at this point and we're not just seeing this for the first time. You know, we get
059a chance to really dive into this, have conversations, ask hard questions, challenge administration to go back um and a lot of times the public only sees this final approval. And um to just echo what everybody has said so far, there's a lot of work that goes into this and it's usually years prior that we're talking about this. So, please know that, you know, what if you do have concerns and you are focused on something that can make our district better, come talk to us. We are the stewards of this for you to have a vehicle to move things forward for our kids and our community. Please know that that's what we're here to do and serve. But come talk to us sooner than later. Bring up the conversation now, not after we voted on it.
060That's that's like I'm getting passionate again because it's it's something that deserves the applause, the attention, the big smiles like we had from our good news report. This is good news. It got figured out in a really tough time. So, I can't thank everybody enough that went back to the drawing board. Again, the class size thing was a huge win for me personally. Um I think you all having young kids in the district, I really really appreciate that. Um but thank you again to everybody that put into this. And Todd, just stay another 4 years. Thank you. That's all I'll say. I didn't hear what you said at the end. Sorry. >> [laughter] >> I don't know that we're going to talk him into that, but The other one I would say is if we
061stuck to state Help me. We'd really have I think about what would happen if we would just went by state law. We wouldn't be here. We followed what's been passed in the past. We wouldn't be here. We followed state law, it wouldn't be a significant amount, but it we wouldn't be here. So, Well, we all might be thinking about hail damage. There's a car insurance. Yikes. All in favor? I. >> I. Opposed? That has been approved. Okay. We have some >> Policy and regulation. I'll go through the policy and regulation fairly quickly here. Uh we do obviously have two board members that sit on policy and regulation and they reviewed those. Uh so, I will touch on that part of it. And the policies are DFF. And that was really just an update to match
062state law. That's the sales and dispersal of surplus property. Um DIBA, which is uncollected accounts receivable, there was no changes. EEBC, no changes. Uh KCB, community involvement in decision making, there was no changes. KDE, public information communication, uh there's just a change in dollar amount to match state law. KDA, uh public information school communications, just a up update on current policy or practice. And KDD, media relations, just some minor updates. And then KI, visitors to school, update in reference to nicotine. So, those are the updates. Uh if you could hear any of that. I'm glad you gave you your award first. I I am very glad, yeah. Or maybe not. I don't >> [laughter] >> Yeah, everybody's getting a little nervous about their car. We're going TO LOOK OUT AT MOUNDS OF of baseballs. Approved.
063Well, yeah. So, that's policy. I approve the policies and regulations as presented. I second. All in favor? I. I. That is approved. Can I get a motion to adjourn? Second. We are adjourned.