001[Applause] In addition to letting you know what the award is about, we wanted to have a librarian come and share part of the why behind applying for this and what significance does that have, what impact does it have on libraries. And so Stephanie Hey is going to come up here and share with you a little bit about her experience. Lower that a little bit. Good evening everyone. I am Stephanie Haye and I'm the librarian at Terry Redlinin and thank you for recognizing our school library and the achievement that we were awarded here. It's really an honor to be a part of a community that really values the impact of our school libraries. to share a little bit about Terry Redlinin. It is our mission in our library to create a community that fosters a love
002of reading and learning within our educational and nurturing environment. Um, a little bit about this past year, we were able to facilitate many um engaging programs that cultivated that love of reading across our school. Our one book, one school initiative was a huge success um especially for a firsttime event. It brought together our school community and shared a story and a shared experience with our building. We also created literacy events like the Read Across America book fairs, summer reading incentives, and the ever popular book swap. Book tastings introduced students to new genres. And the book vending machine added a little fun and interactive way to reward our readers who demonstrated outstanding behavior. We're especially grateful for the book a month program from Promising Futures, which helps to give highquality books directly to our students each
003month. But reading isn't all that we do. Our students are diving into hands-on STEM activities in the library, building, experimenting, and solving real world problems in a way that sparks their curiosity. None of this is possible without our partnerships that we've built with our classroom teachers, our administration, our community, the foundation, and all of our volunteers. And we appreciate the Sou Falls School District and your support of our schools as we continue to build our lifelong learners and readers. And we are truly grateful. Before your comments, I will share with you that we've created a seal. Actually, the seal is from the state, but we put it on a vinyl cling. So, we'll be providing one to each of our schools so that on a window they can or on a board somewhere they can
004uh proudly showcase that they are a saddle award library for 2025 through 2028. That is outstanding. Thank you. Three things that Mrs. Heg didn't get to a chance to share, but while she was at John Harris, I remember it being a big deal. Number one, to help you put books away. Number two, when your dog would come along with you to help with the reading. And then number three, um the gingerbread house displays that were throughout the library. And not only did they, you know, smell good and look good, but I'm sure in the imagination of the children, it just opened up a lot of avenues. So, the library was definitely an integral part of of John Harris. Um, and I'm sure that others of you that are here um have equally important stories to
005tell about your particular buildings and are so deserving of the recognition and the awards uh that you have been given tonight. and we're just really proud of the libraries, our librarians, and what it stands for for uh students and their love of reading and continued education. >> Any other thoughts, Gail? >> So, we had our first meeting of the year today of our retired school personnel and my little birdwalk will be and Dr. Null did a fantastic presentation. But back to librarians. And so afterwards talking to some other teachers, retired teachers, and and we were just talking about the school year and how great it was going. And this one retired teacher is a grandma. And she was talking about after the first week of school, they had a family doings. And she has three
006grandchildren in the school district. And the nine-year-old was just bursting at the seams to tell grandma about school. And he goes, "Grandma, grandma, grandma, I have a favorite teacher. I have the best teacher in the world. I have a favorite teacher. Oh, who is that? My librarian. >> I thought that was cool. >> A >> well done. >> Thank you, Gail. >> And thanks again and and congratulations. >> Okay. Can I please get an approval of the minutes of the meeting held 98205? So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I oppose. same sign passes. Uh we do not have any persons wishing to address the school board on non-aggenda items or persons wishing to address the board on agenda items. Uh we will move to approve the agenda for tonight. Do I have
007a motion to approve the agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> I >> opposed. Same sign. Agenda passes. Any conflicts of interest? No. Uh, may I please have an approval of the consent agenda items? Items A through G. So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I oppose. Same sign. >> That passes. Dr. Nold. We have some reports of the superintendent. >> We will start this evening off with Dr. Zeke presenting the post-secondary report. And this is really a pivotal um piece of information for us because it helps us to see what our students are doing beyond high school, the post-secary uh routes that they take. And so we look at this and analyze some of the data there to see what programming we can incorporate into our district
008to truly help our students see themselves in a secondary setting. So Dr. Zeke will present that for us. >> Thank you, Dr. Nold. Yes, this is a brief report, but very important as we educate our students and then send them off after they're with us. Go. There we go. So, the first slide is an overview. It's not our district's data, but what it is, it's an overview of what is needed for positions out there as students then either graduate from high school and go right into the workforce or go to a technical college or military or two-year or four-year university. And you can see by this slide that it's 1983, 2021, and then projecting into 2031. And I think what's most important here is that 42% of the jobs in 2031 are predicted to at
009least have a bachelor's degree as compared to 19% in 1983. 1980s, if you remember, we're more of an economy society and uh we had a lot of jobs that would take those those skills. But now we need higher level of skills and we need uh workers to have uh more preparation. So as that would continue to grow and we need those specialized positions, we look to our students, the percentage of students enrolled in college at any one time during the first year. You can see we have an average over these years of right around 59%. Where are these students going? A high percentage of our students who graduate in the Souall from the Sou Falls School District go to South Dakota State and the University of South Dakota. Then from there, Southeast Technical College right
010here in Sou Falls. Then Auggie, USF, Dakota State University, uh, University of Nebraska, the Huskers, I get guessed some of that out out of state. Then we get University of Minnesota, South Dakota School of Minds, and rounding off the top 10 is Minnesota State University at Mano. And you can see the numbers on the right hand side. Now, this slide is very interesting and a little confusing. I'll do my best to explain it. this. If you think about this, plant this in your mind. The class of 2017, long ago. So, we're going to track them over the next six years past 2017. Right about 60% of the students entered some form of postsecary school, uh, technical college, a two-year institution, or a four-year institution. And looks like about 39% then were not reported. That means
011they could have went right into the workforce, been an apprentice or uh asked to not have their data uh uh or brought forward by the national clearing house. So they go in in their first year. What happens in their second year? Well, you can see that if you're in orange, you continued on for your second year of of that university life or that post-secary. If you're in green, maybe you took a gap year and now you're going to enter the workforce. That looks like about four and a half percent. If you are in the maroon at the bottom, about 4% then may have went to a two-year institution and graduated in that second year or maybe they loaded up on a lot of dual credit courses and were able to graduate really fast. If you
012were in yellow, moving along that little uh stream, now you have uh found something else. Maybe college wasn't for you and you just took a break. Maybe you needed a gap year in your second year. And then of course that purple stream across the top is uh just not reported in the third year. Then we see that some more students graduate. Maybe some more thought college might be after two gap years. Then orange persists. Now blue is uh returning after they stopped. So maybe they they were in their first year, they took a gap year their second year and the little blue sliver is well I need to get back in and uh go back into the university. And then you can see how that progresses all the way through when you have about at
013the end uh 43 44% of the students graduating. I'm going to give you probably the final report on the NCRC uh because uh this assessment the national career readiness certificate it will no longer be given in the Souf Falls school district uh last year was the final year. So this is the reports about 80 89% achieved a bronze or higher. Uh if you look at bronze, silver, gold and platinum you can think about them this way. Bronze is the fundamental level of readiness. So when you think about that, what career occupation would their skills be good for? We're looking at repair or customer service. If you look at a silver certificate, that means you're ready to handle more complex tasks and we're looking at administrative support, manufacturing or healthcare. The gold certificate, you have strong
014foundational skills. You have a wide range of jobs like supervisory or technical or finance. And then finally, platinum, the highest level is exceptional workplace skills. And you're looking there at engineering or informationational tech or finance. So these this assessment shows what kind of readiness that you have for our seniors going into the workforce and gives them a certificate then that they could show their employers. And with that, I conclude the post-secary report of where our students go after college or after high school. And I would like you to acknowledge the 2025 post-secondary report. I stand by for questions or comments. >> I have some questions. Well, first of all, thank you for um compiling these numbers and I'm just curious if you could please share um how this data helps to inform the decisions um
015informs our decisions with respect to our curriculum and our programs. For example, um how might these projections guide us with dual um credit CTE or our internships? Sure. When we when we get this data and we look to the conversations that we have with our post-secary institutions like Southeast Technical College or uh USD or SDSU, Dakota State and the other universities which we're trying to find out what is it that we can prepare our students for for your uni for their universities and AI has been a hot topic of late as uh is dual credit and what offerings we have so that we can give those to prepare students in the pathway for uh let's let's say Southeast Tech, what what are they seeing as far enrollment and what are the interests of students? So,
016we want to be able to prepare them and then backload any kind of courses that we can put in and as we have curriculum studies, what does that look like at the high school level? >> Can you clarify something for me? the NCRC. Is that something that we're choosing not to continue or is it no longer going to be a offered test? >> Great question. Yes. In 2018, about 2019, the state came out with the initiative that we would they would really offer it and pay for it through the Department of Labor and we took it we took advantage of that and then now they are no longer going to do that moving forward. So, we chose not to follow that going into this year. Go ahead. >> Just looking at the um the numbers
017for where kids are going a lot um going to USD and SDSU. Um do you know the reasons why they choose those schools? Is it scholarships? Is it the programs? Is it, you know, how do we feed into those um those universities? >> Well, I don't specifically have the information of why we uh why they choose those schools, but I do know that with Dr. Nold and Mr. Conrad, we are meeting with students at the high schools uh throughout the school year and that may be something that we ask them as far as when they choose universities, why why are they choosing the universities and those two are the two major universities have the most students. So I would assume that the highest percentage would flow into those. They have a large range and offerings
018of programs as well. It's a state programs. What supports are proving most useful in getting those first generation students to go into a post-secary uh situation and specifically I'm thinking a promising future and some of those initiatives with the partnerships that we have in in our community. >> Well, I'm glad you asked. Uh yes, we have the pilot going on at Jefferson this year with the college and career access counselors. And we also have all of our counselors that work hard to get students to where they need and middle school too when we're looking at career and technical classes and the CTE. Everybody is really working hard to find out what are the interests of our students and what can we offer them. And as again we meet with them, we're asking them uh what
019are your interests and what kind of courses can we provide especially in the world of AI now where uh I know we have two meetings coming up with two universities to talk about what are you offering for your uh college students and what can we do to help support our students coming out. Excellent. >> Just Yeah, I'm wondering how I should ask this question, but um I'm just kind of curious when you talk about you ask kids, you know, what their interests are. Is that more of, you know, what um specific career fields are you interested in or what type of work or what subjects? How do you really um get to what K? You know, a lot of students aren't going to know necessarily what type of career they want, but they might know
020that they want to work outdoors or they want to work in an office or they want to work from home. You know, how do you um kind of help >> and maybe this isn't the right um >> No, this is the right place. Okay, so let me talk about that. So we have two new initiatives coming on board this year that one is the parah apprenticeship program where students who are juniors or seniors can earn a wage while in the school day or in summer and the parah is really finding out do we have teachers out there who have an interest in that. So with the teacher program pathway program that we already have they can earn their credential and I can al also get a taste of it. We also have a second one,
021the cyber apprenticeship program where perhaps they'll work with our BCS's or they'll work in a an industry around the city and uh they again they can earn a wage and then get a credential and they'll also take classes at the CTE. So, we're trying to through that and by asking just generally uh where you going and a lot of kids know where they're going and what they're going to do with their seniors, but how can we even ask uh juniors and sophomores? I always say my dad is uh dad's in his mid70s and he still doesn't know what he wants to do. But we got to try to find uh ways and we should be open to the pathways and like with Marcelo Leau we're starting with our with our with our lab there and
022we're just opening up exploration for kids and hopefully if they have a niche or they really like to do something we can continue to offer programming. >> Go ahead Marie. Um, when I was at Joe Foss, we had this it was like a a test that you could take to kind of line you up with a potential career that you would be interested in and then if you further went into those careers, it would match you up with a college or technical institute. Is that still functioning or was that a department of labor thing? >> I would have to lean on my experts for that. I haven't >> Yeah, that is still functioning. It was South Dakota My Life. They start in the middle schools and they truly start to work through that process in
023the middle schools to analyze where would their interest inventory be and then they start to align that eventually with the career exploration. And so they do go through to see what courses would line up with that. Uh and a lot of those introductory type courses are found at the home high schools. They take more in-depth courses out at the CTE Academy if they choose to as far as some of our expanded coursework goes. Um, but the South Dakota My Life is where we really put a lot of that emphasis into and it it begins in that middle school level to be able to do that. You'd asked also about those firsttime uh generational college students uh and to be able to help them. The TRIO program has been one that's comes in from USD and
024SDSU to help firsttime uh students, first-time family students to be able to go to college setting and we're seeing if we can capitalize on that even a little bit further with the college and career access program. Uh so I think that'll help to have some of those individuals see how can I get to a college setting and actually more importantly probably take a lot of those college credits dual credits and uh AP class has been a big thing for the su school district but dual credit is something that they can also transfer to mostall and a lot of that pilot has started at Jefferson as well where they they lined up their courses with uh Southeast Technical College so they can do a lot of the dual credits and be able to get that taken
025so before they even get to Southeast Tech they've got some of their coursework already completed, but they start that process really in the middle school. And that can be a report that we do either at a work session or or one of the board reports to look at that career exploration process with the middle school all the way through Kim Sharping would be a great expert to be able to give us information on that. >> Yeah. And also, so we look at the data when we look at the data come across about kids and what what classes they're participating in. I think that was the generation of well what about egg in Sou Falls and you think we're pretty urban but what can we do for all of the opportunities that are there and I
026think the last time that I looked it was somewhere around in the 70s or 80s but that's a marker that we're going to really look at with the new barn that's going up at CTE and how can we expand that for students who are interested >> we're definitely connected with egg we might seem urban but most of our industry >> yeah right everything outside of town is is egg related. >> Yeah. Yeah. Good connection. Okay. Can I please get a motion to acknowledge the postsecondary report? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. That is approved. Thank you. >> Our second report this evening comes with the Sou Falls Public Schools Education Foundation and Allison Truck will give that report. I will tell you this foundation is truly fills the
027gaps in so many ways. Uh when we talk about the the costs per se with new teachers and helping them to start out in their classrooms. Uh to the public school proud grants that are issued out to our our staff who can come up with innovative ideas to maybe excite kids into a new career or or to be excited about the course that they're currently taking, but truly fills in those gaps financially so that teachers can do more with what they have. And so we will hear from Allison Struck on the Sou Falls Public School Education Foundation. >> Perfect. >> Well, thank you for giving me an opportunity tonight to share all the good things that are happening at the Sou Falls Public Schools Education Foundation. As you can see, we have three focus areas.
028Curriculum enhancements, talent and recognition, and student success. I will start by highlighting curriculum enhancements. Under this umbrella, we have three grant programs for educators. public school proud grants, first-time teacher grants, and replenish the room grants. We are probably most well known for our public school proud grants. Any teacher in the district can apply for up to $10,000 to purchase materials that will give students hands-on immersive opportunities. In the spring of 2025, we awarded $189,000 through this program. This was a record amount for the education foundation due in part to the $100,000 gift from the Winker family. They made a donation to support arts programming throughout the district and every art teacher who applied received funding. These art teachers purchased modeling clay, pottery wheels, acrylic, tempera and watercolor paint sets, looms, weaving materials, printmaking tools, 3D
029printers, marbling trays, and more. This photo shows members of the Winker family with the art teacher from Robert Frost. Greg, Ted, and Jenny Winker came back to Sou Falls in April, and we visited four schools to surprise teachers in their art classrooms. At Robert Frost, they were able to tour the student art show, and we were all blown away by the talent. In addition to the art grants, the education foundation funded STEM materials, arrow gardens and hydroponics kits, task boxes for students with autism, programmable robots, social emotional learning materials, specialized PE equipment for students with limited mobility, an EMT mass casualty kit, musical instruments, and more. The application for the 2025 2026 school year will open October 1st. About a month ago, the Education Foundation awarded 67 firsttime teacher grants. All firsttime firstear educators received
030a $250 stipen to purchase supplies for their first classrooms. New this year, the Education Foundation board uh increased this grant award from $200 to $250. Since we started this program in 2011, we have awarded more than 1,100 of these grants. These awards are a fantastic way to welcome new staff not only to the district but also to Sou Falls and to show them that we're invested in their success. Our newest program is the Replenish the Room Grant. We started this program last year after we held focus groups and listening sessions with numerous district staff members. Uh, one of the things we heard time and again was that all educators, not just new teachers, are spending a lot of money um out of their own pocket to purchase supplies for their classrooms. Any teacher who has
031taught for two or more years was eligible to apply for this grant. And a few weeks ago, we awarded 150 replenish the room grants for a total of almost $40,000. Teachers have used these funds to purchase sets of books, headphones, flexible seating, math manipulatives, literacy kits, organization tools, and more. Uh, this is just a stack of some of the thank you cards I have received. Uh, one of the teachers wrote in her card that not only did the $250 make her day, it made her entire year. Uh, three teachers have told me that it felt like Christmas when all of their supplies arrived u in school. One of the teachers kept sending me pictures like, "Oh, more stuff came today. Oh, here's another picture with I forgot I had ordered this." Uh, and then this
032is a five-page document of just the comments I have received from teachers and administrators after we announced those replenish the room grants. Uh, as you can see, here are some of the comments that I pulled off this sheet. Um, but I keep the cards. You know, it just it reminds us why we do the work that we do and how a small $250 gift can make a difference for a teacher. Um, especially this time of year when everyone's coming back and when students come in, there may be some needs that you uh didn't know. You know, you you might be looking for something that you didn't anticipate. And so that $250 really helps them out. So, moving on from curriculum enhancements, talent and recognition is our second focus area. The Education Foundation board of directors
033has been intentional about expanding our efforts in this area because we want to continue to attract and retain the best and the brightest. Every fall, we deliver treats to each school. Last week, I was able to visit four, and this morning, I started my week at the community campus at Western Mall. Uh, we also give 14 low-income schools $5,000 each to use for staff appreciation activities. Horus man has already hosted a back- toschool lunch and McGovern, Terry Redlinin, and Annie Sullivan have had a coffee food truck on site for their staff. A number of our schools will use part of this $5,000 to purchase spiritware for their team members. In addition, we celebrate the district's longest tenure teacher. Uh three years ago, it was Sue Bills from Whittier Middle School. Last year and this year,
034we've celebrated Jane Eertson at Garfield Elementary. Jane is in her 43rd year with the district and she's a kindergarten teacher. Straight to heaven. I mean 43 years. Woo. Uh I was able to visit Garfield last week and I brought crumble cookies for their staff in honor of Jane. So if you have not visited with her, she has some pretty crazy stories about how teaching has changed, you know, just over 43 years in the classroom. Uh at the teacher of the year event, we give a cash prize to the finalists. At the district's annual recognition and retirement banquet, there are two honores who each receive a $500 stipend. And then during teacher appreciation week, we uh distribute cupcakes to teachers who have been nominated for going above and beyond. Under the talent and recognition focus area,
035the education also provides funding for each school to engage in mental wellness activities. In the fall and in the spring, every building can apply for funding to do an activity that promotes mental wellness, team building, and natural collaboration. This past weekend, one of our schools went to a a flower farm and they did a gardening activity. A couple weeks ago, another one of our buildings went and did goat yoga. Uh, a number of our schools have already signed up for art classes. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. We support these activities with private dollars. Although this is a relatively new focus area, we have raised almost half a million dollars to support staff appreciation efforts throughout the district. Our third pillar is student success. Through this fund, we try to bridge the gap for students
036in need and to fund projects that highlight student achievement. Initially, we started this program when we found out that nine social workers were sharing $500 amongst themselves. We have since raised more than $400,000 to support this fund. We partner with social workers and counselors and they have funds available to purchase basic needs and personal hygiene products for students in crisis. In August, we gave 16 schools $350 each to purchase items to stock their supply closets. We cover the dual credit cost for students enrolled in the teacher pathway program during the second semester. And in a few weeks, we are sponsoring three buses to take high school students up to a national college fair in Minneapolis. We have also used this fund to purchase car seats and booster seats for our attendance liaison and others who
037are transporting our students to and from school. For the last several years, we have sponsored the Native American Openhouse event in August, the winter solstice in December, and the honoring ceremony in late April, early May. Last year, we dedicated funds to purchase Kota the Warrior comic books. With the new junior kindergarten program, we provided funds for those teachers to purchase age appropriate materials for our new youngest learners. In February, we partnered with Amazon to distribute $15,000 worth of new hoodies, hats, and gloves to students at McGovern Middle School, and we have another distribution with Amazon planned for later this month. In the past, we have purchased washer and dryer sets for our elementary schools, and we have sponsored shoe vouchers through this program. In addition to our three focus areas, we have an endowment that
038is managed by the Sou Falls Area Community Foundation. When I started, the balance was $100,000. This summer, we received a generous $190,000 gift, which has pushed us over the $1 million mark for our endowment. Sue Scribner was a longtime Sou Falls School District employee, and when she passed away, the education foundation was named the beneficiary of her endowment. Every year we receive a check from that account and we use it to support language arts curriculum improvements per her wishes. Lastly, I just wanted to take a minute to thank the Education Foundation board of directors, some of whom are here tonight. Nan serves as the school board uh representative and education foundation board member. Dr. Zeke reads hundreds of pages of grant applications every year to make sure they align with curriculum and content standards. And
039Carrie Erin is the vice chair of our board. Uh retired teacher and administrator 43 years in the Sup. Uh she helps me tremendously. She's my right-hand woman when we're double and triple booked. Uh Carrie has just been an incredible asset. So we are able to support students and teachers at every site because of our board's effort. I love my job and it's because I get to work with just the best people. So we are proud to partner with the district. We've issued almost $100,000 in checks just the last month alone and we're looking forward to a great start to the school year. Thank you. >> I'm going to first get a motion to acknowledge your report and then we're going to open up for a few questions. So, if you just stay by. >> Sounds
040good. >> Stand by. Um, can I get a motion to acknowledge the report? >> So, moved. >> Second. >> Okay. Go ahead. We'd like to open up for some questions. First, I just want to point out that Deian is with us and she can remember when this was a volunteer position and the transformation it's really taken and the work involved with getting it to be a full-time executive director and she's doing great. We're so lucky to have her. and to all the donors that have given to allow us to do all these great things. We're um really thankful for a giving community that supports public education. Most definitely. >> Any questions? >> For sure. So, um if you want to actually enjoy your social media feed, follow the education foundation page. When I open that
041up and I see countless amounts of surprises and fun opportunities for staff smiling, like I am so grateful for what you and your team do because I know it makes a difference in a world that we do get bogged down constantly of getting hit this way, that way. and um just the narrative around schools. You need a good pickme up. Follow not only the foundation but Allison because she lives and breathes her work. Most people separate themselves but on her LinkedIn I tell you what, she's so excited to share her work. She's proud of what she does and she works really hard. So I'm just beyond grateful for you and for you to be here. Thank you so much and everybody who serves Dr. Zeke reading. Good job your reading skills. So again, just bow
042down to you. Thank you. Thank you on behalf of so many of us. Your work matters. >> Thank you. >> And I'm sure Nan's probably gonna say this, but I'm going to say it first. If you want to donate Oh, yeah. I would say that. >> I would. Where where do we direct people who would like to contribute to this very worthy cause? >> Yeah, so we have an online donation tool. You can also write a check and send it to, you know, here at IPC or to our PO box. Uh we have a QR code that we can send out. All the information is readily available on our website and social media pages. >> It would be very useful as she goes out and fundraised to say we have a 100% board giving towards
043the foundation given the strategic initiatives that it helps to support for the district. So, we're glad to collect checks even tonight for anybody. Right, Alison? >> Anytime. >> Okay. Anybody else? >> Okay. All right. Uh so, we're going to take a vote to acknowledge Thank you again. Uh to acknowledge the Sou Falls uh Public Schools Education Foundation update. >> So, moved. >> We already do. We're just taking a vote vote. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. >> That passes. >> And so when I said earlier that they fill the gap, obviously you can see by the things that they do, they do so much more than just filling the gap. And so we're greatly appreciative to the work they do. Our third report here is with child nutrition and Gay Anderson. Gay has been
044a great addition to the Sou Falls School District. She has been here several years now, but a great addition to the Sup School District and the work and passion that she's put into child nutrition to bring it up to date in so many ways and to make sure the food that we serve to our kids is high quality food uh that not only meets very difficult standards for the nation. Uh and some of those things have been put in there that does make it more difficult in in being able to meet some of those things. She and her group does an incredible job and then they look for new ways to be able to help to make things even better. And so, uh, when we're feeding well over 15,000, I tell people when they talk
045about snow days is there's so many kids that truly rely on the breakfast and the lunch that they get each day because that is the quality food that they get each day, uh, that we know that they're taken care of. And so, we don't take it lightly when we cancel a day of school, but because we know that there's going to be a lot of kids that will not have somebody with them and the food that they eat also worries us. And so, we know they come to a safe place and have a very good nutritious meal. So, Gay Anderson Okay, thank you for having me. Um, and also when school is canceled, we usually want to be the first ones notified before we start cooking food. >> Um, so I'm going to talk a
046little bit about >> um the different things that we've been going through this year. Um, bringing up to date on some changes coming up legislatively down the path. But starting it out by breakfast and lunch really are the key parts of the school day. I fully believe that we prepare our students to learn when they are able to have um healthy nutritious meals. We will continue on focusing and providing those healthy options meeting all aspects of our meal pattern uh requirements by USDA. And I'm proud to say that as those meal patterns change, I've got a sample of what the current meal pattern looks like. As those change, we are on target each time and making sure we're fully compliant with all regulations. Uh we started uh this year we had to shift uh cutting
047back on sodium a bit more. Um added sugars have become a new piece of uh what we're doing and so we're in the first year of that being phased in and also just meeting all those different calorie and nutrition requirements. So I'm really happy that our team is able to stay on top of that and uh maintain that compliance there. Um what's kind of fun to talk about also is I think we're the largest restaurant in town. I have a few franchises here, you know, and we kind of look at it that and it's kind of nice to be able to say that we know that um what we do is making an impact on the kids and the school district itself. Also proud of what our health inspection scores are. We are inspected twice
048a year and uh in every location and last year our average score was 99.99. We had one little ding that wrecked that for the whole year. So, uh, where we would have had a perfect score. And so, it's really nice to know we've got people who want to stay on top of all that. So, to date a little, we're talking a little bit. I like to compare numbers. Where are we at in comparison already at the beginning of the school year? And this isn't using numbers based on last week, Monday, um, starting out the year. So, we are up with our breakfast participation right now at about 3.85% for the school year over last year, serving about 4,700 plus uh, breakfasts each day. I expect to see those numbers getting closer to 6,000 as we
049get into colder days. Elementary kids tend to start eating a little bit more with this as we move into that. And our lunches were up by about 1.8 1.08%. Uh we're currently doing about 15,237 lunches each uh day. And that doesn't include all the different snacks that we offer throughout the day for our uh early childhood programs and afterchool programs. Along with that, uh, talking about this, realizing we had a slight decrease in enrollment this school year, I'm kind of happy to say that we are seeing some increases there. And I think some of that we've been looking at some new additions on things that we can bring into offering the students. One of the big highlights already this year is I've never thought I could have a bacon cheeseburger on the menu, but we
050have bacon cheeseburgers on the menu. And the first time that was offered at our middle schools, high schools, uh, kids were blown away by it. uh our managers were calling saying we had record sales today. We had to make more burgers. Uh so we found some bacon that works and made it all compliant. So we fit in that sodium range there. It's fun to even come up with some different things we've done with um replacing our garlic toast which was a different kind of garlic toast. We found something that offers a little bit more in calories, still meeting those guidelines and have soft nice crispy garlic, not crispy um garlic knots that we offered. And those were actually served today, too. And so they smelled the buildings up really nice, I think. Um, so continuing
051on from something I shared with you last year, uh, about some of the changes we're making and moving forward with changing the quality of food within the school district, we had three schools we or worked on last year in a pilot program we where we said all the hot food is going to be prepared at the secondary school. So, we started at uh Washington and they prepared all the hot food for Annie Sullivan. In the middle of the school year, we added two other schools. We went to Edison Middle School, adding Mora Wilder and Jefferson High School picked up Hayward. So, then it was like, okay, we've got to move forward. We've got to let's do some more. We've got some other locations that are closer. So, this year we've added Ben Rifle that prepares
052all the hot food for Rosa Parks. Lincoln High School is preparing the food for Robert Frost. And George McGovern is preparing for Marcelo Leau. So, it's kind of neat to be able to say we're pulling out these numbers of hot meals being prepared. When you're doing between 10 and 11,000 hot meals a day in a central facility, we're able to cook that food later in the morning and shift some of that so we can improve the quality from central facility and the locations that are getting the food delivered from these six sites um are also getting a much fresher food and it's been really neat to see some of the changes there. Um, so this doesn't only impact those six schools, it's impacting all of our elementary schools because I've actually worked our schedules backwards
053on our truck drivers u as they're leaving for the elementary schools. I say let's start what's la last lunch time. Uh we correlated with all the different uh starting times for when elementary schools start lunch and it's like okay now we're cooking for the truck drivers route instead of cooking all the hot food for the district. We're going we're cooking for these three schools right now so we can cook that closer to the time that they're leaving and having that shift also so the quality of the food is held a little or better along that way. Uh so it's kind of been a process that we're going through. I think we're at a good point right now where we may be able to add maybe one or two more depending how this goes. Uh but
054some of our positive outcomes it's exciting to share. Uh we hot food is noticeably more appealing and I was at Robert Frost the second day of school. We had French fries on the menu. And this may sound like a minor thing, but French fries that get um prepared say maybe two hours earlier and are held in a hot box, their quality changes compared to having something that was just delivered half an hour before. And so people are saying things, we're getting comments about that. Our food temperatures are staying warmer. Uh employee pride, it's been fun to hear staff coming back saying, "Oh my gosh, the kids are actually noticing this." And seeing some of those things that they feel good about what they're doing. Uh it's again it's impacting all the elementary schools. It's not
055just those six locations. Uh we have pulled basically it's 2,800 hot meals each day coming out of central kitchen to make some of these changes. And then the next thing is we're we also see less waste um because we're batch cooking closer to meal service. We get more accurate lunch counts in from the elementary schools and like we can shift and adjust some of those numbers before we actually cook the food. So that's kind of been fun to see those changes happening. Um, a little bit about our free and reduced applications. That's always kind of a hot topic around uh this time of year. Uh, over 5,000 families had applied for free and reduced meal benefits um online or on paper as of last week. I did run a quick number this morning and it
056looks like we're at about 52 um 50 that have applied now with applications. we have 69 that are pending that we just can't get anything done because we're missing information from families and we're trying to track them down. Um so that's kind of nice knowing that we've we've done a lot in that front end of things. What happens though, we have the 30day grace period in our school year where families who were approved for free and reduced previously last year, they get the first 30 days of school where they qualify for free and reduced meals. if they do not reapply in that period of time um they will fall off the benefits. And so as of last week um Monday we still had over,235 families that had not yet reapplied impacting over 1,800 students. So
057we have a lot of work to do. Our 30th day is going to be October 3rd. And the numbers came down a little bit this week. I think we're probably at about 1,500 students right now that um still need free and reduced application or hopefully if they qualify that their their families uh complete that. Um honestly um what we've been able to do with processing these applications we have a ton of helpers uh different departments are amazing. Kim Sharping and her team uh Indian education has been helping us with lots of different things liaison the social workers building administrators and all that. So along with all those many hands getting information for us and my off great office team, I think it's really neat to be able to say we've accomplished a lot in getting
058these applications uh completed to the point we are right now. Uh and we currently are sitting at 49.7% free and reduced. I think it's the highest that I've ever known uh the district has been at. That's going to change again because we always know in October that will change. Excuse me. Um, so I also have a chart up here that shows just basically what those income guidelines are. So it gives you an idea of that. And I'm going to shift a little bit because there is the last column there that we kind of use for angel fund totals. And I've got that number on my next slide here. Um, I guess I probably want to add that we are still covering the cost of uh meals for reduced students too. This is our third year.
059So, our angel fund update. I've just used that angel fund free column that I had on that other slide just to show you we've got a shift in how we've been doing things. Uh, back in August or so, Todd Beak, Deian Conrad, myself met with our largest donors, talked about some different things. We had some recommendations going forward on how do we handle the angel fund. And last year what we were doing um during the school year we had three different criteria that uh after a family was denied from reduced or free meal benefits we used a range of 185 to 200% of the free and reduced or of federal poverty guidelines I should say where that would go on shift and our angel fund and donors were saying we're going to cover those meals.
060So those are the families that just missed it by that much. And then we had two different ranges also in uh what we did. We had some matching funds. So we went from 200 um% of federal poverty guidelines to 215. And there was a one to three match. A parent would pay $1, we use $3 money put towards that. And then once it hit the 215 to 230, we did a reverse of that match. For every $3 they put in, we put in $1 from the angel fund. that was a rather bit of a big administrative um burden and we wanted to figure that we could try and help more families by making the recommendation of going to increasing that two 185 to 200% up to 210% of the federal poverty guidelines. So we're now
061actually helping more students and families where they're receiving u free meals as long as funding lasts. And uh so that is really encouraging to see. Last year we had 211 students were receiving those preals in that angel fund free category. Currently right now we're sitting at about 336 students and that was expected because we were eliminating some of those other things. Uh we do believe it's still manageable at this time. Uh but we will assess this uh end of November, early December to determine if we have enough angel funds coming in to complete continue that through the remainder of the school year. And then um USDA regulation changes, a little bit of heartburn here and there with some of the things that are coming. Uh but in July, Congress did pass into law uh some
062different things that are going to make changes uh with our free and reduced applications, our uh SNAP benefits and all that. Uh just making things a little bit maybe more difficult for some. Starting with uh the I should say the roll of out timeline has not yet been determined but SNAP has already started going into effect. There's certain things have already taken place where I think it was um sometime this month already families are supposed to start verifying that they're working 20 hours and different things like that. We do know many families who qualified for SNAP in the past probably will not qualify going forward or they may choose not to sign up for SNAP benefits for various reasons. Uh so that's going to make a difference. So those families would then have to get
063qualified based on income um their income in their application. We also have what we call community eligibility provisions and that we have four locations or schools within the district that we're using uh right now that doesn't cost the district general fund any money based on how we've um bundled these schools together because anything that's not covered by the the a percentage factor that we have uh the general fund covers that and we've been very strategic in saying hey we know that Hawthorne Horus man Axel and the learning lab right now are really not costing any money and so we're able to give all those students in those buildings free meals. Um but those are all impacted by direct certification numbers. SNAP is what we use as a direct certification and so we know some of
064that's going to be changing coming in the next school year and so we'll monitor that closely. We have to make decisions I think by about August or April 1 um in knowing what those numbers look like and what recommendations would come forward with that. Then the big thing is um verification of all income based applications. So I shared with you that we've had over 5,200 applications or so come in. Uh currently we only verify 3%. If we have to verify 100% that's a little bit of a a daunting thought process how that's going to roll out. Uh we're looking uh to find out how that's going to be uh shared with us in uh different ways. And so, um, with that, I did share with you in the spring that those 3% that we verified
065last year, we had 88 families we had to verify. And of those 88 families, we had only 25% that stayed in free and reduced meal benefits. So, we had a 25% accuracy rate. The rest all fell off of free school um or free and reduced meal benefits. Um, I'm I'm happy to share that we do have district representation, staying informed, advocating for child nutrition programs ac across the country with USDA and Congress along with our other allied organizations. Uh, as part of the school nutrition association, I'm able to represent them at the national level and be um right there with ears as close to um some of the legislative things that are happening. So, with that, I would like to ask that you acknowledge uh my report. I guess I've got a quick summary. Our
066healthy our meals are here preparing students to learn. We do meet those regulations. I assure you on that and we continue to strive to improve the quality of meals for students while remaining fiscally responsible. And so now I'd like to ask you to acknowledge the work of child nutrition services. >> Okay. Stand by. We're going to get a motion on the table to open it up for discussion. >> Move to acknowledge the report. >> Second. discussion. >> Yeah. >> Do I always look like I want to talk? No, this is excellent. Um, excellent work. I love the fact of the cooking the meals closer to the elementary schools. I think that was just a brilliant change that you made. And and when I visited some of those schools, you could tell not only with the
067kids if I happened to be there when lunch was being served, but also the lunch staff, like you said, it was great to be able to serve hotter food and more appealing food. And that's just a wonderful change. And so, thank you for doing that. I hope we can expand it to a few more schools. So, thanks for your work on that. Um, I'll say that, you know, I have two kids and a husband and rarely do I make one dinner that pleases all four of us. So, for you to do what you've done uh with 15,000 lunches every day and just the amount of care that goes into how those meals are made and how they're delivered and just, you know, everything up and down and just seeing how that kitchen runs and how
068you've planned everything out is um really, you know, nothing short of of a miracle. Um although I know that that it takes um a ton of hard work and I really appreciate that. My question for you is about the verifications. So if in fact 100% of the applications need to be verified, do you have an estimate of how many um work hours or FTEES that's going to take? Todd and I were talking about it a few weeks ago and I said I don't know. I think at least another full-time person plus a lot of temporary people in the beginning of the school year. I could be wrong thinking it could be two FTEEs to include um because getting that information upfront and being a people don't understand what that verification means. It's we have to
069see payubs. We have to see your child support uh that's received um other members that live within your household. we have to if grandma and grandpa live there and they're receiving social security that has to be reported and so trying to get that communication piece out and um really figuring that out. It'll be um rather interesting how Congress expects us to make this happen. >> Yeah. Add in language barriers. >> Yeah. Language barriers too. Yeah. And all of that. And is it is it true that in terms of uh household income, you if a minor child that lives in the household has a job, you have to count that income towards the household income. >> Yes, it is any income that comes into the household whether they contribute to the household or not. >> Whether
070they're contributing to the household or not. Yeah. So, all of this and adding in um full-time employees to verify it when we're talking about paying for kids to to be able to eat at school, right? I'm I'm getting all this right. >> Okay. Thank you, G. >> Uh you're missing a quote page like Allison had on the last report. I have one for you from a middle schooler. >> That sandwich was busting. Don't know what that means. That means really good. So, I've been getting positive feedback from girls at home saying how much they love their new middle school lunch and how it's improved for them. Um, so you need to add that next time, some kid feedback on those. Um, I was just in the wellness committee uh with Gay and various others who
071focus on all the different things that are coming down for us locally, federally. And it's just amazing how she just laid out down to a busing schedule for getting meals in certain places and it's almost like just as soon as you get it figured out, federally something comes trickling down to shake things up and you start all over. So, I think that you gave us so much, but I just want to show a deep appreciation for how thoughtful you are in managing all these regulations. I managed an afterchool snack like snack program and the regulations for that drove me nuts. So, I just praise you so much for all the things that to be compliant, to get ahead of the curve, to think again, thinking 10 months ahead is really what you're doing. And that
072to me is a win in itself. And I think we should get your 99.9% on a sticker decal. That's still something to celebrate. Um, as far as like how can one support those trying to fill those things out? Um, what's your best advice in maybe educators working with families who are struggling to get them filled out? Um, do you have any sound advice? I know we were talking in the committee and um, your advice was to not go through their parent portal, but to go to a different way to fill out the form was easier. Some of those things like that. Could you clarify? >> Sure. >> So, the act the actual application is on the district website under child nutrition. I don't even think it's really in the parent portal. I we tried to
073link it at one time and I don't think it's there, but we need to encourage parents to go here. We've got a QR code. We've got all kinds of information we've shared. We've got signage put out. Uh we do have the app in various languages. Um and again, the people that help us, it's amazing how many people it's like, okay, we talk them through here's some tips and tricks on how to fill out an application. You know, if you put zero out zero income in, it's going to flag it for us when we have to ask questions. If you put in a rounded number of $50,000, it says ah sus suspicious income. So, different things. I've just put together some tips for the different people within the district that are helping us complete those applications
074so they can kind of uh help ease that process as they're filling it out. >> Where can we find those tips? >> I'll share it with you. >> Awesome. >> Okay. >> And then just want to give a shout out to the Angel Fund and all that they do. They just recently had their fundraiser at the Barrel House and I know that went really well. So, I'm so thankful that we have community partners that work alongside you in that way to support and give us a different avenue to get that middle income group. That's a good majority of people right now is that middle I don't qualify, but I'm super close. Um, so again, thank you so much for what you do and manage. It's a lot >> and I do have to say thanks
075to the guys from Hungry Hearts Barrelhouse. I mean, they are really tremendous. Yeah. >> Uh supporters for us. >> Any other discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> That acknowledgement passes. >> We do have and and one theme that you saw even tonight with each one of those programs is our community partners that step in and fill the gap and and you'd highlighted that, Miss Johnson, but they fill in the gap so many times in our our school district. just our community partners that step up. Uh our final uh piece that we have here is a public hearing for application wearers for administrative rule by Becky Dorman. >> Good evening. Um, I am here tonight to ask for your permission uh to apply for um waiverss to administrative rules so that
076five of our uh staff members who are currently working as special education teachers can uh reach their certification under the Department of Ed's special education alternative certification program. um these five people a year ago were doing other things in our district other than teaching. So this is another example of us growing our own teachers, our our own special education teachers. In fact, um so the point of my uh public hearing is to ask for your permission and also to see if anyone has comment. Thank you. >> Thank you. We are going to open this up to a public hearing to see if there's anybody that would like to speak on behalf of the topic. Okay. We are now going to close the public meeting and I would ask for a motion to approve the application
077waiverss of the administrative rule. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? I or a sorry any discussion amongst the board. Okay. All in favor I I opposed. That passes. Thank you. >> Okay. I would like to now please get a motion uh to uh recess before we go into exe executive session. Do I have a motion? >> I second. Excellent. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. All right, we are going to recess.