001We're going to call the meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nation and justice for all. >> Okay. Hi Deian. Good morning or good afternoon. We apologize for starting a little late. We had a ribbon cutting at uh George McGovern Clear Cross Town. So, we'll get started. >> Yes. Thank you. Here tonight uh to share the good news report and you hit the nail right on the head. Uh I want to highlight some of the unique events that we've had going on. Um just happened within the last hour. Our ribbon cutting out at at the Boys and Girls Club McGovern Middle School today. And uh thanks to my coworker uh Tori Stolen. He was able to snap a
002photo real quick, send it to me so I could feature it here as well. So just a short time ago, the Sou Falls Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a ribbon cutting out at the new Boys and Girls Club attached to McGovern Middle School. So we're very grateful to the Boys and Girls Club and of course all their donors for investing in our students. Um, the students, as I'm sure if you were out there, you saw, will have access to some really, really cool stuff. It's a great space for afterchool, non-school days, and during the summer months. And the 16,000 square foot facility will be there to support students as uh the northwest part of Sou Falls continues to grow. students will be able to hang out there, learn a new skill, enjoy an evening meal,
003and just make connections uh that will only serve them better into the future. So, what a great way to start a Monday on the Monday before the Monday before school starts. So, and if one ribbon cutting wasn't enough, we want uh not to overshadow the Marcela Leau ribbon cutting that'll be coming up on this Friday. We want to remind the public that that is August 15th at 11:30. Again, the chamber will cut ribbon at Marcela Labau Elementary School. That is just southeast of where today's ribbon cutting took place. and Anna Broken Leg from the Office of Indian Education has been working closely with the family of Marcelo Leau um the school's namesake and they will be in attendance on Friday to participate in the ribbon cutting events as well as do some touring of the
004school building. So super exciting there. Um the photo in the top right hand side you can see the smart lab. Uh that is a feature that is new for the Sou Falls School District. Um, Marcela Leau will host the first Smart Lab in our district and we're going to do a quasi ribbon cutting for family on the night of their open house, Tuesday, August 19th. So, kids are going to come in um meet their teachers, see their classrooms, that type of thing. And then we're going to gather around the smart lab so that the students can participate in their own version of a ribbon cutting event. Um, not to say that the Friday event, I mean, there's going to be a few suits and things like that there on on Friday. The chamber is sort
005of for the business uh community as well, but we wanted to make sure our students get a chance to celebrate as well. So, they're going to be coming to our smart lab um family ribbon cutting. So, also throughout our community, there are a ton of different uh events going on before school starts, including free haircuts, school supplies, backpack giveaways, um some big events happening at Terry Redland on August 19th, and then um our partners at the Barrel House are hosting their annual Hungry Hearts event to raise funds on August 23rd. Hungry Hearts is a nonprofit and they have stepped up to support families who do do not qualify for free or reducedpric meals but still have difficulty paying for breakfast and lunch for their children. So that's a an event that has uh served our
006families very well in the Sou Falls School District. And while I have the microphone and potentially an audience, um we want to take another opportunity to encourage families to get applications in for their free and reduced meals. Um the application must be submitted every year and we need families to report their gross income, not the take-home. Sometime there there sometimes there's confusion on what amount they should be reporting. Uh we currently have about 1,700 applications submitted for about 3,000 students. So if there's more than one family in the household, that's one application. We have about three 3,000 students that that will cover. Um however, we've been operating under last year's number of applications. So you can see we have quite a ways to go uh to get those free and reduced meal applications in. again
007report the gross income and income will be verified and also a note uh if there was debt at the end of the last school year uh that debt does carry over we don't have the funds to wipe it down to zero we did back in the day uh when we had some co dollars and such uh but that is no longer available so any debt from the previous year uh will carry on and of course our friends from hungry hearts are participating to help the families that fall in sort of that gap between 185 and 210% poverty. And also really I could go on and on. I could be here all night sharing information about back to school, but I'll wrap up to say um that thousands of families still need to complete the annual
008registration process before the first day of school. And this is really critically important. I know as a parent, I get the emails and you're like, "Please stop sending the emails." they stop when you fill out the application, when you fill out the registration. Um, and that's so important so that we have enough teachers, we have enough desks in a classroom for your student to show up, we really do need to know the number of students who are going to arrive. And so if if families haven't done that yet, please take an opportunity to just complete that paperwork. In most most cases, it's just approving or um slightly updating what you had last year if any phone numbers have changed or addresses have changed. Not super difficult, but very very important. So, we want to make
009sure every student's first day is welcoming and memorable. So, we ask folks to consider all of those things um as we are now 10 days away from the start of school. And with that, my good news report. >> Thank you, Deian. Uh, our morning started out at 7:30 a.m. We had the first time teacher grants that we came out. So, thanks to the education foundation and the upcoming Marcelo Leau ribbon cutting and then today's boys and girls club and thanks to the promising futures and all the people that the community partners that you mentioned, the um hungry hearts and what they do for free and reduced. So, the all those All those uh community partners are such a strong sign of the wide support that our community gives to public schools and Dian, you do
010a great job of shouting that out to the community. So, um thank you for that. >> Thank you. >> Can I get approval for the minutes of the meeting held 7:21 2025? >> So move. >> Second. All in favor? >> I >> oppose. Same sign. Persons wishing to address the school on non-aggenda items. See, we have Chad Bishop. Chad, thanks for coming. >> I do have a hand out if that's okay. >> Certainly. Good evening. My name is or good afternoon. 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 across the district for all juniors and seniors. I also reiterate my call to enhance the new social studies curriculum with lessons plans
011dedicated to the study of propaganda history and techniques. Two examples from nutrition policies stand out. In the 1950s and60s, Ancel Keys from the University of Minnesota published the so-called seven country study claiming a direct link between dietary saturated fat and heart disease. It was deeply flawed science cherry-picking data to fit predetermined story. Yet, it was embraced and amplified as irrefutable fact that continues today. In the 1970s, our own South Dakota Senator, George McGovern, chaired the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs and issued the first US dietary goals for the United States, recommending low-fat, high carbohydrate diets for all Americans. This was not settled science, but it became settled policy influencing food production, agriculture, marketing, and school meal standards for decades. From that committee hearing, Dr. Robert Olsen. I have pleaded in my report
012and I will plead again orally here for more research on the problem before we make announcements to the American public. Senator McGovern. Well, I would only argue that senators don't have the luxury that a research scientist does of waiting until every last shred of evidence is in. Together, these two moments, one driven by selective science, the other by top- down government policy, help move us towards being the most obese and chronically ill society in human history. That prop that is propaganda's quiet power. When flawed ideas are presented as unquestionable truths, that damage can last for generations. Four years ago, in August of 2021, I presented a concept to this board, which I named the sugar budget for school meals. That presentation, still available on YouTube, showed elementary meals exceeding the American Heart Association's daily added
013sugar limit by 200 to 300% before a child even got home. I asked the question, what portion of a child's sugar budget should the school district meals take up? After that meeting, I had the opportunity to sit with the district's nutritional staff for the second time. I want to commend the district for a meaningful improvement since then as the integration of menus with the nutritional information in meal viewer is available on the website. At that time, they were separate. Now, there is an integrated calculator. That's progress and it's worth recognizing. With that said, the core problem remains. I handed you a print out from Mealbeer for August 21st at All City Jane Adams Elementary. It includes a tricks breakfast kit, pineapple cup, and chocolate milk if so selected. It is the first data for which
014there's data during the upcoming school year. The first day listing shows 59 grams of total sugar in this single breakfast. From this estimate, there are 27 grams. From this I estimate there are 27 grams of added sugar more than the recommended daily limit for a child served before 9:00 am. These recommendations are the American Academy of Ped Pediatrics, the American Heart Associations and the World Health Organizations, not Chad Bishops. I say estimate because meal ver does not distinguish between natural or intrinsic sugars from fruit or milk and added or free sugars from sweetened cereal, flavored milk, and juices. Without that breakdown, families can't make informed choices and we can't measure whether we're improving. Here's what the the Sou Falls School District can do now. Implement a sugar budget in the meal viewer web interface using
015a simple red, yellow, and green badge to show whether a meal combination or a combination of meals meets the daily added sugar recommendation for a child. Work with the vendor to add added sugar or free sugar entries into the meal viewer API so researchers, parents, and students can access precise data for analysis. Pair these changes with quarterly reports to the board. Tracking the numbers and percentage of meals that meet the sugar budget standard. How many meals or combination of meals would exhaust the sugar budget for a child per day? This is an opportunity for this board to lead. These are transparent, measurable, nonpartisan steps. They build directly on the sugar budget concept I suggested to you in 2021. By requiring 1984 and animal farm for all juniors and seniors and by teaching propaganda techniques throughout
016the social studies curriculum from the earliest grades, we can equip our students to see when narratives, whether in politics, advertising, science, or policy, are being shaped to control outcomes rather than to reveal the truth. Applying those same critical thinking skills to our nutrition program will help ensure our policies serve the best interests of our students health. Thank you for your time. Chad, thank you for coming and addressing the board on the nutritional menu idea of color coding. Appreciate it. We do not have persons wishing to address the board on agenda items. Um, can I get an approval of the agenda? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. That is carried. Conflicts of interest. Seeing none, we'll move on. Can I get approval of gazent agenda items A through D? >> Second. >>
017All in favor? >> I >> oppose. Same sign. That passes. Reports to the superintendent Jamie. >> Yeah. this evening. Uh we do have a report with our fall 2025 staffing update and there's a lot of incredible uh information in there that that you will see and be brought forward with with a lot of things that we've taken and put into place. uh Becky Dorman and her team has been able to utilize uh many of our our uh partnerships with USD and Dakota State and other locations to help our staff be able to grow and and become teachers to fill some of those needs that we have in the district. And so it's a really good report as we go around the last week here and been able to meet with the custodial group and and
018talk with them, our clerical, our education support professionals, our new teachers today as you had mentioned, our bus drivers were today as well. All of them are integral piece of what makes up our 3600 plus employees. And so tonight we'll hear kind of the staffing update and it was really could have been a good news report I believe at the beginning. Uh but we will go through and hear that and you'll be able to see some of the things that are happening in the district. >> Thank you. All right. Well, within the next couple weeks, um a couple hundred uh new staff are going to be joining us. Um it's a exciting time because we're really truly wrapping up the teacher hiring. Um but we are certainly kneedeep in hiring for our support staff and
019our substitute staff. So tonight I am going to go over um information about the new staff um our vacancies, our candidate pool characteristics, and then our recruitment efforts. Now, even though I'm the one that gets to stand up here tonight and give the report, um this work wouldn't have been uh done if it weren't for the human resources staff working very closely with our building leaders to get these positions filled. So, I'd just like to recognize them by having their picture up on the screen here. All right. So, when I put the PowerPoint together, um, we were sitting at 130 teachers hired, but great news, we've moved that. We're at 134 teachers hired. So, that's great. And then you can see over the years the different locations and kind of how we how we trend
020as far as the number of openings and positions filled. Um, as usual, our highest area was at the elementary level and then typically the rest of it is split between the middle and the high school with a few at early childhood and then some other uh school specialists. Prior to this year, um, we averaged 156 new teachers every year. So, we're a little bit below that. Um about half of them are brand new teachers, new to the profession. They come to us with 4.7 years of experience overall and just over a third of them already have their master's degree. Uh we should be very proud of how we promote from within. Uh we make concentrated efforts um to recognize people who should be teachers and then help guide and support them. um through their pathway
021to becoming educators. This year overall um 56 people who were doing something different for us last year are now teaching and leading in a classroom this year. So that's very exciting. This year uh kind of trended right along with our other other years in the past. We've hired 20 21% of teachers from other states. Um, and our average is 22%. So, we're that part remains kind of status quo. Nothing remarkable there this year. And here's where our out ofstate teachers are from. It looks like um Nebraska won this year. We got eight teachers from Nebraska and then uh just a few others from the Midwest as well. and then a few outliers. So there's my our 21% of out of state teachers and where they came from. Now, we like to always take a look
022at where we got our experienced South Dakota teachers. So the list here um is where you can see where we hired people from with experience within South Dakota. Um and then of this list 24 of them are from within one hour of Sou Falls. So just kind of look at uh where everyone came from and that 24 hires within an hour is um the highest in the last several years. So it's good to see us attracting people from the area. I'm also happy to report that we have a change on this slide. Um, as of right now, we have uh one position that is still open um that we are still recruiting on, but do have a plan in place in case we don't find the right match for the classroom position that's open. So,
023we were able to make a big push and get some hiring done right at the end of the last week. Now, this is an interesting slide. Um, this slide shows us teacher resignations, meaning the people that chose to leave the district. Um, this year between the 242 school year and the start of fall of 25, we have had 103 people resigned from the Sou Falls School District. um for a second year in a row um leaving the profession or the education setting and then uh moving from the area were the two highest reasons for people to resign. Um and that was the same for last year as well. So far, we've hired about 105 support staff, um, including education support professionals, specialists, clerical, child nutrition, custodians, employment contract, and various coaching roles. Um, and we
024have 90 that remain. So, we've got some work to do yet. Um, although I see the positions being filled, we're working on it. It's just it's going to take a little time um to get all these positions filled. If anyone out there is um paying attention or or listening out like watching on TV, we definitely need some substitute teachers. So, if you have a day a month, a half a day a month, a day a week, we would love to have you. Uh we need about 250 substitute teachers uh by late fall. We like to have them in place and in and trained before the cold and flu season kicks in um and everyone catches a bug. So, um we've begun training new subs already. We've had a couple sessions. Um so, so far so
025good. We're getting some applicants, but we could always use more. And here are some of the recruitment recruitment keys um that we've used recently. People always ask me what works best and I can never there's never one thing that works best. You have to do a lot of things to find uh staff to come work for you. Um some of our newer uh ventures the first one would be learn and earn and that has to do with our student teachers. Um we collaborated with several area colleges and instead of our student teachers coming in and working for five days a week um as student teachers, they're actually student teachers for four days a week and then that fifth day they become substitutes. So they get some extra classroom experience in a classroom that probably isn't
026the one they're used to and they get paid. So that's been a win-win. We've got some great feedback um after our first year and so we're excited to do that again and grow that program. We also have enhanced our student teaching program by making sure we're getting out and thanking our student teachers. Really feeling that from the day one we have student teachers, working with mentors, we're recruiting them to eventually become teachers with us. um if they are student teaching in shortage areas um we incentivize them by paying them a small stipend and then also um in in some of those positions they may get some type of hiring bonus if they sign on after they finish their student teaching with us. Um some of the other uh avenues that we found for gathering teachers
027is our partnerships with universities. We've had 26 special education teachers uh certifi that are going to be certified in December that we didn't have a year and a half ago. So, it's been a great partnership with USD um and a lot of people in this district including Dr. Nol who has helped us out um in making sure that that pathway is possible in a very affordable way for our substitute teachers. We have education support professionals, clerical um and specialists now who are going to be special education teachers. So that's been great. We just uh on Friday we wrapped up our last HR wrapped up their last orientation session with our new teachers and that's always so fun. Um, we went from one big room with 130 people in it trying to have orientations, breaking it
028down into six, seven, or eight sessions throughout the summer. And that actually came from survey feedback from those groups that they wanted a smaller, more intimate session where they could ask questions, maybe get to know people a little bit more. So, we've done that and it's um been very enjoyable and very helpful. We've also partnered with its so at the end of their session they've got their technology. They know how to log into it. They can access some of their sites. So that's really fun for them to um be able to really feel like they're coming on board quicker. And then uh we are also offering certification sessions. So if they need help applying for their certificate or they have some questions, sometimes um there's some things that come at us that really stump us.
029if you've worked in another state and lenture and so we're able to put our heads together when we can sit down and meet with people and help them through their certification. Um and then we also implemented early school safety training. So, this is an opportunity where our new staff get to hear from uh Dave Oststerquist and they get to ask those questions in a smaller setting and everybody's new and they haven't seen this before instead of waiting till when they're in their buildings and maybe it's a little harder to ask a question. So, they get kind of an advanced look at the school safety. Um, and of course that's important. Now, taking a look at our applicant pool. This is exciting. Um we're up over last year and we've been trending up for several years.
030So that's really good to see. Um half of our candidates are from South Dakota and this and 35% of them are from outside the United States and then 15% of them are from other states. And our candidate pool has eight years of teaching experience as an average. This year um we are down a little bit in alternatively certified teachers. Um we were trending up for a while and um which is exciting and fun because these are usually people who have a had a first career in something else and felt the call to teaching. Um but that is significant work on their part to be teaching and taking coursework at the same time. And then it also um does require a lot of support from other staff as well when you have people in the classroom
031um that are learning as they're doing, right? So, but we do we did welcome 20 alternatively certified teachers this year, which is 16% of those that we hired for this new school year. One statistic that we track in in the HR department is how many offers we have to make before we get a yes. Um, and this year looked uh pretty good. We had an 87% contract acceptance rate. Um, a lot of times uh when there's a lot of school districts in a in a small area, we're competing for all those candidates, right? So 87% um uh said yes for us on the first time. So that's great. Now, our work ahead um is outlined in our um district priorities. As always, we have to make sure that we um are innovative and responsive when
032it comes to recruitment for teachers and really all staff. Um we have to focus on factors that impact staff retention, including competitive compensation and benefits. And then of course that employee feedback that is so important to review and then implement when we're able to do so. >> That wraps up the fall 2025 staffing report. Are there any questions? >> I don't have a question, but I'd like to give you a compliment. >> It's huge. because it's tough to find people and uh when I go to the social school board meetings we have good news and bad news most schools is we're still looking for teachers can't find teachers and uh I think it's great and I appreciate >> thank you >> I want to make sure I have the statistic right so of those that
033are coming on to the souall school district as a teacher. What percentage are already within the school district? >> What percent? Okay. What percent came that were hired last year and now this year? >> Was that 44%. >> Yes, that was. >> I think that's a number worth just really talking about because our new hires are homegrown. That's what I'm hearing. There are people that are already working for the school district as clerical or education assistants and we've helped to provide an avenue for them to go on to get their teaching degree. I mean, that's really remarkable. That's congratulations. You've certainly um you and the the leadership of the school district are creating a climate um and a culture that people want to continue to give back. So that 44% that's really something that we
034should uplift and spotlight. And maybe you didn't recognize it. It's something that that I've recognized some real intention. And if you go back to your recruitment keys um that you're using, you had a long list. Um so the intentional planning surrounding that, it seems to be paying off and that's I just wanted to draw that out and congratulate you. Thank you. Anything else? >> I was also able to talk to uh Dr. Swinley who's the professor at USD and she said there's 80 individuals signed up for the PDC program this year and those are individuals going to get their masters to to become teachers. And so that's an incredible number. They had to hire several more staff to be able to educate them. So, we're doing a great job of getting the word out that
035the career of teaching is a very rewarding career to be able to go into. So, thank you. I think a big part of that is also a credit to the board for continually working to increase the salary and and making it much more affordable for people to be teachers. And so, we thank the board for that aspect as well. >> We will continue to partner with you with the compensation package and the benefits. That is our So, thank you. Okay. Can I get a motion to acknowledge the report? >> So move. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Opposed. Okay. Thank you. And that's anything else? No. Okay. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Second. >> All in favor? I I >> We are adjourned.