001[Music] Good evening and welcome to the Cedar Falls Board of Education meeting this Monday, May 12th. Having just come off of Mother's Day yesterday, we want to acknowledge and honor all the mothers in our district and also uh think of those who have lost their mothers and um how that day might be hard for some. We'll go ahead and uh kick off the meeting tonight. I would like to call this meeting to order. First item on our agenda being the consent agenda uh which we have uh quite a few items in. So we have our approval of agenda and last meeting last board meetings minutes, approval of accounts payable, our HR report and our open enrollment report as well as two annual items which is our waste disposal bid and our uh fiscal year 26
002lease agreement with the AEA for the River Hills property. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Director Peterson. Is there a second? Second. Director Meyer. And I'll call for a vote. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose say nay. Hearing none. Motion carries. We will move on. Uh we didn't have anyone reach out to us for public comment tonight. So we will move past that agenda item and move into communications. So, we have uh quite a few uh items on our agenda for communications tonight. So, first up, we will have Miss Natalie Schmidti from the high school give us our student board uh update. Hi everybody. So, today actually we had our teacher appreciation breakfast for all the teachers. We had lots of food and gifts for all of
003the teachers to show them how much we appreciate their work over the year. In addition to that, we had our um do better be better money that we donated to um families in need around the Cedar Valley in total. I don't know if this was said at the last meeting, but we made $1,078. And that's pretty much wrapping up our year for us. We don't have a lot going on since seniors are graduating in two weeks. So, yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, thank you for your update. Uh, and this is probably your last update and so we want to say a hearty thank you. We know that you're very busy. Uh, you're involved in a lot of activities at the high school and so we want to say thank you from the board and we also
004want to honor you with with a recognition plaque as well. Uh, so I will come down and uh give that to you and we'll get a little photo op with Janelle. [Laughter] Thank you. Okay. Uh, next we have some some more students that are here to present uh, which is really cool. So once a month we try to uh just showcase something in the district uh that's maybe notable or exciting or uh something to share with the public. Uh so this month we have some CAP students uh their project was films on the field uh which was a TPC fundraiser. So um we would invite you to come up and tell us about your project. Hi, I'm Kate Holahan. I'm Jay Gray. And we are part of the CAPS business solutions program and we have
005been tasked with raising money for the new Tiger Performance Center. We've been working alongside Ryan Craner and Joyce Coyle. The main thing that we've been working is to plan a big event that can be sustainable and be hosted uh continually once a year or just this year. We've also done a lot of social media marketing just to bring awareness to the event and to bring awareness to all the benefits that the new Shields Tiger Performance Center will have to offer. So, we really have been focusing our time on hosting a films on the field event. This is event we plan to host June 14th from 6:30 to 900 p.m. This is going to be an event where we host two movies. first a children's movie and then second we post to host a teen movie
006with a $7 admissions fee if you go to one and a $12 admissions fee if you plan to go to both. This is a great way where we could host a promotions video to raise awareness for all it could offer and also host two movies that people can come and watch and be on the Tiger Performance Field. This just allows people to get through the door and actually see the building that we're going to have and all the construction of the Tiger Performance Center. We just want to make this accessible to all families, the community, get students in there, and we've been doing a lot with um Lindsy Kota to help create signup geniuses. We've been posting things on the 2025 pages in the announcements on schooly just to let the students know that we
007need volunteers and so we can hopefully get that especially athlete volunteers to be able to talk about why this new TPC is going to benefit them specifically and just anyone else that wants to volunteer and help at this event or come and watch. Yeah, we also have another associate that's usually here with us. has um senior night tonight for soccer. But we really appreciate Joyce for giving us this opportunity to share this with you guys. Um our goal, as she very well stated, is just to get the community hearing about this event. We really hope to raise as much um money as we can for the performance center to get it built as soon as possible because we do believe in the impact that it can and will have for future generations in athletics. So,
008Do you do you have something to unveil to us tonight? Are you going to tell us the movies tonight? Yeah. So, to get um some picks on the movies, we had to look at licensing. That was a big obstacle for us. But, uh we posted a survey as well to try and see what the community would want to watch. And for the first movie, the kids movie, um right now we're thinking of choosing the Lego movie. And then for the teen movie, we are going to go with uh the original Jumanji. Nice. So, both of those uh got pretty popular um picks. So, yeah, we wanted it to be um something that the community would enjoy. So, we made sure to get the surveys posted on the announcements as well. And we posted polls on
009the social media pages just so that the students can be really involved and choose what movies they'd like to see because we obviously want to get the most people out there. So if people are seeing a movie that they enjoy to watch with their family and friends, we thought it'd be really important to make sure the public was involved with that as well. So what's one way that the board can support you and and uh help you accomplish this? Yeah, I think right now we're really just trying to meet like with different sponsors. We've sent out lots of emails and applications for different things like Fairway, VGM, Community Bank. Uh we're really just trying to get in contact with businesses so that we can cover the licensing fee because it can be really expensive. So,
010we really just want help with marketing that and getting the word out, not just for sponsors, but also just for the community. It's just a really fun event. And even if people don't want to donate, I think it's great to just get them through the doors to see what the impact of the TPC is going to have. Wouldn't you like um the board to come and support it and uh bring their family and friends and communicate that out um on their social media page um of what you what you guys are doing because you've worked really hard. You've worked really hard and you've given a lot of hours to it in just a really short period of time. So, um, kudos to you guys. And I know Jesus couldn't be here tonight because of a
011soccer compl conflict. I think soccer, right? Soccer conflict. So, I I just I can't tell you how grateful I am that the three of you stood up and just took it on and um you've just been really really amazing associates. So, um can't I'm I'm excited for the end result and um all the help that you've given us. Yeah, we would love to see you all there. Obviously, um it's sometimes hard to make it in the summer to every weekend. So, we picked one that we thought would be the most convenient for community members to make it to. So, we do hope to see you all there or just like we have our Instagram pages, the Shields Tiger Performance Center that we've started and we know that Susie Hines is running the Facebook and she
012also has access to our um Instagram as well. to just like see our content, what we've been created. We've been doing a lot of interviews with students to explain why they think the TPC is important just to get that community feel as well to see um actual student athletes and how it's beneficial to them. And yeah, uh we do we know we got a final meeting tomorrow, but we do appreciate um the time and the kindness that you and the rest of the committee have shown us. Uh we were really critical about picking our project at first. Um but we're really happy with the decision that we've made. You guys have made the process very easy for us. We hope that we've made it easy for you guys as well. Um and hopefully that the
013impact that we've made will carry on. It was a big goal of us to give you guys something sustainable. So we thank you for your time as well. My pleasure. Good. Well, thank you Jake and Kate and for the member that couldn't be here, thank you to him as well. So, and thanks for coming and sharing with us. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, now we have uh Janelle here for our district update. Yes, always tough acts to follow. Um, all right, we'll pull up the presentation here. One of the things I really wanted to highlight tonight was the another kind of a CAPS experience. This is our CAPS med program and all of our CAPS students are paired with a Western home resident as part of the legacy project. So during their semester of
014CAPS they meet with them regularly and connect and um learn about each other. It's a great way to learn about dinner for generations just how to hold a conversation. And one of the great activities they wanted to do this year was invite the whole all of their Legacy Project partners up to the new high school to do a tour. These kids planned a really fabulous day. They got a bunch of old yearbooks out. They had lemonade and cookies and met their um uh their person from Western Home on their buses and they brought them in. and they walked around together and it was just so much fun to see this whole interaction and what a great experience for those students but I think also the western home residents really really enjoyed that and I think
015the legacy project has been going on for many years and continues to be a big highlight um for a CAPS experience for those students. So just wanted to give them a quick shout out. Um there's a couple more of them giving their tours. Also wanted to do a congrats to Cedric Lou. He's a senior and he's been named a semi-finalist for the 2025 um US Presidential Scholars program. He is one of nine Iowa students chosen, only a thousand chosen across the country. So, congratulations to Cedric for that amazing accomplishment. Also wanted to congratulate Nadia Patel. She's honored as the KWWL best-in-class for Cedar Falls High School for 2025. And of course, that celebrates um Eastern Iowa uh graduates across across the area. So, congratulations to um Nadia. Also wanted to just mention these two will
016be recognized along with many other seniors with awards and scholarships tomorrow night at our honors convocation starting at 7 in the auditorium. So, anyone is welcome for that. This is the uh computer science club. They just started this year and they went to the first went to their first technology student association conference and they competed and were honored getting second and third in CAD engineering and second in software development. So congratulations to that group. And then this is um a lot of information in list, but when you look at the number of our students that participate in music um in our district, it's amazing. And I just want to make sure to give a shout out to them. They had their state solo and ensemble festival earlier in April. We had 38 events. 34 of
017those received superior for excellent. And there are three ratings below excellent. It goes like good kind of good and then poor. You can get any of those. We got only the superior and excellent. And then they also have um the judicators can pick one outstanding performance from their center and three students were chosen for those. Lucas Halverson English horn solo, Josie Berry Altosac solo, and Alana Reynolds Euphonium solo. So congratulations to those students. And then also this last weekend they had their large group contest which is actually held at the high school. So all um high schools from around the area come and compete in their large groups and we had eight groups compete and seven out of those eight received division one ratings. So I'll be pushing that information out on social media as
018well. So you can see the list of all those. But congratulations to the music students. They of course I think all of the concerts are wrapped up for the semester now um at all the levels. We had of course all of our all city the in April um which was really exciting at the new high school. So, it's really been a great great spring for music music students. This is another nice long list, but wanted to give a shout out. This is the mayor's top teen awards, and we had a lot of uh high school students that were honored. Of course, they're nominated and then honored for all of their volunteerism in the Cedar Valley, and they're the ages between 13 and 18. So, these are students, not just seniors, but um freshman through seniors
019can receive this um commendation. So, congratulations to all of those students listed for that honor. And this was a great thing. Um this is a group of Hansen fifth graders and they participated in um an activity with ISU extension and the NASA space grant consortium and they did the plant the moon challenge junior and they competed against a thousand teams across the country. were able to go to Iowa State um to kind of show off what they had come up with doing this research on different soil mixtures and collecting data over these eight weeks. And they were one of just four chosen national best of show awards, which is amazing. And I cannot tell you enough how much I love that this is an allgirl team. I will just say that right now. Love to
020see uh the girl power there. So they actually went down to Iowa State. they were able to tour some of the um areas of the university uh and some of the buildings, learn directly from the Iowa State students and professors. So, what an awesome and great experience and big congratulations to those girls. Also wanted to highlight tomorrow at Orchard Hill is their born to shine open house and this is something that they um it's a student showcase not just a talent show but there is something that every student in that building is able to present and be a part of and something I really wanted to mention um Lauren Noli who is the art teacher at Orchard Hill I think this is the third year in a row she has done this amazing black light
021art show and every single Orchard Hill elementary student has an art piece in the art show, which is not just saying that is not a small undertaking because that is a pretty large building. But she creates this really cool space um that is able to showcase all of these kids artwork but in like this really cool black light. Um and she put so much extra effort and energy into that. I really wanted to give her a shout out. But of course, invite um Randy One is really open to come. They can come to see that. And then the Blacklight Art Show is actually open until 4:15 in the building. So, it's a really cool thing to experience. Also wanted to congratulate our retirees and service recognition recipients. Of course, a good handful of these are
022retiring from the district. Some already have previously as you see Dr. Talbot's name, but we're recognizing them now. Other names on there, they are leaving the district and have served 10 or more years. So, that's kind of the designation to give um recognition to those folks. the reception and um will be this Wednesday. I believe all of you are aware of that, but starting at 4:30 at the high school. It'll be held in the jungle, but of course public is welcome to come as well and to give them all their congrats. And then also wanted to mention next Monday is the ELP fair which is um extended learning fair which will be held at Pete Junior High 5:30 to 6:30. You can see all kinds of demonstrations and information that these students have been working
023on this whole semester. they'll be able to showcase next Monday. Phew. And then we will gearing up for all the fun things. End of year graduation of course. Um congratulations to all those seniors. But then the last day of school will be Tuesday, June 3rd. And then also just want to give a quick shout out. We are hiring some coaches for next school year. Um veteran coaches, someone that's looking to get into coaching. Uh we'd love to hear from you. So just scan that QR code and then our HR department will help you walk through those steps of what you would need to do to apply and follow along on all the end of season activities. All of our spring sports are continuing into postseason and state right now and then lots will be happening
024over the next three weeks. So keep track right there. All right, lots of content. So thank you Janelle. And it's even paired download going and going. Make sure you post it all out so and get it out to the public. Okay, moving on. Now we will go into our April financial reports. So, Miss Conorman, you will cover that for us. Absolutely. If we can pull up the report. Thank you. Um, you'll note again uh for April of end of end of April. We're almost end at the end of our fiscal year, which will be June. Uh but you'll note uh for our general funds and again our general fund is our overall operations salaries and benefits of the district uh you'll see revenues of 15,919,99983. Um that does seem a bit larger than our normal
025uh months. Uh that is because that is uh our second payment of uh property tax that we would have received for our April. We then did have expenditures of a little over 8 million um 8.4 million. Again, this is a little bit higher than our normal process uh each month. Um and that is because of our um flowth through that is required for the A.E.A. uh that will be this will be the last time that that will occur for uh moving forward. Uh moving forward, you will see that uh beginning next year on a monthly basis um because of the changes associated to the Central Rivers A.EA and the AEAs altogether and how those dollars will now flow through for our special education. Um but then for our total cash investments, you'll see a total
026balance of $21,75,999. Um we moving on to our management fund. Again, the management fund, our primary expenditures would be our property casualty, uh liability, um insurancees, workman's comp. You'll see those revenues again for $782,000. We did have that inter fund transfer which was uh paid back uh to our um our save account. If you recall during the first at the beginning of the year um to to ensure that we could make those payments accordingly for this fund uh we did have to utilize those funds from the save of $900,000. You'll see that transfer out back to that fund with then expenditures of a little over 34,000 for total cash investments of $1,80,378. We have our capital projects. a capital projects fund uh is utilized for the construction of uh the new high school as we're
027finalizing all of that. Um getting closure to that with one bid package still outstanding. Uh waiting for some grass to grow. So hopefully here in the next month or so we'll be able to uh finalize that package, but you'll see the revenues associated to that is our interest. We did do still have expenditures as we're closing out that package of $789,390 for total cash investments of $1,175,42. You will note that this will be um finalized at the end of May. So, uh beginning in June, uh available balances will be zero at that time. Um we do have our save which is our uh 1centent sales tax associated to that. Um you'll see uh revenues associated of $711,793. We do have our expenditures associated each month uh including our um our transfer out for our debt
028service payment of um $361,376 for total cash investments of $14,67,971. We then do have our PPE. Our PPE is utilized for our 10-year PPE plan which includes our roofs, our buss, our fleets. Uh we do have our revenues of a little over 1.7 million with our expenditures of 1.8 million. The primary expenditures at this time um is our um our natiatorum uh phase two of our natitorium as we're continuing with that um as well as then uh we are utilizing our ple as a flowth through for um the tiger performance shields tigers performance center which um we have you as you know has seen some activity through that as well. So um that is that $1.8 8 million for total cash investments of 11,237,181. And then we do have our debt service. Uh again, revenues
029associated to that with that transfer in as I indicated earlier. No expenditures this month. You will see some expenditures in the month of May because our requirement of our principal and interest for our payment associated to this uh will occur in May with total cash investments at this point of $8,894,757. As we move forward then to the next screen, you'll note then our student activity uh which is our clubs, organizations, um our athletic uh events, we had revenues of $39,991 with expenditures of $138,235 for a total cash investments of $914,872. We do then have our remaining funds of our agency fund um our enterprise fund which is our nutrition fund uh with activities associated to that with revenues of $257,488 uh expenditures of $329,190 for total cash investments of $3,644,73. Our student coffee shop which
030is located at the high school if you ever get a chance it's phenomenal. So stop in if you do. Um you'll see those available balances well and then our River Hills Consortium with that zero balance which we do anticipate at the end of June as well. So um the last two slides are then just the end ofear balances as of date um to our certified budget and where we fall with that. You'll see some reflections in that. Some of that is the capital projects. Obviously, you have a negative because we've continuing to uh utilize those dollars as needed, but you'll see some others um that have increased. And part of that is because of um donations or um where projects are flowing through. And then that last screen then just shows um those remaining balances
031associated to our certified budget this time last year. So, any questions associated to April balances? Dell, may I ask a club question? Sure. So if if I if let's just say someone would like to give to the Rocket Club and there is not um anything the foundation is not holding anything for the Rocket Club. Are individuals able to give through the district then so just give straight to the district since you since since you're you're a 501c3 also. Is that correct? Am I explaining that correctly? Yeah. Um that's a great question. We always do um encourage all of our individual donors to to contact our foundation to work with them accordingly. Um if that's not an option or not available for them, they can certainly work with the district, they can contact the district office
032to um identify the areas in which they would like to provide a donation to and we'll ensure that those funds are u based on that donation. Okay. Thank you. So with the flow through changing next year, um do we plan or do you plan to change any of those spend or basically just keep it the way it is and just still contract those services through AEA? Yeah. Or or I guess the question is do we plan to take on some of those services? Y uh combination of both. So the there will be an arrangement with the AEA for several of the services to to have those ongoing. Um there's a whole list of different things when it comes to professional development support for uh some content areas. Uh some other uh specified um components that
033we just know that they have a deeper expertise than than maybe we do. There's some other things that we're looking at on how do we pull it in interior uh or inside of our district. uh knowing that some of the people that we have can can do a really good job to support the work we're doing. Uh there will be an arrangement um on the reimbursement with the AEA. We've not seen that yet. Uh but we know that uh some of those dollars that we have used for AA flow through will remain with the district and hopefully allow some deeper support within the general fund as well. Good. Okay. Further questions? Okay. Hearing none, uh we will now move on. Item F of the agenda. School board recognition. Yes. Um May is always the state
034of Iowa school board recognition. It's a time for us to say thank you for all that you do. At your location, there is a certificate from the Iowa Association of School Boards. Um I don't know if a lot of people fully know that yes this is an elected position but it's a fully volunteer position and an unpaid position. You have to be very passionate uh focused and concerned about uh improving and helping the system entirely as well as our our students. And for that we can't say thank you enough. Uh we do wish that right after this meeting we could come down in front of the the podium and get a picture. Janelle would love to put that and push that out on social media as well. And again, just a thank you from not
035only the district but our entire community for for all that you do. Okay, thank you for that. Uh now we'll move to item G of the agenda, uh which is a proposed list of 2025 graduates. And I believe we have to read through the the list, right? Name by name. Yes, this is always an exciting time. It's really the kind of the culmination of all the work that we do. This is the proposed list of our 2025 graduates. Uh you can see the names within our our board packets and online. It's a very extensive list, large graduating class, but certainly a class that has left a a lasting legacy for our district and we're going to be very proud to call them alumni of Cedar Falls. Andy, I didn't go through and count every name,
036but how many how many graduating students are on that list? I did not either. Um, but it should be right around 390 um students uh give or take. Good. Well, this is a definitely a a privilege and an honor. Um, this is one of the fun and exciting and rewarding things that we get to do as a board. And, uh, Director Peterson has volunteered to infer diplomas at the graduation. Uh, that's also a a an honor to do that. Uh, so if there's no other discussion, I will request uh a motion uh to pro to approve that proposed list. I move the Cedar Falls Community School District Board of Education approve awarding diplomas to the Cedar Falls High School class of 2025 contingent upon satisfactory completion of graduation requirements as attested to by the high
037school principal. Is there a second? Second. Okay. All in favor say I. I. I. All opposed? Nay. Hearing none, motion carries. We'll move to item H of the agenda, which is a special uh approval of issuance of contracts. So, Dr. Pat, I'll let you explain this one. Yes, this is uh an annual ask, not something that's required, but certainly helps the district out and put us in a position for for greater success. There's not a second meeting in May. So, what this is asking the board to to allow is for the district to uh issue and and send contracts to any new employee uh specifically teacher in the next three to four weeks. Uh those will be brought back for approval before the four full board. But at times uh especially this time of year
038where somebody might have to wait until the next board meeting to be able to be issued a contract which means they typically won't resign their current position if they have a current position. This just allows that process to speed up and to really get those uh candidates that we really value into those teaching positions. So this is certainly an ask that we would support and uh hopefully is approved. Okay. Is there a motion to approve? I move that the Cedar Falls Board of Education grant the superintendent or designate the authority to accept resignations for the 2024 2025 school year and to issue contracts of employment for the 2025 2026 school year to licensed teachers and licensed coach coaches subject to job candidates fulfilling all usual and customary post offer pre-employment requirements as required by district
039policy. Such authority shall be in effect for the period of May 13, 2025 to June 9th, 2025. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Any questions or uh comments? Guess maybe my question would be to um our HR director. Is is everything looking good for next year for hiring and filling all our open positions? And I guess how is it looking? I think we are pretty confident where we're at this year and we're in a good good spot going into June. Good. All right. Uh there's a motion and a second. So I'll ask for a vote. So all in favor say I. I. All opposed. Hearing none. Motion carries. And we will move now to item I, which is our superintendence report. Yeah, a couple items that have already been mentioned this evening is our
040service recognition. That is on Wednesday evening, uh, 4:30 at the high school and the jungle right there in the main entryway as you come into the new high school. Commencement's May 29th, uh, 2 p.m. And, and again, always an exciting day. And again, thank you for Bet for for her willingness to be there to to hand out diplomas. uh board retreat. Uh we are looking at kind of a lunch and learn with our building administrators, some just kind of question and answer tabletop discussion. Uh we've done different things at different times with this, but that would be June 11th from 11:30 to 12:30. And if board members are able to attend, we'd certainly uh really like that as well. And then finally, within the board packet is the 2025 2026 uh draft board calendar. Uh
041if you could just look that over and and we can finalize that in June. uh but it's uh pretty much corresponding dates and and the um times where I think is pretty traditionally based based on when we typically meet. Okay. Any questions for our superintendent? Andy, maybe my ears were deceiving me, but I think you said the 29th for commencement. It's the 25th, right? Oh, I am so sorry. Yes, 25th. Do not get that. Maybe I heard you wrong, but No, if I did say that, it just came out wrong. 25th. Sorry. A lot of parents were probably screaming. Yes. I I apologize. I'm not sure why it came out that way. And is the board retreat at the administration building? Correct. Yes. Yes. Okay. Any other questions, comments, or concerns from board members tonight?
042Andy, may I ask a question about the board retreat then? Yeah. Is it only an hour? Yes, we're we're just want to make sure kind of doing an informal lunch together, board administrators, and then just have some some discussions and tabletop discussions, things like that. So, kind of just like a lunch and learn. Okay. Thank you. And the honors convocation is tomorrow at 7 at the high school. Okay. In the auditorium, right? Thank you. And if you have not been to that in the past, that is an amazing night just to hear the wonderful accomplishments of our students as well as some of the recognition they receive for their honors, but also for their scholarship going into the future. Okay. Anything else on anyone's minds? Just a picture afterwards, please. Okay. If not, I will
043ask for a motion to adjourn meeting. So moved. We had a tie. Pick one. There's our second. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. Meeting adjourned. Thanks everyone for joining us tonight. Have a good evening.