TCSD #1 Board of Education Regular Meeting - Mar 12 2025

001e e e to e e e I am going to call this March 12th 2025 um board meeting of the ton County School Board trustees back to order do I have a motion to exit executive session second all in favor I thank you uh now we're move on to the pledge of allegiance to flag the United States of America the stand Indy andice all right uh Mission Vision and um statement uh let's see trusty Abrams Do you want to read something from there I would be delighted mission statement our mission is to ensure that all students have the foundation for success and are challenged to reach their full potential thank you you're welcome um approval of the agenda chairman I move to approve the agenda as presented is there a second second any discussion all

002in favor I opposed we have an agenda all right um I just uh quickly because we just exited executive session and I just wanted to make a general public statement that I know that there is some legislation that has um coming out of tranne that has caused some concern and is going to change some policies within the school district and as a board we are working on those um under security and safety um which is a lot we keep that under wrap um there will be some policies that will be coming forward um next month that the public can review um and we will probably have some discussion then so um I wanted to assure the public that we are on top of it and we are doing the best we can and um we'll

003let you know how that goes thank you all right and we'll move on to the superintendent report thank you um trustees I have a number of exciting celebrations um and um first off today um we had a surprise um celebration that we couldn't really announce um but we have a milikan um educator winner and Colin binko um was recognized by the Milan family Foundation today in the assembly and it was just awesome he's an incredible educator as our many of our staff so that was a huge celebration and um Colin is one of um only 42 in the country and the only one in Wyoming recognized so pretty exciting um next I'd like to ask um my Canen to come up and recognize some of our recent Champions okay super chairman Madam chair Trust thank

004you for the opportunity to recognize some of our winter sports team champions this year um I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to our coaches because they're going be able to speak to their teams better than I will but I can get Andrew seagull finding this girls Nordic team hello it's uh an honor to be here as anyone who's ever tried this sport knows Nordic skiing is really hard maybe among the hardest most demanding Sports I don't know would you agree yeah and uh so in order to be successful in the sport uh you got to be really tough you got to be gritty and I think you also have to love to do it you got to love to ski race and so on the day that this team won in lar

005me it was it was all on display so the grittiness was there could see it in their faces the toughness and also the love of the sport and the love of skiing so very proud moment as a coach and as a team thank you will you introduce them please yeah so maybe you could introduce yourselves and your say your grade um I'm gig mood and this is my third year of Nordic and I a senior and here's Ellis I'm a freshman and this is my first year I'm a this [Music] is thank you thank you awesome congratulations and now I'm going to introduce um coach Ryan Bell coach Bell if you want to come in here um and a student who you saw last year at this time as well B uh thank you for

006having us here uh again it's an honor um it's a real honor for me to be standing next to um this fine young woman um from Jacksonville High School time McBride ended up this last um two weeks ago in Casper took home her second State title uh in wrestling um and I know that the the Nordic coach said that it's nordic's a pretty tough sport obviously he not awesome um the grit and determination that it takes in that sport is uh I I think Second To None um in this young lady um her her attributes are amazing and as you can tell Ty is in a sling because she finished the season with a torn laam in a partially torn rotator cup oh my gosh but still went out and competed at the state tournament

007not one girl made it to the second period with Ty that shows you the dominance of Ty McBride I went back and looked at her record when she was a freshman there was no girls division she uh ended up in her High School career and8 seven of those losses coming to boys one to a girl um that's dominance um this is a special young lady and it makes me proud to be a bron and be proud to be in her presence so with that I present to you Ty McBride sleep champion thank you thank you guys um next I before we have our Al Avid um presentation I'd like to ask um Shannon bgo um from Jacksonville High School to come up and make a special presentation for us um thank you um um this

008is Diana CIA tro and I brought work along with her so you guys could see the work that was honored that um so Diana um is an art one student and one of the things I think I try to express to all the kids is it doesn't matter where you sit um it only matters what you strive to get and Di is represented that in art time and time again with her work um this is one of our first projects was our the portrait project and I submitted it to a national competition for the the national Arts educ Education Association and out of I think they almost 2500 Works they selected 83 to acknowledge and put on a national exhibit and so Diana received that honor so I just wanted to is it a selfportrait

009yeah yes it is she took her like lit herself up and took her photo out yeah so I wanted to her here conat back for we're gonna try to frame this and hang it in school for a bit um and then I think's gonna be following us right come on up thank you also congratulations Diana's also an avid student we're really proud of her and all her accomplishments as well guys loud and BR come on um chairman chair chairwoman it sounds a little strange but chairman seems biased so um PR chairman Carlin um Anitra Jensen coordinator of the AVID program um this year in conjunction with Julie Nash and I have to tell you that it is one of the best new jobs I have ever taken on it is something that I am passionate

010about and a firm believer in to the point of going on an overnight trip with 33 high school kids this is an elementary person I'm intimidated by kids taller than me all are um but it was the most delightful experience taking them to my alma moer UT State University taking going with them to um three other colleges in the state of youah and helping them see what's available for them the doors that are going to be throwing thrown wide open um today we are doing a presentation about the avot program and I'd like to introduce Shauna Earl Shauna is one of the two High School avot teachers and she is g to take it from there thank you for letting us speak tonight about Abid it's it's really a pleasure and um these students are

011here by choice and I really appreciate their time and taking it out to tell you um what really matters to them um Avid makes up about 10% of our high school population and this year we will have 25 graduating seniors and of um if we look at the trends that Avid is having we're going to have a total of 54 graduates um in the last three years come out of Abid and of those 44 of them are first generation students and so um we really want to take the um time to recognize that these students are kind of Blazing their own trail by um the things that they're learning in Avid just uh making sure this works Andrea is okay sorry thank you um so avid's mission is to close achievement gaps and those can

012be learning those can be economic those can be many different things and it's to close that gap for those students that feel that they really want to go and progress in their education but they don't necessarily have all the support or tools um it's a systematic approach that goes school and districtwide um we are just using it as an elective at the high school and um we are really proud to see the results that are coming from that the next slide um shows that our students have this year Chosen and been accepted and that's actually wrong it's 133 schools that they've been accepted to of those 15 of them are community colleges but we want to really focus on the fact that they're good fit schools they fit them academically they fit them socially and

013then they fit them financially as well because we don't want to send them to a place where they can't afford to get their education um along with that our seniors are are at um 3,19 19,000 in scholarships offered from these schools include Hathaway and Hathaway will have an and Hathaway will have an additional 141,000 tacked onto that total um the seniors have a goal of reaching five million in scholarships to try and help them get to College almost every single student in the AVID program um is paying for their own college and so that's a big um um big drive for them to figure out how to pay for it and to apply for those scholarships um so th those are our colleges next um Scott had asked me to just let you guys know

014from the elementary school at Jes and then the Middle School how it progresses and at the elementary school we really look at organization and like folders and how to keep those things all separate and going at the middle school we also continue that and we do it along with reading strategies and we use a thing called scholar groups where they look deeper into reading and they question it within groups The Freshman level we look at executive functioning really deeply and we start what's called trfs and trfs are things that they have questions in their class so that they can progress into harder level classes it increases their rigor and they work on those things together um they read a book in freshman year and sophomore year and all throughout all four years they're writing essays

015as they go along that could be used for either college or for scholarships so they are building up that portfolio um sophomores start into the ACT prep and the score and then Juniors really get into the ACT T tutorials and we start a lot of financial education and financial literacy on up into the senior year where we help them with their common app score basa all those things and so just to give you a progression the next slide has our curriculum on it and I won't go too deep into that everybody always says what's Abid and we really focus on what students need and that is student agency we talk about their own path and advocating for themselves they need opportunity knowledge and then they need um rigorous academic preparedness and so that's what the

016students need and then it shows what we ased Educators should do to support that and um so this is just the Avid curriculum and we focus mainly on writing inquiry collaboration organization and reading um the next slide is so that I can introduce all of our students um Diana just chose to join us and we were glad she's being honored um for her art we're going to start with Katon Katon is a student um she's had many personal challenges and she has powered through those as a scholar and she has um been accepted to one of her favorite schools and she has also received um from those schools that she's been accepted to over $400,000 in scholarships offered and so I was just going to give Katon a chance to talk about Aid hello everyone

017my name is Ken Chamberlain you know me um I joined Avid my freshman year and I truly didn't realize how much I would need it we started with organization and I thought you know what I'm an organized student I don't really need to be here if this is what it's about and my counselor when I tried to get out of the class she told me no you're staying in the class I'm not letting you leave so I had to stay for the next 3 years but it was honestly one of the best things that happened to me um I wouldn't be here in front of you all today um doing great things academically and in my extracurriculars if it weren't for Avid um my freshman in sophomore year um I don't want to get emotional

018but I was grieving a mother who is still alive um all well trying to help my grandma afford rent and groceries and if that's not enough I still had to juggle school I had no idea how I was going to get to College um let alone afford College um trying to support myself and my grandmother and now because of avid and Miss Earl's help I get to go to college excited about having a higher education and while I don't still have school fully covered um sorry excuse me Avid has taught me financial literacy in a way that will keep me from drowning in debt for the next four years while I get a higher education um yes my story is unique but not rare Avid is full of kids who are working 10 times as

019hard just to get where everyone else is whether it's financially educationally or anything in between they have a setback with Avid this setback that would normally feel like a wall between them and a goal becomes a small step or two to their goals College um College flags are everywhere in our room in our Avid classroom we have them all up lined against the wall we really don't have room for more acceptances we're going to have to start stacking them um we like Miss Earl said have over three million um Scholarships in total not including ones from our local scholarship programs and I want to reiterate I recently joined a meeting at ton science schools with many teachers from the high school and other schools around the district and we talked about being in a classroom

020that provides students with a sufficient learning experience and one of the most important things to me was to have a teacher consistently for four years that you have the chance to build a relationship with that you can fully trust with your life in general a a teacher that can advocate for you to get where you need to be is very important and I think Avid provides that it is not only an honor to share my experience in Avid with you all today but a privilege that I genuinely believe more kids should have the opportunity to access um next up we're GNA have Louisa Louisa is a National Honor Society student and she's also the sister of an avid graduate and um her sister is at Westminster College right now U my name is Louisa s

021Mia and I'm currently a junior at Jackson H high school and I feel like Abid has been such an important part of my my life because it's just help me become comfortable in the place I'm learning and helped me gain the confidence to build a relationship with not only my peers but with my teachers even in topics where I'm not totally comfortable in learning or like seems a little too hard to understand I've gained the confidence to go in early ask for help or ask tutors from Avid and understand the topics I'm learning it has provided extra time and resources I can use to do well and the hard classes I'm participating it has pushed me to try to do rigorous classes and extra curriculums that seem pretty hard to juggle thank you um Louisa

022is a junior and our next one is a sophomore so we have a senior um two sophomores and a junior and German is one of our Rising athletes and Scholars and um he just wanted to talk a little bit about what he's getting out of this year too yeah um I'm German zaa uh I don't think I know many of you um but I think for me Avid has been more than a class and more than an elective been like a chance to build my future or build the stage for my future and I think the biggest thing I've gotten out of that it is just that discipline and that commitment not only academically but uh athletically I think I think um it helped me gain a lot of confidence and then uh obviously gave

023me that commitment that I think I really need if I want to continue playing sports in h in like college or uh higher levels but it doesn't just leave me with Athletics I think it doesn't stop there because uh like I said It prepares you both academically and extracurricularly and I think it's really helped me uh another thing I got or that I keep getting from Aid and I hope to keep getting is uh healthy ego uh which is something that uh does not involve arrogance or like I'm the best um just like whenever I need it it's there um also academically athletically at home and with my relationships um I want to build on what Katon said about having a teacher consistently for four years I think is very important and I think not

024only miss uh Earl but miss wetel too uh have done just an amazing job and I mean I'm only on my second year of high school so I can't see what's what's to come but I'm very excited for it and um it's uh like I said not only a class it's a place where you can come and um learn and uh get a lot of strategies and nurture them uh that you can use in your future um I wanted to thank you guys for this time to Showcase Avid we have not done this yet at least as far as I've been here and um also you need to know that a part of our AVID program is that these guys H um are required to have 54 volunteer hours before they graduate as a part

025of the AVID program so they're also giving back to their community in big ways and so I couldn't be more proud to have them standing up here with me and just they do the work so um I'm glad that they came to talk about aan so thank you for the time ad chair uh yes I wanted I want to acknowledge those students for their bravery and for the vulnerability of where they Place themselves to to stand up in public and share their stories congratulations that'll carry you far thank you all right that was that was great um District leaders report uh we'd be happy to answer any questions although it's hard to top what we've already shared today if there are any questions for the district leaders we're happy to answer them any questions all

026right all right if there aren't any questions we can move on to reports and items for discussion so uh we'll start with the student School Board member report hello everybody um so we really wanted to get into the cell phone curriculum plan uh progress which we touched on before we told you guys we we'd have more updates coming into this meeting uh we we went out and we reached out to computer teachers within the district gaining feedback on what I'm about to show you guys um and it's still a work in progress but we're really proud of where we are so far and um excited to continue going into it um so here's one of the ear early on stages of the curriculum where we understand that kids want some sort of gain something that

027gets them up and moving because having them sit down and listen to Home Room teacher for 30 minutes 40 minutes getting a curriculum plan on cell phones or they have it or not won't be the most engaging for them so we want to incorporate some sort of activities that'll get them up and moving um so that they're not just learning sitting down and listening um we also want to add other games into it however this is just the first um addition of the games and then moving on to the productivity uh aspect for the cell phone curriculum plan uh this idea is they go onto their Electronics they go into the settings and they see the screen time that they are having they really get they get pushed to see what they're actually uh doing

028on their cell phones uh on there we have them going into what apps they're using how many hours they're using it for um if they're really just using the messages app to call their parents and text them like they tell us or if they're really using it for social media games uh YouTube Netflix uh but we want them discussing in small groups we want them uh communicating with their peers about it and you want to push some sort of bravery and confidence that um that they can talk about it and it's not something that you're just supposed to keep behind closed doors but be open with it um and we hope that they share out to the class as well after discussing in the small groups um and then a really important topic the cyber

029bullying topic um which I'm sure we all have a pretty good understanding of what C Bing is but also give this uh part of the curriculum will give the students the time to think in their heads about um what is going on with them they're this especially this part we don't have them um expected to share out to the class it's a really uh it's a reflective time uh think about what have they done that could have been maybe they did a cyber bullying activity um or were they cyber bully themselves and really reflect on those experiences um and there is a point in time where they can share out if they're Brave we're hoping that maybe a teacher can share some sort of story really get the ice broken a little bit um so

030that the students feel comfortable sharing any experiences especially if they're not fun ones I mean no one really likes to talk about an experience where they weren't put in the best light but some sort of ice broken will be awesome uh and then the hope and expectation is that some may one kid will share after the teacher and then another and another um and the a conversation get can get started about it and change can start to happen uh but we want to utilize multiple multiple forms of communication whether it's in their heads talking to a class in a small group during a game uh really trying and hit all the different bases of a curriculum plan and then lastly we have a pledge that we want them and it's it's it's a symbolic thing

031um The Pledge it's the idea that they'll they'll understand what they're doing on their cell phones or their technology their their SmartWatches or computers um and um an idea that we have with the pledge is after they they say this there's some sort of banner that they can write saying like I signed the pledge uh regarding cell phones and technology then that can be put up in the computer classrooms or it can be put up um in some sort of Home Room so everyone can try and keep each other accountable and see how everyone is doing it because I believe it was trusty Abrams that brought up if one person is willing to put down their phone it won't change mini but if a whole room will do it people feel more comfortable and so

032if they see their friends uh putting their phones down and signing this pledge um The Hope is that more will follow um yeah and then here's the table of contents that we have we go over communication responsibility productivity uh cyber bullying safety social media um and then go over the pledge um yeah awesome all right um and I'm working on the infographics um so I've been working on parent and student infographics so that way both both um people of the household both groups of the household kind of have access to that and they can hold each other accountable um to make these infographics I've gone to websites and resources that share the research that has already been done regarding cell phones um and in order to make the infographics accessible to the parents and the

033kids whose first language is Spanish I have reached out to Mrs Lopez at the high school to help me translate these accurately and she actually did finish them today I just wasn't able to get them printed out for you all um our next lunch focus group meeting is after spring break and I also plan to make a infographic regarding um healthy nutritional choices for parents and kids as well um I've sent the whole lunch focus group emails um with some responses back so I started working on those um a couple weeks ago and I'll run it by the focus group at our next meeting um the next step is to get the infographics out to students and parents um so I'll begin to contact principals and counselors at all of the schools ensuring that both

034parties have access to them and just so you guys can take a look at the infographics that I created um they kind of tell parents and students whether or not they have a social media addiction how much time time they spend on their phone and how much time is being wasted on their phone and I and kind of how fix that problem of wasting their life away on a screen Doom scrolling Doom scrolling it's I got asked a question about that already today it's basically when you um are on your pH phone for hours and hours just endless scrolling um when you could be doing something productive with your time that's Doom scrolling yes TR I I have a bizarre question just because my mind thinks this way yeah is there a way to have

035that pledge pop up on the phone after 30 minutes of screen time or is there a way to do that I'm sure there's an app out there somewhere I know there's there's plenty of apps that r screen times whether it's in the settings of iPhones U although there's another app that's called opal I believe that I see some people in are high school using but there's got to be something out there that we can research and find Colin just tell my daughter okay all right that's all no I just and maybe you want to have a challenge in the classroom like check at the end of the week who's got the yeah the fewest hours if I don't know just I love this whole thing great job um and then really quickly I wanted to

036speak on some of the teacher feedback that I've been receiving so I've reached out to every um computer teacher as well as library teacher in the district um I've received um responses from probably about half of them so far um many of them are very excited about this project and are really excited to start incorporating it into their own curriculums once it is is um once we complete it um many say that they're going to start um teaching it to their fifth graders before they head into Middle School they feel like that will be the most effective way to um hopefully give them the tools before entering obviously a brand new school and um environment um we have received feedback on some word choice one word being like not every Elementary student will understand the

037word consensus so making things making sure everything um makes sense to very young Elementary School students and then um some teachers are already have their own um curriculum plan curriculum plan that they're using and they have sent me um a bunch of different websites and things that they are going they are basing their lessons off of that we can hopefully um kind of add a little more and look at but they're not necessarily thinking they're going to use our curriculum but hopefully we finish it and add a little bit more um they will start using it so any more questions or comments I Madam chair um fabulous work thank you I'm real that you've created this content um I'm curious for superintendent Chapman and for the board is this information that we um should help

038send out via weekly newsletters um other communication methods to parents um I don't know what the processes that doesn't need to be approved or what it's like hey we're in it and let's support what the student board is is done and um get the word out there we um um trusty Abrams um we have absolute um ways of getting this information out to our families and the students when they when the student school board members were presenting um the students were so enthusiastic about it and the table of contents that you all put together and it's just it's so professionally done I think this is really impressive and um it'll be exciting to send it out and I think other districts are going to be like wait students did this or students yes it's really

039well done so thank you yes I agree thank you very much for sharing this and working so hard on this it's really it's dri thank you thank you all right legislative update trusty Scarlet Madame chairman the sweetest words we could have heard weed I it was it last week or the week before the session is adjourned um so recalibration they did pass the bill to start the recalibration process this is required every five years to recalibrate the um school funding model uh for the first time committe is equally equally split between five senators and five Representatives um the good news is um representative Mike Yin who represents the town of Jackson is one of the representatives that has been appointed to that committee um it's it's going to be um I would say the majority

040of the committee is intent on cutting spending on schools so um keeping an eye out and keeping the letters going especially when it comes to the regional cost um the RCA Regional cost adjustment was going to be important um the first meeting I learned is begins April 23rd in the lovely town of Cheyenne so April 23rd and 24th will be the initial meetings of the recalibration and then continue on every month uh through the summer um let's see other big ones Senate file 72 the summer vacation preservation act um that died in the house um based on eroding Loc they don't want tood local control so um so we we can we can go back to having five and six month debates about our calendar starting soon uh um sen file 162 taking the teacher

041salaries and benefits out of the block rant that also died um we are now able to increase our cash reserves from 15% to 30% but how we manage our books I don't think we'll ever get to 30% cash reserves of our total budget um primarily just because that's what it is and we're actually generating so much revenue locally that should be okay House Bill the um Steamboat whatever it's the voucher Bill $7,000 it it did pass um and they did add a means test where for prek so um but for for K through 12 is $7,000 voucher per student if you decide you want to enroll your student in home school or in a private school outside the um there's no accountability and with zero accountability um s file 98 the partisan School bill um

042Mike Yen and Andrew Byron we successfully planning planning some seeds on that one and our school boards will remain independent of partisan politics thanks really thanks to Mike Y and Andrew Byron they did a great job there um and then as you mentioned at the very start house 172 uh did pass and we will continue to work on that and have have more to say in the coming months so uh I to my summation of the uh I guess I should compliment um superintendent Chapman um who rallied and went down to Cheyenne on the last minute to testy on Hospital 172 on behalf of the teachers and students of ton County and all of us representing our views she did an excellent job um I was there I also testified that this is an unfunded

043mandate and there will be some additional budgetary things we'll have to discuss but we'll do that going forward um and then to sum things up the 68th legislative motto I came up with two motos for them uh the first motto that I came up with is we have solutions for yet to do yet to be determined problems and the uh second motto was we fight Federal overreach by stripping our local communities of their control so with that any questions any questions for truste scar they down there I was going to say thank you for your dedication me it was you you spent a lot of time um paying attention and thinking and um we appreciate it my pleasure I enjoyed it yes um Madame chair trusty Scarlet I have not really understood um the system

044for um Charter Schools when the charter school gets going it will be funded by uh State funding and then this $7,000 Steamboat scholarship is in addition to that no the public charter schools $7,000 gonna go towards that is what I do not believe the $7,000 voucher can go to a charger school it is only for a private institution or or home school home school curriculum um the public youve brought up a good point Madam J um the did you have to remind me there was last year they passed they could increase the number of public Charters from three to four and then did they lift the cap off of it they did they did not so that that one stayed but was interesting uh public Charters unlike Public Schools they have an unelected board that

045controls State dollars with no accountability and so there's no Earth TR transparency and so they just give them the money and they're also finding that these schools are not having troubles getting students surprise um but I imagine in the next year they will lift the cap off and anybody any Community didn't go through that new Charter authorising system am I missing anything there Dr Chapman and then the um addition to that scholarship was the seven ,000 for Early Childhood support for families that make less than 250% which I think $80,000 for a family of four actually probably a good thing oh and then they cut mental health F yeah sounds crazy somebody had to say it uh anything else do you want a quick update on the U Mercer study yes um we met trusty

046BOS trusty Doran and I joined Dr Chapman and others all afternoon with the school facilities not commission the school construction Department State construction Department school facilities Division and um we've all received a copy of that initial Mercer um with the very simple solutions that we He pointed out very eloquently um they realize quickly that some of their data was wrong and they are working to address some of that and we will reconvene at 8: a.m tomorrow morning um I'm not sure if trusty Bosch or trusty dordan have any other summaries no it's I just don't know what they've been doing and I'm sorry I just I mean the numbers were I'm hoping that they will work with us to at least give us their formula so that we can present information on projected students so

047that the people that weren't there board members that weren't there can understand is is that they didn't get the they didn't get our accounts right just for historically in one big case they were off by 100 students and then their projections are that our pop student population is going to basically drop off uh to the tune of one one year or one grouping of five years to tune of 28% that's going to drop off and so when asked about what the formula was I don't want to you know the guy that was there didn't know he's going to get us information and then communicate with us so that we can help them understand how we work here how things are operating here and hopefully we can get some numbers from the county to help us

048with that so that we can present that information so they can actually have a better projection than you know the state's dropping off kids so we're going to drop off kids here so that was basically meaning enrollment is going to drop so um we'll see but I will say the promising part was Bill you were there Reed was that when we looked at the actual summaries they acknowledged a lot of the things we've been saying specifically that our assembly sity the gym is so inadequate it's insane and I mean they've recognized I mean how many different things did they go through and say we don't have enough uh what was it Art Space we don't have I mean the locker rooms are insufficient I mean it was they're acknowledging all this the question will be

049is how long do we have to wait till they decide to actually do something so we'll see maybe we can get those answers tomorrow in report time thank you any other questions for the El to share on that no you all did a great job dord no all I want to say is they were missing only two things one how many students we've had over the last few years and how many students we have now and two how how many new houses we're going to be building very soon and we'll have lot more students they're only missing those two things but for that Mrs Lincoln how was the [Laughter] play oh my God all right well thank you all for attending um this go management committee report uh M chman I'm gonna turn it straight

050over to Kristen and she brought in a aition which I think is good for us I did uh uh so we did have uh our fiscal management committee and we talked briefly about the original um it's the pre-renewal packet that is attached to the board meeting um and since then we've also had our first steering committee meeting and we received our updated renewal numbers um from siga yesterday morning so yesterday morning we had a three-hour meeting with our Consultants to go through our renewal from siga and then we had our first steering committee meeting last night um Andre if you'll go to the new presentation that I sent so each of you have a copy of this I apologize to everyone in the room this was just generated today based on some feedback from the

051steering committee and then follow conversations I've had um overall I think we received some good feedback from the steering committee and uh that's where a lot of this information is going to come from just illust rating what the process is what the timeline is why it always feels so Rush this time of year and uh really where we're headed as a long-term goal so the first piece of it is you know we have to wait really until the legisl until the legislative session is over because we're never quite sure what our funding is going to look like for the next year until they've concluded so in the house budget bill this year they passed um these e which are the external cost adjustments uh and in in our budget so this this builds into the

052block rant but in our budget we pay above model salary you all know that uh and so when we start looking at what does our budget look like for next year our foundation guarantee next year um is was intended to be $55 million if nothing had changed in the budget if we just went with what the model said last year would have been 55 million with the ECA it adds about $3.2 million to our budget so then when we start doing that analysis and looking at what those numbers look like we go okay what's going to change for next year and there's some organic things that change there's um some contracts that need to be renewed that are going to have some inflationary increases one of which you have on the agenda later to approve

053um that's our cleaning contract uh it's unrealistic for us to expect our contractors to always Renew at the exact same rates that we had before especially when we know we're facing very high rates of um inflation so you see the ECA I'm sure it'll come up here in a second you all can look at that front page um and then some of the this is you know this is how we start to budget for next year um you'll see a step increase there the tech refresh estimate um a health insurance estimate now that health insurance number 7 one is based on the information that we received yesterday morning um and I'll go more in depth into that in a minute um the cleaning contract increase for next year uh other compensation package adjustments that we'll

054be bringing before the board that we've already talked about in finance committee um that you'll have that draft compensation package in April as well as the health insurance approval in April so we build the compensation package based on what we're proposing for health insurance and then that draft is posted then in April um approve health insurance May approve the compensation package is usually how that calendar goes uh and then additional teacher positions we have every year we look at Staffing and we look where we're underst staffed over the last couple of years we've put a lot of those resources into our K5 programs to make sure that um those buildings are fully staffed and when I say fully staffed I think it's near impossible to have a fully staffed School District um the resources are

055very slim and it would be amazing if we could actually get to what would be considered a fully staffed model but when um when we look at the numbers and we start to look at the comparability which is an analysis we have to do for all of our federal funding um one of the places we need to focus those resources on this year is our High School uh and we we haven't allocated a lot of new teacher positions at the high school in recent years so that's where most of those resources are going and and the administrative team is really looking at what those needs are and the other big piece of that is what can we get right we could we could need three Math teachers um but we can post that and get

056no math no math um applicants so a lot of times what this is is it's like okay well we could use this we could use this we could use this let's post those positions and let's see what applicants we can get um so that then we can then evaluate and say okay this is how we can start building the schedule and filling those classes for next year so that's that's a short little intro into how this process begins once the session is is completed uh on the next page uh one of the questions that came out of the steering committee last night um was what does this look like and why is that drop Deb approval rate April 16th when we just got our ual numbers yesterday and I've highlighted the pieces of that what

057that budget calendar looks like um that pertain to that insurance renewal we just received the renewal yesterday morning we had our first steering committee meeting last night um as expected insurance is a very personal thing for most most staff and so some of those meetings get a bit heated and um a bit emotional uh but overall I would say we got we got some really good feedback in the meeting so the April 16th you can see um what we're doing right now the 12th through the 21st we're doing the budget analysis that I just showed you that that goes deeper than what I just showed you but we start talking really in- depth about what those teaching positions look like those a lot of those positions have already been posted I know people are starting

058to look through those applicants um what student supplies are we going to change for next year as you all know we have a a pending Tech refresh that we're trying to make sure that we can afford to move forward with um potentially for approval in April we'll see uh we have those operational contract increases and then what other operational needs might might we need um you know we were very short staffed in some of our operational Department's facilities Transportation custodial um even if we have funds available sometimes we still can't staff those departments so those are all the analysis that we're doing now the spring break that we have often Falls in a really tough time and I think the fact that we have a twoe spring break that falls right in this time period

059does make this process feel a bit more rushed I'm not proposing we change that or any of those things no calendar nope um I'm just that that is part of what makes the process feel rushed because we're rushing to try and have some of those steering committee meetings get as much staff feedback as we possibly can and then we have a two- week spring break and we come back and we almost have to get that proposal for the board immediately um so then that that proposal needs to be submitted to the board agenda by the 9th that only gives us three days after spring break to really get all of that together so our second steering committee meeting is on that Monday that we get back from Spring Break um and then we have finance

060committee on the next day to talk about some of that the proposal will then be submitted to the board agenda for a vote on the 16th then from the 16th or 17th to the 25th there is a portal that we have to build for our enrollment process and we we have open enrollment every year and one of the reasons we have open enrollment every year and we force every employee to reelect even if there are no changes is because there's an ACA rule that says that you have to prove as an employer that you have offered health insurance to every single employee so you either have to have an election or a denial documented to submit to Aca so that's where this portal comes in and is very important we have to have every employee

061go through this portal and so to know that we may have some minor changes we may have some major changes it takes time to build out that portal um that happens from the 17th to the 25th then we have testing of that portal from the 26th to the 30th to make sure that when employees log into that it's very clear they don't accidentally elect things that they don't want to have or that they do elect the things that they want to have um it's it's a it's a process then May 1st open enrollment begins we like to have open enrollment open for three to four weeks um this year given this schedule we'll have it open for three weeks closing May 2 23rd then from the 23rd to June 6th we go through all of

062those elections and records and make sure that everything looks like it's supposed to reach out to employees and say are you sure you wanted to do this if you didn't let's make sure it's right um there's a lot of those conversations that happened during that period and then in June this is something that a lot of people might not know we pay out our most of our teacher contracts through August but what that means from a payroll standpoint is that everything in June for the June 25th payroll hosts for this compensation package year everything that posts for the July payroll and the August payroll that we Post in June is for next year's compensation package and that's why we need that compensation package approval in May so we can make sure we have those changes

063for those two payrolls that we Post in June um and that's that's really looking like you're processing payroll three times in one month which is why it's so important to get all of these pieces done in a timely manner so that Christine our perr person can really post those and have them effectively done um for the year end uh so I hope that that helps in terms of walking through why this process is where it is why these dates are in place and why it's so important to to stick to this calendar okay now we'll move on to health insurance for this year or this coming year um this is an analysis so uh one of the things I like to do this time of year is go through I only pull the most recent

064months Insurance totals and the reason that I do that is because what we had in September could look very different than what we have today so today is the most February is the most recent elections that we've had for insurance so that's going to be a take February and then I multiply that out by 12 um so that I can get an accurate representation of what we have today so our totals today you can see we have medical dental vision and our um the HSA here is only the $2,100 onetime payment that we granted last year that doesn't include the $34 in matching that we do on a monthly P basis for those that elect it um but one of the the two pieces for dental Envision these are pieces that we don't talk about

065a lot but these are fully paid dental Envision uh for all employees and their families and it's it's such a small part of this pie we don't usually talk a lot about that but I wanted to include it here because it's not just medical it's also dental vision and then obviously HSA so when I look at um what that looks like for this year um you know if we took February's total our total spent on insurance this year will be about 8 $8.2 million including that HSA contribution um this is going to come in lower than our budget number and I'll talk about that in a minute so with sigar increas is 20.2% I will tell you this started at 50.5% and the reason for that is because right now as of February our claims

066are $2 million more than our paid premiums we're outpacing our premiums by $2 million and I do anticipate that that's how we'll end the year I don't think it will get worse before the end of the year but I also don't think it will get better so when we start talking about what a renewal looks like um it's it's it's a tough year and I'll talk a little bit about why so go to the next slide uh I want to talk a little bit about how we're funded for health insurance so these are two separate pieces out of the model I put them here together because it's what makes the most sense will you go to the right a little bit on this so when the state looks at how we fund our health insurance

067they get to this composite thing right here so they take all of the um it's it's based on the state plan and then how many people are enrolled in each district in each category and they create this formula these are the the state plan contribution rates and then what they do is they get to this composite premium and that's how much they fund you for your health insurance for the district now you take that number and multiply it by your total model funded FTE our total model funded FTE are 369.50 employees in this District some of them are funded um in other areas this doesn't include our transportation department because it's it's calculated in a different way um but that's all we get so let's go down to the next slide so when we look

068at what our totals are this year what our anticipated cost next year is $9.4 million our total increase to our actual cost for next year is $1.3 million if we accepted this renewal um our total budget this year for health insurance was $8.7 Million we did realize some savings about half a million dollars in the year and part of that is when we go out and we budget for health insurance I'm budgeting on what our current population is what our current elections are so if there's fluctuations let's say one year we have 500 people that elected Family Insurance next year it's 250 that creates a big swing in what this number looks like and the only way that we can look at that is just what our actual data looks like over time we'll be

069able to project out and say this is what our average uh election is but until we find some stability within our plan we're we're going on what we have right now um so that means that our actual increase to our budget next year will be more about the $700,000 range and that's that number on that front page where I said 701 when we look at our total State funding for health insurance that composite premium times the total number of funded FTE gets us to six and a half million when you include your sped and your transportation which are reimbursable departments it adds about another 1.5 million in Insurance because those are calculated in a different way which gets us to Total State funding of about $8 million so when we look at what that looks

070like for next year um you know we're we're significantly higher than what we're funded for for health insurance uh that being said we've budgeted this year 8.7 million the 700,000 that's where we start to look at okay what does our total overall budget look like and can we afford the increase still keeping premiums at no cost to employees next slide uh I wanted to show you what the anticipated rates this um the first column is the the plan that we offer now and those are our renewal rates for just the high deductible plan when we spoke at the steering committee last night these are still lower than a lot of our other school districts um that are with wept or not with wept and I believe that the process that we're going through is working

071to keep our rates low um that being said we have a lot of staff that give feedback that they'd like to have the option the the high deductible and the traditional plan so we don't yet have a bid for a traditional plan I've gone out and asked for that one of the changes that will happen so when we go back to signon we say we want a plan option that has a high deductible plan and a traditional plan they don't know what mix is going to elect so they're going to build in an additional 2% in those High deductible rates which I haven't done here but they will do that so if we were to offer a traditional plan this is what those those employee rates would look like over on the far right still

072no cost High deductible plan for employees the traditional plan rates would be about $500 for a single about $1,000 for a family for a traditional plan over the course of 12 months you see that's what their annual premium would be we've had a lot of conversations about this so for those those employees that would prefer to have a traditional plan this is a fixed cost this is money out the door if you elect this plan if you're on a high deductible plan and you take that money that you would spend in those premiums and you set it aside and you put it into a savings account or HSA account once you you know if you hit your maximum that is money they get to keep if they don't have any events if they never use

073their insurance the high deductible plan costs them nothing if they never use their insurance the traditional plan costs a family $111,000 a year this does not make sense go to the next slide so when we actually start looking at okay well what if somebody does max out their plan what if they do have a traumatic year when we start going through this um the total out of pocket if you have a a plan for one person so if one person maxes out their total plan on an HSA plan the out of pocket is $6,500 but the district last year contributed $2,100 to their HSA so their total out of pockets actually $4,400 if you're on a traditional plan your total out of pocket for one person to max out is $1,500 on the traditional Plan

074Plus your premiums so when you look at a single person with one incident their total out of pocket on a high deductible plan is $4,400 their total out of pocket on a on a traditional plan is $7,800 same thing let's go to Major incidents if you go two major incidents for a single in family your total out of pocket is 10,900 two major incidents with a traditional pain those premiums is $116,000 there isn't a case in this example where the traditional plan benefits financially an employee if they are dead set on having the traditional plan I would recommend taking those premiums that they want to pay setting them aside in their AGA account which that's maxed out put it in a savings account they will get to keep that money that is fixed cost they'll

075never get back okay now we'll get into a little bit of so in in these scenarios the traditional plan costs the employee more money it also costs the district more money and one of the reasons it costs a district more money is because the traditional plan drives up our costs so if you have a high deductible plan and you're a single person and you max out your plan you're paying $ 4400 if you have a traditional plan you Max it out your total out of pockets 1,500 plus let's say you pay $300 $333 a month that's $5,000 so your total out of pocket on the traditional plan is 6,500 so you're already out of the gate worse off than if you have the high deductible plan here's the piece that comes whipping around once we

076offer these plans this is how the traditional plan performed for a full year it's actually not FY 24 it's 2024 and this is the day that we have obviously the beginning of the year our claims are lower than our budgeted claims our actual claims are lower but then you can see as we get through to the end of the year that number skyrockets the yellow number is our actual claims um go ahead and go to the next one so when we were offering both plans this is the difference in the data this is a full year of the high deductible $5,000 plan when we were offering a tradition plan at the same time now it's a bit skewed because the high deductible plan when offered in combination with a traditional plan um your high users

077of health insurance are going to choose the traditional plan so that automatically is going to cost you more that's going to drive up the claims and then the people that are low users of of health insurance are going to opt for that a high deductible plan and that's not going to drive up our costs so the next slide is our data so far in this year once we've made the change you can see in July of last year we were still paying run out claims from having that traditional plan um in July and August and then what we start to see is we start to see a little bit of stabilization as we get to the end of the year and to the beginning of this year um where that high deductible plan is really

078starting to stabilize and this is our sweet spot this is where we want to be this is where we can start to plan for our Five-Year Plan and the more we can stick and stve the course with a high deductible plan the better off longterm the district is going to I believe that to be true there are many employees that want the two options and that that is your decision it's not a decision I would like to make um but when I run these numbers it doesn't make Financial sense for the district for the employees to offer the traditional plan we're still going to have some meetings um we have we we still have some bids we're going to be getting bids from um hopefully United Healthcare Etna and then we're going to get a

079second uh renewal from siga with the offering of the traditional plan and the high deductible plan um and we'll bring those to the steering committee we have another meeting next week on Wednesday and then we have one on the 7th when we return we'll go to finance committee and then we'll be bringing the final proposal to the board for the April 16th meeting um I wanted to share a lot of this information because these were things that people have been asking about this is this is um questions that came up last night have come up today uh and we want to make sure we're communicating as much as possible to as many people as we can so tomorrow morning we'll likely send this um this presentation out it's hard to send this information without the

080dialogue because a lot of people don't understand it um but but we're we're doing our best to try and communicate any questions questions BOS thank you madam chair um so I uh was at the finance committee meeting up and then I attended the uh Zoom uh call last night or whatever it was teams whatever on for two hours and I want to thank Kristen I want to thank all the teachers that participated in that call I took I I think I counted 12 pages of notes um on what was being said and um I also want to point out that our consultant was on the call last night and um I I want to let the board know I was there just as to listen but I also did challenge him to provide us with

081information uh regarding who he has been contacting and getting vids from and things of that nature some of the concerns that I heard was that we were only dealing um with Sigma and that Signa was an insurance company that people didn't like um the interesting information didn't know this is that Kristen provided information that 95% of our claims have been dealt with by providers here locally so in netw inetwork yeah thank you so but there are there are some gaps we are identifying which came up I think in two Finance committees which is like Dermatology and we're trying to address those things um the thing I that I found that I wanted the board to be able to hear and Stephan I don't know if you were a part of this but one of the

082most interesting things was is that several years ago the board members that have been here longer than me you guys made a decision to step aside because we don't have our data we were being held I'm not going to use the word legal word but we were be that data was being prevented from us seeing it so that prevents us from going out getting that health insurance and the is issue now is that we were told 12 months and we should be able to bid out then it was 18 then it's two years then it's three years and what I've said to Kristen and Kristen was great in working with Hub and that is to say I think we should be asking and I don't know if this is what we need to vote on

083but probably not tonight but as we should be getting some sort of presentation and plan on where this where where can we get to a point where we can adequately go out and start to look at different options which not just includes other insurance companies but self-funded Kristen got some information on the state fund but I'm guessing that a lot of this is because we we we we nobody knows what we look like yet nobody has a real clue and siga I have to point out is according to this lost $2 million between premiums and claims that have been paid now I'm not crying about that c personally but I want to point out that they they you know they' they've gone out to get our business here and have done this and they're going

084to make adjustments to this I I it's gonna happen um because last time I checked they don't lose money um but I think that challenging uh Hub to go out and shop this and do the best they can but we have to what I didn't understand let's put it for me is that if we go to a combined give options with is the low traditional plan and the high deductible plan the companies will base it off of our information on the low deductible plan they will look at the risk associated with that thinking that everybody is going to do that and that's where the premiums and that's where the bid will come from now I don't understand that I don't think that's fair but I do I do that's what's going to happen so if

085what I would say to the the rest of you is is is and Kristen's done a good job please fill in the blanks here but is when we're looking at this offering the low deductible plan will drive up what the costs are to us now on the other side of that we have to consider is there are teachers that want that plan because no matter what the numbers are and Kristen and I had this discussion after the steering committee a little bit and that is there are people that don't that are risk averse they would rather pay that premium take it out no matter what the numers say and just say hey I feel secure because I'm a high risk I have claims that I'm going to make and make them on a regular basis

086and I understand that I really do I think the hard part is going to be for us is to make that decision on this year right now because the decision is only a renewal right now next year it should be more than minut and that's what I'd like to hear from Hub at some point in time as the Consultants when is it exactly that we can go out and start talking to the actuaries and people that can tell us what it's going to cost to sell fund or more importantly why we can't shop this to more people and one thing that I didn't understand until Kristen helped me out was this blue Cross Blue Shield has just shot us down because of their relationship with web they just said we're not even going to bid

087we're not even gonna we're not even gonna get into this party with you at all that question is is how long is that going to last what's going to happen um I I think that was let me just the the bids and then the other thing I think this board we have priston is talked about the relationship with Hub and I do believe that you know they're based on what she said they're they're giving us information good information but I think this board at some point in time is going to have to sit down and decide okay what what do we want and are they providing that and that's a decision that I get Kristen's input and the rest of your input but we have to sit back and say you know let's you guys

088have been here longer so you know more about who you've dealt with but what I would say is is um pushing them to go out and work hard to get bids and get more information for us is the one thing I took away from yesterday's meeting which is a big concern voiced by a lot of the teachers well and I do think um to just throw out there you know we have been working with Hub and we know that they've gone out and done a lot of this work um the letter from Blue Cross bu Shield is posted for the board in exact content on this meeting where you can see what that chain looks like and what they came back and they said they said maybe next year um they do seem to be

089we've asked for what is the agreement with webt and we see the agreement with webt and they refuse to provide us with any information or details to what that agreement is um and it is what it is we we we can't do that that doesn't mean we're going to stop trying to pursue that um but I think you know the the long-term goal the stability goal is to right now we're on a level funded plan with wept we were on a fully insured plan um that's one of the reasons we couldn't get our data is because we were on a fully insured plan if we went with siga today and went with a fully insured plan they wouldn't give us our data either because that's what fully insured plans do they keep that close to

090the chest because they don't want you to leave um so if if if the board and if the time comes to get to that point where we can go to a self-insured plan um it's it's a possibility where we're at right now is really secure for the district if we were in a self-insured plan this year we would owe $2 million on June 30th and so we're not ready to make that change yet the the benefit of going from a level funded plan where we are right now to what's called an unbundled plan which would be self-insured is that we can start to bid out the little pieces of that so we have an aggregate stoploss um provision built into our insurance there's an individual stop loss right now that whole package is being serviced

091by Sigma once you start unbundling and you go out in you're a self-insured plan you can bid out all of those individual pieces and you start saving on the fixed cost which is in the GP and that's where you can start to save money insurance is always going to cost money you're always trying to stabilize your claims and that's our goal right now to stabilize our claims get into a comfortable spot so that then we can start to explore some of those other options to reduce our fixed costs and we'll get there we won't get there if we continue to make changes um I do think we're in a good spot I think we offer a very robust compensation plan plan and benefits plan um it's it's tough because employees want more and I wish

092we could offer more but you know offering family coverage is huge Y and we do that um so you know last year I voted against health insurance plan based on this traditional thing still being in it and I I really do think and I think the evidence um maybe from even before you were with us Kristen was that people become better health care um consumers if they have skin in the game and that's that HSA uh and the high deductible I mean it just is yeah and you know we had some really great years where we had no increases um and uh that was all you had there wasn't any traditional and then we started down the road of having various options yeah so you know if we had all the money in the world

093I suppose that that would be something to do but if we're really just trying to maintain family coverage and you know full payment of our employees coverage then I just think there's you know we got to try to keep it down where we can and that results in less choice and sorry but um it's still a great plan um and um you know but people do tend to look at you know going to the doctor when maybe they don't actually need it and spending their own HSA and not liking that idea of doing that when they could take a vacation on it you know I I think it's not rocket science so sorry madam chair just Kristen can you talk because you didn't mention the the idea of contributing making a matching contribution to the

094HSA and what that would cost because we talked about that Finance Andrea will you go to the front page so one of the or it's the let's see third page Yep this one so as you all know we had that million dollars in the um in the insurance account last year that we earmarked for HSA contributions because we found savings um with with the demographics of how our group changed this year we we didn't have to use all of that money um but with being able to budget and and looking at some of those numbers on the front page we could still continue I just realized that spell check changed that it always does that but um we would still be able to do um a contribution the the one-time contribution from last year didn't

095work it was 21 $2,100 it was a onetime thing it didn't work for lots of reasons uh what we would like to propose and will be coming in April with the insurance proposal if if this is the way we go is a matching if we do 175 matching every month that equates to $2,100 for every employee a year but it also encourages them to match so then they end up with $4,200 if they only do the match in their account at the end of the year um and I do think that that does exactly what trusty me said is it starts to create good stewards of their health insurance and good stewards of their health one of the other things that came forward in our renewal conversations is that Teton County is above the norm

096when talking about our Wellness initiatives um siga as part of our deal with them they gave us $10,000 towards Wellness initiatives last year then this proposal they're actually increasing that to 12,00 500 um and they'll continue to increase that as long as we use that money and we've used every dime of it um for as long as we've had it and the statistics show that our Wellness is above the national Norms so our annual um Wellness screenings you know I think it was like 58% of our staff or participants are are using those obviously dependents are a pretty high number uh the lowest number with spouses it was the only one that fell below the national Norm um but it does create good stewards and I think I think we're showing that we're starting to

097see that with our data and I understand where trusty Bosch is coming from where he wants to see this presentation and um I have actually asked Sean who was on the call last night to come and give part of this presentation at fincom before the next meeting uh just just so that you can see that they are doing the work they have done the work we have the metrics we're getting that Actuarial analysis and one of the things that we're working on and we went to Hub in December we said we want a five-year plan and that came from another consultant that we had been talking to in December they came and they did or they sent us a big huge presentation uh with all of this amazing information in it it wasn't for our

098district it was something they did done for someone else trying to buy our business but we took at to HUB and we said we want this we want this fiveyear plan and and going through all of these these pieces is we will have that Actuarial analysis that shows us okay in two years we may be able to go to a self-funded plan we might be able to do that next year um it just we just have to give it the time to to develop and and work its way to where we need it to be so that then we can have exactly what we planned on having when we we left wept was more control more say in customizing what works for the district more question um what is Hub is Hub an independent are

099they a consultant for us or are they a broker they're a broker they're our broker of record they do not make commissions on our insurance policy that was a question from asked we pay a flat rate it's a per employee um per month price um why didn't the 2100 HSA work uh there was some issues with the way that you have to contribute to a 2100 so just the actual operational piece of how to do that didn't work because it was in the compensation package any new employee that started in December got $22,100 any employee that was here in July and quit in DEC number got the $2,100 so there's a couple of pieces that we just want to F tune with that a little bit and I think it was great because we were

100switching to only the high deductible plan and a lot of people came back and said that that really helped them when we made the switch but now everybody's been on a high deductible plan so now if we move to a monthly contribution it makes more sense and then if we do a matching then that that actually also helped to max out their HSA accounts um my third question was what are the you mentioned other compensation package adjustments uh so some of the things that we've talked about in finance committee are an increase to Transportation wages um oh activities Matrix we're revising the activities Matrix a little bit to simplify that uh for coaches so we can recruit coaches better um and I guess my last question was just I'm just wondering I guess it's more

101of a question to the board it would be interesting I know we got to make some f decisions next month and and I'm sure we'll do a good job I'm just wondering if we should have a meeting in August when we're all calmed down budget's over because I feel like we had the same conversation every year at this time and and we concentrate on the changes we have to make but we don't have the bigger discussions um and I'm just wondering if August when there's really not a lot going on that might be a better time maybe even a special meeting where we just spend the afternoon discussing health insurance in particularly you know I think trusty Bosch said it well part of our reason for breaking away from wept was so we get our

102claims data and then we could try this for a few years and then take our claims data and see if we could be self-insured um I totally agree with you this would have been an awful year if we had done that um so I I'm not real keen on heading towards Self insurance but it would be nice to at least have a longer conversation where we're just talking more generally and we're not under the gun a little bit um you know I I I'm familiar because I work for the county and the county is self-insured and we don't use a broker we have a um Insurance Consultant and they they just it's it's a different type of deal and they just provide and they come on a routine basis they come in front of the

103Commissioners giving information throughout the year um and then we have a third party administrator that actually administers it would just be interesting to sit down in August and have that conversation how does Self insurance work and so that we're all familiar with it and have a a longer conversation or have a longer conversation about breaking away from a broker moving toward an Insurance Consultant um and and and sometimes I feel like that you actually get a little better information anyway those were my my four thoughts um and I think I think those are all good questions and I absolutely agree it's definitely some conversations Heather and I have had I had a long conversation with Sean our broker um after the meeting yesterday I asked him to listen in just to have a different perspective

104like I want you to hear what our staff are saying in these meetings so that you're better prepared to help service us um and he had some great ideas one of which was why don't we have more regular meetings he you know and he's like I'm happy to present I'm happy to come forward and and he actually has taught me a ton about this whole process but also I I I think we need to have those conversations and I think the fall is a great time to have that because we're going to have two full years of data um by July 1st I mean probably not on July 1st but we'll be able to really look back and start having some of those conversations that doesn't mean that next year we have to go out

105to bid for self-insured plans but I think we can start creating the road map of what that looks like and having those conversations early doing this level of Education in the fall so that then when we get to this time of the year next year it's not trying to educate at the same time that it's trying to make a decision and I completely agree with that anybody else okay one more thing um the technology so we are looking at a technology refresh a four-year refresh starting um this year wanted to we had reviewed this a little bit and the way that the the um supplementary budget bill was headed in the legislative session wasn't going to afford US enough money in our foundation guarantee to move forward with us this year but now that that

106bill has passed um we're looking at option two and this is also on the front page of that that initial um presentation that I did as the technology refresh it's a contract of $654,000 that $700,000 number um is the buyback of our current devices and it may be a bit High it may be a bit low we won't know until those devices go out they're graded and then we get that reimbursement so this will likely be on next month's agenda for approval I just wanted to make sure you guys have seen this before I surprise you with it next month any questions May okay thanks thank you all right Educational Service committee all right Madam chair trustees um our goal this evening is to review our our meeting summary that we had at es committee

107um we went over uh quite a few very important topics with more topics on the horizon a few of those to topics are some of the K12 literacy improvements that we're currently implementing um we also went through some tier 2 uh systems that we're using in all of our schools um including Middle School Elementary and high school um also a summary of the letters training around professional development literacy took place in es committee um we addressed uh the nape test which is a national test as well and then um Stephen did an excellent job of going through some data on the interm Y toop tests that focus on Ela in grades 3 through five and 6 through eight um these are detailed topics I think maybe the best approach is to sort of open it

108up maybe um Kate or Keith or uh trusty Doran if you have any comments or additional suggestions we would happy to answer any questions Tristy cry I'll just add to it they they didn't mention it but we actually sat around with manipulatives and um we sort of did what what the kids do um and learned how to um actually sure not sure what I learned but there was a because the only reason I said me is these really fancy names for things that seem very simple to me um phon name graphy mapping yes that was what what we were doing yes SE segmenting and blending and yes that's what we were doing I just couldn't remember it was it was a long um which was all very interesting we talked a lot about uh the

109uh difficulties we're having with Ela between fifth sixth grade we talked about wonders and potentially getting some resources to the sixth grade um and that was a good idea I thought um and and trying to put that emphasis on the sixth grade and so that was a good conversation um that's that was the primary thing I took away from it was the emphasis we're going to put on the sixth grade and trying to get them resources not supposed to say there were curriculum anymore I has drilled that into me it's say the word resources um and so getting resources to the sixth grade te and the alignment between Fifth and six like getting those teams together to right look at the standards and just have some GBC work time this summer anyway that's a lot

110of what we talk about trusty me got to do the zpp them trap them I can't what was called tap them zap them there's another word in there tap it map it zap it yes you see I wouldn't be good class the principal team has also experienced that so yes that was trust me it was a replication of what they have done Madam chair I and trustees I am really impressed with um um not as much of the step through fifth through six but um the basic literacy work that's going on in our elementary schools to get everybody proficient by third grade or reading well and um yeah I think the presentation that we had golly made me feel so much better and made me feel like that's why our schools are doing better is

111because we're really focusing on the alignment grade to grade to grade and making sure that uh no kid is lost you know remember the old days when they had no job left behind and you know that's what we do here is try not to have kids left behind so the tier one and the tier two now going into the tier two I think is so important and it was so great to learn about that I really really appreciate the time you put into educating us about that um as well as I mean I just think it's great I just think it's amazing it's why we have a fantastic school district and to see my opin to see the continu and the test scores I think are like we really saw that Improvement you know over

112the years we've seen that Improvement consistently in third fourth and fifth and so to see that actualize like all the work that's happening in the in the early grades to build um um and then the investment in training so I think it's a great success to see how many teachers are getting training and we're now offering that training in middle school and high school for Specialists and um it's it's really coming together and people are excited and want to learn and um we're able to support support that through next year so with with some grant funding so y Madam chair trusty uh I'd like to ditto trusty meets comments I got a chance today to watch the tutoring of a of two young kids and we sat behind a a screen so that this young

113these young kids didn't know we were there uh and there were about 10 of us and it was an extensive discussion of all the ways uh teachers could maximize those kids' strengths and improve their reading and and these were long discussions this morning for each child and so it's really true children are not left behind here and I thank you all you thanks for giving us access to your progr programs and laying it out for us Madam chair trusty Doran I will say um a huge compliment needs to be made to Megan in her work and her work with the principles um especially the K5 level they're their focus on tier one teaching for all kids um we're seeing some data now that we haven't seen um in a positive trend that's pretty uh it's

114a celebration I think James how Hues me up every now and then reminds me hey man we got to celebrate you know take it easy Chris and he's correct so I I think it's a recognition to all the tier one classroom teachers all the interventionists Megan and the principles we just have to take a moment and and recognize that anything else um Madam chair um Dr Chris I I want to if I'm reading this right I'm looking at the sixth grade ELA y top scores and it looks like if I've got this right the proficiency the number of kids that are proficient on the winter test which has just been administering we got the results has gone up maybe 10% is that right am I reading that correct from last year or is that 23

11524 Winter 24 25 increased by 10% so one I want to applaud that because if we look at the prior year it had dropped off significantly at that same time both spring and winter so my first question is do you know what we are doing differently there in sixth grade on that level what has occurred or what has happened that we see that uptick whereas before just the year before we had seen almost the same amount if not more a drop off do you have an idea of what's what has changed or what we're doing um Madam chair trusty BOS a number of things I think that are playing into that um and I know Mr hire could speak to it very specifically in sixth grade at my level I would there is Fidelity to

116our systems in regards to working with each other this team and when I say that um we really moved away from kind of the The Lone Ranger teacher to making sure we're doing the same thing together and helping each other out that system piece is very important the other piece of that is um they have really raised the level of accountability on accountable talk teaching strategies that are really motivating kids ownership in the classroom and their learning so we're really shifting that passive learner to a much more active learner and that's happening schoolwide at the middle school it's a very targeted focus of instruction that's two things I am certain there are more um but I wanted to highlight a few of those for you good Matt hire principal of Jacksonville Middle School uh chair

117juste bsh um i' also point out that last year's current on last year's sixth grade that are now seventh graders they also went up about 10 points um so that same cohort group that we were concerned about did also grow on this year's data um so if you take the same group of kids yeah they're now last year's summi if they're now seventh graders just took the winter interim they grew by 10 points so that I might reading this wrong because no sixth grade did two sixth grade oh okay because this seventh grade says it dropped but no I I'm I'm I'm sure that I'm reading that wrong um well they went from 56 last year the summative to 65 in the winter interim okay the same group of kids the same group of kids

118yes so I'll celebrate both that's what I'm saying um one other thing we did do is we have a schoolwide reading program in our um uh wind time and so kids do read for a half hour every single day um with only exception of that is some students need a math intervention if you didn't hear reach you just went I saw that I saw that um and that's schoolwide um and so that has been a it's just a really nice time of the day um for everyone to just take a breath and just read um I subbed for a sixth grade um Ela teacher last week I walked in in I was about a minute late and the kids already had their books out um they had them open a couple kids do audio and

119um um text and uh it was really cool to see so that's that's one big change we didn't do that last year okay that's what I was going to ask anyway I'm hopeful that that's making a big difference okay um thank you sorry yeah is that okay Dr Chris one other thing is is I see you have this broken de by the proficiency percentages the other categories how are we doing there meaning is the do we have a gap I mean is the number of below proficients also like it would seem counterintuitive but we're missing a big portion of kids here when you're talking 56 58 66% where are those other kids going um in what direction at the the decrease that we're seeing in Bas are you I'm just talking about sixth grade for

120example but my understanding there's three categories top or four categories basic below proficient all those how are we doing our what I'm I'm asking is is our kids that are below proficient are they dropping further or are we seeing some improvement there because you only have one category yeah if if we look at the slides uh that Stephen has prepped if you go down if you scroll down to show kind of that difference like we're seeing an improvement of students who are scoring proficient or above and we're also seeing a decrease in the number of students in the below basic so that's the last two slides yes so what you want as Stephen has explained very well to all of us you want to see those you don't want to see those getting closer you

121want to see those you want to see your line of proficiency improving and you want to see your below basic decreasing which we are seeing well two of them we have an increase in the below basic for the last two but the one above that I guess for sixth grade looks like we're having a decrease there 4% right yeah it's a four the others are it's a 1% increase and the last one is a 2% yeah you're right there a slight increase with the with the red in the last two okay so is there any thought on where or what's happening there I know it's not a big number so but still why do we have that many kids that are falling into that category that is a that is a trend we're seeing K12

122um versus just say that that is our one of our Central K12 focuses on our academic divide with our populations okay um then there's a ton of reasons for that um these graphs do reflect that what they do show um which is a a positive conversation is we are seeing a rebound significantly from 2122 um and we're starting to get we're starting to see this across the board in all of our grades but trusty BOS that Gap that you're talking about is one of the core f focuses in all of our schools that that we are seeing it is shrinking it is getting better and it is it's tough work to attack because it's in all grades you're just seeing it reflected here in grades six through eight as well and there's a number of

123reasons why we have an achievement Gap or um is what it's typically called that's and that's my question so I don't know Matt has thoughts on this but at this level what's with the kids that are below basic what what can we do is this reading program helping them and working with them or do we need resources there what do we need to do to help those kids um trusty BOS um I mean we've had a nagging achievement gap for for many many many years um I think what we as we start to see our students exit from um ELD services um ex have higher access testing scores exit rates um both at the elementary and at the middle school level um I think we would see start to see correlative um scores in in

124Reading um if we were to disaggregate this data into um ethnicity you'll see that achievement Gap um that is longstanding and nagging and that is our Focus for many years of getting services to those students whether that's a tier 2 reading program a tier three reading program more ELD Services um and I'd say all of those have increased um this year and in the last two to three years especially um we have an avid Excel program at the middle school you heard about Avid we focus on Avid Excel um which is for our long-term El students or recently exited El students and that really is um targeting um students that haven't done well traditionally on WTOP and have recently exited ELD um with a more academic Focus for that Avid Excel program so that's another

125example of of trying to Target A specific group that traditionally hasn't done well on yop and I this may be out of order but just is there is there anything you need from us or is there's stuff that the board can do to help you with this and and and get that Gap even further down and I'm not putting I you know what I won't put you on the spot right now let us get back to you with our list okay do that please he's over there you got a plenty of I see I knew I was going to ca I will say that I will say one thing that we do also have sometimes a opport opportunity Gap okay an opportunity Gap yeah what do you mean what do I mean participation rates in

126club sports participation rates in Middle School sports um what whatever that's going to be or the Arts um and Harmon who you heard from earlier is a soccer player um for me and I think the more kids can get involved in things at a young age um whether that's Middle School sports club sports whatever it's going to be the M Mountain um after school program and we hook them into that way and they feel a connection to school is so powerful and that's why I really do believe in the work that Libby has done um around the after the Bell because that makes kids just feel better about themselves and feel better about school once they feel good about themselves they want to perform academically and until they really do that um I don't know

127if they care about white to so much okay until they really care about their con ction to the school itself and who they are as a young person so that's one thing um I think is is we increase just look at our participation rates in those kind of things because that's what kind of hooks kids into wanting to do well not only for themselves but for the school thank you thanks so all right to do well thank you very much and thank you all for your observations and participation um let's see it is two of eight we going going at this for two hours so I think maybe we should take a seven minute break come back at 5 after 8 to finish up the meeting and uh student school board if you would like

128to adjourn awesome job student School Board I want e e e well we'll just see question um next on the uh agenda is other reports construction updates evening Madam chair St Diana harder um facilities department and the uh construction update for our two projects that we have going the um 24 unit employee housing project and the transportation project was attached to the leaders report um we've got Neil zern our project architect for the employee housing online and we both stand for questions any questions what's going on I guess one thing I do if I may like we are um it is going up the roof is on so we're have sha is um hosting a topping out party tomorrow at noon um and you're all welcome to come I just wanted to make sure you

129knew about that that's exciting thank you and where where at the jobsite bring your boots I bet it's a little M yeah anything else thank you very much uh we will move on to public comment uh things not on tonight's agenda if you have um something you want to share with the board um there's a please come up state your name and you have a thre minute time limit anybody in the room for public comment anybody online public comment seeing none we will move on to action items the first action item is consideration of approval of the 95% design document submitt package and notice to proceed to 100% to the new Transportation facility thank you if for your consideration tonight as should say um approval of notice to proceed to 100% documents uh we had

130a very rigorous um value engineering session with the architect along with Jim Coleman and the state's consultant and I think we made some really good adjustments so we feel really good about moving this on to the final um phase of the construction documents and get ready for bidding and with that I stand for questions any questions for Madam chair I have I have a c curious question sorry uh I was reading about the heating and uh there's there was something in there about the gas but then also using a system to reuse to use the oil that's pulled out of the buses um what was the primary was the secondary um system of of heating just curious um thank you fa um truste Abrams so yeah there was that was early on talk about could

131we um utilize that oil we did rule that out in an earlier design and then this last phase of the value engineering was it was around the heating system they had a um pressurized refrigerant system which is an incredible system but for a building this size uh both myself and the consultants and the project team felt it was a it um didn't presentent the best value for the district for this type of building so um and that had a electric backup heat source so we went from that to a more traditional um heat pump system with a gas boiler so where we landed after this last round of engineering thank you did that your question it did yep thank you other questions thank you right any public comment seeing none I would entertain a motion

132Madam chair I move to approve the 95% design document sub midle package and notice to proceed proed to 100% construction documents for the new Transportation facility as presented second any board discussion Madam chair I'll just I don't want to waste anybody's time but just to be consistent I'll vote no um it's for the same reason I voted no initially uh we originally got this money um a few years ago Bus Barn we were unable to spend it um at that time so we got special permission to spend it s on Paving the parking lot um the money was not enough to build the bus bar and way more than we needed to pay the parking lots we have special permission to pay the stadium and the uh parking here of the administration um I disagree

133with money that we just spent and I know it's a few years to me it feels like we just spent it um because I can remember sitting around discussing in detail how the parking lot was going to be designed I I don't like the idea of taking more money from the state tearing out something that the state just gave us money to build and and and building over it um and so um for that reason I'll V know I I disagree with the the design I'm sure it'll be a nice design I just disagree with with taking money that the state just gave us and and then ripping it out thank you anybody else all right um um we have a motion in a second um all in favor opposed no motion passes uh consideration

134to amend the summit Consulting Group LLC special inspection contract for the 24 unit employee housing project thank you madam chair um so what this is is um this amendment is coming forward for two reasons one there was a scope Gap in the original contract for storm water inspections which is required by the town of Jackson so we've added that into the contract with this amendment and the second part is um they're due to construction Logistics they had to break up the pore the different pores for the foundation and the slab in the parking level um it happened in additional pores and was originally estimated so the consultant had to come out and do additional inspections so those are the two changes to this amendment any questions for thank you thank you uh any public comment

135seeing none I would entertain a motion Madame chair I would move to approve the summit Consulting Group LLC special inspection contract Amendment and purchase order not to exceed 11,540 dollars as presented with minor modifications deemed necessary by legal council is there a second second any board discussion seeing none all in favor I I opposed motion passes uh consideration of Premier green cleaning twoyear contract extension for the district stodal Services hello again again um so in um July of 2024 as you may remember we entered a contract with Premier green cleaning it was a new um custodial Services contract um so we elected to contract with them for one year with the option to extend up to two years um the typical rotation I go through with my service contract is we try to bid them

136out um competitively every three years um so we've had a about a year under our belt with the new contractor um we're very happy and pleased with the level of service and the management of the contract which was so important I've received good feedback from the principals and the uh building users on the contract so we're pleased with the contract and we'd like to extend for two years so we reached out to Premiere um and worked with them and negotiated um a renewal for two years and I'm pleased to highlight that um as part of that discussion we've been able to bring in carpet cleaning and a more robust carpet cleaning program which I've highlighted um and then with that um we have uh we're proposing or they are proposing a contract with a 1.6

137a very reasonable what we believe 1.6% increase um to the cost of the contract for this um next year and then a 2% increase for the following year and with that I stand for questions any questions seeing none thank you very much um seeing none um public comment um no public comment I would entertain a motion Madam chairman I move to approve Premier green cleaning two-year contract extension for district custodial services not to exceed 96 $6 4,663 for fiscal year 2526 and $983,000 job I just think we followed the wrong process it was a straightup bid uh the rules are when it's a straight up bid unless you disqualify someone and when we went through this last year I gave multiple opportunities for the administration to disqualify they couldn't come up with any reasons to

138disqualify the the low bidder but it went ahead and recommended the high bidder and the board went with the high bidder I think that violated our process um when we do bids we need to go with Bel low bid unless you disqualify it somebody is not qualified then you disqualify them I I think this should have been bid back out or they should have issued a request for proposal I think that's really what they were looking for was an RFP not a bid um and I I think um just the process was was incorrect I'm sure Premier will do a fine job um I've heard good bad I think you hear good bad with any cleaning contract but I just believe uh in the future uh if we are doing bids unless we disqualify someone

139I think you're required to go with the low bid can't just pick the high bid um just because you want to um so um I disagree with the process all thank you any other seeing none all in favor I opposed no motion carries um moving on consideration of Staffing letter of intent for 2025 2026 school year that's it um do I have a motion do I can explain it if you'd like but chairman I move to approve the Staffing letter of intent for the 2526 score year has presented second second uh discussion I had questions so not discussion but okay um yeah Dr the one thing I don't understand and I'm trying to figure out is is in your summary the memo action item you talk about executive summary per the policy and I've gone

140through that policy what I'm trying to figure out people in the board please uh fellow trustees explain this but is this or is this policy and what's in here bu built into the contracts or is this just the policies just referred um or is this a change to the policy I just didn't quite understand the the your memo more than anything thank you um truste and trusty Bosch uh policy GCB yeah that there's no change to the policy we're I'm just letting you know this is the policy and by um the the state we are required to notice by April 15th to staff if they are being non-renewal non-renewed or terminated or if they're going to be invited back so I'm just citing the policy for your reference okay that that clears it up for

141COD decision today yeah thank you you're welcome sorry I missed your that's okay um any other discussion um all in favor I I opposed motion passes moving on to the consent agenda um there are 10 items on the consent agenda approval of staff and considerations and reports approval of executive meeting minutes from February 12 2025 approval of minutes from February 12 20125 regular meeting approval of the check register approval of Utah school for the deaf and blind purchase order um approval of donor directed gift through the fund for public education approval of addendum to the whole Landscaping Inc agreement approval of Worthington direct purchase order for desks and chairs for culture Elementary School reimbursed by parent teacher organization uh approval of board member travel and approval of the consent agenda Madam chair I'm going to

142move the consent agenda as as presented second um any okay all in favor I opposed passes uh Communications to the board we had three uh letters from on that are presented in the agenda um Communications from the board any Communications from the board um H moving on uh discussion future agenda items scheduling topics any item to come to mind okay we'll move on review of meeting uh I appreciate everybody being here tonight thank you um see Advanced planning anything we need to know all right I would entertain a motion to adjourn Madam chair we second e fin I think so