001e e e call the meeting to order please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance IED Al the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God all right Welcome to our first snowy meeting I think that we've had this year so we've been lucky that way start with our good news report the end good evening everyone am I clicking this awesome look at these smiling faces 130 students started their day with us here at IPC this morning uh they are part of the teacher pathway program uh they visited IPC this morning and then we're heading out to uh visit local colleges as well and so these are students who are interested in pursuing teaching as a profession they are earning Credit in high school and um
002we have had the program now since is it 2019 six years 2019 and we have started hiring some of those uh who first went through the program so uh great opportunity to host these students and uh to acclimate them to our our headquarters of the sou fall School District um and they were all asked to wear some reference of their school um their School logo or something like that on their shirt and um we had to get rid of a bunch of coats unfortunately in order to get that picture taken um but what a great opportunity to have them uh down here at IPC and uh Dr stavam and Dr n also U spoke with them and presented with them today so just wanted to share that as we get started is the guy in
003the middle is he a super senior um yes I did in fact I I told some of the folks in about Row three and four they had to do the sorority squat he opted for the knees instead so yeah just [Laughter] checking okay well um that's surely a way that we have uh invested in growing our own in its purest form right um growing our own students and also in its purist form today is our genuine appreciation for the role that each of you plays as elected members of the sou fall School Board next week is School Board recognition week in the state of South Dakota and because we don't have a public meeting next week we wanted to offer our thanks uh to you today and recognize the time and attention you give to
004all matters related to the sou fall School District um and sometimes when you just don't know what else to do it's enlightening to turn to middle schoolers and ask them them what they think um is the role of the sou Falls school board so we did a quick little survey at one of our buildings Edison Middle School students we asked them what do you think the role of the school board [Music] is I don't even know what that is so I have to guess I think the sou fall School board like make sure everybody's safe and protected and make sure they actually learn stuff at school like they match all principles of teaching other kids and basically um learning people's like feelings and making strong relationships with them I think it's uh a community of
005people who and don't quote me on this but um who are just like together as like teachers and principes and make some decisions for like the schools um around the sou Falls probably wrong but it's fine try my [Music] best so they did try their best what I loved about that is perseverance right um they could have I I like the the honesty of the young man right away at the beginning I don't even know what that is but I'll just guess um so great to hear from a couple of our students um and uh I think they probably thank you deep down as well for all the work that you do and as local leaders you serve as a link between our schools and our community you see the hard work that our students
006and staff put in in the classrooms every single day there Visionaries for the future um as you know we have a building opening this fall and some more work to do with Bonds in the future so vision Aries as well planning for our growth and then final decision makers when it comes down to budget and all of those things so a heavy load that you all um share and we're grateful that you have taken that responsibility um some of you have your own children in our sou fall schools grandchildren um that might be the reason you serve we have a past uh employee of the district a couple past employees of the district actually so uh you show up for students because you recognize that the work is for the greater good not just your
007own child grandchild or whomever but you recognize that the work is for the greater good so one more video to cap this evening off and I created this one exclusively using AI tools so this is AI at work school board appreciation week is coming soon and we want to take a moment to say thank you school board members play a key role in shaping the future of Education by developing policies that support Student Success from setting academic standards to ensuring a safe and welcoming environment their decisions impact every student and teacher they also hire and evaluate the superintendent making sure our schools have strong leadership to guide them forward their dedication helps create opportunities for every student to learn grow and succeed thank you for making a difference every day school board members so with
008that uh I'll ask those in attendance to say thank you by Applause for our school board [Applause] members I believe Dr Stam was going to make a point as well yes we want to thank all of you and um you know it's really interesting when I talk with colleagues from across the country which I did just recently many of them have board seats that are coming up and there is no one to fill them um it's a big decision and it requires a huge commitment from the point that you decide to run in a public election and everything that that means as well as um putting yourself out into the public which can be uh sometimes an unpleasant experience most of the time what we do is very pleasant but that has made it um
009different for public elected officials I think across the country and so when you think about what service looks like um you're also modeling that for the future generations of people who are going to be willing to serve in public roles and so we thank you for your willingness to do that and to continue the Legacy in this District of having a highly committed highly functional board that supports the work that we do for children every day so we're grateful to you and um grateful for for the the people who have come before you and the people who will come after you to serve in this really important role so congratulations to all of you and thank you for how you support our work thank you to be fair to the students I think you'd get
010the same responses if you surveyed people at the Empire mall so true we did not have a camera at the Empire mall so we took the next best thing which was Edison Middle School so kudos to those kiddos for uh for helping us out yeah thank you so much all right can I get a motion to approve the minutes of the meeting held on January 27 2025 please second I have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign those minutes are approved we do have one person uh wishing to address the board on a non-agenda topic um so Chad if you'd like to join us just tell us your name and address please and you have five minutes good evening my name is Chad bishop and
011I live at 7405 South Valencia Drive here in sou falls in the spirit of showing up for kids and their families my wife and I have spent 17 commitment years and thousands of hours serving the families and the students and the staff at all City Elementary and as mentors and coaches in the district i' would like to take this opportunity to once again request that you make George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm required reading across the district for all Juniors and Senior years additionally I urged the board to incorporate a study of propaganda into the social studies curriculum with the disclosures around usaid and the Twitter files before it I see this request as timely as we watch the unraveling of a 21st century version of Orwell's Ministry of Truth in real time I went
012back and reviewed the standards as adopted in 2023 and sadly I found no mention of the church committee nor disclosures on Project Mockingbird the church committee established in 1975 and chaired by idah host senator Frank Church a Democrat exposed illegal surveillance assassination plots and improper activities by the CIA NSA FBI and IRS including domestic operations targeting targeting US citizens while it did not confirm project Mockingbird as a formal program the committee uncovered extensive CIA connections with journalists revealing how intelligence agencies manipulated the media to spread propaganda and disinformation these findings led to an increased public scrutiny in reforms aimed at curbing intelligence agency over reach and ensuring greater oversight and accountability if you haven't seen it the footage archive online is excellent the students in your care are likely going to witness history repeating itself
013I do have one question for which I would appreciate the courtesy of a follow-up I would like to cite the board's previous report on AP class enrollment specifically the African-American studies AP curriculum and ask whether it is the same curriculum that was banned in Florida due to its emphasis on divisive identity politics and anti-racism ideology tonight I am formerly requesting that the board put forth a resolution to strike all language and policies supporting diversity equity and inclusion from the sou fall School District Dei while often presented as a benign effort towards fairness has in practice led to discriminatory policies Nationwide under the guise of equity again social justice language doing bad things with seemingly good words I've spoken on this topic here many times before I had previously pointed out the many Apolis teachers union
014negotiated policies that explicitly discriminate based on race under the banner of equity I have also highlighted the case of the San Francisco School District which in the name of equity eliminated algebra for eighth graders embracing the bigotry of low expectations the federal government has begun purging Dei policies from all agencies and future Federal funding May soon be tied to the elimination of these programs if the new secretary of defense's policy direction is any indication these initiatives must not be renamed or repackaged they must be eliminated entirely as they are counterproductive Elon Musk who who is leading the department of government efficiency has referred to Dei as a woke mind virus and nothing more than quote communism rebranded unquote the current president has vowed to eliminate Dei policies from all federal agencies because they are rooted
015in Marxist ideology these are stronger characterizations than I have made in my past statements but I'm sure you understand I agree 100% the Supreme Court has already ruled against racial discrimination in college admissions through the repeal of affirmative action as it applies to college admissions continuing to promote Dei or similar policies May expose this District to Legal liabilities and federal prosecution lastly I would draw your attention to the pending appointment of harmit Dylan as the Assistant Attorney General for civil rights to the Department of Justice she happens to be a woman of color as if that matters who sees diversity equity and inclusion as unamerican and divisive I would remind you that you have a sitting board member who openly advocated for discriminating in your hiring practices based upon what someone looks like I urge
016the board to take action on these critical matters and set your future intendent superintendent up for success thank you for your time thank you very much can I get a motion in a second for approval of the agenda tonight so moov second I have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying I I oppos same sign the agenda is approved there are no conflicts of interest can I get a motion in a second for approval of the consent agenda 9 a through F so move second I have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign the consent agenda is approved and now we move on to the reports of the superintendent we have one report tonight and then we'll move from that
017right into our uh legislative update and so Denise Kennedy is here to provide an update on the many things that are included under the umbrella of special services as a program update so I'll turn it over to you thank you very much for that introduction thanks for having me here today B I'm here to give an update on special services this is a department that maintains a $66 million budget we have over 7 00 staff members who carry out all of the necessary services for our students who qualify for special education services we of course follow our sou Falls Mission but we also have our own why quite frequently behind Clos doors we talk about how to get our students with disabilities to their Highest Potential and the short amount of time that we have
018them before they prepare for adulthood before I get into any programming I do want to visit a little bit about our numbers what you see in front of you right now is our last four years of our December one child count our December one child count is what drives our special education state aid we have other sources of revenue but the state aid is the largest form of Revenue we have to carry the services for our students and you can see that it goes up every year now the year after covid it wasn't quite as big of a growth but we more than made up for that two years later and that was pretty standard across the district I'm sorry across the country we have an obligation to provide a Continuum of services for all
019of our students birth through 21 how do you do that when you have over 4,200 students we put our teachers into Focus areas so for example we have a group of teachers who evaluate and work with students birth to three in their natural environments quite frequently that's in their homes we have a group of teachers who work with our three to five-year-old students in our preschool programs that occurs here within the district and then in every single home Attendance Center we have special ed teachers education assistants related service providers School psychologists our Behavior team are working in our hc's providing services for our students who qualify for Disabilities that range in the mild to moderate range and that makes up the bulk of our students who qualify for services but we still have quite a
020number of students who qualify under services or under disabilities that are considered severe and so our students who have severe disabilities they do take a little bit special programming a little bit higher level of programming to get them to their highest level of potential and so because of that we have 26 different program locations across the district you'll see that we have programs we have a variety of programs in our early childhood levels and then we have rise programs in the elementary middle school and high school programs uh rise stands for reaching Independence through structured environment for a student to qualify for a Rise program these are our most vulnerable students so quite often these students have high adaptive needs some of them have medical needs but it does take a criteria to be in
021those programs and like I said we have them at every level then we have our Behavior programs we have two different strands for Behavior programs because we have students with high behaviors that have high cognitive ability and then we have students with high behaviors with lower cognitive ability and those students we we serve in our structure teach program both of our Behavior programs are located in the Horus man building and in the Axel park building and then finally we have our 18 to 21 transition program which you know as Community campus the slide in front of you here shows you where all of our programs are located you can see our elementary buildings hold our early childhood programs as well as our elementary rise programs and then the middle school and high school each house
022Four Rise programs I'm sorry Four Rise uh buildings each um in in those buildings and then we have our 18 to 21 transition program now Community campus has broken up into two different locations we have one at the Western Mall and the other part of Community campus is located in the Axel park building moving on to the Horus man building Horus man like I said before has our two two strands of behavior programming but they also have a Bridges program not every student at Horus man has an IEP or they they don't all qualify for special education services some students just need the support they need a smaller classroom size to be successful EXO Park does the same thing at the secondary level the last bullet on this slide is our Behavior teams the this
023is something I do want to visit a little bit with you about because this is new this is our first year that we have implemented a full functioning Behavior team and what that looks like there's three tiers to it so on the top you have your bcbas and bcba stands for board certified Behavioral Analyst these are people who have a lot of Education they know Behavior this is their expertise they evaluate students they come up with research-based plans proven plans that work for students then underneath the BCBS you have your behavioral specialist your Specialists are at the building level they're working with your teachers they're working with your Administration they're helping those plans get carried out and then on the ground level you have your behavior facilitators they're the working ones working hand inand with
024your students every single day making sure those plans are carried out this team has only been into effect for half a year so it's not fair to to judge or to say yes it's highly effective or no it's not highly effective but I will say that we are seeing a reduction in our referrals and so so far is looking really good and at the end of the school year we have a lot of data to sift through where we we will be able to determine if this is an effective team or not if we're going to what the future is for this team but so far it's looking great another reason that we have our specialized programs is we want to educate our own students in house within our own District but sometimes you have
025students who are too medically fragile or maybe their behaviors are too violent or dangerous for us to educate them safely within our districts when that happens happens sometimes we have to do an outof District placement those outof District placements do we're still financially responsible for those currently our out of- District placements cost the district between $50,000 and $120,000 per student per year there's two reasons we want to educate our own students one we can do it more cost effective number two as students start start to show progress we can more smoothly transition them back into our other programs and into their least restrictive environment and if you look on the slide here over the last three years we have dropped the number of kids that we are sending out of District our teams are doing
026a great job of keeping our students in house we keep a very very close eye on our kids when they're in an out of District placement because when they're ready we are ready to receive them one of the shining stars of special services is our community campus and that's our 18 to 21 transition program the best part about the 18 to 21 transition program is when kids get to this age all of the work that's been done from elementary middle school high school it just comes to this culmination when they get to be adulthood and it clicks and you can just see it come together beautifully and our community campus staff are the ones that get the pleasure of transitioning these kids from school to their post school life and that looks different for every
027student because you have some students who are going to be competitively employed and they're going to be living independently on the other end of the spectrum you're going to have some students who might not be able to be employed they might have to go down the wreck and Leisure path and then they're going to maybe maybe we're setting them up for Adult Services and then you have everything in between so it's very individualized but the whole key to Community campus is making sure that we those that Bridges connected we are the bridge from school to the rest of their life and we do not do this in isolation we work with a lot of agencies but we also work with a lot of communities in town here too this slide is really powerful these are
028all of the businesses and companies in the sou Falls area that work with our community campus kids they provide tours they allow our students to come in and do volunteer work for them and some of them hire our students on fully employed by the time we're done educating them which is obviously a best case scenario some things that we are excited about is we are looking at Community campus getting them into one location as I said earlier right now we're split up into two if we can get all of community camp campus in one location we can streamline our services be more efficient and really have that sense of community for our students the other thing we're excited about is Project search pro project search is a paid internship the last year for for some
029students in their transition years and we have a new host we moved into the Sanford Medical C Sanford Medical Center excuse me on December 2nd and that is going really well so what this is is it's a collaboration between Sanford the school district and then invoke rehabilitation services and so the students get to go through three rotations so by the end of that final year Sanford has a well- trained employee we have a student that we can release they're they're fully employed and then VK rehab will fill in any gaps that student might have for their Adult Services so it's really exciting and like I said it's going very well so far we're we're grateful for Sanford and then finally we're looking at continued Improvement to meet the needs of our students my leadership team
030and I are taking a look at all of our programs in the district to make sure that they are meeting the needs of our kids kids are evolving families are evolving we can't expect uh the kids to fit into whatever box we decide right we have to meet kids where they're at and that's where we're doing with our programs so just going through to make sure defining the programs well what does it take to get into the program how do how do they work themselves out of the program and are we meeting their needs and then finally before I let you go I do want to publicly thank everyone that does all this work for our students earlier I'd mentioned there was over 1,700 students or sorry 1700 staff in the special services department and
031this is their job categories and these are a wonderful group of people they are dedicated they are hardworking I do believe that special education is one of the most important jobs that you can do sometimes there's challenges but every single person on this list would agree that it is worth it and there's a lot of work that goes on upfront that you see and there's an awful lot of work that goes behind the scenes for the benefit of our kids so thank you to everyone in our department I do appreciate everything that they do and at this point I will stand by for any questions and ask for approval of the board report thank you I don't have any questions but I do have a couple comments sure uh first of all I always want
032to take the opportunity when I have it in public to thank the staff of this district for the good work they've do and I take it personally because my family was affected by the good work of the staff of this District so thank you very much and secondly just to let people know if our special needs student were an individual town or city in South Dakota it would be the 20th largest city in the state because I believe your numbers are like 4,200 students that you serve is that correct correct so that's when you put it in perspective like that that's that's pretty amazing the number of students that you serve every day so thank you you I think they'd be what the sixth largest school district if you were your own District yeah so
033sixth largest District yeah um on top of just being thankful for what you do I I do have a couple questions okay um your enrollment the 666 million from state aid knowing that state aid is your highest revenue is that enrollment based you had made mention do they go off of the numbers in what month I'm sorry they go off the December one child count December one and then it goes off of disabilities so different disabilities have different Revenue how does that impact the um money being spent for Behavior how do we if we're looking at December one for enrollment as we move through the school year and have various children with their needs how does that impact specifically Behavior so I see my role is to make sure that every program every age grade
034age from birth through 21 every District I really work hard on making sure services are provided evenly across the district I often get asked another question about that is um with our a of District placements I often get the question on well if we're bringing all these kids back or we're not sending as many kids out for out of District placements does does Behavior get all that money too and the answer is it kind of depends because I need to see which of our departments where where are we bleeding in in our program who where is the need and I will tell you right now that the need has been in Behavior last year pulling together that behavior team I put all my eggs in one basket with the revenue I had I it was
035go big or go home so I did everything I could to build that team and so I'm very proud of the team that was built I'm very proud of the communication one thing I didn't mentioned earlier and I should have is this department has a system it's an org chart of communication of training so no matter who you speak to on the team you are getting consistent services and you are getting the same answers no matter who you go to they are absolutely a United team and is that criteria since that in part is coming from state is the criteria for the behavior is that our district that comes up with that or is that uh Grant um based in part from the city or or state you mean for students who qualify yes our
036criteria it it starts with idea which is a federal individual disabilities Education Act so it starts the federal level and then the state brings it down to their own criteria but it's pretty standard across the country for emotional disabilities okay thanks because I yeah look at that um the behavior interventionist team could you go through through that again kind of that structure you started out with the and is this the same then throughout the distri you have these different teams I I just want to know who's just give me that structure absolutely so think of it as a triangle and at the top you've got your bcbas that's your that's your experts experts in Behavior right y then under your bcbas you have your behavioral specialist and they are in the buildings they're they're at
037the problem solving teams with our mtss committees they they are working hand inand with administrators and teachers and they're helping the bcbas kind of write those plans up too a lot of our behavioral specialists actually are going to school to become a bcba too so they're got some pretty good quality people there and then the behavior facilitators and we have the most of the behavior facilitators because they are working with the kids in each of the buildings and so what we've done is we have split up all of our bcbas the Specialists and facilitators and we took look at all of the buildings to determine what is the workload of each building because we got to try to divide these people out put them in groups divide them out so they all have a set
038number of buildings that they can serve equally so it's been the first year we've done a nice job we're probably going to do some tweaking the summer on who goes where and who has how many schools just to again to make it even more even because there were uh probably one or two buildings that had more behaviors and maybe we anticipated and that's going to happen so there's a little bit of building the of the plane as you're flying it sometimes how many bcbas just to rund down on those three different so we have 10 bcbas okay 10 and like I said last year we had four we we knew we were meeting the needs last year we knew we had to do something so we have 10 bcbas we have 17 Specialists and we
039have a whole lot of behavior facilitators that number fluctuates okay yeah um what did so it looks like we've grown the bcva was at four now at 10 it looks like the behavior speci in the building are at 17 did that grow too or did that that grew as well Yep this was a very intentional team that was put together and then those that are working directly with the kids what's been the change in that what what's the number change oh you know I'm not sure because a lot of the building principles have been given the authority to take an EA and you can convert 1.3 EAS into a behavior facilitator and that Authority has been giving to the building principles that's why I don't know number because it does fluctuate and when you can't
040find EAS we have to have staff in our building and you can actually hire and get someone to apply for a behavior facilitator easier than you can in EA right now okay um yeah it would be interesting just to kind of have some of those Gran but it is the facilit facilitators that are working directly with the students correct sounds like the behavior Specialists they are just in the building but they're there for a they're there to model they're not they're not with the kids uh no a little bit there with your with your higher Behavior kids if if someone needs some modeling they're there to model and they can work with the students then kind of fade away the whole point is let me show you how this plan is is to be carried
041out they'll work within the program or work within the room and then fade away and show the EA or show the behavior facilitator how to carry out that plan or the teacher okay I'm sorry I'm hearing two things so they're mainly working with the with the the behavior in yeah I I would say your Specialists are they're about half half it I would say they're about 50% with kids 50% working with administrators and teachers and if you want the number of the facilitators I can certainly get it for you just know that it's good for that day only he I love it yeah um and then the bcba are just primarily administrative function for the most part yep they are the ones they're the only ones who can do the evaluation piece of it okay
042and they the uations are based on the the um the criteria set by federal government and the state oh I'm glad you asked that question because no it's we're talking about two different things here okay you were asking before about the federal government the criteria that's to qualify for special education so some of these students qualify for special education because they qualified under emotional disability that's a criteria that opens the door for special education the bcbas they can work with kids on IEPs but they're also working with kids who are not in special education too because they are also funded as part of our CIS print our pre-referral dollars too so we've made it that they can support any student in the building I'm glad you asked that question to clarify and please keep asking
043if it doesn't make sense because I do want it to make sense and so yeah the be the bcbas are there to help anyone and so you've heard about our PBIS and mtss program think of them on the PBIS side of of the mtss model we have a fairly new or um special education system correct like a documentation system it used to be a lot of paper and now a lot of it is electronic correct correct we've gone to sped Advantage so we are online now so at least you know people in different again if a student would move from a school to a school or something like that that same documentation would be available staff very far with that so when kids are so transient right and so when students move or yeah move
044from building to building that information goes with them and this Behavior team that we built they are a close-knit team they converse with each other so if kids are moving they're going to be talking with each other anyway so that data is both for students with the special education as well as those that are benefiting from the mtss model corre using it for both correct because the other piece of it is we're trying to keep kids from qualifying for special education too so if we can just put together Behavior plan and it works great then maybe we don't need to do anything else yeah it's a it's a big job and we've talked a lot about behaviors and I think um in the near future we'll probably have more information that's just specific to behavioral
045um in separate from the special education part of it um just because it is an ongoing concern not just in our district but in districts across the country for a variety of reasons we are very data rich and so the bcbas are collecting their own data as well and it is quite impressive already yeah but it's not fair to take a look at it now but I do encourage you if you're looking for more information this summer we can have all that ready for you this summer that way you get the full year picture great yeah and I think you know we compared the city size and we've compared the school district size and um we we just we do have a large population and I think that we are also very attractive to um
046people coming into South Dakota or living around sou Falls because they know the quality of Education that our staff members um provide to our students on a daily basis and the support that they're given so um that's a blessing for us to to have that great reputation um and to know that we're able to provide kids what they need and like you said get them to their Highest Potential and which is different for every child um and I think when you look at how students have evolved over over time we you know we had a report about School nurses and we talked about how their really skill set has advanced as far as what's required of them in a school setting and I would say the same is very true for our special education teachers
047and um the range of disabilities that we're seeing now versus what we saw even five or 10 years ago so um such a great need and I think from the special education teachers that I know have talked about how rewarding it is as well to work with students and and see them to um see them achieve their goals and reach their potential so very important part of our our district so thank you so much for the information that you shared tonight does anybody else have any other questions or comments no I mean I think that a key thing we need to look at and keep in mind is that their numbers are set December 1st and it's really challenging for her to really look at the entire you know year of what needs are particularly
048within behaviors of students that are outside of the criteria fit to make that budget and the constraints that go along with it um is a tough is a tough job because A lot's being asked um yeah I think some of that kind of aligns with our having our Friday in September too the number of students that we see that start in our district after that that are not qualifying for services but we're still not getting the funding for them too so I think they're both very paralleled to each other and um the timing is very crucial and we're never going to be able to capture Unfortunately they true number of students that we've served in a year whether they're special education or whether they're regular education students so definitely a challenge with with funding in
049general um for Education yeah but it sounds like we have something to look forward to this summer to really dive into it and have a broader conversation on all of it because it is a lot to digest and obviously we've had a lot of feedback especially given some of the surveys that we've been putting out after our superintendent search student Behavior was definitely a prevalent conversation people want to have so I just want to make sure everybody knows we are sitting up here we are so very aware of the needs that we are seeing within our district and again you you mentioned we're not special this is an all across the nation thing but what's special about us is that we're taking a look at it in this way we're talking about it and we're
050getting ahead by looking at the VA opportunity expanding on it and getting the data to really show forward how we're going to make sure we move forward and give the best opportunities for our kids so super looking forward to diving into that we can all nerd out in those things and put our best foot forward into hopefully getting on the right track with that thank you thank you so much thank you uh can I have a motion to acknowledge the overview of the Special Services report please second a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign that is acknowledged thank you so much thank you very much now on to the legislative session we've had a number of bills that dropped in a bit of a
051flurry over the last week as the final days for submitting bills is on us so um with that we'll have a review with u Mr ve and we'll be just going through the ones that you have not formally recognized just as kind of a reminder of how we do that um and so with that I'll turn it over to you hey thank you excuse me we have 39 new bills to go through today so I'm going to go fast again like we did last time stop me if you want to talk further about the bill on the screens are is the QR codes you can I could put this stuff up there but you won't be able to see it the writing's too small but you can um get get to it access it through
052that QR code and and follow along so I'll start on house bille 1119 it uh limits annual valuation increases to 3% it's kind of like uh remember California way back when Prop 13 you bought a house and there it was it's what you paid for and and 20 years later your your value was still the same well this lets it go up through 3% but still that wouldn't necessarily keep up with your neighbors so it really doesn't affect our Revenue sore neutral on that and there's a few more bills like this so that's why I'm explaining it um House Bill 1120 transfers uh certain Monies to make an appropriation for the operations of the State Library we're neutral on that house bill 1130 provides permissible dates it's actually two for School elections and Municipal elections
053you can do it on the primary date or you can do it on the general election date um we're neutral on that as well um we've kind of set ourselves up to combine with either this city or the county in the future and going forward with our evene elections so we're okay with and we're neutral on that one um h138 reduces the M maximum property tax Mill levy on owner occupied single family dwellings for school district to 25 or by 25% again we're neutral on that it's not going to affect the total money in property taxes we can raise it's just affects who pays the property taxes um 1171 requires a school curriculum include human growth and development within the health curriculum we oppose that uh we think the State Board should determine that not
054the legislature and house 1172 is similar and and we oppose it for the same reason House Bill 1177 allows employees to sue if an adverse employment action results from failure uh to use a students's um we're neutral on that I don't I don't really know that bill very well jump in no we're neutral on that House Bill 1180 requires that a candidate for election to a school board discloses their party we're opposed to that we're not supposed to be partisan elections um so we're opposed to that house bill 1181 um each School District shall provide dyslexia screening or neutral on that house bill 1182 provides for the recall of a member of a board of a school district we oppose that our theory on that is if you want to call elected officials make it
055for any and all there's in there there's some in there for County Commissioners depending on what legislature has a beef with who I guess so just do it or don't and include the legislature if you do it um House Bill 1183 amends the other Revenue base for schools under 250 students that aren't sparse so it's basically allowing them to uh receive more state aid by excluding revenues that the rest of us have to include in our in our tax base um so it's a I call it a sparity factor for non-sparse schools um so we opposed to that um 1185 provides that uh School District public monies for Education may not be used for lobbying purposes now that may be a high-minded ideal but the state has hundreds of people in blue badges running around
056up there every day lobbying uh counties aren't prohibited municipalities aren't prohibited only school districts so we oppose that bill um 1197 permits a teacher to assist student in objectively reviewing scientific information we have an oppose on that um it uh it's not necessary uh House Bill 1200 permits Merit pay as a component of teacher compens compensation and also requires things on a teacher salary schedule that are a little goofy we have an amend it Amendment if I mean we can negotiate for for merit pay um but the part about not I mean having certain things on a schedule that really was written by somebody that doesn't know what a teacher salary schedule looks like um so we say amend that out of there and then maybe have a decent Bill House Bill 1201 is a
057a key bill that would establish requirements for school district counseling services and require parental permission for certain things we're we're opposed to that um theoretically you could be hearing from your kid that your parent is beating you and you have to let the parent know that your kid told them that they were unsafe because they were beating so uh we are opposed to that bill House Bill 124 defunds the he in school district that bill was pulled um house bill 1229 provides a $100,000 exemption from property taxes for owner occupied single dwellings and it limits the growth which would affect revenues for all with with for all entities that collect property taxes would limit them further and they're already limited much more than the state is limits itself so we oppose that also 1235 is
058similar to that lowers from 3% to 2 and a half what uh what what can be the growth I mean that that's 3% is an arbitrary number 2 and a half% is even more arbitrary half the time the state generates more than 3% in Revenue in sales tax and they don't limit themselves there um House Bill 1241 uh will reduce the growth and uh the assess value of owner occupied property tax sment now we have neutral and a key bill and the reason is that bill was put in by the new governor and so he's putting it in there to have a vehicle to figure out what his plan is and so it will be key whenever they get real language in there so we didn't want to lose track of that bill 1254 prohibits
059a school district from offering a reward or imposing disciplinary action if uh parents uh fail to on a student but if parents fail to provide information they're supposed to provide we don't do that but there's numerous instances where the state does um punishes uh if a parent doesn't provide that stuff so we're opposed to that bill but one it's another one where um you want the state to kind of H them to follow what what they want us to do that would be nice if they had followed it as well an act to authorize uh the display of certain flags on public property now I can limit those flags we've never had a problem with it in some of our classes you know we have over what is it's over 100 spok languages in our
060district uh the the flags will be displayed in there and you don't want to worry about some kind of so we we just don't think that bill is necessary um and I skipped one um uh can't remember what that one is and I added it to my list but uh we have that as a neutral bill it's unnecessary um and that's a burden to monitor 1259 Sena bills we'll start with 109 um it permits a school district to implement a new or revise Todd just a second any questions or comments on the house bills it's just break between House and Senate I won't rant like last time but additional Ridiculousness so continue isn't 1259 the one about multi-occupancy uh restrooms yes we're just not in the business of monitoring restrooms yep that's the yeah the
061bathroom Bill places are not monitored okay on to senate senate Bill 109 um permits the school district to implement a new or revised Section 504 plan it's related to the military and kids moving around that's already addressed in an interstate compact um so we oppose that no handles that um Senate Bill 112 is dead Senate Bill 113 the bill exclusively reserves rights to the parent of a child mental health uh and educational which it's too broad we have it as neutral but it's a very broad bill Senate Bill 121 reduces the maximum values of certain property taxes leving down owner occupied bills uh this is another one that it will limit the amount of tax taxes you can collect below the 3% that's already the limitation we oppose that bill send a bill 141 distinguishes
062distinguishes between doesn't and well it doesn't count new construction and improvements on existing structures so if you have a $100,000 house and you triple it so you now have a $300,000 that doesn't H count in your additional um new property and and that's the way counties and cities and us in the capital outlay because we're not funded in the capital outlay on students that's how you get your growth it would be like saying uh if a local store doubled its business the state wouldn't take the sales tax on the extra business only on if a new store went up and they actually sold stuff so we oppose that bill as well um Senate Bill 161 established is a maximum school that bill died um Senate Bill 168 prohibits non-disclosure agreements in in settlement cases involving
063asbsd protect protective trust we're neutral on that might be a violation of the Constitution it's aimed at one one private entity um requires that taxing districts oh but we're not a member of any of their projected trust so it doesn't affect us that's why we're neutral requires that taxing districts hold a public hearing when increasing property tax so anyway if you it's a complicated Bill if you read it but if you're going to raise more property taxes next year than you did this year you have to a hearing unfortunately the hearing has to be held I think in June we don't know what our evaluations are until uh you're supposed to know them in September we don't find them out till late September and they weren't finalized till the session had it started so there's
064lots of things wrong with that bill it's a it's a goofy bill so we oppose it Senate Bill 187 prohibits political subdivisions from interfering interfering with immigration enforcement we're neutral on that Senate Bill 190 establishes an education property it's another voucher program we oppose that that that came in late after the other two had been killed in the house Senate Bill 191 limits annual valuation increases to 3% on owner occupied single family family addressing and F family dwellings and commercial property that's another one of those um it's it's it's you know it doesn't really matter to us because we can raise an x amount of dollars it just spreads to different groups who who's paying those dollars so that's why we're neutral on it CER Bill 196 requires the display in each classroom and C
065curricular [Music] inclusion of the I don't know whooping saen in public in public schools we oppose it just because they're telling us to now they've got two things I guess I hear that the Ten Commandments buil died but they've got two things now that require you to display something in a classroom we have 15 or 1600 classrooms or more I mean that's it's getting kind of goofy um Senate Bill 197 is an enhances education we're neutral on that we don't know what that means I mean it it'll be it's a vehicle bill Senate Bill 207 freezes property tax revenues and assessments for two years and uh growth is only allowed on new construction we oppose that um I mean there you're locking down you can't we're locked in for two years and the state would
066never do that to itself with the sales tax or any tax it has Senate Bill 208 amends Provisions pertaining to a school district's proposed opt out for Capital outlay CER it basically says school districts if they opt out they have to have an election on it doesn't talk about municipalities counties townships water districts or anything else so we oppose that Senate Bill uh 216 is another Governor's vehicle bill so we're neutral on that but we have that as a key bill as well oh those last two we had as key bills 207 and 208 um finally sent a bill 219 requires the acceptance of a cash payment for admission to a school affiliated event this is similar to that bill that died I think it died in the house earlier so we oppose that for
067the same reason we oppose that other Bill all right questions on any of those I I think the house educ ation um Committee just table 1171 1172 1182 and 183 but yeah that could be I was in meetings all day right before this thing and I haven't had a chance to it's it's very recent news I haven't seen what happened today yet so that that's probably good news I think yeah I just Echo what I said before and don't worry about we have what we have hanging on our walls in our classrooms and how people get into our events like let's feed kids lunch how about or do other far more important things than try to regulate things that happen in one single classroom in the school anybody else anybody have any questions or want
068to talk about anything specific to the bills that the positions that we have I just wonder when citizens are going to say you know we have some important issues in the state to deal with we haven't really had big discussions that I can tell on the pipelines on on uh infrastructure on things that are very important to the majority of South dakotans to businesses you know and yet we fool around with with these silly bills and waste people's time so I think it's very frustrating all right with nothing else I think I will make a motion to approve the yeah approve the position discussed today so moved second I have a motion and a second all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign those are approved anything else to come before
069the board today if not can I get a motion in a second for adjournment please so second all those in favor signify by saying I I I oppose same sign we are adjourned