School Board Meeting - Study Session - February 5, 2026

001are glad to have you all here. Thanks for being here. It is Thursday, the 5th day of February, 2026, and we are meeting in the boardroom on Legacy Campus. We will begin with a pledge and mission statement led by Roger Pulsifer. Please rise. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Our mission is to educate students for success in a changing world. >> Thank you very much, Roger. And I got things backwards. So now we'll have roll call. Beginning with Jared. >> Jared Black, business administrator. >> Brian Chambers, board member. Todd McKe, superintendent. >> Roger Pulzer, board member. >> Alan Grun, board member. >> Kathy Christensen, board member. >> Jeff Nelson, board

002member. >> Randall Baggley, board member. >> Terry Rhodess, board member. And first up on our agenda is the reports agenda for learning and growth. And the first item on the that section of the agenda is dealing with growth new construction update. >> Thanks for being here, Don. >> You bet. You said growth and I panicked. I thought I'm not up. >> You are. >> Thank you, Kevin. Well, good evening board members. It's time for our monthly slideshow on new construction. I hope everyone is doing well. Tim Smith told me I had four four minutes now. Four four minutes. [laughter] So, High Park. Um, some new drone shots. Uh, you know, the building's been finished for a while. The exterior shots really won't change dramatically until we start getting our landscaping in. But, uh, I think,

003uh, if today was 55°, we we might start planting grass tomorrow. It's It's oddly warm. Uh but we're we're coming along well. Finishing some grading and drainage. Been pouring concrete uh when we need to. So everything's uh moving along. So again, tracking all of these uh different categories. The bottom left hand corner is the one that that bottom right hand corner matters the most. 74% complete on the building. Uh and again we have a mid July completion date scheduled for for the building. I think we're there. I think uh things are moving along well. So again the big backbone uh the large pumps, the large boiler systems, chillers all starting to get plumbed in. A lot of pipe welding going on uh a lot of uh you know durable construction. So these are systems that

004are 30 40ear systems. So, this is it's important to go in, but it's also great to see that they are paying attention and and and building with some care and craftsmanship. Uh, our interior progress. Uh, we have, uh, so much of our drywall done. Now, we're getting on the right hand side into our main office. That's starting to take shape. You can see in when we show you nibbly in a bit that it's a little bit further along. The media center in the middle, that's kind of fun. We actually have our mill work going in. Bookcases are in the media center. It's starting to to really uh look like it should. So, we've gone from drywall and mud and tape to paint and uh bookshelves in in a little bit less than a month. Uh

005restrooms are starting to look like restrooms. Uh you know, slowly getting cleaned up, slowly slow to get fixtures in. We'll start to see um the dividers in in a bit. our electrical uh main power runs. So, I've been showing you some equipment that's been on the lefthand side of the room. This is on the right hand side. We're actually far enough along that many of our rooms now actually have power to them. So, we have we have flipped the switch, if you will, and uh you can no longer go along and touch wires. You have to be careful. >> Carpet. So, you know you're making progress when you're starting to see ceiling tile go in. Uh we actually have this upper room where we have a lot of the ceiling tile fit in. The lighting

006is in. Um coming [clears throat] down to the the cafeteria auditorium. A lot of drywall has been hung. That's a very large area. They've completed their drywall. They're doing some mudding and taping. Uh soon they'll start putting their drop ceilings in. So again, upcoming more cabinets and mill work, our electrical finishes in the classroom, those big boilers and chillers. We're starting to see some work um in the kitchens. So that that's kind of a a heavy lift on the operational side of it. Uh again, flooring, mainly the carpet. We'll get into the hard surfaces and hallways in a bit. And then just trying to knock off this tile in the kitchen and hallways. So, a lot of tile work going on. For those of you that have ever remodeled your kitchen, it feels like we're

007remodeling a very big kitchen right now. So, our friends up at uh Hyde Park, uh the new elementary or old Ephraim. Um this is some big physical changes that have happened. So, I really like the aerial photography here, especially the one in uh the image on the upper right hand side that's virtually shooting down. And here's what's amazing. On February 2nd, we have done every bit of roofing that we can do right now. So, if it had steel up and had a deck on it, it's roof. If you were to ask me this before the winter season, I would have told you there is no way in heck that we would be looking at this. So, a big win. Uh, taking advantage of the weather. Things are really moving along. Uh we will see a

008crane come back in in the not too distant future to do a long reach for the uh [clears throat] the steel trussing up and over into that middle section of the building that doesn't have any steel up just yet. So expect another crane. But um again we have a a January 13th image and here we are. I mean really we were two 2 and 1/2 weeks later. We we did a bunch of roofing along uh the upper portion of the building through here and uh in the back. [snorts] We are looking at about 26% complete for the building. Yes, it's still nerve-wracking because we're planning an August completion date, but uh I really have very few negatives to say about the speed at which the work is is happening. Uh on our one uh weather

009day this month, uh we're starting to put down some decking over uh this section of the building. That's uh a lot of our mezzanine mechanical units, etc. Slippery. Don't go out and walk on it. Um so again, we we did crane in the large mechanical units. You're now starting to see the large volumes. Uh this is our uh essential elements classroom. the back wall there, you're starting to see kind of where the stairway and the uh the second floor hallways are starting to to come together in the steel work. Um a pretty massive central space in there right now, but then we build in it. So, it it looks impressive and cavernous today, but as we're building through, we're getting uh our backing in for mounting our cabinetry, uh for mounting our display technology, etc.

010Uh lots of uh HVAC equipment laying out and going up. Lots of framing. Uh more mechanical. Um really pleased with the speed and quality of our duct work that's going in. Uh lots of good good efficient activity happening. So we go from underlab plumbing uh here, which by now has concrete on it. You're starting to see our sewer utilities going in. This happens to be on the the north side of the property. Um some some reasonably deep trenching to to make sure we hit the utilities out in the road. Um again that exterior progress, we're actually sand blasting the outside of the building to get all of the concrete imperfections out. And so we're just watching that contractor go around and and uh and take care of the concrete. And it's it the aesthetics are

011looking pretty good. by the time it's ready to get its sealer on it, the temperatures will be there. So, again, pretty Oh, should I knock on wood? The temperatures will be there. So, um we do have our main floor concrete slabs done. Still working on that second uh floor suspended concrete. Uh wrapping up our up underground plumbing and electrical. We're going to wrap up our joist and deck. Um, I don't have a perfect recollection of when we're supposed to be done, but hopefully on our next board meeting update, I can show you a completed roof. Let's cross our fingers there. Okay. [snorts] Uh, over to Nibbi or Maple View. And, uh, this site again is tracking well. It's tracking uh, right where it should. Uh we started several weeks later at Maple View than we

012did at Juniper Ridge. Uh darn near 3ish weeks behind, but I'd say they're within 2 weeks of each other now. Uh we're even starting to get ready to do uh we do have concrete work going on, some curbed gutter out front. So again, they're taking advantage of some of the weather. Uh good uh im uh images from all sides of the building. It's at 69% so it's tracking roughly 5% uh behind the other building which is what we've been doing now for I want to say 4 months in a row. So they are marching uh step by step uh along. Uh again big progress. Uh the gym you're there today the drywall is done. We are starting to see carpeting coming in here. they uh they're actually a little bit ahead on their uh cafeteria

013auditorium uh drywall work. Uh things are moving very rapidly on that trade. Starting to see a lot of the bathroom tile come up. Um last month in the media center, we just didn't have a lot there. This was last week's picture. Um I was there Tuesday and they're farther along um at the drywall there. So, a matter of fact, I think it's it is complete in in that media center painted at the main entry. We have doors and windows in at the main entry in the front office. Our science labs are coming together, including the teaching station cabinetry at the front. Uh there's the principal's office. Um that's some great light, Blair. Now, uh see Blair's getting ribbed out in the audience. They just they just saw his office. Everybody's jealous. >> [laughter] >> Is

014that all? >> I will leave that for your colleagues to open. I'm going to stay quiet on on that. [snorts] So [clears throat] again, uh upcoming we're going to finish the gymnasium drywall. Uh we actually began uh kitchen tile layout here at this school. So they're about a week ahead of the other school. Getting our restroom fixtures in, more classroom cabinetry, more flooring will happen over the next month. We're starting to get more fire alarm devices in and the electrician is uh in the main electrical closet. They are probably a week away from turning on the electricity in that building. So again, super close. Uh but the the electrical fixtures are starting to show in the classrooms. The low voltage wiring for technology is starting to show in the classrooms. Any questions for me? That

015was not four minutes, Tim. I apologize. Great report. >> Yeah, it's exciting out there. I mean, we're moving and and [snorts] >> yeah, >> take it even longer. Sorry, Tim. But um so I do have a question. Looking at Blair's office and other places in the school [clears throat] um and knowing that the the school safety law says that we have to have >> either ballistic glass or film on the glass if it's 6 ft. Yep. >> Or below. How How are we mitigating that in our >> Yeah, that was a prior rendition of state security law. They've modified it a little bit. >> All right. >> And so it's not every piece of glass that has to have it. >> It's a certain distance away from the main entries. >> Okay. >> And that

016and then to a height of 8 ft. I think 8 ft and up. If it's around an entry, we have to do that. Um, we'll give away a security secret here. We were actually able to get ballistic quality glass, not the uh so we we we did a change order for that in all of the new build buildings. So, it's not a film. We actually Yeah, >> we found a really good product at a reasonable price and so we are compliant with uh state security statutes. Um well, here we are in February. So, uh, >> for the next for the next 6 weeks, we're in compliance. I don't know what they're they're going to pass this this time around. [snorts] >> Yeah, >> that's a really good question. Yeah, >> because I am concerned about

017the lifespan of the film. >> Sure. >> Replacing that. Um, so I that is super exciting news that we actually got the listing glass. >> Yeah. A lot of good research by the contractor and the designers to find the the right product for these new builds. >> Awesome. Yeah. >> Thank you, sir. >> Yep. You bet. >> Anyone else have a question for Don? >> Oh, wonderful. Thank you much. >> Uh, next up we have a class size >> by Wow, there's a lot of people listed on here. >> Derek Bear, Julie Payne, Blair Pal, Barrett Bagley. But Derek Bear has to sit in the hot seat. >> You want to stand? >> No. What was your presentation called? >> He's got it. >> Um, thank you. I'm I'm here to just introduce what uh

018a few of our principles are are here to talk about. um a board meeting, a previous board meeting, a question came up uh about um class sizes, specifically if we have um a set teacher to student ratio, why do we have varying class sizes? And discussions um with the superintendent and and a few of us uh stemmed from that. just that it would be good for us to spend some time letting you know the process of how that when we receive those um FTE numbers at at our schools, how that process um transfers over into uh assigning teachers and and students to those to those classes. So we have we have some principles here as you know um our our staffing or our funding ratios are uh K through third grade are about 23.07 um

0194th through 8 uh little over 28 students per teacher and then um 9th through 12th grade is a little over 30 students uh per per teacher. And when Jared and and Scott go through and and set that after they've received all the the funding information they need from the state, um each of our schools receives I'll hand these around just so you have them to to look at and reference as these principles talk. Each of our um schools receive a sheet that's specific to their school that has their uh staffing on there, the FTE. Um there is a front and back to that. the the front is North Park since Julie's here to present and then the back is all of our secondary schools and you'll be able to look at those if if you

020need to to reference that that process. But um we'll start out with uh Julie Payne, principal at North Park. She'll explain the process from there and then we'll go to Blair Pal and and Bart Bagley. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Well, I want to um thank you for letting us take an opportunity to share with you the process we we make and we take. Um the information I'll share with you is information that I hope when parents ask questions, I want to share it with them, too. I feel like when parents are more informed, then it helps them understand the really difficult decisions we make. whether they can feel comfortable with that decision or not is is sometimes still not their favorite, but at least they understand that we're not just coming up with a

021an uninformed process or decision. So, you can see right there I've put a red box around the total FTEES, for example, I had last year, uh 18 teachers based on the formula that Derek talked to you about. And this particular document is is what we look forward to at the end of March so that we can start to plan for the next year. Um and then we're going to talk right here about some things that that we had to make uh some difficult decisions last year. But where does that process start? Um first grade level enrollment analysis. So you we get our numbers and we've already been looking at those number like the our projections of what we think. But then we get our numbers that say all right here's where we're headed. So looking

022at the grade level enrollment to see where do I anticipate I'll need two teachers, where do I anticipate I'll need three. We have those ideas. We get the number and then we say, "Okay, this is the number. Now, what do I really get to do?" Uh reviewing those cohort characteristics. If if I have 65 students in one grade and and with two teachers and I know I'm going to have class sizes of 32 and 33, but I have another grade level that has 60 students, which means 30 and 30. When we just look at numbers, we might say that extra third teacher needs to go to the group of 65. When we actually look at the cohort though, we might say there's an increased number of students with disability in that group of 60. there

023are some um early language level level one level two English learners in that classroom that are going to have higher needs or behavior needs are increased in that group of 60. So it it can't just be a numbers game. It actually is really important we be informed about the individuals in that cohort and and also a focus on those foundational early years. We know that if we do our job well in the lower grades, it's going to benefit the children all the way up through our high school. And so our goals being to make sure that we're identifying those most critical grades and and typically those foundational years are so important that we do it right at the very beginning. And stakeholder insight is we we don't work in silos. So having that stakeholder insight

024is very important. Uh even though ultimately when people are upset or disappointed, I have to let them know I'm the one that made the hard decision, I want to make sure it's a really informed decision. And if they're mad at someone, I want it to be me. And if they're happy with someone, I want it to be the school. So that's part of what we get to do, right? Um the school level support teams would be the EL teacher, the uh school counselor. uh now that elementary schools have the school support leader, it would have been, you know, it's that individual in the past, our RTI facilitator that knows some more intensive academic needs, I want to make sure we're not missing anything. And also the teachers of the cohort. So, if I've got third

025graders and I'm trying to decide what I'm what is the greatest need in our school, I don't want to ask the fourth grade teachers, do you want three teachers on your team or do you want two? I need to ask the third grade teachers, what are your insights about this group that I may not be aware of? When appropriate, that organizational feedback from the school community council and the PTO. I say when appropriate because, for example, next year, I have 12 teachers. I need two teachers on every grade level. So, at school community council yesterday, I did inform them what it looks like next year, but I I didn't say, "Do you recommend we have one teacher in kindergarten and three teachers in sixth grade, fifth grade, because it's a really big group." Those type

026of things where I want to make sure they're informed, but there really isn't an opportunity to provide insight on which grade should only have one teacher. Those type of things. But last year we did have a an opportunity to have a half FTE if the school would provide the other funding. As a um non-title school, my trust lands would be reduced significantly to spend so much of our money towards the other funding for that half FTE to get a full-time teacher. So, it was very important to me that the school community council and the PTO be part of those conversations because I needed all of their insight. Uh, the challenges with that are if I use a large portion of our school trust lands to fund that, that reduces the funding we have for PAR

027educators because that the school trust lands for our school goes all to PAR educators. So I could support one grade that actually has a significant need, but it reduces the ability to help all of the others in the school. Doesn't remove it because we do have other funding sources, but that money is really critical. So there's that one piece. Um the other piece is which grade do we put it at? Um as a um school with a lot of um apartments, uh we have transient populations. Sometimes some families might live there for 5 years and some families might be there for 5 months. So our student numbers can fluctuate between grades and those decisions are really important to be uh considerate of. The other piece last year based on cohort characteristics and class sizes. We

028even went down to do we use that half FTE for a half time teacher teaching the most critical subjects in the morning. you know, we have four teachers in in well, it would be three actually, three teachers in that grade in the morning and they've reduced to two in the afternoon. So, we're trying to be really targeted without removing the funding source that we use for aids across the school. Really difficult decisions. We put that out to the PTO. Uh I intentionally chose not to hire anyone at that time because the other piece is I don't know which grade to put them in yet. So um those are very difficult decisions we make. We did decide to use that uh funding source for aids and that benefited everyone including the variety of classes that were

029large. Um and then what we did was hire a teacher that we said we don't know if you're a fifth grade teacher or a sixth grade teacher. We'll tell you August 8th, which is the deadline that we were told we needed to let the district know um class placements. And we set up second grade place, excuse me, two by placements for two teachers on a grade, three teachers on a grade with the teachers from the previous year so that we weren't scrambling in August. We just had two lists to refer to. And then you add the variables of who moved in, who moved out. uh there's a lot of change that happens and sometimes we don't even know till um few days into school when someone doesn't come. Parent communication that's the piece where when

030a parent has a question I want them to ask us so that we can inform them. And so I'm going to give you an example of the decisions that we had to make last year August 5th. It's not listed there but you can see we've got 55 students in kindergarten. Uh, we had less than that, maybe 45 August 5th. Might have been 50, but my kindergarten teachers said, "Do we need to go down to two teachers?" And I said, "No, we're going to need to get more kindergarteners. We have kids that show up even after school started when they watch children in the community get on a bus and the parents call and say, "Were we supposed to let you know I I have an incoming child?" And they just aren't familiar with the processes

031because it's their first student. Um, very difficult decisions. By August 18th, we still only had 55 kindergarteners. I'd gone around the community and left flyers in both English and Spanish at the apartment complexes saying, "Please, we need to know who's coming, trying to encourage them." I'm grateful for our parent leaison that were able to help make sure the message was appropriate. We did everything we can, but by August 18th, that's those are the numbers we had. And we made the really difficult decision on August 20th that we couldn't keep fourth, fifth, or sixth as large as it was, knowing that if we had four more students enroll in fourth grade in the next 5 days, I now had 38 in each class. And I wasn't eligible for any other teachers because I had the appropriate

032number of teachers based on the funding formulas. And that's nothing against the district. It's it's the model and I was choosing to keep my class sizes very low in kinder and first and I couldn't ask any fourth graders to move to kindergarten move to first grade like I've got space in those grades. So August 20th I pulled my team together in the morning and said we've got to make some really difficult decisions and we have a first grade teacher that's moving to fourth grade. school came together quickly created a fourth grade classroom on another side of the school and we announced at back to school night that night that uh here's a new fourth grade teacher and and we've made some class placement changes. You can see how that impacts that grade. Reason I chose

033first and fourth first I didn't want to touch kindergarten yet because they're still a variable. We don't know who just doesn't even realize that we need to know they live in our community. And then fourth grade was not just the larger grade, but they had just left a group of three classes. So when I look at who's the most intensive group, they're the youngest of that group. Let's do fourth. By September 20th, I had lost three students in kindergarten. I didn't lose them. We don't lose children. We had had three children move out. Um we had one child move out in fifth grade, but those numbers weren't changing. And if we had four more students move in over the course of the year in fifth grade, I was going to be 36 and 36. That

034doesn't include our students that are um receiving essential elements services because they don't get to be part of these numbers. They're funded through a different um process and so they're not in these enrollment numbers. So that number when you see 68 kids, if there's four children that also have desks in those classrooms because they come in for a portion of the day, um that number is not even included. And and in fact, in that fifth grade, there is a student that is pushed in receiving general education services most of the time with aid support. And so we're not even counting him in that group of at one time 69 students and then 68. So those are some backgrounds. So September 20th, those were our numbers. Had to make some really hard decisions and move a

035kindergarten teacher up to fifth grade. Um it was um difficult because I didn't know what the future would look like, too. Those numbers aren't solid. They can change two weeks later. You can see September 30th. Thankfully, the numbers look the same. Nothing happened with enrollment in those 10 days, but kindergarten went to 26 students. Fifth grade went to 22 and.7. Fifth grade's smaller than I want. Kindergarten's bigger than I want. But I had to make predictions about what we might even look like in March. And and those are hard decisions. Parents in some grades were really happy. Parents in other grades were disappointed. But anyone that came, I talked through this process with them. There's a link right there that actually shows the formula. In fact, we just click on that and then I'll just

036wrap up. the parents that had concerns. I want them to bring their concerns to me. And it's actually the title of the slide. Um, oh, it's not my formula. Oh, actually, let me see if it's not stagnant. Will you change the K that's a three to a Let's go to this. Let's change that. Will you change the three on fourth grade to a two? So, if you'll Yep. Right there. Change that to a two. >> This one? >> Yep. cuz I could have I >> Oh, I'm you only. >> Oh, you are. All right. Well, pretend I changed that to a two. Now we've got fourth grade big. It fixes third. I mean, it fixes kinder, but now fourth grade. If we had two in fourth grade, 74 students. Now we're at 37 and 37.

037For your kindergartener to have 17. And does that make that parent feel really like, "Oh, I get it. I'm on board." They were still disappointed, but it let them see, I need to support K6 and I have to make really hard decisions. And I kept trying to get the message out to the community. Be mad at me if you've got concerns. And if there's questions about why don't we have enough funding, talk to the legislators because we really need them to support education and they may not even always understand the really hard decisions we have to make. Um, our district supports that us. I want the message to be out there and I appreciate that the district lets me make these decisions because if anyone made these decisions, number only, they may not be thinking

038about some of those other pieces that are very specific to the school, the students, and the staff. Any questions for me? I hope that was really helpful. >> Absolutely. >> Was great. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Well, thank you guys for supporting us because you guys get to hear about why did this happen, too. So, I hope that this helps you because I know you want to help kids, too. So, thank you. >> Thanks, Julie. >> Thanks. >> Next, we have Blair Pal, who is the current principal at Spring Creek Middle School for a couple more months. >> Couple more months. Um, so I'm not going to take as much time as uh Julie and because you I appreciate uh learning about her process as well. I just want you to know that each of

039us has a process. Each of us has tools that we use. Um the real challenge for us and I'm looking at at her challenges. Her challenges are different than ours. um she'll get the the 18 FTE and then she has to really it sometimes it's almost harder at a small level to be able to make uh the changes. Um we have a little bit of flexibility built into our schedule because we have teachers in a in a five period uh contract. Um we have a six period day for students. we have more flexibility as to how we can do classes, maneuver classes, and get class sizes a little closer to uh to even them out. Um, but there's there's challenges that are unique to the secondary level that that also Julie wouldn't have, but but

040we struggle with. And one of those challenges is balance. Um, just to give you a little bit of background, I really didn't uh do much with scheduling until my first time I got to Spring Creek and um the principal there said, "Hey, you're going to help me with the scheduling. We're going to put together the schedule." And we had a a a whiteboard on the wall and we went to work just doing it all by hand. And uh and I didn't realize about balance, but um sort of figured it out as I went along. And what I found was that there's really a domino effect. If you work to add like uh an extra class at one hour, it affects the other hour that you pulled it out of. Um there's there is no um

041there is no way that you can pull from one without it affecting the whole school. Um so we have the schedule all already all ready ready to go. Um, and uh, the night before we ran the schedules, the uh, counselor came in and a teacher said, "Hey, I'd really like my prep hour to be next to the lunch hour." And he changed the the he not thinking about it, he just changed the teachers prep hour and the whole system just crumbled. And so when the schedules came out, teachers saw that they would have a fourth hour of 45 students and a fifth hour of 20 students. And they're like, "What is going on?" And so that's those are the kind of things that we try to avoid. Those are the situations that occur if we're

042not paying attention to maintaining an equitable balance. And that means we can't have all the teachers have prep hour on the same hour. We can't have PE taught at one time and and nothing else taught at that time or you know those kind of decisions that we have to try to to make to keep balance both between our electives and our core classes and and also the the teacher prep hours as well. So there's a lot that that goes into that. That's why I don't just look at it alone. Um because I miss stuff all the time. I uh look at the spreadsheet. I create a spreadsheet uh kind of similar to to what uh uh you were just seeing, but a lot more stuff happening in it, but trying to look at balance. And

043then my counselor goes through that uh that my assistant principal goes through that spreadsheet. We bring in um additional teachers to look to just kind of review their departments and make sure that we have uh a good um balance of of uh teachers and schedules. Um throughout the process we get teacher feedback making sure that they are endorsed for the areas that we've assigned them to. Really important. We don't want to say, "Hey, uh, we know you're a science teacher, but we're going to have you teach English this year." Um, it doesn't work that way. We have to make sure that we're we're teaching within our endorsed areas. And most important, we try to make sure that as we're balancing that our priorities as a school are held true. So, we we talk all the

044time about what we value. And one of the things that we value and we we really want to ensure is that our students have the the ability to learn what they need to, especially in some of the core competencies. literacy, um, math literacy, science, those are really important foundational level skills and learning that we take very seriously. So, we we try to make sure that we keep those levels, those class levels, um, as much as we can close to that funding formula. But that means, as we've talked about, other areas may may see an increase in size. And so, um, that's not always that's not always bad. Sometimes PE teachers say, "Hey, I want more than 30 kids in the class because I I can do more things um with those kids." Uh, I had

045a choir teacher said, "I want 50 kids in every choir class." because a bigger choir is always better. And so, you know, we try to try to be try to be uh conscious of what their needs are and communicate with the teachers as we go. I had a art teacher once tell me, "Why do you always put so many kids in my class?" And I said, "It's just so you know, it's because they all want to be in your class because you are such a good teacher that they are begging us to get into your class." And and when she knew that, she was it gave her a different perspective. She was like, "Oh, administration's not trying to punish me [laughter] or whatever. I don't know what she previously thought." it was I'm valued and

046things of value often people want to have more of and so um do you have any questions for me? >> I have a question just processing in my mind. So these four classes you talked about are really important trying to meet them >> Yep. >> at 28 or 30. >> Yep. So if you have the these extracurricular classes that maybe aren't as popular, you might have 15 20 kids in those. How often does a principal go through to review those classes and say, "We're just not feeling these. We need to swap that with something else that can bring us up to 25 to 30 to 32 balance better." >> Yeah. on the front end. A lot once you're running in the school year, it becomes really hard to say pull somebody out of a class

047that they're already registered on and in and they have it on their schedule and say, "Hey, we're not going to run that class." So, we build in contingencies throughout the process. So, for example, and and that's a that's a great question. I'll just give you an example. We had a French intermediate French class that we were offering, a secondyear French class. um that we had a cohort of 20 kids and we felt like that's really not meeting our needs. Is this something that's going to build over time? We gave it we we ran it the first year uh ran it a second year, the third year it was it still the numbers were so low that we said we just if we don't build the cohort or if we don't have the cohort, we're not

048going to be able to run the class. and we didn't end up running the class. Um, but we didn't have it on the schedule either. As people signed up for it and we could see those numbers, we communicated with the students and their parents, we're not going to be able to run this class. We didn't have enough interest. Um, because student interest is really important in what we do and it drives a lot of that elective, those electives that uh that we offer. >> So, good question. Disney over the weekend and they do a great job of crowd um control. >> Yeah. >> And they have a cool app that tells you this this ride is really short. Go here. >> The principles do that say like [laughter] this class is really great. Go here.

049>> Uh would be nice, right? Yeah. No, no, we don't have anything like that. We do have we do ask them to put multiple choices down when they select their electives and we say you know those electives we then have to cap certain electives and say we'll we'll run this many classes but if you didn't get your choice your first choice will it's a random we run it through a randomizer those who didn't then we go to their second choice. just trying to make sure that we have looked at and tried to include their their wishes and then we have a conversation with them and their parents and usually they're like oh it's amazing how many times it's like well I just put that cuz I didn't know what else to put or you know

050there's but sometimes we'll encounter ones that are like no this student's just passionate about art and then we will say okay let's look at another another uh option for that student. So, >> do you try to um this just complicates things a whole ton more, but for some reason that was a big deal in my school >> to have equal boys and girls in your class or do you >> We do not. We do not. Um I do not know if power school automatically as it's assigning looks at gender. Does it? >> It doesn't. You have to assign it and tell it to do that. Okay. We can do it if we need to, but we don't do it very often. >> Okay. Bardett's a former counselor, so I trust what he says. He knows

051he knows uh that that side of things better than I do. >> Any other questions for >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you for coming, Bard. >> You bet. I was told I get extra FTE if I come, so I hope that's really the case. Um, >> yeah, I know. >> Um, I don't have a ton more to add um be to what that's already been said there. There's but there's a couple things. One is um I think as a I've been luckily been involved in the master schedule my whole career as a counselor and and as a principal. And certainly as a principal, I think this is the the biggest one of the biggest and best ways I can influence my school with um culture and curriculum and opportunities and things like that.

052So, the fact that we have the ability to make those decisions at our level and it's not a numbers game of this has to be that that that's huge to us. Um I have a little over 90 teachers and we teach 947 sections. So, 947 classes well that we paid for. I got a few free ones in there that I worked out, but um so it's a lot of sections and a lot of things. Jared um has has a tough job every year of um predicting what my enrollment is going to be and I get funded on that enrollment. Um this last year, and he always does that right around the 1st of April, which is nice cuz then we can start hiring, but it's always kind of a moving target. this last year. I'm

053sad to say from what he gave me in April to when we started school, he missed it by two students. So, I mean, was it was close, but um if he gets it right on next year, Tim says he'll buy him a steak dinner. So, I hope that's okay. But no, Jared has done a great job in that. And that's been a huge benefit. Um, kind of before Jared, there was times where we would be one to two FTEEs off and once we start school, it's hard to add teachers and things in once we've already got schedules in and things going. So, um, kudos to Jared because he's doing a great job of getting us what we need beforehand and being really close with the money. Like I said, it's that's a huge thing for

054us to know what we're doing as we go in. Um, the other big thing for us, especially at a high school, we're very PCCR driven. So our we build the schedule based on what the students request. So there is no Disneyland app. We base it on what they tell us in the in the spring, which is why we really try to get parents and students to take the registration process serious when they do it. Um, when we run our schedule, we get 80 84ish, sometimes a little more percent of what they request in the spring, I can get it into their schedule, but then when they start changing their minds, then it just kind of messes everything up. So, getting people on the front end to make good decisions and not just flipping, oh, just

055put this down and we'll change in the fall. Um, that's what makes those class sizes go big and small a lot. Uh the other side of it is um with 947 different classes, we're always going to have um conflicts. So AP this and concurrent that sometimes get taught at the same time and based on athletics and other things kids do, they can't be in two places at one time. So that makes they have to choose. And so one although we do the numbers right in the beginning, one cl one goes down and one goes up and and that's kind of how how it ends up. The other side of it is is because we're PCCR driven, I still have to fill contracts too. So I'm there's I have teachers because what like you know if

056we have a class that goes down to 12, I may not have anything else for that teacher to teach. So sometimes those classes get taught at 12 because I've got to I've got to pay that teacher one way or the other anyway. And so that makes it a difficult process too. Um it would be really easy if we just said this is the number of classes we're teaching and everyone take them and like that would be really good but I don't think that's what any of us value and it's and we want to get kids in the places that they want to be so they can prepare for their future and and do other things and have opportunities to do AP and concurrent and um BTE classes and the CAP new CAPS program is is

057is doing some great things. So all of those things preparing kids to do that. So, but choosing and that PCCR driving us is definitely a challenge to work with, but it's it's worth it. I also like what Blair said. Um, you know, what drives our class sizes sometimes, too, is is like we're trying to increase the number of APs we're teaching at Ridgeline, for example. So, as we have a new class come on, we might incubate an AP class at 20 or 22 for a year or two and see if we can't get it going. If it doesn't get going, then when we stop. But that also elevates other other class sizes and things like that. But to be able to make those choices and try and follow those values and principles as a school

058is is very important to us. So anyway, >> great. >> And so I think it's a good thing that um students have moments where they have to choose between certain classes that they can't have everything that they want because as adults neither do we. And >> as my all of my kids tell me, adulting is really hard. >> Yeah. >> And so, um, >> it's good for our kids in high school to start seeing some of those hard choices, which to us may or may not be hard, but to them in their that moment, it's >> Yeah, for sure. And, you know, Blair brought up sometimes parents don't understand. So, we're like, well, just move that class. And you heard the ramifications sometimes of moving a class. And and we play with that with the

059computer as we go through. we will move a class. Let's say hey let's try this here so we don't we have a conflict matrix so the computer will tell me what classes are conflicting so I know going in so we'll move a class somewhere else and then it's better or worse or whatever. So we mess with it a lot, but it ends up being that way. But everyone wants what they want, and sometimes it's hard. But >> it is, but that's part of education, right? >> Our education is about uh a lot more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. >> Yeah. And the other thing that kind of helps out a little is I always look at why are kids changing their schedules or changing their classes and friends and girlfriends and boyfriends and lunch period

060and all those things impact those things. And I remember when we went to the one lunch at Sky View years ago, like it changed my life as a counselor because I had kids stop making stupid choices about their education over who they could have lunch with. And they usually broke up with that girl 2 weeks later anyway. and it didn't matter, you know. And so, um, the one lunch thing has been been huge, I think, as far as like making good academic decisions cuz a lot of them want to make the decision for who they can be with, not what's they really want. So, >> I have a question. So, [clears throat] 900 and something classes, >> 947 >> um 947. Uh, how easy is it to maintain with your core classes? So, math, science,

061English, that 30 32 number with all those classes you're trying to balance. >> Yeah, it's a little bit easier because we really focus on it, right? Like that's one of those guiding principles we have. I also use some trust land money or TSSA money and put in extra money to reduce those those classes. So, that goes directly to those teachers to to keep those down. And it's also easier to predict. Like I I have 523 freshmen coming in this year. So I know that tells me how many English, math, science. Well, somewhat science because they can choose. But English and math, I know how many sections I'm going to need up front and I put that in. And and if it's an odd number, sometimes I put a little extra because we usually grow and

062stuff. So >> the last thing, if there's anything you could do different with maybe how the scheduling is done, what would you do? Like I said, the big thing is is getting people to choose what they want at that first meeting. That's the the biggest thing. If like I say, because with even with all the conflicts of 947 sections, I get 84 plus% in the class in a class somewhere in the day, not necessarily the hour or the friend they want, but somewhere in the day that they requested, but as soon as they change their mind that it messes everything up. So that's the biggest thing is getting parents and kids to take that PCCR registration part serious. If they did that and we did no schedule changes, it would be very easy. But our

063counselors are doing 200 plus schedule changes before school starts, maybe even more than that. And 15% of schedules, there's not that many schedules that are vacant or things like that. They're just choosing to do I I don't want to do that anymore. I want to do this. And I get that. That's part of it, too. And sometimes them changing their mind helps us. But if they would choose and stick with it, that would make a big difference. [clears throat] >> Thank you all so much. That was so informative. Uh, next on our agenda, we have a sex ed instructional materials discussion uh, presented by Melissa Coverstone. Hello. So, I'm Melissa Coverstone. I'm the administrative intern in the teaching and learning department. You got to hear from me last month about the math adoption. Um, now

064we get to talk about sexed instructional materials. Um so this presentation is going to have two parts. The first part is a report from our committee um that met to review our sexed instructional materials and then the second part is to share data with you that we received from the health department um about STI um pregnancy things like that. So for our sexed instructional materials committee it's made up of parents it's made up of community members that are medical personnel. It's made up of teachers, a counselor, um a representative from the teaching and learning department, and a member of our board. So, u Mr. Bagley was our board member this year for our sexed committee. Um the committee meets yearly to review any updated materials that have to do with sex education. By state law

065and board policy, we have to approve any materials used for sex education. And so that m that committee will review the materials and make any changes that they feel are necessary often to make sure they're medically accurate, things like that. Um the way the process works is over the years um as teachers find that they want to update materials that they're not being used or they need to change what's being used, they will upload their materials to a folder of things that they would like to be approved. Then we provide our committee access to that folder and they will go through all of the materials that need to be rep um approved. And then we meet in January and discuss all of the materials if there are any changes that are necessary. During that meeting,

066we'll make changes directly to the materials so that everyone on the committee is okay with what is being taught and then we take it to you guys and ask for approval of the materials. um you do have access to a to that folder. So if you want to dive into the materials, you can. Um I think there's a link later on in the presentation. So this year our committee um reviewed the revised and updated materials for several courses. Um they looked at health materials for middle school, they looked at health materials for high school, they looked at our family and consumer consumer sciences exploration class. Um they looked at several CTE classes. So, our advanced health science class, our exercise science, sports medicine medicine class, our introduction to health science class, and our medical anatomy

067and physiology classes. All of these had um materials that needed to be updated or that teachers wanted to start teaching from that had to be approved. The other role of this committee is to review any parent complaints that come about our sexed materials. This year, we had only one complaint. It came actually just a couple days before our our committee met. I believe it was sent to the board as well and you do have access to that um complaint. The committee also reviews any pornography complaints and we have had none at this time. The parent concern um was two parts. The first part was that the parent thought that teaching sterilization as a form of contraception was not appropriate for high school students. The second part was that the materials included a reference to Planned

068Parenthood and she thought that was inappropriate as well. Our committee reviewed the complaint and determined that the information taught about sterilization did in fact fall within the parameters of the law for teaching contraception and that there was sufficient reason to continue teaching it. Um, specifically that students need to be learning not just things that are going to be relevant to them right then in that moment, but for their futures as well. And so that um sterilization needed to be something that they were aware of. The complaint about Planned Parenthood was actually irrelevant in the sense that a year ago we removed all references to Planned Parenthood from our slides. So the slide presentation that the parent had received was an outdated slide deck. Our approved materials have removed all references to Planned Parenthood. So to

069help mitigate this in the future, we sent out an email to our teachers letting them know, make sure you are pulling the presentations from the approved folder, not from something that you've saved on your computer or that you've been working from for years, you have to be pulling it every year from the approved folder. That way, if there are changes like removing Planned Parenthood references that the teachers are using the updated information. Okay. So, here on this slide, this is where you can find the link to the um materials that the committee reviewed. We are requesting that the board approve the use of these materials as the committee has um reviewed them and updated them. The second part of this presentation, I guess before we move on, are there any questions about our sexed materials

070or instruction? Okay. The second part is a review of data. Um, we're going to focus on Bear River Health Department because that's relevant to us, but this has um Utah wide data as well. We'll look at teen pregnancy rates. We'll look at sex sexually transmitted diseases and infections as well as child abuse. Um, we won't be looking at pornography complaints because we have none. Here's our chart showing adolescent birth rates for our teenagers ages 5 to six 5 to n sorry 15 to 19. Um, this is broken down by small area within the Bear River Health Department and this is a rate per 10,000 females. Um, it compares cash overall with our state of Utah average and our US average. Um, Smithfield had such a small number that um, the data had to be suppressed.

071it wasn't appropriate for publication. There any questions about that? Okay. Then we get into sexually transmitted infections. Um these are all per 100,000. The rates that are displayed are going to be per population of 100,000. So we're specifically focusing on chlamyia, gorrhea, and syphilis. The most recent data that we have is for 2023. So we don't have 2024 2025 and we can see the rates there for 2023 as well as our percent change over 5 years and our percent change over one year. >> Does the [clears throat] sorry does the health department have an idea why syphilis continues to increase? >> If they do they haven't shared it with me. It wasn't the report that I received was a whole bunch of charts of data like this. So perhaps they do, but I'm not aware

072of it. Um, then we have chlamydia cases by rates and by local health district. So Bear River is up here at the top. So we see our number of cases in our bear river bare river health department over the years and then our um rates per 100,000 in the department and then we have specifically for adolescence and young adults for chlamyia. So, we have our males. It's broken down males and females, our total number of cases, and then our ages. And this is for 2023. I'm going to move along a little bit, but if you want me to go back or anything, please tell me to slow down. We have gorrhea. Same thing. Number of cases and our rates per population of 100,000. >> Are all of these charts now per 100,000? >> Per 100,000.

073Yep. The rates are per 100,000. We have the number of cases just raw cases and then per 100,000. Then we have for our cases for adolescence and young adults. Um we do have small enough numbers that the department of health and human services recommends um caution in interpreting the data that we don't general generalize too much from it. And that's indicated by the asterisks. So we see our rates for gorrhea. Then we have syphilis. Same thing. Number of cases and rates with the same asterisk meaning the same thing. Be careful interpreting the data. And then we have our child abuse data. Um these are confirmed allegations by the type and by the relationship of the individual responsible for the abuse or the neglect. Um so we have our domestic violence related child abuse is that

074first bar. Um we have our child endangerment etc. and other neglect that includes lots of different definitions of neglect are there. And here's where you can access our department data. So I took the charts from um the annual report, I believe it was, and put it onto the slideshow. So that's where these came from. But we have a Google folder that you all have access to that will um provide all of this information, our STI surveillance update, the data, the annual report, um births, etc. Any questions? Nice. >> Okay. >> Well done. >> Thank you. >> Uh, next we have Jeremy Young to present our TSI along with several other reports. CSI, is that like uh investigations? >> Uh, no, it's not. [laughter] >> I'll I'll spend a little time going over what those mean.

075>> All right. today. Um, essentially TSI, TSI, CSI all deal with uh federal um school improvement designations uh tied to school accountability. Um, and so I'll I'll spend a little bit of time talking about where those designations come from, um, how schools get identified, what the process is. Um, it's wildly complex and so it will be a reader digest version for you folks. You're welcome to dive into the accountability technical manual all you want afterwards though. Um, uh, so accountability measures um, come from a couple of places. So in in the reports um, on the categories are there on the right. So achievement and growth. The growth is an SGP, a student uh growth percentile. There's English learner proficiency and progress growth of the lowest 25% of the students and then post-secondary readiness. Those elements

076all come from the assessments that are on the left hand side. uh and so which are primarily rise for 3 through 8, Utah aspired plus for 9th and 10th, WEDA access for our EL students and ACT graduation rate, concurrent enrollment rates, AP rates and CTE pathway participation in our high schools. So the post-secondary readiness only applies to our high schools. So our elements the how these pieces fit into accountability um is every school gets a score every year and this is kind of what it's based on. Um and so proficiency and growth. So this is our elementary and middle schools. You can see from the pie chart proficiency and growth and growth of lowest 25% all are tied to state testing. Uh so it's all rise. Uh and so 91% of their score comes from

077the rise test um that we take at the end of the year. Um and then that 9% oh wrong button sorry that 9% uh is the WEDA that our EL students take. And so when we look at these scores, um that's where where it comes from uh for accountability. Uh for our high schools, um the achievement um proficiency and growth and the growth of the lowest 25% comes from Utah Aspire Plus that our 9th and 10th graders take. Um our EL progress comes from the WEDA that our English learners take. Uh and then our post-secary readiness um comes from those those three high school categories. So a graduation rate uh so that's just our seniors our senior class and it's actually a year behind because of how long they have to to count. That's usually

078counted through September. And so um they generally don't have time for that to come out by October when these are supposed to come out. And so it's a year delayed and the ACT is our juniors. Advanced coursework is also our seniors and so that's delayed. Um which is important to know as you start looking at data around schools and and why they're getting points and when that that they get a score on a year for students that haven't even been in the school for a year um for those two components. And so that's is kind of a very lagging indicator. Um, this is where you can find the data or anyone in the state can find the data. This is all public data on the um, state board of education's data gateway. And there's this

079piece called accountability indicators. It's right next to our school report card. Both of those places have all of this data. Um, the accountability indicators, it's a little more consolidated and compiled and easier to see. If you're interested in looking up districts or schools, you can see any of them in the state and and over time there. Um, essentially here's what that means. So, this accountability system, this is what it means for schools. Um, when it comes to accountability, um, this started essentially with the the ESSA, every student succeeds act in 2015, followed up by Senate Bill 220 and 217. Um, and then we have state code and board rule that that affect this um, accountability. um essentially um identifying schools or subgroups within schools um for additional support and improvement. So TSI what that means

080is targeted school support and improvement um those they make identifications for of those schools every year uh and the exit is to get above the cut score. So essentially here's how that happens. This is a really fast way of how it happens. Um, every year a school gets points based on the percentages out of those [clears throat] the what I've just shown you out of those pie charts. So they'll get a score that's a percentage of total possible points. Um they and they calculate that for every school as a whole school. Then they separate out all the title one schools and they rank them from highest to lowest. And where the bottom 5% of title one schools score, they establish that number as a cut score. And then they compare every title one school to

081that. But then they rerun that same calculation for every demographic group within a school that has more than 10 students. um specifically um race and ethnicity groups, uh English learners, students with disabilities, uh economically disadvantaged, so you're free reduced. Um those groups, they they rerun that calculation as if that group was a school. Um and any that fall below that cut line for that school, that group would be that's two years in a row would be TSI. Okay. If a school group or school group um doesn't exit TSI for two year two consecutive years um they move into ATSI. So it's additional targeted support and improvement and they they do that based on a three-year average below the cut score. So if their three-year averages below the cut score, they're identified for additional targeted support

082and improvement. um to exit that um is a little harder. Uh they not only have to get that group or the school to score above the cup score, but they also have to have um onethird of the way between their original identified score and either 55% of possible points for an elementary or middle or 57% of possible points for a high school. You [clears throat] can kind of start to see how complex this becomes with years and components and percentages and it's all based on student well it's majority of it is based on student testing. Um, if a school is a title one school and they don't exit ATSI after 4 years of being ATSI, then they can be identified as a CSI school, which is comprehensive support and improvement. Um there really isn't anything

083beyond um some some extra requirements coming from the state level to the district level until we hit this CSI level. uh at TSI and ATSI, we we have the um the schools create plans and we monitor the implementation of those plans as they're directing um some of their efforts and resources to supporting those identified groups. Um once it become we move into CSI, then um we have an increased level of of requirements around that, but this the state does provide funding to our district to support those schools. Um but but not until we reach that CSI status for title one schools. >> Questions to this point >> just taking it in. >> Okay. [laughter] >> Will parents see this presentation anywhere other than for the board meeting? >> No. I'm just asking because all of

084the This is kind of my soap box. the acronyms. If they don't know what they stand for, they're not going to understand it if they see this. >> Most people don't or even most teachers don't know that they might hear that their school is TSI or ATSI, but they don't know what it means. >> Should there be like a vocabulary page or something? >> I'm sure there is on the state site. Um, but but we really >> down several layers. >> Yeah. I just curious. >> Yeah. I know it'd be a nightmare probably, but >> yeah. No, I mean it's >> I appreciate what you have done >> and there's even more because so if we move into this so here's more acronyms for you. This is all the subgroups >> um that they they

085run this accountability for. And so you can see um the the different groups. This is kind of an example of of what it would look like. So if I have if 40.3 in 2022 was the 5% the the cut score essentially. So any group so if you're looking at at this particular school I think this is a school down in Salt Lake um all of these subgroups well these fell below that and so um if they fell below two years in a row those that school would be identified as TSI for all of those groups. Um, and you can kind of see how the breakdown of percentages for each of those points works. But these are all the different ones that they they do for our the majority of the state is the same uh

086or similar to to us in that here are the identified schools and subgroups. We don't have any schools. We have subgroups within schools um that that have fallen below that category those categories. If you'll notice, the vast majority of these are EEL students. And so they and and I in other meetings you've heard principles talk about this um in and it's not unique to our school. It's it's very common throughout the state. Uh and I think there's lots of reasons for it. Part of it is just is the test that they're taking. Um but the the EL subgroup is is identified as needing support. Um >> what is HI7 H17 is Hispanic. >> Okay. And has >> so North Yeah. North Park. Um so the different the different subgroups. The majority are EL students. We

087have two schools uh that are students with disabilities. So students with an IEP. And then North Park uh currently is for um Hispanic students. Um >> thank you. >> Uh if at any point the we've we've had some schools kind of go on and off TSI ATSI um if they have a student population around that 10% um or that number of 10 that end size of 10. if they if it drops below then they just drop off completely um and start that process over. Um so we we do have some of that with some of our schools that are smaller. Um with the boundary changes next year, we don't know what that will do to it may impact what this looks like. Uh it won't impact our efforts to support this population in our school

088district. Um changes from last year to this year. Uh, Heritage actually exited ATSI and they scored the the EL students there scored points to get them above the cut score and above their target score. So, it was higher than the cut score because of that one-third um calculation. Uh, which is tricky because if you have a school that is just barely below that cut score, not only then to get off, not only do they have to get above the cut score, but they have to get a third of the way to 55. So, their target really could be up here compared to the traditional cut score. Um, we had River Heights uh get on TSI this year. It was their second year below the cut score, so they moved to TSI and Lewon was TSI

089for EEL and they moved to ATSI. We had a couple of groups really close to exiting. Uh Mountain Crust was less than a half a percentage point away for their students with disabilities uh subgroup. Uh North Park was 1% away. Uh which is um sad because the last two years you so you can't exit ATSI until your third year on it. Their first two years on it, they were well above their target score. Um and so this year they were dropped just below it. Um, which is too bad because they use a three-year average to get on ATSI, but if they had used a three-year average to get off ATSI, they would have been off this year, but that's not how it's written. Uh, and Sky View's ELS were 1.15% away. Um, I anticipate that

090they will be off next year. um because this past year they had a senior class that had more than 10 Yale students in it and logged a lot of points but it's one year delayed because of that the that postsecondary piece and so that group earned them points in the system. Um but they won't get them until next year but they've done some great things out there. It's just this is trailing. Yeah, >> it's a little bit lagging. Um, and then actions of school supports. This is kind of some of the things that we've been doing uh to support these schools. Um, so I mentioned that the schools write plans and then they meet with the instructional council and and report um monitoring of implementation of those plans. Uh we've been actually working with all

091of the schools recently um to improve their development of their school improvement plans and provide um principles and school leaders with with PD um including developing root cause analysis, needs and gap analysis, working on process goals and putting in place systems uh and monitoring systems that support students. Um, we've also been promoting specifically with our high number of EL ELLL ATSI designations. Um, promoting the the ESL endorsement and and the positive impact that'll have not only for ESL students, but really all students as those um teaching methods and and strategies are implemented. Uh, and then specifically at Canyon, that's our one school that's that's on CSI. Um uh we did a root cause analysis with them last fall. So last year was their first year on CSI. Uh we did a comprehensive needs assessment. We

092partnered with Innovations Ed uh to they get monthly PD um and enga uh on engagement supporting engagement in their school. Um they budgetary support that really provides for that partnership. Um and then they get additional support from our teaching and learning team. our our specialists and coaches are involved a lot more with what is happening out there and and supporting the teachers and their teams there. Any question? That was a flood of information and it was the tip of the iceberg. Do you have other or any questions around >> who is it exactly who came up with this plan of grading? um the state office of the USB, the state board of education >> is is who put it in place >> plan to the department of education who then signed off on it. >>

093Yeah. So they submit a plan. It's called the ESSA plan from our state to the department of ed for for that every every student succeeds act. Um, and this is is part of that and then they sign off and any revisions or any changes that we that we make have to be approved at that level. Um, currently there's there's a draft of a of approval and changes waiting, but there's not a lot of folks at the federal department of ed right now and so there are not speedy to respond to that request. >> That was going to be my question. Do they have plans to make adjustments to this ever? >> Yes, they they regularly do. Um, and >> make it more complex. >> I don't know you could make it more complex. Um, trying

094to make it more fair. um you know tweaking calculations, tweaking growth targets, tweaking you know as as we as we gain more information and and more research is available around what's an appropriate level of of growth for so for example I think in the most recent revision they've included new EL growth targets and so what's an appropriate level for language growth for an English language learner um and so what should what what's an appropriate target. Um, and that calculates into those English learner points and and all of that. >> Thank you. >> Wow. Thanks, Jeremy. >> There's the process. >> It's It's so much. >> Anyone else have questions for Jeremy? Oh, let's do something simple. The proposed school fee schedule presented by Jared Black. [laughter] [clears throat] >> [cough] >> So, as a reminder

095to school board members [clears throat] with with Utah law, currently uh the school board needs to pass a fee schedule for each upcoming school year by April 1st. And we need to have two opportunities for public input on that fee schedule. So our our schedule outline typically is that we'll present an initial draft in this meeting with opportunity for public comment in in the next meeting and then a second opportunity for public comment in the March uh 19th meeting and then uh the board could approve the the proposed fee schedule in in that meeting. So that's that's generally how we proceed. um new new this upcoming year uh for our school fees would be that there's a requirement to have a feef free pathway to graduation. And so uh we've worked with each of the

096secondary schools uh principles and counselors to make sure that that option is is in line for each of the high schools. Uh for the most part we were already there. We we um have made a couple of little adjustments uh I think at Sky View and Green Canyon if I'm remembering right, but but that's in place. So, the idea is just that if a student wanted to graduate without any course fees, there would be at least one option for that within all of our course. Um, so, uh, let me pull up on my own computer so I can speak to it, but we've we've prepared for you a, uh, draft fee schedule for the upcoming year. Uh, adjustments are in red on on the schedule and u some of the adjustments are just with with

097uh, our realignment of grades for for school levels, just aligning with that. So, elementary school would be K through five instead of K through six. Middle schools would be six through eight um instead of seven and eight. And then, um I'm going to talk about a couple of proposed fee adjustments and then we'll invite Cindy, our CTE director, to come up and talk about the CTE course fees that that we're presenting this year. Um, so John Anderson, who's not here, um, so I'm kind of subbing for him on this, but he's worked with all of the secondary principles on any proposed adjustments, uh, to our secondary classes. Two proposals came in uh, for our middle schools, which would be an $8 STEM fee and an $8 theater fee. Uh, there's a a little explanation attached

098to this for each of those. Uh but uh schools have been essentially funding those courses from student activity fees that existed up until this last year. But if you remember, general fees were were statutoily removed this last year. So schools have kind of been floating that. But but Phil that a better long-term solution for those courses would be this $8 uh fee. And then the other proposal uh I was going to review with you was sent in by u a winter guard advisor at one of our schools to adjust that from 200 to 400. And that proposal is also attached. So you could read through it in the next couple of weeks and and see if you have any questions or concerns. But it it looks like um the the idea is just to provide

099uh more opportunity for students in winter guard uh for competitions and and the travel that would be required to go to those competitions. Any questions to that point on anything? Okay. Cindy, do you want to talk about CT? And while she's coming up to do this, up until, and she'll talk to this, but up until about 3 years ago, I believe we had on our fee schedule just one line that was CTE supplies. And because we now have to list every course uh individually, that one line, as Cindy's going to present it back to us, is now like 50 lines. But um if it helps to conceptualize that um that one line used to encompass all of our CTE courses. So that's why it it looks like it's so many when previously it was just

100one. But you want to >> Yeah. The optics don't look awesome with having to list every single course versus just a flat $10 fee per course per trimester. So that doesn't look great. um the need to the ask to re-implement CTE course fees. Um if we look at our and I um if you want to look up um you have an attached document on your agenda so you can look at that just kind of the talking points. Um this year our CTE allocated expenditures are actually more than our CTE funds. So we are functioning at a deficit or the expectation is that we're going to function at deficit. So, I kind of did a dive into why why are we having more expenditures in CTE than is the funding that's being that cover CTE programs.

101Um, this year, I'm sure you're aware or if not, um, CTSOs, which are current technical student organizations like FFA, FBA, HOSA, DECA, those um, student organizations, the funding funding was removed. So there is no previously we usually got about $70,000 from the state to run this program. We got zero this year and our um allocated expend expenditures on our budget is about 132,000. So we're having to pay for that out of our CTE um funding. also our our in each of our courses at the end of the course they take a competency exam and students who pass at a proficiency level they there's funding generated from that as well. So a celebration that I shared with you when I came to talk about our CTE program was that our our competency test proficiency jumped 20%.

102From the previous year which is amazing. Um, but then when I looked at the funding for the competency portion in our add-on monies from the state from the spring to in the fall, it decreased like $50,000. And I was like, what happened there? How can we like have our testing performance go up 20%, but we just dropped $50,000? And when I asked the state specialist, she said actually it's one finite pot of money and the more people as testing performance goes up that gets spread a little thinner. So that was a a hit this year as well. Um if we look at personnel costs, I shared this back when I came and talked about our CTR program. Our personnel costs are increasing. So I dug a little bit deeper into that too to try to

103find explanations for that. So as our faculty ages those resulting increases in steps as our faculty gains increased education they move over lanes which both of these are great things because seasoned educated teachers are effective right so that's what we want in our classrooms but the cost associated with that increases um hasn't happened lately but I do remember back and John was talking with me about this too when we were I was transitioning into this position back when the state gave a cola of like um 5% but our district tried to bring wages up to be commensurate to the rest of the state. So we had a cola of 8%. Well, if the state gave 5% but the district did 8% that 3% came from CTE for our CT teachers. Does that make sense? So

104that was an impact. Um benefits I dug into that one too. And if you look at fiscal year 23 at that rate for our this is this is our cumulative cost for substitutes. Um when we switched from the system of having to identify sick leave versus personally versus um prof uh no person anyway you know >> thank you. It switched from the sickly personal leave days to just PTO, right? If I was curious to see what kind of an impact that had on our if more teachers took days and we had to cover their substitute and there was there was a jump if you look at that fiscal year 24 fiscal year 23 was 119,000 and then it jumped to 148,000. Um if we look I was curious about insurance. So for a high deductible

105family plan back in 2020 it was $17,000. If we look now in 23 to current, it's right around $24,000. So they're al those are all personnel expenditures that are coming. If you're a CTE teacher, that comes out of the CTE funding. So just kind of digging in as to why are personnel costs going up? Why are we kind of uh functioning more at a deficit? Um, as I've been doing my listening tours with, um, my CTE teacher teams, um, something that has become apparent that needs to be needs to take place is we need to set up an equipment um, maintenance schedule because a lot of some of the CT equipment's expensive and so for financial responsibility and safety, we need to have that equipment um, we need a system on to keep it regularly

106maintained and replaced. that's new. So that will be a new expenditure. Currently when I asked how is our equipment currently being maintained a lot of times it's the teacher that does it right. Um but then that's going to be variable in how often that happens and the quality of that maintenance and does the teacher have the adequate knowledge to do that and is that a an ask we should be asking of the teachers. So >> replacement parts and calibration all that stuff. >> Yep. So that's a concern. Um we are we do have a K12 pathway for CTE. We want to plant the seeds young. We want to have them um do that exploration discovery and hopefully they ignite onto a pathway that they're excited about that could lead them to a a high wage,

107high demand career. Um but the funding is does we don't have the funding for the lower grades. The funding is 9th grade through 12th grade. So that's an additional um funding draw on our our CTE funds. Um just to give any example [sighs] um we can sometimes apply for Perkins special project grants and we applied for three this year and we typically John typically will get like one they tight to try to spread them out amongst all of the districts and this year we put in three and we got zero. So was so when I reached out to say hey kind of give me some guidance. Do we need to do our grant writing differently or where's where's the guidance and she's like there's just a lot more ask this year because a lot of

108CTE directors are saying okay I got to capitalize on I got to bring in more revenue somewhere right so there's just more demand for that supply. Um there are just for for reference um Jared helped me with this just said, "Hey, you know, Granite School District, um they charge CTE course fees." And I looked there and um they do have like 50 plus CTE course fees and they range from a $5 fee to an $80 fee. And when I looked at them, the most frequent fees were right around the $30 $40 ask. um we with the and the last thing is fees were removed from CTE course fee um courses back in 2223. So that also had an impact on our CTE budget. So to kind of prepare what I would present to be approved,

109um I had all of our CTE teachers actually put together a spend plan because we know that's now a requirement. We can't just do the $10 flat fee. um they have to actually show exactly where those expenditures are happening. So I had each teacher at each school put together a spin plan. The CT coordinators collected them, sent them to me. I was able to plug them into a spreadsheet and kind of look at the outliers, try to find a commonality, and then compare that to what we currently fund each of those CT courses. So if you look in that first column, say um 3D animation, currently we fund the our district held CTE money. We fund that at $10 per student. So after the 10day mark of each trimester, I um run a spreadsheet where

110I input the actual numbers of rostered kids in each of these CTE courses as compared to the supply Monday uh the amount that I provide for the supply. and it it calculates how much I send to each high school for their CTE supply money for that trimester. Um, so I compared the spend plans that the teachers presented to me with what we've been funding and my proposal is about a 50% ask. So if it's a $5 fee, I thought, okay, it's a $5 fee. Let's pass that on and see if the parents can contribute $5 per course. If it was say a $20 fee that the spin plans were establishing, that's the the pretty much the average ask. Then we're saying, okay, can we ask for a CTE fee in that course of $10 and

111then I'll continue to supplement out of the district held CTE funding $10 so that the courses are held harmless so we can kind of do a a more gentle introduction back into introducing CTE fees. So if you can look, you can see in that first column how much we are funding each of those courses per student per trimester and then this the second column the highlighted yellow is the proposed amount that we would like to introduce. If you look at the bulk of them they're 5 to 15 is the bulk of the ask and when prior to the CTE fees being phased out it was a $10 flat fee. So it's not a ton more. Um we do have to do it specific to the course. So, some of our courses that have um more

112expensive consumable products like welding and woodworking, those fees are a bit more. And then the final column shows how much um CTE district held money will continue to to supplement those course supply fees. So if you look at the end um the totals uh we tried to keep the parent ask less than what our district held CTE funding would supplement the courses. Do you have questions? >> How much money will that generate then these fees? How much money into the CTE program? >> Well that's hard to calculate because it depends on the number of students who sign up for each of the courses. So, I tried to just I I looked at it should be about a 50 50% savings, >> which is >> I Well, I we spend about $800,000 in supply money annually.

113>> Yeah. Yeah. >> All right. >> Any other questions for somebody? >> A lot of work to go through here. Yeah, >> it was a lot to dig in, but teachers helped a lot put together the spend plans. So, we just want to provide the best opportunity for the students and we need to have adequate equipment safe, maintained, the supplies. Yeah. So, we can give that opportunity. >> Do we believe we'll lose some students because of these fees? >> So, when I did my listening tours, I did have some teachers who said, "Oh, we need to be careful on a introducing the fees again because that might not feel great for some families." um but would that become a factor in students choosing to take a CTE course or not? Which again is why um

114I've done several iterations of this and tried to really back it down to a lower ask for sure because no, we don't want to scare parents off, kids off because there's a fee associated. So I was I was thinking the flat fee would have been nice, but it's not a possibility anymore because we have to have those spin plans that are specific to the course and its expenditures. The fees that are listed though seem don't seem reasonable. >> It seems fair to me. >> Seems really fair. >> Yeah. >> Thanks for doing that. >> Yeah. Tried to do a real reasonable ask. >> Did a great job situation. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thanks. >> Thank you very much. >> Appreciate that. Uh, moving on, we have our systems of support reports agenda and the

115only item on there will be presented by Kevin WAC who is our director of technology and he will present the technology plan. >> Official technology plan. >> Oh, that's why you wore a tie today. [laughter] Um Tim's going to lead us in some jumping jacks so we could I will I will try not to keep you too long. Um for somebody that doesn't like to talk, I can be long- winded. So I will do my best. Um that's what uh AI just in case anybody cared. That's what AI uh said that um an image of what the technology plan is for the next five years. I'm not quite sure that we're going to look that Star Treky, but anyway. >> So, um Okay. Okay. I just touch on this real quick. Um obviously, um as

116as a part of this district, I just want to express that that we have the same goals um that the rest of the district has um as far as educating our students. Um and we really have tried to work towards um the goal uh that we have as a district to be articulated, coordinated, and aligned with all of our departments. Um obviously we're here to um support teaching and learning um provide the hardware and software that's required uh to do uh digital curriculum all the testing and stuff that Jeremy has shared um with us and um to support all the all the district operations from teaching and learning to business uh facil uh facilities and student services. Um just a real real brief in case um you all don't know and you you have the

117document that that kind of shows this more in depth but um we have three kind of arms of our technology department. The operation um team, the information systems and support. So operations are our CIS admins are uh that do the stuff behind the scenes. Um, information systems is our SIS, our power school team and our support are our help desk staff and uh our texts that go out to the schools. Um, so a big portion very very big portion of our our plan and and goal for the next 5 years is to work towards the centralization of technology purchasing and with that the standardization. We've come a long ways with standardizing. I mean, we've been working on that. Tim before me had been working on that heavily to standardize things. We want to keep pushing

118forward um with that standardization. And part of that we feel um strongly that by moving to a centralized purchasing um model that that that will help get our our schools and everybody in line. Um some of the big reasons for that again what I just said um but it's also to alleviate the burden on our our school administrators. They're being asked to do more and more every day. Um that the current model um that exists is me or Spencer meets with uh school administrators on a regular basis. We go over spreadsheets. We show them what they have in the classroom. They ask us questions. We we say, "You've got this many of this thing or this many of this thing. We suggest you replace things." And then they make these decisions of what they should

119or shouldn't do. Um it gets tedious for our administrators um because it's not the thing that they live in every day. So part of going this route is is the hope that it and we feel that it will greatly remove that burden from from school administrators that they could focus on uh the kids in the building and not worried about if they need to buy a new TV for a classroom. Um with that a big part of it and we've made a big push in this this last year and we continue to do that is um with our asset management. Now we have fixed assets. We've always had fixed assets. Um, when I first started at the district 22 years ago, almost all technology was a fixed asset. It it was easy because of the

120dollar amounts. That's changed. So many things are so much cheaper now um in that realm that most of our technology are not officially fixed assets anymore. So, we found the need to add a different type of inventory to it. So, we've started working on a a technology inventory. The the team worked hard this last summer um and have made great progress with inventorying all the technology. That's that's TVs, iPads, audio systems, all all the things that the teachers use in the classroom. Um so that we have accurate numbers. um that we know the ages of of things and and start seeing um some redundancies and some gaps. Um so part of the standardization is to eliminate the excess aging technology in our buildings. um we have things that that one person bought one time and

121it just doesn't align with what we have or are trying to do. So, um that also helps us uh streamline hardware acquisitions. It helps us greatly improve our support. Again, this is a part that Tim had started working towards or had done quite a bit and we're moving forward with that as well. Um, when our help desk or our school techs know the machines that they're working on, it is so much easier and quicker for them to to give good quality service to people as opposed to, oh, this was on sale on Amazon for a really awesome deal. And um, anyway, you you get the point. So, um, while we do a lot of bulk purchasing, so to speak, through different contracts or or, uh, state contracts that we that we do, um, we also

122feel that by doing a much more pointed bulk purchase of things, if the the technology department, it's not a school buys 10 computers here and this school buys a month later buys 10 computers. If we could start getting those more in bulk and buying say a 100, 200, 300 computers at one time, we're going to be able to get the best possible pricing um as opposed to how we're doing it now. and then um the to help eliminate it's amazing as we've done this um inventory and and I do think we do a good job as a district but it's still amazing to see how many extra random things or that this teacher for some reason has four computers in their room um and this teacher has one computer or they have three old uh

123iPads still sitting on a shelf. So, it's it's the inventory helped us find a lot of that stuff and we're working to be more efficient and we're not because we're paying licensing other fees for all that stuff. And so, again, this goal is to help eliminate that to reduce our our ongoing costs um and just become more efficient. Um part of that, um is with the hardware replacement cycles. We've always suggested hardware replacement cycles, but as we are able to move towards a centralized way of purchasing things, we could actually hold some accountability there. Um, right now we, you know, I've seen principles in the past, uh, Gary Thomas when he was a principal, for example, he had a plan to replace his teacher computers every 3 years. It was awesome. He just had it

124in his budget. He had a plan. He replaced things every 3 years. Um, other places that we've had, uh, they run until they die. Um, we, for those that that that know tech, recently Microsoft, um, made a decision to not support Windows 10 anymore. Um, we had many machines that just simply could not be updated anymore, but they, our principles rode those out till the last second. Um so we have everything in between and so uh the hope is to get a standard replacement cycle. What we find from that it's good to get good use out of things but when you start pushing that not only are our teachers and our students using outdated equipment. Um, and it's a big difference between somebody that has even a three-year-old Chrome Chromebook car, a student that's using

125that, then the class next to them is using a seven or eightyear-old Chromebook. That's a big difference in in in the what a kid is seeing as they're doing work, what a teacher could expect their kids to be able to do. Um, so we want to get those reasonable, but that also leads into the ability to actually get some return when we surplus the equipment. Right now when we get rid of our Chromebooks, we at some sometimes after we go through the surplus process and they don't get purchased or whatever and we have to get rid of them, I have to pay for somebody to res because you have to pay to recycle technology. Um, and so if they don't get purchased in the surplus process, it actually costs us money. So, as as we're

126able to get some of these replacement cycles, we could actually get some good return that helps keep the ball rolling on on this. So, um, and again, the amount of hours and repair as these devices get older and older, you have to repair them more. So you're, you know, an old car, you're repairing the old car more than you're, so it's finding the finding the good point where you're getting good solid use. You're not being wasteful, but you're also being able to get return. So that's what we're trying to do. Um, we're also trying to work, we've not really ever had a plan to update our our cabling and other things in in buildings. Sometimes um that technology moves a little bit slower. Um but there have been some major upgrades in cable speeds and

127things in buildings. And so we want to implement uh an ongoing replacement cycle so that um our speeds and usability um at our oldest building are in line with the speeds at our newest buildings. um so that kids and staff have the same experience no matter what school they're at. Um we continue to work with UEEN. They're a great partner. Um they are who uh we get our internet connectivity from and they continue to work with us as as um growth happens in our schools to get uh speeds increased. Um we also are working with them as hard as we can. We're in a unique situation because of the valley that we live in and the providers that we have, but we do the best that we can to have redundant lines to our schools.

128Um, but for example, Lewon Comcast is the only provider that will provide us internet there. So, we have a redundant connection, but it's in the same box. And so, if it goes down, it goes down. But we continue to look at new options and and try to keep so we could keep school going. We know when an outage happens, especially now, phones go down, parents can't call in, um people start panicking, and so we're looking at ways to try to keep um at minimum our front offices running at all times regardless of of like a power or um network outage. A most of our network uh to the schools is uh done through federal -ate funding. It's great. We get about 50% back on what we spend there. So that that helps us and we

129do that is one area we have a really good replacement cycle on is our networking our core networking infrastructure out at the schools that that um gets replaced um continually every year. We we do two or three schools and it's just been a really good process. So, >> sorry. What do you do with the old equipment? >> Um, it gets surplused. >> So, on on the networking, that one's a little harder because um >> I know there's fewer people interested in >> Yes, that's Thank you. That's what I was going to say. There's fewer people interested. some things that really pique people's interest and it also because of export laws and other things the who we could sell it to also goes down. >> I just that gear is really expensive. So >> yes >>

130when you say surplus you just stock it away in case something goes down then you can >> we do we do keep the newest outgoing things so that we have that we have adequate equipment to to do any replacements. the the old stuff, the the 10-year old plus stuff gets surplused. Um, just touch on these real quick on the security and data management side. Um, obviously we're doing we've got a plan for cyber security, working uh closely with others in the district and the data privacy committee on on all those new things. can't wait for the new legislation that'll probably add to some of those things. Um AI, I didn't touch on AI much in this plan. Um I didn't really get into specifics, but it AI does fall into one of those where we

131are working closely with digital teaching and learning. And um that's twofold because we have staff using it and then we have the appropriate use for students and and then the whole filtering side that we don't want kids using it to cheat and do other things. So um we're working with with other departments a ton on the AI front. Um, and we're making some good strides with uh two-way communications um to provide staff and teachers uh good ways to communicate back and forth with parents. I've gone long-winded. I'm sorry. So, we're going to go through this quick. We're just continue to work on our service levels. Obviously, with three new buildings coming in line, that's more, you know, the the our current staff is spread. uh uh we still feel that we could provide good service,

132but that's we're rethinking some of our SLAs's and stuff just because we have more places to be to um at this point. So um >> service level agreement. It's what our schools sorry it's what our what our schools can expect in response times to issues. So we try to keep those down as as much as we can. Um, just real quick, our base budget's about $83,000. Um, that does not include uh costs for most of our uh licensing. We do we do collect fees when um administration um purchases equipment for things like uh Microsoft, Apple, Chrome management. It's just those are ongoing costs in that way that they get paid uh for um I won't get into the weeds, but part of the centralized is to hope to eliminate that type that and do it

133more centralized with everything else. So, we're working towards that. Um we've had that budget for a substantial amount of time. I can't remember exactly, but it was well into when when Tim was um leading the department. Um and we do I just wanted to touch on we use state contracting and RFPs for the vast majority of what we do. We really do try to get the best pricing and we re-evaluate that. Most of our stuff is yearly. So, uh, at least once a year we're re-evaluating the licensing and things that we're paying for. Um, okay. Um, we continue to just look, we try to keep informed, updated. We we work closely with others in the state um on upcoming technologies and other things so we could we could plan for the future. technology is constantly

134changing, but we do try to stay on top of it so we're not caught off guard. Um, uh, we're constantly working with facilities, teaching and learning and others to u for things. Um, so for like facilities, you know, there's been lots of strides and things with uh, access controls. You know, it used to be analog keys and stuff and now everything's is digital and connected. And so we work with with uh like the facility department on that. We work a lot with staff's department um with student safety on on uh things like the doorbell cameras, that kind of stuff. Um and we yeah, we keep we try our best to keep our staff educated. We make sure that there's ongoing learning opportunities so they stay relevant in the industry. Um okay, real quick. I really

135am almost done. Gaps and concerns. And I know um I've told Jared before I I I cringe ever even happened to mention money around him. But um but funding is the primary thing. It it it's funding and that I I get it. That's for everybody. Um inflation is the thing that really affects us. Every single year our technology is going up with the usage of AI. computer costs are rising because all the big companies are buying all the RAM that would normally go into a computer that's on a teacher's desk and so it's forcing prices up and so funding is always always uh fun to to to sort out but I we do do fairly well. Um, state legislation is another big concern there. Obviously, you all know, but there are a lot of things

136that are mandated to us with very little or no money behind it. Um, we try we do our best to make sure we do everything the state asks us to do, but it is difficult when there's no money behind it. Um, so and so some of that's just uh hopefully we could try to keep working with the state to know that they could trust you all to make the right decisions so we can have funding in our our schools for these things. Um, cyber security is a big one. It's it's an ongoing battle and um so we we continue to work on there come up with with um solid policies in that regard. Um [sighs] we always face with cyber security the the feeling that those that staff members have of us making them do

137things. So that's always a challenge. We try the best that we can that um that we're working with people. we don't want to be a burden on people, but we also have to make sure the district is safe and secure and that we're following applicable laws that we're asked to do. So, that that's that's a challenge. Um, but we work through it. Um, and just helping them understand that we have the same goals. Um, and then competing with the private sector, that is the thing that keeps me up at night with my staff. I have an awesome staff, but that is that is a concern because um some of these guys could go and make a lot of money somewhere else. Fortunately, I feel that my team loves what they do and it is a

138good environment and so um but but that is always a concern. Okay, I think this the last one. Um but wins after all those concerns, I think we are doing great as a district. um with the cyber security officer. We are one of the few places in the state. They this has been preached um to districts to LEAs for I'd say the last 10 plus years to you need to get a security officer. You need to do this but it's been one of the hardest things uh for people to really invest in. We've done this for several years for quite a while that and we have that that is what Jeremy lives and breathes cyber security and it is awesome. He is awesome for our team and um I think we are a model to

139other districts in that regard because uh so many wish they had that and they don't. Um we have high satisfaction ratings with our IT uh support team. Um our help desk is second to none. Um Chris and Judson, many of you have worked with are are awesome. So um we have great collaboration with other departments. Um work regularly with Don and facilities. Um Britney with teaching and learning and andrew and others in that department. Um work very closely with with staff and with things of working closely. Tim helps me with HR stuff as much as but we also try to help and work with HR to provide them the things that they need as well. Um data privacy uh we've made a ton of strides with data privacy. We formed a data privacy committee um

140with many people in the district um from different departments that are involved in that. that is to help us digest what the state is asking us to do and other best practices and trying to find the best way to implement that in our our district. So, I think we're starting to make some great strides there. Um, and I'm just, this is me just um praising on my team, but uh we I have a group of in incredibly intelligent um awesome individuals and it is one of the things that makes coming to work uh a joy. So anyway, and I I want to say I do truly feel very supported by you as a school board. I feel very supported by Jared, by the superintendent and the other district leadership. It has been great over the

141last two years in this position. Um I I feel very supported that we have the resources and things that we need to be successful. So any questions? Sorry I went I'm way too wordy. >> Thank you very much presentation. Excellent job >> and [clears throat] enjoy the 19page document if you haven't read it all. But >> okay, thank you. >> Thanks for making it fun. >> And our we saved our favorite section for the last which is policy review. And first up is Jared with three policies. So, I'll start with policy 6200, which is the accounting, auditing, financial reporting policy. Uh, what initially spurred this was was that I knew we'd be doing a new time and effort policy, and there's a paragraph in here about time and effort. So, I wanted to take that

142out of this policy since it would be covered in the other policy. But in looking at that, I noticed that there were a couple of updates that we needed in order for this policy to align with the state board rule um for for this particular policy. So, I added that language in. It's just a couple of lines. They're they're underlined in your draft. And that's it for this one. It's it's a pretty simple amendment. Any questions on that? Okay. So second I will go to policy 6075 which is time and effort documentation. This um this is an existing policy but the the current version is like one sentence. It's really really brief. And in our title three audit, uh, one of the, uh, recommendations coming out of that audit was that we, uh, flesh this

143policy out quite a bit. And so, uh, there's an updated policy as well as an attached procedures document. And, uh, so in our audit, there was no issue whatsoever with our actual time and effort documentation. And what that is is when we have federal funding, any employees who are paid from federal funding, we're required to document the percentage of their employment time that is spent on each federal funding source. So if someone works half of their time in title one and half of their time in federal special education, we would need to document 50% for each of those programs with a signature. That's what we're talking about with time and effort documentation. So, what this uh policy amendment does is just it flushes out what we're already doing. Uh it just spells it out. So,

144there really aren't any changes in our um in our procedures, but the policy would would be a little more robust. Any questions on that? Okay. And then the final uh policy I wanted to review with you would be a new policy uh number 6210. And uh the title is reporting of financial fraud, waste, and abuse. So we um we currently have a process for this and and it's on our website, but I've always felt like it would be good to have a policy to to back that up. Um so on our website we have an internal audit uh web page. It has contact information for our schoolboard members uh who serve on our internal audit committee and it also has a link to a hotline for reporting any uh suspected fraudulent activity. That hotline is

145currently housed with USB and as part of this implementation of this policy, we'd like to to move that to a an online form that would be available right on our website instead of the USB website. So, we're we have a pretty solid draft of that form available. we'll we'll tighten it up and then uh hopefully by the time uh the board can consider this for approval in a couple of weeks, it's ready to to have on our website at that point. But this policy just outlines what our what our process is uh for reporting suspected fraud or or wasteful activity with with district resources. Um, so there's a policy document and again a corresponding procedures document and and this would apply to employees, volunteers or members of the public who uh who would want to

146report something. Uh this would outline how that could be done. So we actually uh encourage our employees if they have a concern to talk with their principal or department supervisor. That that would be the first step. But if they're uncomfortable doing that, the policy and the procedures allow for them to contact myself or to use this online uh form which even can be it can be reported confidentially if somebody doesn't want to provide their name for it. Any questions on this policy? Okay. >> All right. That is all then. All right, the next four policies are presented will be presented by Superintendent McKe. >> Okay, let's keep the fun going, shall we? Uh so the first one is is simply a revision uh to the school community council policy that exists in the the current

147policy. It suggests that the trust lands plan would be the school improvement plan. You you heard from Jeremy earlier that we've been working a lot with school principles uh trying to provide some prof professional development. We're making a switch where there is now a school improvement plan where that trust lens plan would be subordinate to that. There are a number of reasons for doing that including um the trust lens plan is somewhat limited in terms of what they can focus in on. School improvement plan is broader. It's greater in scope. I've been working with with principles on focusing in on um setting process goals that focus in on instructional improvement um and not simply looking at a test score change. Um so that's been a really healthy and I think wellreceived change, but we do

148want to align policy to practice. And so that's that's the request there. Any any questions about community council? If not, we'll get to the the next one. This one's a fun one. Um animals in school property. Um we've we've always accommodated for service animals as by law by ADA and and um or state statute. There has been since probably the uh the pandemic, there's been this uptick in comfort animals, a request to bring other animals into the into the building. And we have found that schools really just need better guidance on how to manage those situations um because there are also other risks when you introduce an animal to to the building. Um allergies being one of them as well as training and um socializing around pe other kids and people. So what you have

149is um taken from model policy, state policy just to give better guidance to our schools and it all aligns with federal and state law. Questions on that one? Okay, we'll just keep laughing through. Have you had any instances of uh people requesting emotional support animals? >> Why yes, that was that was the trigger for us to start looking for policy. There was a request at one of our high schools for a social support animal. >> Dog, cat. Oh my gosh, I'm trying to remember what it was. It wasn't a miniature horse. Uh that was actually as we went through the policy that caught all of our eye. Miniature horse because it's in there. That actually is called out in federal law. Um, and then it it drew back memories of of donkey basketball years ago

150as a fundraiser. Um, but I I can't remember exactly what the animal was request. Um, if no other questions, then I'll move into the next two. They're somewhat similar. As you know, a state statute has required uh board members to complete a conflict of interest form at the beginning of every calendar year. We simply have drafted policy to align with the change in state statute uh so that it's now clear clear in our policy manual as well. And subsequent to that is also a conflict of interest policy for employees. Uh this was actually highlighted in a review of our community council minutes that they're that they too fall under a conflict of interest policy. And so the two of those were necessary um and to keep us aligned with state statute. >> Any questions for

151superintendent? [clears throat] I don't have a question, but um in looking at the two different conflict of interest uh papers, >> yes, >> the the one for the school board I think is formatted really well. >> Yeah, I need some work. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Anyone else? All right, we have reached the end of our regular meeting and um we'll move into executive session after I remind everyone that when we adjourn a little later, we will adjourn until the 19th of February when we will meet again. So, um, we will I will take a motion to move into executive session. >> I make a motion to move into executive session. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded that we move into executive session. We'll vote by roll call starting Friday. >> Yes. >> Thank

152you very much.