001We're ready. Okay, we are on. Okay. Good afternoon. Welcome to the May 12th, 2025 school uh Spearfish School Board District meeting. Please join me in saying the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I would like to announce that right away we are going to have a video conference in uh our meeting tonight. So when that comes at a certain time, we will just be breaking for that. Okay, moving on. Do we have an approval for the agenda? Make a motion to approve the agenda. Second. All in favor say I. I. Okay, we're going to go to scheduled and unscheduled audience next. Uh this time we're going to go to
002the Spearfish American Legion Family Post 164, Micheline Nelson. Okay, good evening. So I have a team with me today and this is our American Legion family and within the family we have different groups. So I'm Michelini Nelson. I'm the president of the auxiliary unit 164. I'm also girl state chairman and um secretary of the emerging legion writers. And then with us we have uh Derek Bessler. He is one of the officer of the American Legion writers, but he's also uh a member of the Sons of the American Legion and the Legion. And we have Carol Edwards who Carol Howitz who is or now vice commander for the American Legion and Americanism officer. Kevin Clunder who is a Legion member of Sun and also our children and youth chairman. And we have Larry Hagran who is
003the assistant director of the Spearfish Veterans Honor Guard and Veteran Affairs and Rehabilitation Chairman. And I'm not going to talk the whole time. I'm just going to give it to some of them so that they can share what their purpose is and what they do. But what we wanted to do really today was to show you the relationship of the American Legion family and the school district. And it's amazing and sometimes I don't think that we realize it that every school there is a give and take between the two. You open the doors to us for the programs and then we try to help with different things too. So you have a little summary there and I'm going to give the mic now to uh Kevin to talk about the children and youth program and
004then we'll go to Carol howitz with the Americanism especially the different programs at the high school. I know most of you people up there I don't. Um I'm Kevin Clunder. I lived in Spearfish for 40ome years, you know. Um, I joined American Legion. Um, 17 years ago. Um, I got involved. Our American Legion, you can be as busy as you want to or you can just sit back and watch everybody else do the work. Uh, that's what I usually do and Michelin does all the work. No. So, so with the children and youth, uh, we did a couple things this year. Technically, last year we did the first shop with the veteran. In other words, we went with the school, talked to the counselor at uh middle school. I forget what her name is, but
005she's fantastic. Told her what we wanted to do, and she gave me a name. Uh it happened to be one of the employees, and she had uh three kids there. Uh, shopping with the veteran is just like kids and cops, you know. We want to make sure those kids have a good Christmas, you know. Uh, so we took three kids and a mom out to Walmart. That's the only place you can shop is spear fish at Walmart. Uh, well, we go to Bombards, but they don't live on the ranch. Um, and A&W helped us out and they bought us uh the meal for the kids and our members. And then we went shopping and my son has uh high function autism and this boy had it too. So I was tagged up with him and
006his mom and another one and we went shopping and it was a challenge and I don't know how that mother a single mother could do that. Uh I remember when we were growing sending up raising our kids I either went to the store or the wife did but but we had a good time. The kid got a lot of presents. Uh he opened almost every one of them that night but he was smiling. So, mom got stuff for her kids and the siblings got it for each other. We went back to our uh American Legion Hall and wrapped them and uh they went home. They were smiling. Uh Christmas Eve, uh Brian Hambeck and myself, uh Brian says, "You know, I have a Santa Claus suit. We need to use it." So, I have my
007wife made me a elf shirt and I had elf hat. So Santa Claus and Elf went and visited this family and gave them what they wanted, what they like. So that was very very uh heartwarming. The other thing is we talked about doing uh Easter egg hunt and talking with the city and no weather and stuff. We decided to have a Easter carnival. Uh after probably 200 hours and $600, we had a the first uh annual Easter egg hunt, Easter carnival in spear fishing. We had 175 kids there. They were lined up before we even opened the doors. Uh, every kid left with a gift. And every kid that came in that I was able to talk to, I says, "The only way you have to do, the only thing you have to do here
008is have a smile." We all had smiles. So, that's some of the things. The other thing with uh shopping with the veteran, we had donations and we had a good chunk of donations. So, tonight we want to donate $250 to the lunch program. I'm good. [Applause] Hi, I'm Carol Howitts. Um, and I've been a proud American Legisure Legion member for over 30 years. Uh, I spent 31 years in the military and have retired and spear fish is my home now. Um, a couple things. The four pillars that the American Legion stands on is veterans affairs and rehabilitation, national security, Americanism, and children and youth. So Kevin talked a lot about children and youth and I'm going to talk a little bit about Americanism and what we have to offer for Spearfish in the schools and
009the scholarships and opportunities that we provide. The first one is Boy State. Uh boy state is an incredible opportunity for juniors and seniors of the spearfish community that they go to and some great graduates have been um Clay Eastwood and Senator Thun um and I think a lot of students don't realize what that means on your resume. There are so many colleges and universities in in South Dakota that will give scholarship opportunities to boys that have attended Boy State and it's five days uh at Northern State University in Aberdine and we provide all the fees for that. Um, but it's held uh every June and they spend a week in hands-on government um role playinging uh at the government at the state level um running for mayor and uh doing opportunities like that and then
010there are two boys that get selected from every state that go to boys nation in DC and they run that whole situation at the uh national level. Um there are also opportunities at Boy State if uh the juniors and seniors in high school that are busy in journalism and speech and debate uh they can run on those teams as well. Um but we pay for that. But it builds leadership and confidence for these boys and an appreciation for our civic responsibility as Americans. Um, another opportunity we have is the oratoral competition and this is again where we'd like to partnership with within the schools of the speech and the the debate teachers. Um, we have uh scholarships at the local level, at the district level, at the department level of the state um where they
011can run u money for scholarships for ortorial competitions. And that is the where they get up and they give an eight to 10 minute speech on um an aspect of the constitution. So they have they can build their own uh briefing on that whatever excites them about the the constitution and then of all the amendments to the constitution they give them three to study and then randomly they're selected one and they give a 3 to five minute speech on that amendment. Um, and that's for ninth to tth graders or ninth to 9th to 12th graders, sorry. So, they could start at the ninth grade level. And we have had contestants in the past that have gone ninth, 10th, 11th, and all the way up to 12th grade level. They can give the same speech and
012they get better. You know, repetition makes things better. Um, and it's fantastic for them to learn just about our values and our constitution. Uh, and also win money. Um the third one is a youth trooper academy. There are students that are interested in um South Dakota criminal investigations, state trooper, but they go for a week and they get the whole hands-on experience of, you know, ride share, um the drug testing, the the fast-paced driving, and it's a great opportunity for anybody that has any type of interest in um Youth Trooper. And again, that's paid for by the American Legion. And the last thing is our educator of the year. What's that? Um, so we're looking again whether it's uh really looking for the parents to uh nominate our educators of the year from elementary to
013middle school to high school on which teacher has just been a great impact to each other. So, we're looking for those type of inputs and we're looking to partner with the journalism teachers, the speech teachers, the debate teachers, the social studies, civics teachers, uh, to to continue giving back to our students. I was just informed that we're going to have a Zoom meeting in about two minutes now. So, time is of essence. One of the biggest impact at the beginning of the year is our school supply drive. And this year we were able to collect for over $1,500 of school supplies that we distributed the schools. So the list is long and we could long talk for a long time too, but we have a short time on the agenda. We're just grateful that we
014could be here. And yes, Kevin has a little check to provide to give. Did you get it? Yes, sir. Yep. So, that will go to the lunch um funding so that we can help students there. But um I know that everybody would like to talk. This morning, the writers and the honor guard were at West. We did the flag eticette. It was wonderful. Your students are the best. the behaviors, the respect, the honor to the veterans. It's amazing. So, we would like to thank you and we thank you for being here. Thank you. [Applause] you. At this time, uh, we're going to have a presentation by Shannon Voggler about our Cogna. Hi, Shannon. Can you say something to test the audio, please? Yes. Good evening and welcome everyone. Good evening. It doesn't look like the
015camera is working. I'm guessing you can't see us at all. I cannot see you, but that's okay. I trust you're all there. Okay, I'll turn it on and off and see if that does anything, but it doesn't look like it is. So, all right. I'll let you go ahead. Okay. Well, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to just pause for a moment and celebrate this heritage school district. Um, I don't know who all is in the room and how much experience you have around accreditation or understanding. So, I am going to be giving you just a little bit of background um about accreditation. So first of all uh COGMIA was formerly known as North Central Association and Advanced Ed and we are the largest improvement organization in the world and we have
016a legacy of identifying quality institutions that have been doing this work for 130 years. Um our vision is to impact and inspire education providers and to advance and enable pathways of success for all learners. We really see ourselves as a partner with Sparfish public schools in helping them continue to um be quality as well as thrive and um continue to improve. So accreditation really is in being involved in a continuous improvement process where you look to in building your own capacity as an institution to continue to improve um around teaching and learning. We would hope that the the work that goes into evaluating and self assessing um your institution from our performance standards stimulates um conversations, helps a school better understand themselves and how they compare to other schools um all over the world. So
017regional accredititation um has been around like like I said for 130 years and believe it or not Spearfish High School was first accredited back in 1928. So they are coming up on a milestone um of their 100redyear uh anniversary or or benchmark where they'll be recognized for being regionally accredited for 100 years here in about three years. Now, in 2015, Spearfish public schools um shifted to a district-wide or a systems accreditation. So, they join um schools in nearly 100 countries um moving through a process of accreditation that hopefully takes them yeartoear to continue to look at data, consider um best practices, and um continue to improve. We truly believe at Cognia that accreditation should focus on the behaviors and the actions that contribute to quality teaching and learning. Um it's more than just a good
018test result and we definitely um experience that at Spearfish. Um we like to meet schools contextually where they are and really help provide a form of validation as well as that lever for improvement. So your accredititation uh review team in encompassed Dr. Tiffany Welty who is our lead evaluator um from Nebraska as well as myself as your associate evaluator. I had the pleasure of being in Spiritfish and being on site along with our team members Mark Jacobs who is the high school principal at Lewin, Troy James, elementary principal at Beersford and Terry Lundine who is the Central High um principal at Darede and Rapid City. Um our work uh encompassed gathering firsthand information and really looking at the evidence the self assessment and analysis that the school or the district did around their own performance
019of the around the performance standards. We had the pleasure of interviewing numerous stakeholder groups um as well as having a chance to get into your buildings and and do some observations and engage with your teachers and your your students. And then in in the end, we were able to do some um deliberation around the ratings and provide feedback to the institution. Um and with again our our hope is to help them focus and guide their improvement journey. So our process really falls under the key characteristics of highquality schools which includes the culture of learning, the leadership for learning, engagement of learning and growth in learning. So we're really looking comprehensively and holistically at a school district and those four key key characteristics really are um operationalized through our performance standards. And those standards really help
020unpack what does it look like, feel like, what would we see when we walk into a building of a a high quality institution. And so it really gives an institution a benchmark or kind of a a shot of what should I be um looking for in the institution in our leaders as well as in our teachers. Every school that engages in our process works through what we call a self- assessment workbook where they're really evaluating their own data. They are um talking about having conversations about how things look in their buildings as well as across the district. And that protocol really helps um I believe a district look at themselves from a maybe a little different lens um a little bit deeper as well as just having some of those conversations that wouldn't naturally happen.
021All standards were rated based upon this fourpoint level um rubric where a level three would be ex um where you are meeting the standard and I have to share that um Spearfish you know did a tremendous job at first of all giving us a very authentic view of their current reality and the things happen the challenges happening in your district as well as a lot of the celebrations and successes So, you have a lot to be um celebrating tonight. Uh just to give you an idea of how many people we had the opportunity to visit with um we had a total of 95 stakeholders that we interviewed um during our time there. And one question that was asked of every stakeholder group was how they would in one word or phrase describe their district. And
022this just gives you an idea of the words that came forward from your your students, your teachers, your your parents, um staff members, leadership, board members. Um and I think that, you know, definitely words were used more than once. Um, but to me when I look at all of these words, it really just made me think about um really putting the learner first and how I felt Spearfish really owns up to their um what they say about being there for every learner and um not just in in their academics but as a whole a whole child. Another opportunity we had was to look um from the lens of the seven envir um seven learning environments that um are test are really evaluated through a tool called the Elliot and um this is a tool that
023Spearfish has also adopted and been using and I wanted to share with you some of the outcomes in the ratings and just you know real quickly you'll see on the far right the cognate average is our um entire network average. So you're looking at you know 30,000 institutions that use uh this particular tool in nearly 100 countries. And then you see in the center column Spearfish's address averages and that's the the observations that were done by um some consultants that worked with the district and went into classrooms over a period of time and did 325 observations. So a really nice sampling um of what they were seeing in the classrooms. And then the AER or what we call the accredititation engagement review. Um, you know, we only had the opportunity to get into 10 classrooms
024because we're not there for very long. Um, but what's really interesting is, um, we weren't all that far off, you know, so we recognize our time in there is just a a snapshot in time. I would say the spear fish observations are going to give you a much better feel because that's numerous observations over a period of time. Um but what I did wanted to note is that in many cases uh spearfish actually exceeded the cognate average um in the ratings around these different learning environments actually every learning environment except for digital learning. So, um I just think that speaks to again the pedigogy, the um the focus uh and um really the engagement focus that uh this the district has had recently and I think continues to to pursue. So, I wanted to share
025some celebration here with you. Um the index of education quality score um is really a culmination of all the points um from our ratings of the standards as well as the process of continuous improvement that Spearfish is engaging in. And you can see the IEQ or the indic um index of education quality network average is 296 and Spearfish School District rated 310. So you are well over our network average in your culminative um score and so that is definitely something to celebrate. I also wanted to share um the noteworthy practice that was identified and not every school receives a noteworthy practice. Um we are directed to only identify noteworthy practices when we see something that really is standing out to us. And um as you can see here, shared leadership focused on learners well-being is
026what really drives continuous improvement decisions. And you know that just stood out to us in so many different ways from the things we heard, the things we saw, the things we read. Um and this holistic approach really we feel has deepened the commitment that we um heard and saw um to the learners that you have there. And it's been something that's sustainable. And I know or I would assume just the the engagement that spirit confish has had for so many years with Cogna in being a part of this rigorous process um is I would hope is something that has helped sustain and support that environment and um we just want to celebrate the work that you do and how you're engaging all stakeholders to really contribute to student growth and achievement with every review that
027we have. Um certainly we celebrate those strengths and we saw many um many strengths, many things to celebrate there at Spearfish. And then um we also would hope to kind of point you in the direction of what some next steps might be. And so we have provided some areas for improvement. Um that doesn't mean that these things are not happening. These are just things that were identified that you know you could take to the next level um or level up. And so I'm sure um Mr. Eastston has probably shared this with the board. Um, and so I won't go into too much detail about this. However, um, you guys are on the right track. You've been doing some wonderful work. Um, you have a wonderful school district and I just wanted to have that opportunity
028to celebrate with you this evening and I appreciate your time. um you know, you've really made such an investment in your students um and the whole child and I just really applaud you for that and thank you for the time that I have out there at Spearfish. [Music] Thank you, Shannon. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you, Shannon. You're welcome. Have a great evening. At this time, if the Legion people would like to come and continue, we'd be glad to have you. Thank you for letting us take that break. At this time we would like to present the check but we don't know which one of you will come. I can thank you Sure. [Laughter] always just move slightly just that it like have look like a photo bree. So, thank you again. And then
029if you have any questions, just reach out. Um I'm sure that once you look at the whole list, the one thing I did not share with you is that uh two big programs that the Legion has is the baseball and we have the teeners and then the senior team and we sponsor those and then we have the scouts and we are the oldest uh charter with troop 17 not 96 years of the whole state. So, it's really nice and the scouts are coming and they are providing a meal for the legionnaire every year in April to celebrate their charter. There are some flyers on the back table if you did not receive one about the programs for American especially in high school. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Hey Michelin, I just want
030to say thank you to you guys because I know my family, we have personally experienced what you guys have done like when my husband was deployed and through all that. And I just want you guys to know that what the impact you've had on the community is so powerful and we just so appreciate you guys and appreciate you coming here tonight and sharing what you do for our kids and how proud you guys are are of America and we are so grateful for you guys. So thank you for all the time, the blood, sweat, and tears that you put into our kids. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, we'll move on to school reports and fanfairs. Um A is the year-end reports from PR principles and the
031curriculum director. Who would like to go first? Oh, it was quick. We have times on this time. If there's not, there should be, right? All right. I'm here to talk about curriculum and instruction and a little bit about assessment. Um, and uh, Mr. Williams is serving as kind of my Vanna White tonight. So, um, if you want to go ahead and advance two slides, please. The first thing I'm going to talk a little bit about is social studies. Our curriculum study this year was over social studies. Um, the state of South Dakota next year will have new standards that'll be in place and they are radically different than what we've seen in the past. So, it was a little more challenging this year to find um curriculum that actually met those standards, but we're really
032happy with what we found. The state is offering studies weekly as a curriculum that we're going to use for grades K through 5, and those materials actually arrived last week. So, we're excited to get those out into the buildings. There are 32 weeks of what is really similar to like a weekly reader that you might be familiar with that are perfectly aligned to the South Dakota standards. There's an online platform that includes videos. Another really um unique thing and interesting thing that they're doing is there's a short podcast for every topic for teachers to listen to um because it delves really deeply into things like world history that it might have been a while since some of us have studied. That'll be a nice uh tool to refresh people's memory. At the middle school they
033went with National Geographic and at the high school McGra Hill. And between Ellen and Ryan, there are some books along with a handout. I'm going to ask you to pass around in a little bit. The books are for the high school. Um the middle school books are still at the middle school. Little snafu. They didn't make it here tonight, but I can bring those at a different time. Um the middle school National Geographic books are really great. Um as you might imagine, the imagery, the maps, the photos are just really great with National Geographic. On the right, you can see the standards. Um I don't know how familiar you were with the old standards, but they are quite a bit different than they've been in the past. So, we wrapped up social studies. The other
034thing I wanted to mention just a little bit is ELA. We're actually in year three of our ELA adoption, but as it's an ongoing process, we've decided to take a a beat and study what's working well for us and identify some areas of focus. We had a K5 literacy committee that that convened over the year. We met four times, I believe, and we decided that writing should really be our focus. Um we feel really good about some advances we've made in writing, but writing will be our area of focus. Uh coincidentally, our ELA curriculum has made some um revisions and changes and we're going to go ahead and adopt those for the next year. It's not a full adoption. We're just taking um some of the improvements that they have put in. One of them
035would be a nice robust decodable library for students. If you've been following along with the science of reading and the importance of decodable libraries for students, you know that this is really an important uh piece of ELA curriculum and they've enhanced that and that's something we're really happy to get into teachers hands for next year. All right, on to assessment. We finished South Dakota assessments um last Friday actually was the last day for that and we as always have tested depends on the grade but around 99% to 100% legally we have to test at least 95% so we feel really good about that. Um the public report card is released in the fall. We have some initial data that we're working with internally and then the fall we'll be able to share all of that
036publicly when it's finalized. Um this year at all grade levels, our teachers really employed some unique and different strategies um to get students prepared for the South Dakota assessments. One of them is the interimm assessments, which has been a big um I think um benefit to our students. And I say that because the interimm assessments match the South Dakota assessments. The questions come from the same bank. And it's really been a great opportunity to f familiarize our students with what the questions are like on South Dakota assessments. And also because we've spent so much time in those assessments, I think teachers have a better knowledge base too of what those strategies are like. So um so that was a big part of what we've been working on. I also thought I'd just briefly touch on
037the ACT because South Dakota assessments at the high school level are going away and they'll be replaced by the ACT. This graphic shows some of the changes um between the old ACT and the new ACT. And I should um back up here a second and say in addition to South Dakota adopting the ACT at the junior level as our state assessment, the ACT is making some changes too. They're reducing the number of questions um by 44. Um they are also decreasing the amount of time from 195 minutes to 125 minutes um for students. And in some cases, the questions, the possible, sorry, not the questions, the responses have been decreased from five to four. Um, and that's meant to improve the experience a little bit for students. You will see on there that it says
038the science test is optional. That will not be true when uh students take the ACT as part of South Dakota assessments. The state of South Dakota is requiring the science as well as the optional um writing portion of the ACT. So, we're going to begin getting ready for that. Um, at the high school, we're looking at implementing and using ACT 9 um, in order to make sure that our students are well prepared for the ACT. This shows what the ACT will look like when our students take it. After the first three questions, they can take a 45minut break or we could actually break it up into two days if we prefer to do it. You'll note that the testing window is much earlier. Usually we have till about the first or second week of May
039to finish South Dakota assessments. With ACT that will be different and it will be given online. All right. A little bit on professional development. Um this was our calendar for the year. One of the things we've been really happy with is moving to a two-day um new teacher in service. That's something we've received really good feedback on. I did survey our new teachers again and from that feedback we're making some changes too. But that's something that's been really positive for us. You will see on August 27th, we had training from the Kid Whisper. Behavioral leadership, classroom management has been one of the biggest asks from teachers. So, we were really happy to bring um the Kid Whisper training into our staff on August 27th. Other goals throughout the year, um we focused on teacher collaboration.
040We did some things related to wellness and we also partnered with Black Hills State University a lot more than we have in the past. Um between Ellen and Ryan, there's a a printout. It's a bigger one. It's printed on bigger paper. That is our February inservice. This is um created based on staff requests. We survey staffs and what they say they're most interested in is what we um plan for that February inservice. You'll notice that a lot of our staff members were involved with that. We even had students involved for the first time this year. They did a session which was I think really great. And um again quite a few Black Hill State professors were involved with that. So we're really thrilled with how that turned out. Um, a little more on behavioral leadership.
041We also did a book study and I'm happy to say that 46 of our teachers participated in that. That was through the University of Sou Falls and that was on the Kid Whispers um, book. We really enjoyed that. And then this summer, um, Mr. Lion and I have been working on planning a Kid Whisperer conference at Black Hill State University. they are donating um their time of one of their professors and offering a really nice discount on graduate credits for uh people who attend and right now we have about 115 registered. We anticipate based on other conversations we've had with schools that about 150 teachers will probably attend that conference although we don't know until it happens I guess but very excited about that. Um, these are some testimonials from teachers who went to the
042full 3-day training in Rapid City last year. Um, those who have attended have really liked it. Um, I'll just the last one there is Alexis Quail at the middle school saying she felt confident moving on to the next school year. Um, above that, Kayla Robert at the at at Mountain View Elementary said it was incredibly enriching experience and just it's been really good. So, we're happy to bring that here to Spearfish. And then lastly, I had a video that had some and maybe what I'll do is send that to you instead, but it's some of our Spearfish student or sorry, not students, but teachers talking about their experience with the Kid Whisper and how much they enjoyed it. So, um it's been a really good thing and we're excited to continue that on. Um lastly,
043we just heard um Shannon Voggler talk a little bit about Cogna. A lot of my work this year too was can play it for just a minute here. And I tell you that I was engaged every minute of those full days. I was having the 3-day training was so beneficial because we got to take an indepth look at all of the different strategies. Um, and that was just so helpful. The 3-day training provides amazing examples K through 12 to show how I, as a middle school teacher, can actually apply the many strategies. A big advantage of attending the conference was that Scott took personal questions. So if you had a issue that was pertinent to your classroom, you can get his answer and you can talk to him about how to handle the problem. So
044I have been using the classroom behavior manual and I really recommend using it. Um, as a veteran teacher, my goal has always been to leave more energized at the end of the day than my students. And as a teacher, we know that we use most of our energy on managing classroom behaviors. My number one take away from the kid whisperer training and I think what has affected the video is about five minutes and I'll I'll be happy to send that to you if you'd like to watch it. But um some of our spearfish student teachers talking about their experience with kid whisperer training. And then lastly um Shannon Bogler just got done presenting. A lot of my work this year was around the Cognia accredititation visit, but also the most important part of it is
045what do we do with what we've learned? What do we do with the surveys? And right now I'm using that to plan some things such as our professional development for next year. So that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you very much. I did attend the one training that or you had with them and uh with a teacher from up at BH. So it was it was very informative. Good. Glad you could come. Mr. Gotib, you can finally do it. Miss Maine wins tonight. Um, you know, the the gist for uh our presentation, you have an amazingly talented group of dedicated teachers that work with really, really good kids. Um, today was a great example of what I think the highlights of our program. And thank you to Michelin and her team. You know, they
046were there this morning. I was proud of our kids. I was proud of the community partnership. I was proud of the fact that we focused not just on what we know our job as math, science, reading, and creating learners for the next level, but we I stole a line from Lou Holtz years ago. I I just I thought it was great when he talked about the role of public schools. It's our job is to teach them how to live and how to make a living. And I think the how to live piece is a tough balance where we want to work with with parents. It's not our job to parents, but we want to be good partners. Um, I'm really proud of the work we've done in regards to character education, creating students that understand
047respect, responsibility, what their role as aspiring Spartans are. Three years ago when we started big discussions about Spartan pride and what that looked like, sounded like, and meant to us. Um, I mean, I'm proud when you see that language now used all the way through our system. More importantly, I'm I'm proud of student uh achievement. Although end of year data is still sprinkling in our target benchmark rates um have been 70%. That's a score. Right now we have scores anywhere between 62 and 89% on our different grade levels of kids and their proficiencies on those scores. And that's all of them. Not that's students that uh came to us and started school last week and hadn't been in school all year. We include those students in our data. We serve them all and we're proud
048of that. And so um I think at our levels we've really been proud of the work. You can see some highlights. We try to break it out by both programs as well as community partnerships and then areas of emphasis for instruction. Obviously, we celebrate wonderful teachers. Brook Mlen uh was this year's West Elementary Teacher of the Year. Roxanne Hardle, Mountain View Elementary's teacher of the year. We were proud of Brooke being selected then as the district teacher of the year. I think those folks represent um an overall uh very passionate group of teachers who are dedicated to every single kid in the Spearfish School District. We do a lot of really good things and I think our partnerships, not just the VFW, like this morning with our first graders, but uh certainly our partnerships with
049Black Hill State University, I will tell you that Dr. Hogland has been an amazing partner with us as we advance not only our instructional design, but sound practices aligned to the science of reading. We work with Dr. Schroeder and developing PE teachers to work on methodology as well as movement in the classroom and brain breaks. Um, we work with all of our teachers to advance wherever they are in the continuum of teaching and learning, whether they're in their second year or 22nd year. I'm really proud that I think we have a culture in our buildings of a commitment to continuous improvement. Um, you heard Shannon Voggler talk about that this evening. I think those processes are great. We need to be transparent. They need to allow us to continue to grow, but hopefully that two-page
050overview gives you a a brief overview of some of the things that we're very proud of. and it'll focus on our kids and our staff. So, questions for me. Good. Thank you. Thank you. I will be much briefer than any of them. Fire me. I would like to start off by saying that that I was a boy stater. I don't know if that's a positive testimonial or not, but I was. So there you go. Um the American Legion Auxiliary does a lot at Creekide also. They come and do a lot of different activities with us and we sure appreciate them. So I'd like to also recognize them. Um as I usually do, there's a whole list of things. You can see them. Um but but I like our power groups. I think that is one
051of the most powerful things that I have been associated with in all of my years of education. I think that's made a difference in how we educate kids both um academically and socially. Um you'd have to kind of understand how the program works, but it doesn't really put those kids out there anymore, which is pretty cool. Um we utilize, which is a computer program for some of our other students that are um maybe don't need that intense um interaction with the teacher, and that gives them some other activities to work on and helps raise their their level of skills. um other areas like the battle of the books and uh elders wisdom and some of those types of activities. Those are tremendous activities for Creekide and also great learning opportunities for our kids to be
052involved in to to take a leadership role in those types of things. Um we do have a KIDS program. I want to recognize that because they recently took advantage of Brady and I. Uh they did a fundraiser and I have cancer in here. That was one of their earlier ones. They did actually a fundraiser for the veterans memorial down in the park. And when they reached their goal, they required Brady and I to do a pie eating contest. Brady got second. Yeah, you were. Yeah. Uh but kind of just to quickly finish out, um I would like to invite you to some of our fun activities. Um, sorry I didn't write down the times, but some of the things that we have coming up, um, we us we usually go to a Rapid City Rush
053activity game over in Rapid City. This year, because of scheduling, they weren't able to do that. And the Sasquatch team called us and asked us if we would like to join them for a baseball game. So, we're going out there for a baseball game, which will be really fun. Um, the middle school jazz and swing choir are coming to visit us. Um, along those lines, it's kind of interesting. thing. I try to go out with a bang. Had our last fire drill today. Anybody know what I did? The high school band came over and played while we went out on our fire drill. So, that was kind of a fun for all of us. So, we work in in cahoots together sometimes. Um, we have a fun activity called fish toss on the last day
054of school and the egg drop is always a fun activity to come and watch if you want to see a watermelon drop from about three stories up. So, there you go. Any questions for me? Thank you. Thank you. It's fun to hear about all these different activities. Dan, I timed you. You were longer than Nick Gotaut. Yep. Didn't even think it was possible, but I think there's record, but uh we was checking Craig told me. Um Mr. Williams talked to me a little bit earlier today and he would like this to be the longest presentation because the seniors behind me left it to the last minute to come. Right. Of course you did. Yes. And so they said no. I'm going to keep it short here for you. So you guys can all read uh
055if you look at our uh events there. We're going to focus on activities all the time in a middle school. I don't think middle school kids get up in the morning and say, "Hey, you know what? Can't wait to go to math class today." Even though math is great and awesome. They come because of all the activities and the things that they get to do that engage them. First of all, they love their teachers. We do a connection survey every year. The number one thing that kids say they like the best are the teachers because they make it fun and that's very key. If you go down to students and staff of the month this year, we added a new one uh to get some attendance going. So, we started a start attendance competition to
056see which start has the best attendance for the day. Uh you can see Mr. Peterson on there has won it four times already this year. So, um, they get donuts and that's a pretty big deal. They come down and celebrate, uh, with, uh, their entire class. So, it's it's a pretty fun time. Sixth grade, there's all kinds of fun things when you enter the building in middle school. Uh, we end this year at fishing derby on May 28th. So, if you're really excited, you'd like to go to Iron Creek and see that. It's pretty exciting. This year, 7th grade, we get to end with a couple of activities, but the main one uh, will be a MAC wax museum presentation. So, if you'd like to see that, that's on May 22nd. You can come down.
057That'll be uh quite interesting. And the eighth grade celebrating this year with finals. So, we're getting ready for high school. So, that one is there's lots of finals and lots of school work. So, we're getting ready for Mr. Williams crew here. Uh you can see all kinds of activities there. I encourage you to reach out to all the activity sponsors anytime. If I went through all of them, we would be here all night and I'm not going to do that to you. So, thank you very much. 85% of our kids participate in a club or an activity in our building and next year I'd like to see it be 90%. So, thank you. Any questions? Thank you. Thank Thank you. You must have quite a crew to provide all those activities. Yes. [Laughter] All right.
058Now that the peanut gallery is off the stand, I will talk about the high school. I'm going to try. You have the list in front of you as well, but I'm going to hit a couple points real quick just off the top. Emily Bangbanga, our librarian, had the 21st Century School Librarian Award, and our library itself uh attained that award this year. So, pretty awesome with that. Um, skipping down a little bit, the top 1% of all the students in the state of South Dakota get invited to the ASBSD Governor's Lunchon, which just happened a couple weeks ago, and we had three students that qualified for that top 1% in the whole state. Um, we also had a a student, Holly Wise, who was the principal nominee for the U US Air Force Academy, selected
059by Senator Rounds. That's a pretty big deal. Um, 18 of our students, talking about activities, 18 of our students are going on to play athletics in college. And I've got a few pictures as you kind of scroll through there, you can see some of them, uh, some of those students who are going on to the next level. Obviously, the CT center is new, so there's lots of neat things to talk about there. We've got um 20 students taking the CNA certification exam this year. They're actually getting ready to do that this week. Um so they're gearing up for that. We have we offered four new CTE courses that is automotive, building trades, CNA, and health sciences. And all four of them have gone extremely well this year. And it's really neat to see kids in
060there taking advantage of those. We had one student as a national finalist for Skills USA uh in welding. She's headed off to nationals here in June. Uh on activities, a couple things to highlight. Volleyball hosted the first DA South Dakota 16 playoff game ever for Spearfish High School. Um girls wrestling, newer sport, uh was sixth place at state this year. So really big deal for them. Uh and knowledge bowl was a regional champion. So just to kind of touch base on a couple different activities or sports. Um, again, we also have high numbers involved in all the different things from activities to clubs going on at the high school and our new academics and the CT building have been fantastic. So, thank you for your support. Any questions for me? Okay, thank you. Thank you
061guys. Thank you. This time there's no conflict of interest waivers. So, we're going to go on to number seven, uh, theformational items with the superintendent update. All right. Mine will be the shortest. Uh, just a reminder, tomorrow is the CTE art open house at the high school. So, the art ceramics, photography, drawing, painting, all that will be in the high school uh, gymnasium. And then in the, uh, hallway of the CTE center, there'll be projects out there. And then each of the programs will be open for people to walk through at certain times and so on. So we hope to get as many classes over there as possible. Is that from 5 to 7? Uh that's the open house for the building trades. Okay. So So yeah, the the teach the the teacher for building
062trades asked me to remind you that the open house or the building trades to see the house is from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. tomorrow. Yep. Uh, next thing I have is, uh, based on our conversation with some parents that presented at the last board meeting, uh, we're going to partner with the South Dakota Parent Connection and, uh, they're going to come in and give a presentation on June 10th from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on different special education services, kind of talk through some things, ask some questions, and then they're more than willing to be our partner in the future as well. And so we'll continue to work with them as we see the need. So, uh, great, uh, great connection that we have with those folks. And then, uh, just a reminder here for
063Nathan and Ryan that on the 20th next week, we have that, uh, meeting with Mammoth at 8:30 a.m. That's all I have. Would you please repeat that? South Dakota Parent Connection time. South Dakota Parent Connection on June 10th from 6 PM to 7:30. And we'll get the details. We're not sure exactly where we're going to host it. Uh but once we know and we know all of uh we have the outline of what's going to be presented and talked about uh we'll get that out to parents. Okay. Any questions for him? If not, we'll be moving on. Thank you. On to the action items. Can I interrupt really quick? If you're fine with, and I can go through our nominations, but if you're fine with the nominations for each of the uh uh areas as
064well as the amendments, I think they could all be done in one motion. Okay. So, um I guess I would just ask who if that's somebody is willing to make that motion um to go ahead, but I I'll just run through them really quick here. So for the activities association small school board of education representative again Billy Clanton from Harding County he is the only candidate. So I would certainly recommend him. The East River atlarge representative uh we're recommending Ryan Rollinger. He is currently serving a an appointment uh to the activities board. Uh he represents doubleA schools and he's doing a great job. So we would recommend uh that he be elected to another term. For the division division one representative, we recommend Jordan Bower from Central Rep City Central. Again, he represents doubleA schools
065and West River. Division three representative principal, we recommend Jeff Shehan due to his diverse background as well as his involvement in Special Olympics in South Dakota. So, those are the folks on the ballot and then all the amendments we uh recommend a yes vote on all amendments. Okay. Do I have a motion for that? I move to approve the action action items as presented by Superintendent Eastston. Second. Okay. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Same sign. Okay. They are passed that is A through I. Starting with J. Now we want to consider the approval of the special education comprehensive plan. Um do you you want to talk on that? I I I can just say Mi Mrs. Hman is the author of this document and uh she uh does a wonderful job and
066is often uh our comprehensive plan that she puts together is a uh is a uh example of uh how to do it that the DOE uses hers or ours again our plan for uh as an example. So okay I do need a motion. Sorry I move to approve as presented. I'll second it. Okay, any questions on that? If not, all in favor say I. I. All oppose the same sign. It has passed. We are now on to K to consider the garbage bid for the 202526 school year. Move to approve. Second. Any questions on it? I would just say for everybody in attendance, I we received one bid that's from the city. It's $169 a month more. uh than we paid last year per month. So, didn't go up quite as much as it did
067during the COVID years, but uh it did go up a little bit. All in favor of um the garbage bid say I. I. All oppose. Same sign. That has passed. We're on to L. consider the approval of the changes or updates of the handbooks from the 2025 26 school year. Um, they are the same if I'm right. Could I have a motion on that one first though? I'll make a motion to approve them. Second. Okay. Did you want to say anything on them? Yeah, they haven't changed since presented at last month's board meeting. Uh there'll be some little tweaks depending on uh what we approve in July as far as uh uh uh lunch prices and things like that, but no major changes. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Same sign. That
068is passed. Going to M to consider the strategic planning retreat uh school board administrators on Monday, May 19th, 5:00 pm. Move to approve. Second. Any questions on that one? That time work for everybody? 5:00 p.m. Is it here or is it here? Yeah. Okay. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Same sign. The motion has passed. Going on to the consent agenda. Remember, you can take anything off from it if you wish. We have the addendum. Oh, and the addendum. The consent agenda. I'll move to approve the consent agenda with the addendum as presented. Second. Any questions? If not, all in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Same sign. Okay. Moving on at this time to discussion this time when we'll have the preliminary budget for the 2025 to 2026 school year.
069Thank you. This is um sorry for all the students out there. This is my payback for sitting here through the entire year and listening to the other administrators. So, I have 23 pages and $30 million that we're going to go through line item by line item. So, hopefully you have something to drink before I get started here. This this is the ultimate payback from my perspective. So, thank you for listening. Seriously, um the process that we typically go through is we have the preliminary budgets at this meeting. Um and then we have any changes that are going to take place between now and the June meeting and then we have the budget hearing and hopefully the adoption. So between now and then, if you have any questions or concerns, u please bring those um to
070my attention or to Kirk's attention and we'd be happy to provide you an answer for them. I think we should try to if we could just focus on the summary pages rather than going into great detail. If someone does have a question about an individual line item, I do have all the spreadsheets pulled up on my laptop that we can go into that. U my preference would be however to stick with the summaries. So if we can start with the word document that is part of the attachment um titled budget notes 2526. First paragraph there um explains the major funds that we have and the expenditures. Those guys are already leaving. They took me at face value. Um it compares the revenues and expenditures for our three major funds. The general fund, capital, and special
071education. The biggest number that u catches my attention anyway is the $483,000 that expenditures and general fund exceed revenues. Um that is kind of a worst case scenario. Hopefully we are not going to expend um all of our expenditure budget. It's just kind of a guideline at this point. So if we look at that as a worst case scenario um hopefully we are not into the fund balance for next fiscal year by $483,000. There is a correction that we have for the special education there and it's not finalized yet but right now it's um expenditures are exceeding revenues projected to at least by 37,571 and 111 cents. Um still have some discussion between Kirk Sarah and me on where we're headed with um not only expenditures and revenues but also the middle levy there. So,
072that one possibly could change between now and when the budget is up for adoption in June. The next paragraph talks about mill levies, and you can see um this is the total between general fund capital outlay and special education. You can see the difference for the $100,000 of assessed value from what we had last year. And you can see that they are less. doesn't necessarily mean our property taxes are going to be less because we did have $214 million in reappraisals coming from the county. Uh but does give an idea of where we are and where we're headed. Um if we could switch quickly to the um Excel spreadsheet on the leveies. Um page three there, very first page of the levies. Um going down the right hand column there, the egg, owner occupied and
073commercial, all three are the maximum thresholds set by the state for the general fund. Um we go into capital outlay there of 1.979. they will present us with a dollar amount but that is a calculated amount using assessed value and the dollar amount that the state provides us. Interesting note if I could there um when the blue ribbon task force came through in 2017 with their recommendations we were at $3 per thousand for capital outlay. Obviously, the assessed value was much lower then, but when we're just inside of two and our total assessed value is $3 billion, that $1 difference there is $3 million. So rather than following that and not that the board would have levied to the maximum, but there is $3 million there that isn't captured if, so to speak, um we
074get into special education next on that same sheet. Um the maximum that the state allows us there is 1.462. We're at 1189. Um I discussed that a little bit earlier that that may go up a little bit, but where it stands right now, there's a difference there of $822,000 that the district will not see in revenue for special education. Back to the word document if we could. We go through projected revenues in paragraph three. This utilizes the 25% increase that the state has for us and an enrollment threshold of 2370. Right now we're at 2347. Um so we're hoping to this is typically our low point of the school year between now and last Friday in September when it's finalized with the state. Hopefully we can recoup part of that. Um food service revenues um
075is an item that Ryan brought up during the um finance committee meeting. Um last year I think we understated the revenues a little bit and the expenditures of food service. So this is a reflection of a year-to-ate um total that we have and going back to the actuals of fiscal year 24. Um those are increased as I said in revenues and expenditures. Then we get into drivers education which is projected to be a little bit lower due to participation. um kind of blowing through we if we could through the general fund expenditures activity expenditures are pretty close to where they were before. We did increase travel a little bit there. Not that that is going to put a huge dent in where we are, but that is a slight increase. And then we get into
076capital outlay and one item I'd like to point out there if I could. We show that the expenditures are $789,000 roughly more than what they were in this current fiscal year. That is basically due to the discussion that we've had with the track at the middle school and the football field at the middle school not to get ahead of the facilities committee or finance committee or the entire board. It's just a placeholder now if we do proceed with that project on what our expenditures could possibly be as of June 30th of 26. Um and we get into the special education budget. One thing I would like to point out u we do have some additional costs there for student placement. Obviously, the salaries and benefit increases are in general fund and special education that the
077board has already approved through the negotiated agreements. Um, we get into the qualified school construction bond. This is what we use to one of the vehicles we use to finance Creekide Elementary all the way back to 2010. Um, it's at 0% interest. Um, we will invest what we have right now. In fact, it's currently invested the principal amount of the roughly 1.4 four um million dollars that we have there and use the interest generated off of that to make the principal payments until the maturity date of December of 26. We will still have to make the interest payment until that maturity date. Um but since it is 0% interest, it goes into an IR IRS tax credit and is refunded back to the school district. um food service budget. Finally, um compares the um CPI
078that we use to um increase the fees for the food service management company. That increased this u projected fiscal year is 3.7%. The year, the current year that we're in right now is 3.9. So, it has dropped a little bit there, but that again is an increase of 3.7%. Look at drivers education briefly. um participation we project is going to be down a little bit there and that amount reflects that. And then finally the fiscal year comparison between 25 and 26 for revenues and expenditures. Just going through it about as quickly as I can. Um any comments from the finance committee? Um you're certainly welcome to have any questions from the rest of the board. If you do come across something between now and the June board meeting, please let us know. Thank you. That's
079a lot of work. Okay, this time we'll continue on uh to the minutes to consider the regular meeting minutes of April 14th, 2025. Take a motion to approve them. Second. Any discussion? Question not. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose same sign. Okay. Now we'll go to the financial reports and bills. Move to approve. Second. Okay. Any questions on that? Okay. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Same sign. That is passed. We are now to adjournment. May I have a motion? Make a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Same side. And the meeting is adjourned.