001Good evening. We will call to order the regular board of education meeting of Monday, April 14th, 2025. Will you take roll call, please? Here is absent tonight. Sean here. Brian is here and here they will verify. Would you please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Sean, would you read our mission statement, please? Working together to ensure high levels of learning for all. Thank you, Kristen. Was public notice of this meeting given? Public notice was given to the requesting news media. The agenda was posted in school district buildings and on the district website. Thank you. Are there any revisions to tonight's agenda? Motion to
002approve the agenda. Second. Motion by Aaron, seconded by Tonight's agenda as published. Are there any questions? All those in favor? I opposed. Tonight's agenda is approved as published. We do not have any requests for public input on the published agenda items. So, we will move right to um some recognation recognition items tonight. We have quite a few donations. All right. So for recognition on donations of thousand dollars from an anonymous donor for the Northern Hills Elementary Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center trip and Lis will be talking a little bit more about that in later when we get um to our our donations that we need action. We have some koi fish valued at $110 from Ryan Bourne for Eagle Bluff Elementary. $300 from Mary Cody's restaurant for the district food pantry. $1,000 from Northern Hills
003Elementary PTO for the fourth grade trip to Madison. And as always, we appreciate those community members who are um putting our children first considering the needs we have in um in our district here. field trips um fish which is pretty and um the district food pantry which can always appreciate those donations. So thank you to um all of those donors. Um we have some appreciation to share tonight for um our friend Sean, our colleague Sean, who um Sean has been on the board with us for six years. Um has um provided a wealth of um information, um passion, um most of all kindness. Um I it has been an honor to serve with you for six years. um you what you bring to the board um is is quiet but um it's full of knowledge
004and um passion and information. So um you will be very deeply sitting at the table here. Um so we thank you very very much for all that you've done for us over the last six years and um to see that um we do have in the back because we know how to celebrate with treats for um after the meeting. And um um and there is a certificate coming to you from [Applause] No, somebody else asked me that just recently if I wanted to take them, but I I just want to say it's been an absolute honor to work with all of you. Probably one of the neatest highlights of my career. Uh, as a matter of fact, to be a part of such an awesome group of people. So, thank you so much. It's been
005an honor. Appreciate it. Um, all right. our student representative and administrative reports. We'll start with Leah. Um, so as it's getting to the end of the year, that means AP exams for most of our upper classmen at the high school. Um, I have been taking AP exams. My first AP exam was my sophomore year. I took AP world history and I can confidently say that an Alaska teachers do a magnificent job preparing students for AP exams. um we've been doing not prepar not just preparation leading up to these exams but throughout the whole year actually um majority of my AP classes that I take the tests are actually based on the AP exams um which is actually very very helpful. So stats specifically AP stats, it's not an easy exam when it's not an easy
006class, but um knowing exactly the structure of the exam and like all the criteria and everything that I need to meet and how the scoring works. Um just knowing all that information is going to be really helpful for the exam. And yeah, I just feel very confident going into these exams. And I know I can speak for a lot of uh seniors, junior, sophomores going into the AP exam month of May and April and June. So yeah. So those tests are coming up. Yes. Um in about a month, less than a month. Yeah. Three weeks is when the first one is. So Well, good luck. But it sounds like you're certainly well prepared. Thank you. Yes, I am. We'll administer just over 700 AP exams the first two full weeks of May. So that uh
007as Leah said, it's a huge chunk of our juniors and seniors and some sophomores and it's great experience preparing for the rigors of of postsecary education. Um last Monday night, the the K12 program we hosted the high school free time that Kra Marsha and Ryan McKlly did an absolutely outstanding job. love the message that they had. And I think the part that I heard from parents, they like walking away with specific strategies to use. It wasn't just here's what you need to know and be concerned about is here's what you can actually do about it. And I think they did a fabulous job with that. One mistake that we probably made that to think about in the future. Um, two different friends of mine brought their kids along. Um, so that instead of, you know,
008me as an adult hearing it, going home and telling kids, well, this is why we do it. You might as well hear it at the same time. We're all hearing it together. um something in the future we probably should invite I don't know third fourth graders on up to come with their parents so that it can be more of a family experience to all hear the same thing at the same time um and I wanted to share our US history team freshman level fabulous job for their semester project they want kids to look at a historical event develop a claim support it with evidence and then look for re for sources and evaluate the quality of the sources when you think about what happened when we were probably in school we were given a standard
009topic and interest or not is just what you would look at um they use an AI prompt to help kids winnow into a very specific area of interest. So for example um just a couple of the topics that kids identified that they then make a claim with um the muffler car boom of the 60s and 70s and how that impacted American culture. Um how advances in welding impacted fighter jet design during the cold war um the impact of 911 on air force security. All all sorts of things that students have a specific interest in. Again, the skills are all the same regardless of the topic, but finding topics that are really high interest, I think it's a great example of how AI can enhance students education. Some activities last weekend, our jazz festival was held
010over. So, that was it's always a great event and gets newsworthy coverage by our local news stations and whatnot. So, our students really enjoy that night. Our forensics team competed last weekend at state in Madison and prom plans for 2025 are well underway and prom is coming up on May 3rd at the Omni Center. Thank you. Yes. Well, over at the middle school, our spring sports season is in full swing as well. We hosted our first track meet last Thursday, I believe. Um there was softball going on tonight um at the middle school and we've also had some tennis matches as well. So, those are three spring sports. So, those are all going. Um, it's hard to believe, but we met this morning to plan our eighth grade recognition ceremony for the end of the
011year. It's hard to believe we're already there. And and tomorrow, we're meeting to plan our incoming sixth grade parents night uh the first week of May. And so, it's it's crazy how fast uh the year goes. And so, it's exciting to think about. We're starting to look at all the accomplishments of our eighth grade class and it was pretty exciting. So looking forward to sharing that out and having a special time with them and with families. Um we were recently part of another math competition. I I know I shared some results with you before about a team that went to regionals and then went to state. So there's another math competition in which any student who wants two can take a test. Uh so students are opting in to take extra tests which in and
012of itself is noteworthy. And then how they do on those tests is compared to all the other middle schools both in our region which extends up to Oaklair in the general lacrosse area as well as across the state. And so our sixth graders uh got first in the region and fourth in the state. Our seventh graders got first in the region and first in the state and our eighth graders got second in the region and sixth in the state. So overall fantastic job by our students who are opting in to take that test. Uh, and then finally, um, I'm going to send you an email later tonight with a couple of pictures that I just thought you all would find amusing. Um, we've had some teachers, some of our teachers in our older spaces are
013looking for creative ways to get through this final phase before they get into their new spaces and new classrooms. And so, um, shout out to our art teacher Hannah Kirsten has, um, when kids are done with their regular art projects, they sometimes have bonus projects that they have extra time. So, one of the things is they've carefully taken down some of the ceiling tiles that are going to be destroyed soon. And kids have been painting the ceiling tiles and it started as one or two and now it's like the whole room, the old ceiling tiles are painted and kids have just an opportunity to be super creative and and find ways to make the construction weight fun and exciting. Um, similarly, I assume you've maybe heard of a word wall. This is things that in
014a lot of classrooms, especially elementary, but still at other ages, um, it's like key vocabulary terms that they're working on and the vocabulary is up in the wall and it's a word wall. Usually, it's not written on the actual wall, but our eighth grade ELA teacher, Hannah Goodman, she had the idea of, well, the wall is being destroyed anyways, right? Then we have some fun with it. And so, her three classes have been making word walls on the actual walls for their walls, just having fun with it while they count on the last few days before they get in the new spaces. So that's a little bit of what we got going on. So at the elementary level just finished up games assessments and so those then um are translated to personal reading plans that
015will be sent out soon. So it's just great to see the growth of our kids but also I think acknowledge the growth of our teams to coordinate a lot of the logistics around those. Um also like Ben said calendars are filling up at the end of the year. lot of field trips, concerts, musicals, field days. We just sent out grad invitations to the high school um in the final stages of coordinating. Um Northern Hills is going and Eagle Buff are both going next week and then P is going two weeks after that. So, just a lot happening on a calendar as we near the end of the year. We also wanted to take some time to extend a huge thank you to our PTO because you'll see a lot of times with donations and fundraising
016they do a lot to support families and students but we also provide free meals for staff and then have lots of community building events for our students and families really great to our buildings. And then finally, um, speaking of fundraisers, we each had a principal of a principal for the day, a student or principal for the day, um, as reward for one of our fundraisers. So, it's just the kids involved in what we do. Um, well, you know, I say this every couple weeks, there's always a ton going on. Um, and then this time of year it all seems to like you're tunneling down to that last day and then it all it all comes um barreling in but all fun and good things. Um, I love to hear middle school making lemons out of
017or lemonade out of a lot of lemons especially that eighth grade team. So um, thank you all for your continued work and and push as we get towards the end of the school year. is going to report um the canvasing committee I part of the after process to certify the results of the election. I have a report and summary to review the election results from the first and the number of votes that were given for the election were certified and correctly reported received 3,234 votes and received 25. All right. Uh we have some updates from our middle and high school building project. We start at the high school. Um as I've mentioned, the work continues in the east edition. You can see we're um moving beyond the rough wall. They're starting to frame in the
018the walls for the final product in the music area. Scroll down. And also uh in the techad space, it's looking more and more like a learning space. This the walls have been uh primer's been added. Uh more masonary block is going up and uh all the concrete has now been poured within the the tech area and the music area. Um again, more masonry walls going up within the tech space. and the dance studio. Um the the floor has been poured, the ramp has been poured, it was filled in um to make it handicap accessessible, and now the wall assemblies. Um at one point, we weren't going to need these, but with the condition of the walls, it was determined by our by hammer that we needed something for a long-term solution. That's why you're seeing
019drywall that's been put up now in the dance studio also. Uh and then the final piece that uh more framing is going in within the existing receiving area. Um this is the area that was added on to first as part of the project on the east side and the part that's closest to being finished. Excuse me. And then and the locker rooms. Um we're waiting on a piece in the hallway that we need some chemical abatement later this week, but after that's done, they'll be able to rough the plumbing in, which is the part that they're waiting on right now to move forward with in the lock. You can the the trenches that have been dug for the pipes that we put in once the location's been confirmed. We can scroll down. So, over at
020the middle school, you can see the the aerial overview there. Um the exterior of the new addition, pretty much the only thing we're waiting for is the sheet metal siding paneling. where you see those gray areas there with the windows. Those will look like that maroon color on the left hand side there. Um you can see the underneath like the the under the overhanging the underpass or whatever you want to call it um is has been opened up now because they're pretty much done with that. And if you scroll down a little bit last week they started installing all the all the case work in all the classrooms. They've painted the casework in um when they get that stuff in. I think they're pretty much done with the MEP stuff and so they'll start dropping
021the ceiling tile and then I think the first week of May they're scheduled to put all the floors in. So we're getting a lot closer. Um and then the last picture on that last one was you you'll see in the video here of the demolition of the old band. It doesn't look anything like like I I'll let the video play. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Alaska Middle School for another community update. My name is Kristen Heler. I'm the project manager for the project and Chris and I are excited to show you the progress we've been making here this past month. Cruise has been busy, busy, busy. Uh we got masons on site finishing brick veneer. We got trades working inside the building. We have demolition going on on the north end of the building.
022Uh lots going on. We're all pushing towards that ultimate end goal of turning over a high quality project to the an Alaska community. Uh and something that students are going to be able to use uh for generations to come. So we're excited to show you the progress. Let's hop on in. All right, kicking off our update. We're here at segments F&H, the classroom edition. If you've been down Quincy Street, you've surely seen the progress we've been making this past month. Uh, as you can see, we've got brick veneer up and then we're also doing insulation and our metal furring channels for our uh architectural metal panels. All right, continuing on in segment F, uh, the classroom edition, we have basically the the overhang and what this area is going to be used bike storage and
023a waiting area in the winter time. Panning around, you can see the stair shaft in the foreground there. So, that'll lead up to the second level which has classroom pods in it. Moving inside the classroom edition, we're on first level or segment F of of the building. Uh right now we're in the Allied pod and as we scan around, we have some different office spaces and then also French, Spanish, and alternate education rooms. As you can see, we got a lot of finishes going on. We've been working on getting painting completed, and as you can see, case work is currently being installed. Ceilings are in along with light fixtures. So, making a tremendous amount of progress here in the classroom edition this past month. All right, continuing on on the first level of the classroom
024edition. As you can see, we got tile work going on in the bathroom. Service tile has been here uh hammering out tile and getting continuing on with finishes. Next stop will be second level restrooms. Now we're upstairs in the classroom edition on second level. If you remember from our last update, we were just laying the CMU walls that are now uh painted out. Uh as you can see, we got roof on roofs on and we're getting overhead MEPs uh buttoned up up here. Uh flowing from first level to second level finishings going here, finishes going here in the next couple of weeks. So making a lot of progress. All of our subs have been doing a tremendous job. Uh once the the roof joist were on and the deck was on, they were right on
025top of it getting all their their rough completed. Diving into some of the classroom spaces here on second level. We're currently in the eighth grade pod, specifically the the science rooms. As you can see, we have gas piping going in, ceiling grids in. So, just working towards getting finishes installed and then the science case work uh to follow. All right, we're on the north end of the building looking at what is now the uh multi-purpose room and the new band area. Uh the Masons are getting set and they're going to be working on uh getting brick veneer completed. Like we had mentioned earlier in the update. They're finishing up veneer on segment F, the classroom edition, and then they're going to shift gears and and be up here on the north side completing veneer um
026on segment A. Moving on in segment A, since we turned over the band and multi-purpose room, we relocated the existing choir and orchestra rooms uh to those new areas and we've begun demolition and abatement here. So, it's just an area that we've been able to bump up in the construction timeline getting into this area uh getting it completed. So shrup is currently in doing demolition as you can see and we'll be doing exterior framing here in the next week to get it uh closed back up along with air barrier and brick veneer. Well, that'll wrap it up for this month's uh community update. We appreciate everybody joining us, tuning in. We look forward to bringing you future updates. Um I just want to say thank you to all the trade partners that are here day
027in and day out making this project possible. Chris is doing a phenomenal job leading the charge here at the middle school and then also our foreman Mike Ley and Brad Olsen who are assisting and just keeping this project flowing uh at a steady pace. So we look forward to bringing you guys more updates and stay tuned. Yeah. So that that last little clip there where it was all open that was the old choir, orchestra, and band rooms just totally open because we're we're into the new band room and choir and orchestra are sharing like the multi-purpose room um as a temporary home. And so what you saw there, which was choir, orchestra, band will now be just orchestra and choir when after they, you know, build it back up. So, but it it looked it
028looked like um quite different than it did before. Yeah. Um so always enjoy being able to take a look at what students are um taking uh in the higher ed um institutions that we have around us. So, two times a year, the credit review committee at the high school takes a look at courses that students have uh requested. It's always for the upcoming semester and they're uh taking the courses either through the early college credit program which are the universities or the start college now which is through the technical college uh western technical. Um and when we look at ECCP we are reimbursed for a portion of the cost of paying for the tuition. Um, for start college now, we are not reimbursed. Um, and the credits are a little bit uh less expensive, which
029you can see on the second page of the attachment. Um, so for the first semester next school year, we have students who are requesting to take a total of 100 credits at UWL, Vurbo, and Western Technical College. Um, so with these courses, we would anticipate spending up to 21 about $21,000 on tuition, but um, every year students always request more courses than they're going to take so that they have, um, flexibility when they're building their schedule for next school year. Um, so you can see that last year we anticipated spending up to $38,000. Um, right now we've paid out $4,500. Um, and some invoices are still coming in towards the end of this year. Um, so it's worth noting that eligible students request the courses and if the course fits within their academic career plan
030and their schedule and they have exhausted all congruent district offered options, uh, the request is generally approved by a credit review committee. Um, and they always tend to be, which we see each time we bring this report, um, really highly specialized courses, um, that go above and beyond and further than what we offer. And when we look historically, students are taking fewer courses because we do have more AP offerings and more industry recognized credentials for students. So, can keep some of those specialized in house rather than going outside to one of the universities. Um, let me know if you have any questions about any aspect of this report. It's always fun to fun to see what students are um what they're taking at our institutions of higher ed. Is this typically on like are some
031of these online they complete them? I mean I know some of our classes that we offer here they get a certain get college credit. I was just curious if any of this is also like where they have to go there or do online classes. Most of these are inerson classes which they need time to kind of like travel to which is why they request more in order to build a schedule around some of them. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And Janet is with us tonight to talk about possible 2526 budget scenarios. Um, we have enclosures 15. Um, I'm going to turn it over to I would I would have liked to have had this budget presentation last meeting when it was originally planned right on the heels of Fran and Mark talking about their
032visit to the state capital because it ties together very well. Um, I wasn't able to But we will do basically the same presentation tonight. We don't know new information. So it's the same presentation. Tracy thought she had deja v. So this is a a state budget year and anytime when we have a state budget year, we usually don't know what that budget is going to be until late June, sometimes even into July. So we cannot wait that long to be moving forward with our budget. So what we will be doing is doing our very best estimates and then we will adapt the next year for any parts that we were off and that's one of the critically important parts of having fun balance to allow us to be able to do that so that once
033we get into the school year we're not looking at where's where can we cut to bake a balanced budget because as you know we need to get the contracts out. Most of our most of our budget is staffing and once we put those teacher contracts out, we're committed to those. One of the things that the DPI has put forward a very a very proactive uh budget for um public education and governor evens had called his budget presentation the year of the kid and said that it was the most pro kid budget that he's ever put forward. So just on those two things, we would be really optimistic, but the legislature really hasn't followed through with that in the past years. So I'm not that optimistic at this point in the game. The budget has been
034built conservatively. So it's kind of a worst case scenario. It could always be worse, but planning on on the lowest um inputs, the the $325 per pupil revenue limit increase that was in law that's being challenged. And that's pretty much it for for increases. We're hoping that we will have other increases with special education, maybe the per pupil aid, more in revenue limit, but that's how the budget was was built. And another important that when we remember this basic funding formula, revenue limit is what's important for us because revenue limit is our ability to offer programs and services for kids. The state equalization aid is very important because it buys down property taxes. We do want to keep our property taxes low as well. So with those um important pieces um the the revenue limit
035as I said was the most important one and that's built on membership and I'm going to be talking about it the difference between membership and enrollment but remember for funding it's always about membership and then that state per pupil amount increase that's been allowed built it on 325 and a prior year base and an Alaska is a low spending district we we've been pushed up by that low revenue limit feeling I always say to you I don't know why they call it a ceiling it's really a floor But that's um what we're hoping that will be increased for this next year. And we build our budget based on our strategic plan. It's really important that you'll see that when we talk about our budget strategy map later in this presentation. We tie everything back to
036the strategic plan that the board has created. So looking at the local factors to develop this budget, we're looking at a three-year average membership. It's predicted to drop by 46 students from 2618 to 2072. And remember, we had last year applied population lab study done. And this is where the this data comes from looking at the different ways of looking at um I think there's like four different scenarios that they had given us. They took those and average them and that's where that number comes from. Uh we will have an operating referendum increase of $200,000 this year to fund increased costs that are not covered through the state budget. And we're not planning at this point in time. We hope we can change that, but at this point in time, we're not planning on funding
037fund 46. And that's the fund where we're putting money aside so that hopefully in the future we don't need to go out to referendum as much because we can fund these things in house without asking our community for additional support. So looking at our revenue limit without the voucher tax, we'll be adding that back in. We don't get to spend any of that money. That's just money that we tax our community and it goes and turns around and goes to the voucher schools. Um we're looking at a projected revenue limit increase. You can see for 2526 and then with our operating referendum increase about $600,000 additional revenue, not a lot to cover all of our anticipated increased costs. One of the calculations that I did is if that low revenue limit ceiling was increased to
038$12,000 per student because that's one of the things that and Mark heard a conversation about at the capital that would yield us an additional $871,000 just that one thing. So again, it's it's early in the process, there's a lot of variance in there and um while it looks really grim now, it it hopefully is the worst that it will be. This is a really important slide that I think just does a really good job of in a single slide kind of the struggle that we have been experiencing in public education. So you can see see in here this 3,380 per pupil and how we've been lagging behind CPI so consumer price index increases if we if we were able to have that amount of money or have we been keeping up for our district for
039one year. That would be 8 uh $8.7 million more for us to operate our schools. 8.7 million more in one year. Our operating referendum this year is 5 million. So, our community has made up some of that, but we're even behind um based on on where we're at for um the consumer price index. Then looking at um the difference between enrollment and membership. You see this slide a lot, but I think it's something that's just so important to understand because most of the work that we do, we do here enrollment because that's how we hire our staff to support the but yet we're funded on membership. So again, the differences between those two is the open enrollment in students are taken out. Our open enrollment out are counted back in. Our fouryear-old kindergarten program is
040counted at 6 FTE and our early childhood program is counted at.5. So those are the differences between those two. And then there's some summer school um in there as well. When you're looking at this, remember you've seen this slide a lot too. Just remembering that our largest class sizes are aging out of our system and our smallest class sizes are what's going through our system right now. Membership in detail. Remember I talked about this drop for this next year. Again, this is membership, not enrollment. And we do get some credit for our summer school program. It takes 48,600 minutes to equal one FTE and then that one FTE is prorated at point4. So we don't get a lot for it, but it's something. And and it's important that we do get that because many school
041districts were starting to basically cut their summer school programming because they couldn't feel like they could justify it at the cost of regular school year programing. So we get credit to incentivize us to have that summer school programming. And I think it's important for us to remember that declining enrollment is not a local issue. It's an issue that we we deal with, but it's it's not just us in Alaska. 7% of the districts have declining enrollment. 55% were declining in 20067. So, you can see how that has really increased over the years. and 75% of the students are located in just 30% of the districts. What we're hoping is is that this situation is going to help us with the legislature because it's it's a statewide problem for the most part and hopefully we'll be
042getting some more um support there. So looking at that per student revenue limit that's taking you through the program. Remember I said the revenue limit worksheet. Remember I said 325. Do that math. It's not quite 325. So that's just some of the idiosyncrasies of the the revenue limit formula. It's close to but it's not that. So there's different things that that are factored in. And here you can see our salary history. Um this year's budget and then what we've had for actuals for the last few years in both the dollar increase and the percent increase. You can see the increase for budget this year is significant. And remember when this budget was put into place, we funded a lot of new um initiatives for this year that we'll be talking about as we go through
043to the end of the year to just do an evaluation of how are these programs working out for us. Specifically, we have the line contract. We've hired behavioral specialists. We have the K8 English language arts um curriculum that we're working on. We have the first year of our teacher comp. We had hourly longevity and we hired a communication specialist. That's a lot for one year and that's the reason for that big increase. So our goal is to meet the consumer price index each year for our salaries. As you can see historically this year the CPI is 2.95%. We've not started the negotiation process yet but you can see in almost every year that's been our goal to meet that. And we in 2023 24 we did not but PPI that year was abnormally high. That
044would have been a very difficult thing to meet an 8% PPI increase. So looking at our benefits history and um budget salary before this is excluded payments to our post employment benefit trust and remember we have that is something that we'll be working we'll be working our way out of that but we still have um people that have qualified for that because we went on a forward basis. So it doesn't include payments into their into that because throw the calculations off a little bit, but you can see historically both a dollar increase and a percent increase and then for budget for this next year. So, looking at our our salary and benefits projected on kind of a worst case scenario, we're going to go through the budget strategy map in just a minute. You're going
045to see that it we would show quite a quite a deficit if we implemented all these initiatives. We're not going to be implementing all of these initiatives unless this funding comes through for them. But this is showing you from the most conservative um basis and then the initiatives that we have where we would be if we were to um to implement all of them. So with that, I'm going to transition over to our budget strategy map and we'll just go through that and um each of the pillar captains will talk through um the the item that they have. I don't start. Um so kind of been keeping the board up to date on the student information system, the work that we've done um to investigate uh a move away from P school, which is our
046current system. Um when we look across at this, I won't spend a ton of time But um we did recently make the decision that we want to recommend moving to Skyward um and which will be called cumulative going forward um instead of powers school. So the price that the the cost that we see here um is shortterm like it's for next year for the migration away from our current um and the difference that we think um that we've anticipated we would be spending. However, in the long term Skyward is less expensive than what we've spent on powers school and power school support over the past few years. Um the anticipated impact of switching uh Skyward is that we're building greater efficiency in the way we conduct so many of the aspects of our student information
047system processes. Um and um kind of thinking about a you know having point people train the trainer really digging into empowering our our staff members and our end users um with Skyward. Um I The second one too, that's our KA ELA curricular resource adoption. Um, I'm keeping you up to date on that. That's been a really big part of our strategic plan and our action steps around um improving our ELA scores and results that we see. Um, anticipated about $900,000 um cost of adoption. We're in the midst of P the end of our pilot right now. pretty exciting um to see what programs look like. And just kind of framing it, this was one of the prevailing themes when we looked at our ELA system as a whole was a lack of a cohesive ELA
048program that serves as a foundation for our curriculum. Um in grade K8, uh the anticipated impact is improvement of the profic proficiency of our students in ELA and that includes reading. Um so it's a huge gigantic impact um over time. And um one something of note is sometimes when you're purchasing a program there are student consumables that come with it. So like we're anticipating $900,000. There might be parts of this purchase that are spread out over time because they're attached to student consumables that are kind of purchased on a subscription. So, if we purchase six years of student consumables, sometimes you can take that piece out and pay for it over time. It's tough to project that right now because we don't quite know uh which program we're moving um that will move forward. So,
049those are the first two aspects. And I'll share just a reminder on year two of our teacher compensation plan. We had rolled this out last year with a three-year implementation. Year one was last year and that was any differences over $2,000 for teachers. Year two is the differences between 2000 and or 750 and 2000. So some teachers will have a little bit higher increase but all teachers will have whatever we negotiate with our union um based on this is just above and beyond that to make meet those minimum benchmarks that the board decided last year. Um and then the next portion is more personnel position and we've kind of collaborated together as a group on kind of what is needed in the district. Um, and so I'll let Lori uh and team talk about the
050top three, but the bottom one on co-curricular adjustments, this is a yearly thing that Jason and I and uh DJ, our middle school activities director, meet regularly on on what do we need for our co-curricular and our activities to making sure what we've said with um our strategic and that we want as many kids active and so that help we need staffing with that. So you'll see in the why and the what kind of some of those areas um specifically girls wrestling is the largest portion of that is having a head coach specifically for girls wrestling and an assistant coach and then a few other options in high school. You'll notice um that the next two that I I will talk through they're not green. That just means that like I the green ones are
051ones that like they have to h they have to happen and as we discuss it we're um I think I'm framing that correctly. Uh the two that are are not green are ones that like we're still in the process of of gauging our priorities and figuring out I mean um you know what's going to be needed for next year. So I just wanted to say that um the two elements here um the first one is the elementary academic interventionist ad. So we'd be increasing uh by 1.5 interventionist positions our interventionist at the elementary level. So it' be 0.5 at each elementary building and um for a couple reasons. Uh the first one is the work that we're doing with ACT 20 um has pushed our interventionists to um to fully realize themselves as leaders in
052that work in our buildings which is incredible. Um it's also pushed their capacity and and um so part of the execution of personal reading plans, the collaboration of uh their work with teacher teams is super important. The other part of this is we need to and are working to refine our tier three math systems. So it that is, you know, part of um what we when we think about a 0.5 ad at each building would allow us more capacity to continue to support um reading and to be able to uh refine some of our tier three math systems. And when we look at that, the impact would be fewer students that under the 25th percentile. And we're looking across the AS web also star math um and fewer students requiring tier three interventions plus more
053capacity to execute those really small groups for students who do need that support. And then the other um ad that we've talked about is um at right now at the middle school, we do have a full-time literacy interventionist um that creates um groups and and supports those tier three interventions across the middle school. Um and we would be looking at adding an interventionist that has more of a a math focus. Again, we're working on our tier three systems. We want our kids to uh be able to get the support that they need as they're moving through elementary into middle school as they're and they're more prepared for um high school level math. Um so that would be the other element. And again, uh impact is systematic execution of our tier three math support for students
054in grades six through eight kind of completes our um our um multi-level systems of support at that that particular level. What does one intervention look like in relationship to what we have? Like is that really three time people or is it one person like two people that are a super good question because right now we have um we have one interventionist that's five Eagle Bluff Northern Hills. So it would essentially be creating a full full interventionist position at each one of those buildings. At Irving Perch, it would be a half time person. So it would be a halftime interventionist person. And we did that because we do look at comparability through when we accept title one funding. Um we do look at um comparability across our elementary buildings. We also look at that as a
055district. We want parity um between our buildings. would be why we looked at it pretty evenly across. It's been a similar amount of extra extra elements that we put on our interventionist and we really want we want that to be even across our elementary. Yeah, I was just curious because I remember like when we had our testing scores that um that purchas the how that's going to support. Will we have enough question? Oh yeah. Wow. Thank you. I had that same question. Is um the with this addition. Um, so you're hoping that to incorporate math intervention with the services you currently have. So we are we currently do have math interventions. We are not I would say that we don't right now have capacity to have tier three systematic math um support and sometimes tier
056three will um end up in a special education referral. Um sometimes not because students are getting exactly what they need. But it's just that it's the piece of our system that we um we know we need to do a better job at and we have with our current interventionist over time and with the addition of personal reading personal reading plans and the work that we're I think the incredible work that we're doing around act 20 and just digging into that and like collaborating around that work um has made that it's pushed our current staff to capacity and so it's just looking at like how do we we it's right in our sites we're right there. What might an extra um that extra 0.5 um FTE at each of our buildings will that we know that
057that will allow us to refine those tier three systems in the way that we know they need to be refined. So you clarified that um in fact two will be two and a half. What are the other two schools when you add them all together? specific sites. So, Irving Perch would be two and a half. Um, Northern Hills would be one, two, three. Three fulltime and two at Eagle Block. I mean, that's great. We saw that as an identified issue in the scorecards order. So, that's fantastic that you guys are intervening and getting us more people in there to help our kids. Thank you. I think important to maybe point out again is um we've gone over this list a number of times as an administrative team and like mentioned the areas that are highlighted
058in green we have prioritized as ones that we feel are essential. Um but everything on this list is essential and so it's really hard to to pick and choose when you feel like everything is needed. Um so that is kind of the color coding around it is that the what we've chosen as really to highlight as our priority. However, um depending on the budget and what happens, we would like to make all of these things happen. The next one that's on there that is in green, and you've heard me speak of this before, is the elementary alternative education special education teacher and care professional positions. Um heard you speak about a program, this districtwide program very small number of students that often times we um we go through all of our placement options within the
059district and we aren't meeting those needs of those students. So we seek alternative placements outside of the district. We really have put a lot of time and effort into what would this look like if we brought this into our district. It would be district run. We would be able to create it the way that we feel like interest of these students and it will it's it's a um expensive program in the sense of the student ratio is pretty high in order for our students to really make good progress. And so you'll notice that the funding for those positions um are not in the column if you if you look over toward the middle of the sheet. They're in the existing funding column, not the levy funding column. And the reason for that is that it
060costs a lot of money to send a student out of the district to an alternative setting. If we bring those students back into our district, that's that funding will be used to support program. So that is our anticipation that there are students currently in alternative programming that we would like to bring back into our district. I think we're good. We ready to transition back? Just one comment was the act 20 funding $50 million. got some of that money. So, just to reiterate, this is conservative budgeting and we will hopefully get better inclination on on where we will be in short time. Um, but we will we'll move forward and then if we need to adapt, we will adapt. This is the state budget year. what the state does for funding public education will be crucial
061to, you know, what moves forward on these on these initiatives that we'd like to uh like to see happening. And our current revenue limit increase will not meet all of our operating increases. 200,000 we'll have coming in from the operating referendum that will help us. Our November 2022 capital referendum really does help us in addressing some of our deferred maintenance so that we're not using those funds. We can we can concentrate those funds on programming and then continue efforts to conserve funds whenever possible to help us meet needs for the future will be really important as well. So our next steps is goal is to bring the budget pieces to you in pieces. It's a lot to digest if we do it all in one deep dive. So bringing it in pieces, we'll have um
062our instructional or our our um technology capital improvement budget coming forward, our facilities and grounds capital projects and our staffing and we have community service fund. Um and then we'll have updates as we know them as well. So we'll be bringing them these pieces to you through now through the October 27th when we will their original budget. We'll have a budget hearing in between there as well and um just keep refining. Can we answer any questions? The only question I would have that budget strategy map is possible. Yes. That's the worst case scenar. So what we what we will do as we do every single year is as we're declining enrollment district unfortunately our students don't leave us in one classroom in one school in one grade but over time just as we have sections
063that go up and sections that go down. So our goal our goal is to have reductions if if we can make them happen. So, we put that on there just to let the board know we're always looking at that. And that would be reductions from the standpoint of class size reductions. We're not looking this year to do programmatic and basically like going out and saying we've got to cut $2 million from the budget. What aren't we going to do? The reductions that we're talking about are just from how enrollment falls. I just wanted to be clear on my understanding of that. I could go either way, I suppose. Yes. Questions. Uh I want to thank you. Um your presentations are always clear and uh very well laid out. the strategy map. I I like that
064and um appreciate the clarifications behind the um color coding. I would imagine if we could just make a wish list, it would be much longer than that even. But um thank you for your Well, I hope what comes through is that this is our work. You know, that the team really does put a lot of um conversation and work together as a team, and that's the way that it should be. does a really good job. Thank you. Our employee handbook is on tonight for first reading. Second Okay, there's two there are two um uh documents. The first one is the handbook and then the other one is the outline. Um and so I'll u project the actual handbook but kind of reference the outline um specifically. So If you're following along on the handbook, uh
065there is a table of contents and you can actually click on each little section and it'll take you right to the policy. Uh the first one being is under leave days. There's uh two substantive substantial changes here. One um is adding um just the domestic partner option for staff when they do take um their leave days. Um so and that is defined by Wisconsin state statute because um a domestic partner is eligible under Wisconsin FMLA. So that that's where the definition would fall into play. Um and further down in that policy then another area that is more substantial is adding um leaves to testify. This was an option under Niola for board policy but our board policy dictates kind of the overarching u policy on leave time where their specifics are land more in the
066handbook. And so I took the language from Leola and just populated it here. Uh the next one is on page 24 which is A1. And it's really a small wording change, but it's more for clarification on when a transfer for a teacher is done by administration versus a request. And this is just clarifying language that we seem to get uh uh tripped up on once in a while from staff that have asked, "How do I do this?" And so this is just that small language there, but it doesn't change the actual practice. Um going down to more um in section C, which outlines our hourly staff area, uh we added we added a groundseper. We had origally had it as a limited term last year and the board had approved for that as an ongoing
067position um since we've been hiring them every year. So it you'll see throughout the handbook starting with C3 that the groundskeeper now is added into the handbook um on a number of occasions specifically this area. Also under this section um this is the custodial hours there is a section on custodial emergency response. It's replacing the alarm system. Um, and clarifying that language, what we were finding is our custodians were coming in for emergencies, but may have had uh were not getting overtime for that. And so, they would come in if the alarm went off, but maybe an emergency such as you remember at the middle school with the water damage, they should have been paid overtime for that. Um, so making sure that we have more clarifying language and supporting our custodians that do help
068us out, especially on nights and weekends. The other um change is on page 71. Um this is in terms of comp time. Um right now our uh our staff do receive comp time if they have overtime and it is paid on the first payroll in January and the first payroll in July. We just took out the first paycheck. Um given the fact that this upcoming year the first paycheck is January second. So they wouldn't even have the time to complete it by the time we process payroll. And then the lab last substantial changes on page 80, which we have a work group that has started this year um that is doing a a review of our hourly non-certified staff evaluation tool system and looking at how do we incorporate that starting next year. And one
069of the major changes is that we would do more of a formal evaluation every other year, similar to our certified staff every three years. And so this is changing that language to kind of help align with that. And that would be implemented then next year. So there's a few housekeeping um ones that are sprinkled throughout, but I didn't go over those today. Any questions? All right. Well, as indicated, that is on for first reading. So, as you review or dig into this um anymore, um please contact um Sonia if there's any questions. I assume it will come back better next week. Uh we have some um donations that is going to talk to us about tonight. Our first come from Peggy for the Northern Hills Resilient Learner Program. Um I just have a little statement
070that um Peggy kind of wrote up to me. She didn't she declined to come join us today. But um Peggy is Emily Perry. She's our reserve teacher at Northern and um Peggy and her husband moved here from Portland, Oregon during the pandemic to be close with mom. Um and since then the sisters had lost their Emily's uncle Prince this past October and he had cerebal palsy and an intellectual disability. He was a lot of the inspiration for Emily going into the work that she does. And it was really hard on the family, but as they spent time cleaning out Chris's possessions, Emily brought a lot of things to school and said, "Oh, my students could use this or I know a family who could use this." Um, you know, clothing, hats, gloves, coats, um, detergent,
071bedding, blankets, all of those kinds of things that she just knew that we for someone at the school and was able to bring it. And Peggy just was surprised that anyone would have needed Christmas stuff and was surprised at how many families are in need. And they had traditionally given an annual donation to a more um larger national type of donation and just decided that instead of doing that, she wanted to do it locally where she could see her go to work. So, um so much gratitude for thinking of us and of her family. So that um when when Emily said my aunt would like to give a donation, we certainly did not think it was going to be a size. So very much gratude to them for that donation. We can no problem. Um
072then the second one is for um a few years now our PTOs and our administrative team here at the elementary level have been the Bill the Eagle fundraiser to go specifically towards our EDLC field trip. And so this year, our families that participated in that Build the Eagle brought together $14,260 to go towards that trip. So we were able to use all of that to defay the cost for every fifth grader this year. So much gratitude to all of our participating. Um, wow. I mean, uh, Peggy's, uh, gift to, uh, the Resilient Learner program is, as you indicated, overwhelming coming from a singular, um, family to, and a family that obviously was knowledgeable about needs that um, kids and families have, but, um, to their willingness to to share that um, with Northern Hills to
073that specific program is is really really out outstanding. So, thank you so incredibly much to um Peggy and her family. Um the Building Eagle um was a Can you describe that? Sure. So, the the first year that we did it um gosh, three years ago now, I think it was a calendar fundraiser. You might remember um approving that where families could uh go request donations and it was date on the calendar and give us that many dollars. If you pick the 25th, then you donate $25. If you pick the 5th, you donate $5. And then um when we looked at making it specifically for the EVLC trip, we thought, "Oh, well, let's take a picture of the eagle from their kind of monument that they have there at the entrance." So, it was a picture
074of an eagle with different parts of the coloring sheet that were worth different amounts of money, anywhere from a dollar to I think $25. So, then could go and ask for donations and people would donate however much they felt comfortable with and kids were working to color that sheet in and then they received um we call them raffle tickets for however many um donations or things they were a variety of them if you fill in all the $1 ones you get this fill in all the brown ones you get this or whatever and then all those raffle tickets went into teacher adventure prizes that So the principal for a day was one of those and I think we all had a lot of a lot of kids that wanted to do that. Um but then
075other different teacher experiences too. Um I know we have our first grade team a bike ride with the principal behind the scenes tour. Very exciting. So all of those types of things they small that kids were interested in for a prize for doing different parts of their very cool and nonmonetary but just experience things which um are are going to create a lasting memory for sure. So um very cool. Thank you for your creativity. Um these obviously far exceed our limit. So they do require a um approval on our end. Um unless there is a request to take them separately, we can do them together. Motion to approve,000 programs and $14,260 from elementary. Motion by Aaron, seconded by Tracy to approve um two donations. One in the amount of $10,000 from Piggies Iel for the
076resilient learner program at Northern Hills and the other in the amount of $14,260 from the elementary student fundraising Phil the Eagle um partially through the PTO for the fifth grade Eagle Buff Environmental Learning Center. Um are there any questions or additional comments? All those in favor? I opposed. Those donations are approved with much gratitude. So, thank you. Uh Sonia um has the teacher contract for 2526. We have a closure 18. Yeah. So, we don't have any major changes to the teacher handbook except for the dates that correspond with our calendar. Um the only other change that uh we did make this change last year, but I just wanted to reference it in terms of how the is listed and broken out. We did this to be more transparent with our uh new minimum benchmark. So
077all staff were able to see how many credits they have, what totally experience that we were referencing. Um and so this is all listed into the contract. This also requires approval. I can make a motion to approve the 2025 20226 teacher contract as outlined by S. Motion by Sean, seconded by Aaron to approve the 202526 teacher contract document as outlined in closure 18 and detailed by Sonia. Are there any questions? All those in favor? I opposed. That document is approved. Thank you for your Are there any requests to remove uh items from the personnel report tonight for separate consideration? I'll turn it over to chair. We have one uh retirement request that uh Charlie Henry, our head custodian, Eagle Bluff, has been um anxiously sharing that his last day will be June 6th and I
078think he's told everybody um he will be completing 26 years. I don't Todd, we didn't really chat. I don't know if you want to say anything about Charlie. Just just very appreciative of Charlie Henry and he is a he is a personality and and extremely proud to be a part of this district and he is just very that's his home, his second home. Uh and we will miss him for sure. Wish him all the best. He's got some some fun things lined up for retirement as well. So, big thank you to Charlie. My favorite memory of Charlie is I was over at Eagle Fluff on picture school picture day and there was one little girl that would not smile, but oh, Charlie was not going to let it go. He made her smile by the
079end of the day. It was cute. Um, we do have a new employee, uh, teacher Katie John's. She's going to be our family and consumer ed teacher at the high school. has been actually subbing with us and has done some long-term assignments already. So, she's very well known to an Alaska already. And then we have five teachers that are under our title one program that are working at St. Paul's. We just have to bring these to the board because they're done through our payroll even though they're paid through title one funds. Um D is that position creation that Lori mentioned earlier as part of the budget and then co-curricular contract as well as a few resignation notifications. to approve. Motion by here and seconded by Tracy to approve the personnel report as presented in closure
08019 and detailed by Sonia. Um if I may add wishing Mr. Henry. Are there any questions or comments? All those in favor I opposed. The personnel report is approved. Are there any requests to remove uh policy from the group for separate consideration tonight? 53 5330. You'd like to pull that for separate consideration. Um I believe unless this handle was sufficient for people. Okay. Yes, I'd like to. Thank you. So this is the second reading for all the rest. I'll make a motion to approve the board policies accepting30 as presented. Second motion by Aaron, seconded by Sean to approve the uh listed policies with the exception of 5330. Um approve them for second reading tonight as outlined in the agenda uh 20 board policies. Are there any questions or comments? All those in favor? I I
081opposed. uh those policies are approved. Uh we will now take 5330 separately. So when we when we brought 5330 to the board two weeks ago under the opioid antagonist plan, we did not have that as a recommended addition to 53. After talking to people, board members, we're now bringing this back as a recommended part of the plan and you have a single handout that just takes that paragraph. All the rest of 5330 is the same as it was before. It just takes the opioid antagonism plan language and you can read it. We crossed out district emergency nurse service plan which was part of the recommendation because we do not have a district nursing service plan. We have plans for different administration of of medication and so on. So that was crossed out. Um we did
082add in the one two three fourth line the opioid antagonistic medication shall be located at minimum with each ad in the district and then the district plan at the last line for administration will be posted on the district working with Lori and Amanda talk to the administrators about who would there would be a training, a planning like it says in the first line, we'll maintain a plan for administration and so on. Training that who people would be that would receive training and so on. That will all be in a separate document that's outlined in that last line of this paragraph and get posted on the website. It will also be part of the district nursing service end of the year report that So be able to talk about what you say the line about minimum
083one that's part of part of the actual plan the first thing you do is call so you know it will be in other places and we'll talk more about first principles That wouldn't be part of the policy. We're asking for that change to happen. Um Yeah. The only question I have is is it necessary? You indicated that part of the plan would include locations or where it's store is it necessary to include that it it's located at a minimum if that's already is it redundant if it's going to be already included in the plan that's on the web page. So that's that was something that I kind of um brought forward and part of that deals with the WSB's definition of a board policy and I'll read that for everyone. I know that I sent
084that. Well, we've we've already received it. Well, the public hasn't seen it, so I'm going to read it. The general definition of schoolboard policy is a guide for present or future action. It tells what is wanted, the end's outcomes, and also indicates why and to what extent something should be done, any limitations. It's an idea statement designed to bring about action. So, and WSB felt it was important enough to bold the words what, wanted, why, and to what extent. So, the statement of where it shall be located at minimum is telling the to what extent. That's the simple way to describe it, right? But that's what I'm asking. Is is it going to is will it also be included in the plan that's posted on the website? Okay, that's my question. It seems redundant. Well,
085I would argue that um well, we don't have to argue on just stating my opinion. Oh, okay. Okay. What is the pleasure of the board? I'll make a motion to approve policy 5330, administration of medication emergency care with the added inclusion of the opioid antagonist plan as outlined in the handout in the updated policy. Should I just continue? I mean, I want to share this other reason and I know that you said um that you're just sharing your opinion, but I just want to include these additional details for consideration when people make their determination on how to proceed with this. So I want to just start out by thanking everybody who's put in time looking into this. I want to thank the an Alaska alum county health department. I'll second motion by Tracy seconded by
086Aaron to approve policy 5330 administration of medication and emergency care. Are there any additional questions? Yeah, I would like to continue with my statement. So um Like I said, I want to thank Laura Runie. I want to thank the unnamed emergency room nurse from Mayo Clinic Health System, the chair of Gunderson's emergency medicine department, medical toxicologist and director of Minnesota's poison center, Dr. Benjamin Orsco, patrons of the KOIE recovery center, and acute care APN Michelle Aba for their time and insight. So part of the reason and the rationale for this to be included in the plan is that back on June n June 29th of 2015, the National Association of School Nurses issued a statement um with their the board of directors noted that the school nurses have the knowledge and education to identify and
087safely manage e situations in school. Um and they supported having Narcan in the schools. In September 14th of 2016, the National Association of School Nurses came out with a tool to address the opioid epidemic. And that's when they first um shared their Nlloxxone in schools toolkit to help support school nurses with training, presentations, and resources to help nurses, leaders, and community members take the steps to identify and react to possible opioid overdose. On August 27th of 2018, so this was uh two years after the National Association of School Nurses came out with their support. Um, and three years after they came out with their statement that they recommend it be in the schools, our an Alaska school district policy, the one we're discussing here today, was adopted and updated and had nolloxxone language from the
088policy after being reviewed by admin school nursing in consultation with the district medical advisor. And um some of the ration that we shared at the last meeting were concerns about expiration dates, concerns about training, etc. August 2020, we reviewed that the FDA extended the shelf life. In September of 2023, the National Association of School Nurses updated their toolkit with additional resources and training materials. In January 2024, we already shared that the FDA increased the shelf life again to four years. And here we are uh March or their last meeting is when we had first reading of the same policy. It was brought forward for review as part of routine policy maintenance without the nlloxxone language included in the policy having been reviewed by admin and nursing again. So I think it's imperative that although I'm
089very thankful that the plan that they have in place uh is to have it in all the schools the original plan that was brought forward did not include it at all. And like I said as outlined by the Association of School Boards, it would be negligent to not include that to what extent statement in our policy as that's part of the definition of the schoolboard policy. So I just ask that we take that into consideration. Nothing has changed other than like who is in what position, you know, the role of oxygen in and brain health and you know to prevent brain death and damage, you know, that hasn't changed. Where our schools are physically located, our e response personel that hasn't changed. So, I think it's imperative that we include that statement in there even
090if it does seem redundant because it will leave no opportunity for um like alternative um um ways for it to be carried out. I guess we're setting the expectation to what extent we're setting the expectation. It won't be open for other interpretation if we have it in there. So, that's my rationale. All those in favor? I I I opposed. Uh policy 5330 is adopted. Are there any request to remove items from the consent agenda tonight for supper consideration? Hearing none, I'll move to approve the consent agenda. Second. Motion by Aaron, seconded by Sean to approve tonight's consent agenda as presented. Are there any questions? All those in favor? I I opposed. The consent agenda is approved as presented. We have no further business. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Motion by Tracy, seconded by Sean to adjurnn.
091All those in favor? I opposed. We are adjourned. Thank you everyone for your time tonight.