001We're going to call a meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge of >> allegiance. to the standy. >> Dian, do we have a good news report? >> We do. Thank you. Uh, as you know, community engagement is one of the five priority areas that we hold as important tenants of the Souf Falls School District experience and all that we do. Um, we know that when we intentionally build strong relationships with our families, businesses, community partners, um, that our students are the ones who benefit from real world experiences and hands-on learning and that type of thing. Um a few weeks ago during our planning session, of course, you saw uh some of the key initiatives we'll be working on as we engage our community in the coming year. Um things like inviting our lawmakers into
002our schools to see the excellence in our classrooms and also connecting with our community to look at future facility needs um that are coming uh as a need in the district. And additionally um Dr. Nold is strengthening the process by which he collects feedback from our two most important stakeholder groups, of course, our students and our staff. So, uh, he's going to fill us in a little bit about his vision for that. Um, first telling us a little bit about how he's going to gather student feedback and then staff feedback as well. So, I will turn the mic over to Dr. Null. One of the things that we will be working on this fall is uh obviously as was stated there, but entertaining the feedback from our our staff versus our teaching staff uh as
003we go through and as it pertains specifically to budget and budgetary uh type of constraints or concerns that could come into question. Um, we want to make sure that we hear from them, uh, the teachers in the classroom. What is it that they value the most and honored the most that we want to make sure that we keep that, uh, and make sure if that's class size, that it's something we look at, it's something we've protected for a lot of years, is that what they see as the most important thing in their classroom. Is it the EA? Is it supporter help? Is it the things that they have uh, as far as the specials coming in? But what is it that truly impacts the classroom the most and makes it easiest for them to be
004successful in the classroom? And so we'll have groups from the elementary first and we use the cafe model to uh go through and and have them discuss in groups and then give us feedback on that so we have it well before we start the budgetary process. A lot of that will happen in October and November. And so we'll we'll have elementary groups about 50 teachers uh middle school groups 25 to 30 somewhere in there and then the high school groups you know 30 to 35 a little bit proportionately to the size of the students that they represent and make sure that we gain their feedback. On the student side of that, much of the same. We're going to go to each one of the the high schools and meet with their student councils and we
005have sets of questions that will go through Dr. Zeke and Mr. Conrad and myself and and ask them those questions to get their feedback. Uh things as far as how is it going with the cell phone CTE? Um how do we end up getting more students to go out and utilize some of the services and the great programs that we have out at the CTE Academy? What is it they'd love to see out there that may benefit them the most? but to gain that feedback from the the students directly so we can see how that impacts programming some of the other things that they may come into contact as well as far as some of their their senior years especially are there things that they could do there are some type of service projects or
006projects that they could incorporate into that senior year as well to make it more meaningful uh because some of which are trying out new things uh CTE could become part of that but especially if they're going to do something their senior year and they don't need as many credits but to utilize that time wisely to help them to see what could be part of their future. So, that's a couple of things that we're looking forward to. Uh, obviously, we had commented a little about the legislative representatives coming into our schools to make sure that we see and hear their voices and that they can make sure that they see what we do in the classrooms and hear the students that way. But, um, but truly going to be intentional on bringing in our staff to
007talk with them, our teachers specifically this fall, and then our students to be able to go out and meet with them as well. We'll see how that goes with the high schools. We'll do it once each quarter and then we'll try that possibly with the middle schools in the future. >> So that is sort of a revamp of the the student uh advisory council who used to meet down here um one or two select students from each school was chosen to come in and uh participate in that. And so hopefully by going out into the building and and also making it a little bit more accessible for students um to participate who are very busy of course and have to be a lot of different places at a lot of different times. Um that we
008can continue to really get those voices in and hear them loudly and clearly so they can be part of the decision-making process. And of course when when we all work together in this way, whether that be the schools, the city, the state, um you know, we're we're stronger together. So um we believe that when voices are heard and valued and when connections are made, um when understanding is, you know, we really take time for that understanding, then we can create some meaningful opportunities for our students. And that's what we're all here for. So we look forward to Dr. Dr. N's leadership in in this direction. Just kind of wanted to give you a snapshot of um what's to come and we look forward to having those conversations with our key stakeholders, our students and our
009staff. >> Thank you, Dion. Okay. Can I get approval for the meeting minutes held on 82525 and 9325? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I opposed. Those are approved. Do we have persons wishing to address the school board on non-aggenda items? It looks like we have two. Uh we will start with John Cuttingham. If you could please come forward and state your name and your address. >> Madam President, members of the board, I'm John Cunningham. I let >> five minutes. >> I'm sorry. >> Just let you know you have five minutes to speak. >> Okay. Uh I live at 4904 South Oxbow in Sou Falls. And I have a master's degree in public admin in public finance. And so that's going to be the the purpose of my discussion. Although I I wanted and
010I have a number of of observations, but I'm only going to talk about one of those today. And one other item, the fact that you have the public high on your agenda makes you unique in this area, and I want to applaud you for that. I think that uh that concern is um is laudable. you you don't have unlimited resources of financial fiscal resources and you cannot spend as much money as you would like on all the projects that you would like. That's just the way it is. And and I'm going to say that I believe without any fear of being wrong that the general public would uh expect or or request that academic funding be fully academic projects be fully funded before non-academic. I believe you probably have the widest range of academic and
011non-academic programs in the state. I I just believe that. I don't know if that's true, but I I believe that's probably true. And uh but you can't fund all of them the way you want. And as a result uh it appears to me that that I you are robbing Peter in some cases to to pay Paul. And I'm going to pick uh just one one of bowling for example. All the high schools have a bowling team. And uh that's a cost, not a major cost, maybe a couple two or $300,000, but it means that that money has to come from somewhere and it and you are robbing Peter to pay Paul. In this case, Peter are the teachers. You're not funding teachers fully in order to be able to fund um bowling teams. And that's
012just a surrogate for all of the non non-academic programs. And I and I believe that uh that that's the problem for the for you know well reasons that you all know. My nephew was a was a teacher a rookie of the year teacher at Roosevelt High School about 12 years ago. And after three or four years, just as he was getting really good, he took a $10,000 raise to go to Spirit Lake, Iowa. And you're losing u experience. you're losing continuity and that in order to fund bowling teams and other non non-academic programs, you're losing that kind of experience and and skill that you're as soon as you develop it, it lose you lose it. I don't know how much of that you lose, but I assume you have a fairly high turnover pro turnover
013rate here just because the states around you pay so much better. And so that's a uh that's something I think you should think of as you do your budget preparation for the following year that when you're funding a program, the co the the benefits are there. You know what the benefits are because a bowling team isn't a bad thing, but the cost isn't just the dollars that the two or $300,000. The cost is where it came from. What What are you losing? what is the cost uh opportunity cost as an economist would call it that is allowing you to do that. So if you have any anybody would like any um other observations that I might have and I do have some my phone number is on that it's on that sheet. Thank you very
014much. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to me and I hope it helps you. >> Thank you John. Okay, Chad Bishop, you have five minutes. Please state your name and address. >> Good evening. My name is Chad Bishop and I live at 7405 South Valencia Drive here in Sou Falls. I continue to respectfully request that George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm be required reading for all juniors and seniors in the district. I also renew my call to enhance the new social studies curriculum with lesson plans on the study of propaganda techniques and their use in our history. One of the most important of these techniques is censorship. Preventing a population, even in part, from seeing certain information allows narratives to be crafted, majorities formed, division instilled. Governments and media outlets can then amplify
015one narrative while squashing another, shaping public perception by not what is said, but what is hidden. For example, an extreme example, the Great Firewall of China, now enhanced with artificial intelligence, shows us how far this can go. An entire people's window to the world, carefully filtered to serve the Communist Party's goals. This is not theory. It is history, even our history. The Church Committee hearings in the 1970s revealed Project Mockingbird, where intelligence agencies influenced journalists and stories and major news outlets. That would never happen today. That's sarcasm for the transcript. I would request that a lesson plan exploring those hearings be added to our social studies curriculum. Students need to see that propaganda techniques are not just relics from far-off regimes, but have also been used within our own country. A very relevant local example.
016Who remembers when the CEO of Sanford was fired? Mr. Kelby Krabanha. So when that story went national, it was framed as jerk CEO in the Midwest hates his nurses, won't wear a mask. But if you actually went and read that email that he sent to his 50,000 staff, I would have interpreted as I have a huge research staff. It's one of the best in the region, one of the best in the world. I ask them questions every week and they inform me. And what they informed me of is that because I have just recently recovered from COVID, I am immune from at least for at least seven months if not years because we had just begun to understand that we were seeing SARS Cove 2003 antibodies in 2020. So his statement near as I can
017tell was true and he was removed 4 days after it went public for reasons that were not stated. the research that he mentioned there. There happened to be a study going on at the time called the survive study serial prevalence under repeated viral immunity examination. It had begun in June of 2020 officially and had been announced in July of 2023. It was then quietly stopped 6 months early. It was never published until February of 2022. It wasn't even sent to the journal for submission until November 11th, 10 days after their own vaccine mandate went into place. were their staff and the people of South Dakota given informed consent in February of 2022 they knew in January of 2021 that 55% of the population 55% of the people participating in that study which were frontline workers
018at that institution were antibbody positive with a huge asymptomatic spread. How many were antibbody positive in November? Who could have gotten that gentleman fired and removed from that position at that time? Why doesn't the public know about this? Why has no one ever heard of the survive study? Why? Why? When we conducted protests out in front of the headquarters with 650 people and two by 8 foot banners that said, "Release the Sanford survive study data in July and August and September of 2021." Why was none of that shown to any of you in the Argus on any of the news channels? Why haven't you seen any of it? Censorship. Sadly, the new standards adopted in 2023 do not touch on any of these subject. Sou Falls could lead by crafting lesson plans around them. I
019would also like to address the school nutrition program and how some of the data is reported. The meal viewer platform used by the district has supported both added sugars and UBC GATIN labels since 2023 and 2024 releases. Yet, our district has not taken advantage of those features, at least in the data available as of today. I would like to make a practical offer. I have spent over 11 calendar years and 17 commitment years volunteering with the district, partnering with teachers and administ administration at all city elementary. I'm willing to assist with the data entry required to get those fields populated and current. If there is a need to manually input product UPC's or the added sugar values from manufacturers, I'm ready to volunteer my time to do it. I type real fast. Thank you for
020your time. >> Thank you, Chad. >> Okay. Can I please get an approval of the agenda for tonight's meeting? >> Excellent. >> All in favor? >> I opposed. >> The agenda is approved. Don't see any conflicts of interest. May I please get an approval of consent agenda items A through E? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> opposed. That carries. Can I please get an approval of the Well, no. Hang on. Let's back up. We will now have the finance report. >> The superintendent reports. >> We just superintendent reports. >> Oh, hang on. Do I have the same? >> Hold on. I want to see if I >> Yes. Thank you. We've got E carried. Okay. Reports of the superintendent. Thank you. I think on there we have the budget. All
021right. Thank you. >> Correct. Absolutely. So, we do have three reports will be presented tonight. The first one that will be leading off is Miss McDaniel and she will uh present the information on the UFly reading pilot program report that we have. And I will not steal any of her information, but uh some of the results that we're seeing coming through that are incredible. And as you know, uh, one of the greatest things we can do for a child is the ability to read. And so, as we go through and look at the results that she has and the work that they're doing with our our, uh, kindergarten, first now, second grades, um, just some outstanding results of that. And she'll go through that with us, uh, this evening, Miss McDaniel. >> All right. Good
022evening. I'm Linda McDaniel, the elementary curriculum coordinator for the Sou Falls School District, and I'm here, as Dr. Nold stated to share some exciting news and updates of the University of Florida Literacy Institute Foundations Program, more commonly known out in our buildings as UFly. We believe excellent instruction is the key to fostering high academic achievement in the Sou Falls School District. It is our commitment to provide a comprehensive educational experience that promotes growth and success for all. EUFly delivers on this commitment as a research-based program that provides a systematic approach to teaching foundational literacy skills to every student in our primary classrooms every day. EUFly Foundations is an explicit and systematic program that teaches students the foundational skills necessary to be proficient readers and writers. It follows a carefully developed scope and sequence designed to
023ensure that students acquire each skill needed to learn to apply each skill with automaticity and competence. The program is designed to be used for core instruction in our primary classrooms. Every student every day remains the driving purpose behind the implementation of UFly as a tier one approach to reading instruction in our kindergarten and first grade classrooms. As we deepen our understanding of the science of reading, we have carefully examined the curriculum used with our earliest readers. UFly provides teachers with a clear and explicit framework for teaching the foundational literacy skills, ensuring that every student receives that highquality reading instruction every day. Its integration has streamlined our guaranteed and viable curriculum, maximized our instructional minutes, and positively impacted student achievement. Implementation has followed a strategic tiered approach. Beginning with a pilot cohort of students in the
0242324 school year, the pilot will expand annually to include all K2 classrooms. By the time EUFly is fully implemented across these grades, the district will begin its comprehensive ELA study, ensuring alignment and coherence in literacy instruction. Even in its earliest stages, UFI is showing promising results. During our pilot year, the district used an external assessment tool called CA called Acadians to triangulate results. Data from Aadians would was analyzed alongside UFI and our district map reading fluency outcomes to validate findings. The assessments were administered at five pilot schools and two control schools. The Acadians data provided strong evidence of UFI's impact with our pilot school students outperforming the control group. In the pilot schools, 36.5% of our students scored above benchmark and 32.5 scored at benchmark for a combined total of 69% meeting or exceeding grade
025level expectations. By comparison, in the control schools, 15.6 of a percent of our students scored above benchmark and 24.4 at benchmark for a combined total of 40%. These results demonstrate the significant advantage gained by students in our UFI classrooms. In addition, pilot students outperformed their peers across the district the district's other kindergarten classrooms as evidenced in the spring map reading fluency assessment data. The stronger performance not only highlights the effectiveness of UFly, but also reinforces the value of providing all students with consistent evidence-based instruction in our foundational reading skills by the end. That looks a little funky. Sorry about that. By the end of 2425 school year, 81% of our kindergarten students performed at or above grade level in phmic awareness and phonics word recognition as measured by the NWA MAP reading fluency assessment. The
026most significant gains were seen in our students advancing from grade level proficiency to above grade level proficiency. These outcomes highlight not only the effectiveness of the program but also the expertise and commitment of our educators. Teachers have engaged in ongoing professional learning through monthly collaboration sessions led by our instructional coaches. Coaches have reinforced implementation through co-eing, co-planning, and coaching cycles, building strong partnerships that are critical to the program's success. Our teachers are sharing powerful feedback about the impact UFI is having in their classrooms. They consistently highlight how the program builds strong foundational skills, engages our students with meaningful practice, and provides clear structures that support both teaching and learning. Teachers are seeing students grow in confidence as readers and writers. The quotes on the screen capture the enthusiasm being experienced by our teachers and students.
027This along with the data affirms that UFly is making a real difference. Unlike many comprehensive commercial curricula, UFly requires a substantially lower financial investment both in initial purchase and in its ongoing materials. The program provides a research-based resource with minimal recurring expenses relying primarily on teacher manuals, online instructional slides, decodable text, and reproducible materials. A key strength of UFly lies in its emphasis on professional learning as its primary investment. Rather than directing funds towards costly consumables, resources are focused on building teacher knowledge and instructional capacity. Our instructional coaches have played a crucial role in this process, designing and facilitating the professional learning sessions while partnering with teachers in the classroom to provide direct instructional support. This this approach strengthens long-term sustainability by ensuring that teacher expertise continues to grow and transfer year after year. When
028evaluating return on investment, the combination of UFly and targeted professional learning is yielding measurable results, accelerating the development of foundational reading skills for our students. At this time, I'd just like to take a moment. They couldn't be with us this evening, but Abby Dawson, Sarah Hutchinson, two of our elementary coaches, have had a significant role in the implementation of UFly. They support our 24 elementary buildings by being present in classrooms daily, working alongside of teachers, attending collaboration, as well as presenting professional learning a minimum of six different times a month after school. their uh commitment to this program along with our teachers and our students is having an impact. Every student, every day, UFI is making a positive impact in the lives of our Sou Falls School District students. At this time, I would ask
029the board to acknowledge the update on the implementation of UFly. And I'll stand by for questions. >> Could you say the name of those instructional coaches again? >> Sarah Hutchinson and Abby Doss. They are elementary literacy coaches. >> Thank you. >> I just We're gonna first just get on the table and then open up for questions. How's that sound? >> Yep. >> Okay. Um can I get a motion to acknowledge the UFly reading pilot report? >> So move. >> Questions, discussion? Thanks. I was want to jump right on there. Um, I just wanted to I don't know. I just wanted to take a moment, I guess, to really really acknowledge how important this is because it's not just about kids learning to read, right? We know that literacy and literacy at these uh at these
030elementary ages is so highly correlated to every positive outcome. And um so highly correlated if if kids can't read at by third grade, they get left behind and they're more likely to end up in um in negative situations and maybe in the criminal justice system or um in poverty. And and so literacy, as much as I just love thinking about little kids reading, I think about it in such a much broader perspective and the fact that we have this incredible program and that we're having it rolled out into all of our our K uh K2 classrooms um with people like Abby and Sarah um leading the charge, I think is just uh really worthy of us taking time to acknowledge and so thank you for being here and um I'm very um heartened and encouraged
031by the the results of this program. >> Thank you. I I often say that yes, there's great value in the program you apply. It's it's been just a a huge move for us and also recognize that it takes a human to implement that and that's our classroom teachers. So really proud of um how they've committed to this work and the impact that we're seeing and of course that momentum just creates more momentum. G >> well first of all I echo board member Duffy's sentiments and want to say what a fabulous report this is and the numbers don't lie as far as the effectiveness of it. So, I'll ask the million-dollar question. Why can't we roll this out sooner? >> Full implementation. >> Great question. And I think there's real value in making sure that we
032can support the professional learning that must come alongside of this. And to do that with 300 teachers versus 100 at a time is more um easier to approach. And I think the other thing that we see is when we have it with our kindergarteners and then they move it into first grade, we build that systemic approach to the learning. >> I appreciate that you collected the data before you just jumped, you know, right into it. So what we, you know, thought may or may not happen, we really made sure that before we made the investment of of the teacher time. Um, so yeah. Thank you. >> Does it go beyond second grade? Is there >> it it's established for K2 because it's foundational literacy skills which are part of our South Dakota state standards at
033K12. Um what it could be utilized in 35 is more of an intervention approach. So if we still have kiddos who are um have some gaps or some missed learning opportunities then we could use it third, fourth, fifth to do some intervening. But but right now our focus is K2. >> Yeah. Have you taken um like staff surveys? Have you done a full I know there was a couple quotes there but what what's your methodology in getting staff feedback? >> What we last year with our kindergarten team which was our full you know first blush for the district. We just had a a survey that went out to all of our teachers that just said you know help us understand kind of where were the successes where were the challenges and then we pulled some
034of those quotes from there. But overall, just a really strong sentiment of how valuable it was to the point what that our first grade teachers were just knocking at the door, help us get trained. And so we did the training right as soon as we were out this spring for the majority of our first grade teachers so that they were ready to go this fall. >> So I have a question. >> Okay. >> When we say that we're reading at or above grade level, so if you put that on a scale, >> let's just say grades. So at grade level 100%. I mean >> well we have 81% as of last spring with our kindergarteners. Yeah. 81% of them >> I was just talking about would you consider someone at grade level >> proficient at
035100%. >> Right. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Because sometimes I think people are confused because they'll say well your your test scores are bad because not all kids are at grade level. >> But if you walk into a classroom, people are at different levels. >> Okay? They can all read, >> right? What I would say is that of those 80% of those students that we would say if we were to hand them one of our decodable passages, they would be able to read it with fluency, with comprehension, with fairly easy or ease in reading that for the decoding portion of it. They might come to some words that they would stumble over and maybe have to do some sounding and rereading, but overall, yes, they would be able to pick up a grade level piece
036of text and read it. >> Yeah. And I think sometimes we confuse people when we don't explain that. >> Um, you know, all these kids can read at certain level, some better than others, but it's not any different going into any classroom. >> Some just easier than others. >> But I appreciate I think it's wonderful for me when I got on the board. That was my big deal. We needed to improve our reading scores. I'm so excited about this. Uh my wife was a former reading teacher, so like calm down, man. Take it. She said it's good stuff and I appreciate. >> Thank you, Gail. >> I have one more comment question. Um, every elementary school I went into last year where I got to watch you fly in action, I asked the teacher andor
037the principal, okay, who's going to be the one to find the program that's similar to this in results for math? And so my question to you is, is there a program out there that's similar to math? >> We'll be on the lookout. We're just starting that math study and so we will work with our elementary teachers and see what we can come up with. and we are working on something on that. So yes, um we've tried several different reading programs in the past. Some have been very expensive. Uh and we need to find what works and and sometimes the simplest solution is making sure that we train our teachers and empower them and this program has done an incredible job of doing that. I will tell you another piece and and I know she hit
038on that, Miss McDaniel did, but our instructional coaches that have gone in to do the professional development with our teachers has been critical in this. And so the cost of it is not very significant when you look in the dollars and cents of purchasing a program. The cost is truly in people and helping them to to be able to learn it and feel comfortable of going to them and being able to reach out and have them come into their classroom and assist and help. And so part of the roll out of that is why didn't it start broader faster? but we needed to make sure that it worked uh before we begin to go into that. And now as it has shown results, people are buying into it and that's part of the process too
039that they buy into it and the instructional coaches are there to help them. So, we've been very pleased with it. Uh the work that has gone in, you can obviously see the passion for reading that Miss McDaniel has and working with the the instructional coaches to make that a reality. So, uh we're excited about that. We'll see what what impact it has on our kids moving forward, but the results early on here are very strong. Anybody else? All right. All in favor of approving or acknowledging the UFly reading pilot report say I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> That is carries. Thank you. >> The second report we have here of the superintendent reports is our initial enrollment report. And we go through the initial enrollment as we look at the start of the school year.
040It's not our final count that we use for funding purposes, but it is to look at what is our count early on in the year here as things start to balance out. And Mr. Morrison will bring that report to you. >> Good evening, school board. Doug Morrison, director of data services. Um, as uh Dr. Nul said, the purpose of tonight's report is to give the 2526 initial enrollment FTE numbers based on the active enrollments at the end of the fourth day of school. And so this is kind of traditionally uh the snapshot we give the school board. Um, and uh so we'll just kind of go in and go through some highlights that you'll see in the board uh report. uh initial fall enrollment for the district is 2 24,290 FTE which is 86 less
041than the initial count at the same time last year. Uh the count is based on active enrollments at the end of the fourth business day. And uh if we look at some grade level results, we'll see that the kindergarten enrollment of uh 1,731 is 46 less than the prior school year. uh same at the same point. Um on the plus side, junior kindergarten is up to 79, which is 38 more than last year. So, credit to Dr. Zeke for reinvitalizing that program and uh bringing some good numbers on that front. uh grades one through five enrollment down 140 kids and that's really a symptom of the lower in lower incoming kindergarten class and and the uh outgoing fifth grade class and we'll kind of get that in and when we get to some of the
042detail. Middle school enrollment up 83 students, high school enrollment down 67 students. Uh open enrollment maintaining steady at uh 1,67 uh pretty flat up two students. So, uh, people still find our district attractive to open enroll into. And then structurally, Marcel Labau, as you're aware, opened, uh, with a preliminary enrollment of about 284 students. And, uh, the offset to those mainly came out of Hawthorne, Renberg, and Hayward as we redid those boundaries. And then uh another structural change as you're well the elementary immersion school uh was closed and those uh students are being served at other um other schools. So the overall again uh we kind of talked about this and went through that good news on the junior kindergarten front uh K through five down. I would uh also call your attention to prek
043is down at the fourth business day, but this is something that really fluctuates for a couple weeks here is there they weren't even starting school at that point. So that will bounce around a little bit. So uh in the coming slides we'll dive into each one of these in a little more depth. uh what can you expect from uh what what we say is historically is on day four uh we still have a lot of things in in flux right and so we know that on day four when I did this report I still had 177 students that hadn't been to school yet and they had missed four consecutive days we as a district have to keep those students enrolled until they're out for 15 days and then we can start to drop those uh
044students but what's happening uh from the first day of school till uh the final enrollment numbers as we have students moving to the district. We have students that have moved uh maybe over the summer and we're just now getting enrollment records from other schools and so there's a lot of uh uh churn in there. Uh we kind of know by day four uh the students that have showed up um for the most part. So most of the pressure is on a downward side. And so uh what this chart basically is saying is that um the actual fall enrollment will be slightly less than the preliminary uh enrollment if we follow uh traditional patterns here. So you can see last year between the preliminary and the final we were down 146 students and that kind of
045plays out um pretty consistently the last four or five years. Uh and so uh when I looked at the numbers this morning, we were down 50. Uh but I still had 70 students that hadn't been to school yet after 10 days. So we'll still, you know, still have some pressure to go in the um downward. Uh looking at the uh each level. Um this is kind of just looking at um the current year versus prior year cohort. And I'll I'll kind of show you how the cohorts u fall uh kind of follow in in a subsequent slide. But this is just kind of you can see that in the current year kindergarten class 1731 kids. That's 46 less. Uh and then you can also see that as I'm replacing that I have a higher cohort
046that's moving on to middle school. And so another way of saying that as we see those kindergarten uh classes less, we will see continued pressure on our overall enrollment. That will eventually work its way through every grade level in the district. Uh middle school, um we don't, you know, we just haven't those students haven't gone into middle school yet, so we don't don't quite see the the downturn there. And high school at this point really seeing normal type activity. Um, so I would say uh one thing about the kindergarten class when we looked at uh if you looked at the uh say 2010 through 2020 as an example, our kindergarten classes incoming were around the 2,00 mark. And so you can see that was fueling a lot of growth in the district. And now when
047you drop into the 17 1800s, uh that is a lot of pressure on our enrollment. So, um, just to keep that in mind. Uh, probably easier way to look at enrollment is, uh, looking at, uh, when we're just looking at, um, cohorts. Um, okay. So here would be a traditional what we might call a cohort survival rate, attrition rate, however you want to term it, term it, but you can see the prior year final numbers and then you can see uh how many uh went into the the the next grade or survived in the next grade. And I think you would see it's pretty predictable when you look at it this way. What's happening in high school is that we have uh especially at the um 11th 12th grade um we have early graduates. So
048they drop out. That's a good thing. But for enrollment, they're leaving our district. Uh and then that's where we also see see students that have discontinued their education. So, um, if you have a cohort of 2,000 kids and you knock it out of the park and you have a 90% graduation rate, uh, that's still almost 200 kids that are discontinuing their education. And it usually happens all through high school, but more predominantly at the 11th and, uh, 12th grades. And so, that's why you see those numbers increase as those kid as those students are moving on. Otherwise, I would say things become pretty predictable as we're looking to uh predict enrollment except for that in incoming kindergarten class. And that's the hardest one to predict. I know Todd looks at births in Minhaha, Lincoln County,
049but anymore with the the the spread in the town, we just don't know where those where those kiddos will end up. We also know that we're landlocked and so we know we have some growth area in the northwest, but you'll see in subsequent slides see some of our core schools starting to enrollment starting to lessen. Um just looking at it by school, we kind of try to put it roughly in in sort of the areas that they're in. So looking at the west side, you can see Hayward down slightly. Again, that's driven by those students that were redistricked into Marcelo Leau. uh you see Marcel Labboa there at their 284 initial count which again is pretty much Hawthorne Hayward Renberg the kids that are in that HAC and it's also a rise site so we
050attract students that uh are in that population as well um and then um you see Renburgg uh kids that were redistricked out of Renburgg into uh to Marcel Labau so that's kind of what's happening on the west side If you look on the central side, uh the big change there is Hawthorne. There are 90 students less um than the prior year and I know that specifically 78 students that were in Hawthorne last year are now at Marcelo Labau. So that accounts for most of it. But then other than that, u Laura B. Anderson had a a extra section of kindergarten. So that school grew a little bit last year, but you can see the other schools continued pressure on those FTEEs uh in the in the core of the city. Um east side uh pretty
051stable um all you know o overall within two FTs of where it was last year. So more stability on that side of town. And then you can see the specialty schools that will uh tend to bounce around a little bit as we enroll students uh in some of those specialty schools throughout the year. You would do see elementary immersion uh they had a preliminary enrollment of 92 last year. They're no longer here. When I talked to Sarah, I think we have about 28 students uh comparing apples to apples that are now being served in other schools. So, uh, that population of students is just down across the district. Um, then moving on to middle school, um, you know, I would say just normal, uh, cohort changes. Uh, George McGovern up a little bit. As we
052know, that's still a growth area. So, just normal, uh, growing out in that area. See some enrollment uh, growth there. Uh at the high school level, um you can see um all of our schools with the exception of Lincoln within that 1,800 population, which was where we wanted it. Um Jefferson saw a little decline. Roosevelt a little increase. Uh when I looked at there, I didn't see anything specific there, just kind of normal patterns of enrollment. And then looking at open enrollment uh on the next slide you can see again pretty consistent where where we have been uh we get most of our open enrollment in from Brandon Harrisburg Tri Valley and West Central. And then looking at where they go you can see Ben Rifle uh is uh gets a lot of Brandon students
053um from that side of town. Jefferson is getting students from Tri Valley T West Central. Uh and so, you know, we just have a natural inflow of students from that side of town. Uh Lincoln uh of course has the Spanish immersion and some of those programs that uh end up at uh Lincoln. Sonia Sotomayor with the um with its program. And then Washington uh has about 68 open enrollments and about 46 of those come from the Brandon School District. So nothing really uh not much change here from an open enrollment perspective. So next steps uh what will happen is we'll continue to monitor this and uh the final enrollment date with the state is uh as of September 26th and so that's the cutoff we will be uh reconciling with them uh to make sure
054we can sign off on that. That will happen on October 31st uh and its finality that will drive our our funding. Um, but then I'll bring back here uh on October 27th with the final enrollment board report. And uh like I said, I think if you you would probably expect it to be down just a little bit from last year's final enrollment based on what we're seeing here, primarily driven by that incoming kindergarten class. Everything else, I think, has been pretty uh pretty predictable um at this point. So with that, I will uh ask for uh acknowledge the fall 25 initial uh uh enrollment report and I'll stand by for any questions. >> Okay, let's first get a motion to acknowledge the initial enrollment report, please. >> So move. >> Second. >> Okay, any questions,
055discussion? >> Y >> Mr. Mr. Morrison, just to clarify, when you're looking at your junior and senior numbers and the numbers of students that we lose either to graduation or you say they dropped out or moved out or whatever, that cohort number does not include the kids that are taking longer than four years to complete their high school, right? Like they they're a completer, but they might graduate in four and a half years or five years. >> Yeah, that's down in that that sort of that other number. there's like other I have 200, you know, like 200ish that kids are just, >> you know, they're they're trying to still graduate, right? Um, so, um, that's, uh, you know, there's always those and we still, like you said, we have an on-time graduation rate, uh, but
056we hope to recover some of those and they maybe they take an extra year or, two years. And so, you might see our, um, our graduation rate, uh, you know, at on time at 89% and maybe our completion rate is 91% or higher. Right? So, we're trying to recover some of those kids that are still trying to pursue thing, pursue graduation. and they might have had a a life circumstance or something like that or just need more time to get through the uh through their courses. And so we never give up on on anybody. That's always been our our our mantra. So, >> thank you. >> Go ahead, Don. Um, if my memory serves me correctly, last year there was quite a few headlines after your first report saying Sou Falls School District enrollment down.
057And after um, when you came back, Todd gave us a little insight to those birth rates and looking at how there wasn't many babies born and that's why we had a lower kindergarten class starting. So Todd, could you maybe like refresh some of our friends's memory on that and give a little context from last year? I think that was you that cave gave that extra birth rate context. You please >> Well, I got good news. I I heard on the news this morning that a Vera had a record month birth in June. So um yeah we look at for to predict kindergarten six years out is the way we do it. We look at the birth rate. Yeah. The birth rate has been declining. Um so we are not Yeah. Um we it's been declining
058probably since what Doug said like last seven or eight year. I mean prior six years prior to the last seven or eight years. So we're still getting a decent share of the kids. Um it's just yeah that there was a little bump one year. It was I think 2021 maybe figure out why that was but uh those kids won't in our the way we count them they won't show up till 20 the fall of 27. So um but other than that there's been a decline over the last 10 years or so. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Also, not to lead anybody to confusion, our district takes a open rolling enrollment and that our cutoff is simply for the state for budgetary reasons. >> Correct. Yep. For funding funding purposes. They measure everybody across the state
059at the same time and that's how they allocate their funding. Uh they're also making sure that there's not overlapping enrollment. So, a student we have here isn't enrolled in another district, and that's part of the whole reconciliation process that we go through with them. Uh, and they're also looking at, uh, kids that haven't shown up yet. So, they don't want us to take credit for a kiddo that's never showed up that we still have an enrollment. So, it's a pretty rigorous uh, reconcilement process that we go with the state. So, I think at the end of the day, our fall enrollment is pretty accurate of where we're actually at. But like like you said, all year long we're taking kids in uh kids leave that you know it's just constant enrollment management. >> Part two
060of that question Dr. Z, we are still taking for the benefit of any of those listening and still want to enroll their child for junior kindergarten or pre kindergarten. We have that ability. Correct. >> That is correct. and who should they contact? >> Can go to the Sou Falls School District website or just call uh the school and that could be at JFK at Robert Frost at Hayward or Cleveland Elementaryries. >> Excellent. Your signs have been great, too. Thank you. >> Okay. Anybody else? All right. All in favor of acknowledging the initial uh enrollment report say I >> oppose. Same sign. >> Okay, it passes. Thank you. >> The third and final report that we have this evening is the wrapup to the FY25 budget year or that calendar year and uh Mr. Be will
061give that report to us. >> Thank you. Yeah. Uh so we started this this uh budget process almost two years ago and uh in 2023 when we set the guidelines and uh here is probably your fin the final report we're going to get on this budget today. So it's been a long process. So we're going to talk about uh kind of five different areas. We're going to look at the revenues. We're going to look at the expenditures. We're going to look at the net or revenues over expenditures. Then we're going to look at uh the fund balances and then we're going to look at uh statistics we get from the state on average teacher salary and teacher compensation. So we'll start first with the revenues. Um the general fund we came in at about 98.7%
062of revenues there. Um the the shortfall was just didn't do an internal transfer. we didn't think we needed to do. Um that was budgeted capital outlay. We came in a little long at about which is you you want to be long generally at uh 1.6% over. That's just a that's just some other funds outside the the tax outside the property taxes uh interest and things like that. sped. We originally had budgeted a million dollars of IDA carryover money that uh because the budget came in pretty well. We did not uh we just we didn't take that million dollar that million dollars of carryover. So, we still have the funds for funds roll forward. So, we still have funds for next year, but we just didn't utilize that. Otherwise, we were almost right on the money
063was spent. Um and bond redemption was just off by $13,000. that ones is that you just make a request. Um we just, you know, we just levy a dollar amount and we typically get that except for some people, you know, don't pay their taxes on time and it's not made up by the late taxes from the year before. So that's off by $13,000. So overall, uh the total tax supported fund revenues came in at 99% of budget. On the expenditure side, um we did really well. General fund, we spent 96% of of what was budgeted. Four of the biggest items there are uh the operational services budget. If you think back to to uh last winter, we had a very mild winter. And uh the total, it isn't all part of winter, but the total
064part of the OS budget, it was $2.1 million. um that came into the good there and a lot of that was driven by the mild mild weather. On the uh curriculum side, we had a pretty small curriculum implementation. We spend $4 million a year roughly on that or we budget $4 million a year on that every year. And uh in some years it costs more than that. We had one that was near $8 million, but some years it's it's very low. So if if we don't spend all that $4 million, we put it in a reserve. so we can have it for the seven or eight million year. So they were $1.6 million under budget, but most of that will just go into the the curriculum reserve for a year when it's a higher need.
065Um salaries, we always have a delta. This year was a little higher than we thought about $3 million. Um some of that was positions that weren't filled or or churn. You know, somebody leaves and then you have you have an empty time on some of those hourly positions, the classified positions. Some of it was teacher positions that were filled with long-term subs and uh some of it is uh teacher positions that have been converted into maybe a a uh behavior specialist or or behavior facilitator instead if they couldn't fill the position. Um and then finally benefits. The benefits are kind of dictated on how what our population is and what they sign up for. And we look at what percent of the the salaries goes into benefits in in the year prior to the we
066do the where we do the budgets. So, it's a two-year lag. And uh we were up to 35%. So, that's what we budgeted, but we came in at 34. So, for for next year, we've got 34 loaded in there. Well, when you're talking about salary expenses of, you know, not including the federal money, but salary expenses of $137 million when you're when you come in a percent under, that's that's a that's pretty good chunk of money. So, we're about $2.3 million to the good on on benefits as well. So, that's kind of where we saved money and came in. We always do like to come in low. This was just lower than typical capital outlay. Um, we came in again under and that and most of that has to do with not making that transfer
067into the general fund and it's just moving money from one fund to the other and we didn't do that. Special ed uh we came in at 98%. And uh because of that we didn't do that transfer from IDA. Same issue there. salaries and well not not the height heat and the lights and the and the plowing but salaries and the benefits would have affected them as well. Um bond redemption pretty much we know what we're going to pay. So we we were almost right on there. So total total expenditures of variance there was 90 or we came in at 96.1% of expenditures. You always want to be o over on the revenues and under on the expenditures, but uh this is a little more generous than we usually have it. Um finally, looking at the
068net or the revenue over expense on these, we budgeted $7 million into the fund balance, but because we we came in so well on the expenditures, we only were just short of a million dollars of spending into the fund balance. So the variance was about 2.7% of the actual expenditures that we incurred. Capital outlay we uh were positive $4.2 million and that's that most of that is that trans you know we were budgeting into the fund balance but we only at 6 million we spent $2 million. Um that's a positive variance of 4.2 to and most of that is that transfer we didn't make most of that that was it was almost all of that actually sped uh we had budgeted 584,000 into the fund balance uh we only came in spending 279,000 there. Um,
069so we did 305,000 to the good and bond redemption. We ended up 10 we spent 10,000 more 356 than we thought we would as far as the the net for that. So that was the one that was a little off. Overall we were at 3.1% on the total variance to the good for the district. So, I talked a little bit about the fund balances in the general fund. Um, so we obligate some money um for things like the curriculum study and whatnot. And what's left is the unobligated fund balance. We had uh projected we'd be at 10.1% in the general fund. This year we we ended up at 11.8. So that everything I just told you is why and that includes money we we that that 11.8% does not include the money like we set
070aside for the upcoming curriculum implementation in a future year. On the capital outlay fund we ended up at 18.9 million almost 19. Our five-year capital outlay plan fund balance head is at 18 million at the end of the fiscal year we're in right now. So, we're a little bit ahead of that pace. So, um that gives us some money to uh utilize for some projects that uh a project list that Jeff is working on and has been growing in the last couple of years. So, that's good. Sped, we're at 15.6%. The state allows us to be at 25. If you're over 25, you lose dollar for dollar, state aid, anything over that. So, we're at a comfortable fund balance there. and bond redemption. It looks like a big number. It's 6 uh.5 million 53%, but
071we had a $10 million bond expenditure that uh was due in August. So, it's already been that's already been spent and more. So, that's that we have to kind of time that based on when those when those bond bond debt service payments hit. And then this is something we've looked at uh ever since they had the accountability rules and it went back prior to then accountability rules got more serious a year ago. But uh this is something we've looked at for a while now. Our average teacher compensation grew 4.1%. Um our average our teacher salaries grew 4.1. Our average total compensation grew four. Now I showed you earlier how we had budgeted 35% we came in at 34. That's kind of the reflection on that. The they just weren't taking as many benefit teachers and
072the rest of the staff weren't taking the same number of benefits they did the year before. So that lagged a little bit. The target teacher salary which is still in state aid grew 4%. So both of ours either matched or or beat that. They went up from 59659 to 6245. We are at 62683. So we're about 1% above that target teacher salary. The target teacher compensation which includes the benefits and the salary grew to 80,038. We are 5.4% of that. above that um our our benefit kind our benefit package tends to be more rich than our neighbors and and the district and the and all districts in the state or one were one of the the top the top ones there. And then there was a law that was passed a year ago that says
073we have to our average teacher compensation has to grow uh at the rate of that state aid grew. And if it doesn't, if you don't come within 97% of that number, you're going to get penalized in state aid. So, our target last year, and they just look at compensation, not salaries. Our target was 84,365. Um, that's a it's a rounding error. We hit that at 4%, but we were actually short by 0 .015%. We were short just a few thousand dollars. Actually, what we sent in originally was right and they found a couple of FTE issues and benefits. They adjusted it and we came out. So, we're 85 1,000 low as a percent. Basically, right on that number would have to be over negative worse than a negative 3% for there to be to be
074a penalty. So, basically, we're right on on that. And you don't want to fall behind because it'll be tougher to catch up, but we're kind of right on the money on that. Um, so those two items are new there and, uh, yeah, we're definitely within 3%. So that's it. Uh, the recommendation is to acknowledge the report on the district's FOY 25 budget wrap-up. >> Can I get a motion to acknowledge the report on the district's 25 budget wrap-up? >> So move. >> Second. discussion questions >> I guess based on how this year went like what should we be thinking about for our upcoming just like a little preface to it >> what should we be thinking about for next year >> yes >> well Dr. and old hinted at it earlier in the good news
075report that we will be uh meeting with teachers and and other staff ahead of time to to kind of get priorities and what what are the the highest priorities to them so we can b de develop budget guidelines that tend toward meeting those priorities. We still are looking at uh some reductions as we're trying to we're trying to phase out of having that CO money that we had for several years. So, we're still still going to be we're in better shape than we thought we'd be, but uh we're still kind of low looking for reductions that can be made and we always trying to find efficiencies anyway. But, uh we'll get the uh as soon as we get all the the sal, you know, salaries are the biggest part of our general fund budget. salaries
076and benefits. It's 80 about 85% of it total. Soon as we get all our new staff and everything loaded into the system, we'll take a look at at what that's going to look like next year and then we'll we'll have a better idea of how much we really think we need to cut going forward for the next four or five years finding efficiencies. So I think it's good news, but we're still looking for efficiencies as always. >> Thank you. Todd, do you still meet with your financial action network committee? >> Well, we last the last time we met was in 2019. Um, we were going to meet this this year, but um or last year, late last year, but we found out we were going to get a new superintendent, so we decided to hold
077off on that. And we'll probably set that up in the into the near future for another followup with them. >> Good. That would be great. And uh something else that I just uh observed and I think it's worth uh drawing this out is that given our uh revenues went down, our teacher salary still went up and I think that's a strong indication of the district's support of teacher salary and benefits. Um, so when we look to next year, um, it seems to me that would be something we would continue to prioritize. >> Yep. Couldn't agree more. >> Okay. Any other? All right. All in favor of approving the motion say I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> Okay. The the U acknowledgement of the budget wrapup has been approved. Well, there we are. That's another meeting.
078We are moving to adjournment. Do I have a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting? >> So move. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> We are adjourned.