001[Music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Think about it. [Music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] I'm feeling [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. [Music] go. [Music] down. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] We [Music] go. We want to go. [Music] feel. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hello. Hey. Hey. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music] Okay, we'll call the meeting to order and start with roll call. Morgan Brown here talking. Dave Walrunner here. Becky Engel here. Brian Jones here. Jeremy Weller here. Jan Weeder here and Christina Shark is here. Up next is adoption of agenda and declaration of a quorum. Christina, we do have Hang on just one second. Go ahead. Yeah, I'd like
002to make a motion to table uh Thank you. item H1F. Thank you. Do we have a second with that? I'll second. Modification. Thank you. All those in favor with tableabling item H1F, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Up next is a public hearing. Um the notice of a public hearing for the 2526 certified budget was published in the courier on April 8th. This is the time and place of for a public hearing and a meeting where interested individuals can express their views both orally and in writing regarding the 2526 budget. Anybody present like to talk about the budget? No. We will close the public hearing and this item will be um voted on later on in the agenda. Up next is citizen speak. I do not have any green cards. Anybody want? No. Next is
003the consent agenda. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Next board priority. We will promote and monitor student growth and achievement and students will be challenged with high expectations that meet or exceed measurable targets. We have two action items here. The first one is Odyssey of the Mind World Finals. I don't know. Okay. No presentation on that, but there is a lot of information there in your board packet. Any questions about that that's in there? I'd make a motion that we approve the uh travel as presented. Odyssey of the world. Second. Okay, we have a motion, a second. Any other questions? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Next is
004the HS FS3 waiver with Brett. Good evening. I also have Aaron Ruff and Marcy Dunlap here in case the board has any questions. Uh I believe you were provided a summary of what that um high school waiver which we currently have um allows Gateway High School to um operate and offer you know a competency based high school system. Uh so I think the the request to the board is just to approve a new three-year waiver which we currently have to um allow Gateway High School to operate as it currently does. And we would entertain any questions you have about that waiver. There's no questions. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Thank you. Gateway is
005going great. Thanks for coming, Brad. If you want to just stay up there for the next one. Okay. Next board priority to be the best. We'll create a positive learning and working culture for stakeholders and embrace community partners through communication and transparency. We have two action items here. The first one is the associate group bargaining settlement. Yeah, we have two uh that we've come to a settlement with and Brad's just going to give a quick overview and then open it up for any questions the board might have. Yep. So, you have again a summary of the associate group um which is a bargained at 2.24% increase which was about 38 cents for the associate group and I would entertain any questions you have about that settlement. In this same section, we also have one on
006the secretarial staff. Oh, right. Yep. And it was a came out to be about a 2.25. So, almost identical. Um, just a little bit of difference in the do in the cents per hour to be round numbers about 55 cents for the secretarial bargaining settlement. And again, I would entertain any questions on either uh classification. There's no questions. I'll make a motion to approve items A and B. Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any other questions for Brad? Otherwise, all those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Um, next, through board priority through the board's financial stewardship, we will provide operations, technical, and curricular resources to staff, teachers, and administrators so all students have consistent achievement. We have a couple of action items here. The first one is a resolution
007for Eisenhower secure entrance planning and the other one is a resolution for James Elementary classroom renovation. John's going to give a quick overview on both uh resolutions and we'll open it up for any questions the board might have. Yep. And just kind of to explain why these look a little different and obviously much wordier than some of the other action items we have on the for the facilities is these are both projects that uh we are treating as a competitive a public improvement. they're over a certain threshold. So, we take a couple extra steps and the first one is this resolution and it's basically we share what the estimated cost is. Um, so you've got that in your packet and then we ask the board to uh kind of approve going out for bids. Uh,
008so both of these will go out I believe in the next week here. Um, they'll go out for bids. There'll be a set due date. They'll come back. We'll review it and then I believe uh there'll be a public hearing at the May 19th meeting. I think we're still working on the timelines. Um, and at that time we'll have the bids come back and ask the board for approval. So, this is just kind of getting us started uh allowing the district to go out for bid on both of these projects. I think there's already been a presentation, but we just wanted to share kind of why they look a little bit different and and see if there were any questions. If there's no questions for John, I'll be looking for a motion to approve A
009and B together. Motion to approve items A and B. Second. We have a motion, a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Thank you. Now we have items. Thank you, John. Um C and D, both for OS items. The first one is the OS exterior door replacement and the other one is the OS science furniture with Landon and Don. Go ahead. Uh so the district requested uh put an RFQ for exterior doors. We're trying to kind of finalize some of the security findings that we had last year about doors that didn't latch properly, have had issues for years. So this will address that. We will now with this quote have replaced every exterior door at a Tumbl High School. Um this uh request for quotes was issued, you'll
010see quite a while ago, March 4th. Um we got some we only received one bid initially. We received some feedback from local vendors that our proposed install timeline was a little tight for them. So we reopened the bids um and then received uh three bids and in this case local contractor a tumble glass. So recommending the approval of that $93,385. All the doors the same um for the most part. Some of them do have some glass in them. Others are just egress or exit only doors. So they'll be the same way to get in all of them, I guess, is what I'm asking. Yep. Okay. Thank you. I think the other positive of the doors, too, obviously, we think this is a great uh help with security, but uh we also will get them installed
011uh this summer. So, it's they're turning around pretty quickly, too. Motion to approve. Second. Okay. We have a motion to approve both both the exterior door replacement and the science furniture. Is that correct, Morgan, or are you just doing the first one? I was just doing the first one. Okay. Any other discussion about the OS exterior doors? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Okay. Motion [Music] passes. And then now OS science furniture. Okay. The OS science room furniture. That's part of uh this this last phase of of construction only, you know, the furniture separate. So, that would be the two classrooms that we're doing right now in this in this phase of the project that we still need to get furniture for. We got uh sent bids out. We got two back uh
012from Pigot and School specialty with school specialty coming in at $15,410. So, I'd ask the board to approve the bid from school specialty for $15,410. Motion to approve. Second. We have a motion, a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Then next, we have six items here that all fall under the fourth street entrance to Schaefer project. So, I'll just share the financial part and then Don was going to go through uh the presentation here. Um I just wanted to point out the original attachment we had on the board agenda um was a little lower than the actual total cost of everything. It's because we had a late bid come in. Uh some late numbers on the metal arch. So, we updated that. The board packet now has
013the right total. Um and the total for the project overall is just just a little under 199,000. And that is uh made up of all the different pieces that you'll see underneath. So that one through six are some of the individual bids we've received for different aspects of that project. Uh the presentation has a couple more like the sidewalk and pad for ticket booth. That's $3,000 and some rock. Those are some estimates as well as a contingency. So the presentation has uh some additional numbers that represent what our expected total cost for the project is. And tonight the board's approving those six contracts underneathneeneath it. So with that I'll have Don go through and talk about that presentation. So, we've got a short presentation. I know we've talked about this several times, but as you
014know, we we bought that house and tore it down, widened our uh Fourth Street Schafferfield entrance by by twice. It's it's now 80 foot. And u what that's going to do for us uh is update or uh you know, update that area, upgrade that area a little bit. And we've got a rendering here of what it's going to look like. It's going to allow us uh to put 32 parking spots in there. Um we're we're going to take the ticket booth and move it down um closer towards the stadium as you can see that. And that's going to allow us um you know when people park up in our practice field instead of coming all the way back down towards Fourth Street to get in to get to the ticket booth now they can come
015walk down these steps right to the ticket booth. Um and then this is what uh rendering that we have for uh the front entrance. uh that that'll be illuminated uh 80 foot wide. Um we're looking at putting that at about 20 25 ft in inside the u off the street. This what it'll look like at night. And this is our ticket booth we'd have down closer to the field. We'll have a gate or we'll have a fence around that sidewalk area with a gate um back towards that main walkway to keep uh keep everybody out. And this is what we have for a total package that we'd be asking the board to approve tonight. Any questions? Does anybody have any questions for Don? If not, we'll take a motion to approve item E1 through six.
016Make a motion to approve E1 through six for the Fourth Street Shaper entrance. Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any other discussion? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Um item H1F is on hold. Next is item G, the 2526 certified budget. So this is uh there's been no changes since the last meeting. We had a a public hearing at that one and then the state requires we have two. So this is our second public hearing. We held that at the beginning of of this. I haven't received any additional followup um other than some positive notes we saw about holding the tax rate steady. So, uh, we're happy to be able to do that. So, we're asking the board to certify the 2526 budget. Uh, the tax levy
017is no higher than 14.66907. Uh, we'll get some final details once we submit it. They usually adjust it a little bit, but we won't go any higher than that. So, if anything, it might be a couple pennies lower. Um, I can answer any questions and then if there are none, we'd be looking uh, they ask us to do a roll call vote for the budget. So, Motion to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the 2526 certified budget. Is there any other discussion and to approve this as a roll call? Morgan Brown, yes. Dave Wrunner, yes. Becky Engel, yes. Brian Jones, yes. Jeremy Weller, yes. Jan Weedk, yes. And Christina Shark is a yes. Thank you, John. Thank you. Up next, the superintendent report. Thanks, Christina. Um, Maria's going to join
018me for this and I'm going to actually join Maria. Well, this evening, Maria and I are going to share out some uh graduation and dropout information. and we're really excited about this information. Um, it's been on something we've been working towards uh over the last several years. So, I'm going to kind of turn it over to Maria and uh for her part. Thank you, Mr. McGory. Um, I'm really excited that we get to end the board meeting with our graduation rates and as you guys know, we we track our graduation rates, but the state certifies those numbers and so we're able to present those to you now. Um, we'll just real quick on the updates, how we got here, and then obviously open it up for questions and answers. So, I just want to look
019at Atomo High School's graduation rate first. In the 2223 school year, our graduation rate was 91, just over 91% and we increased to 94.74%. So, that is higher than the graduation rate across the state. Um, we're really, really proud of that. And it's when you get to those numbers and the 90% it's hard to keep increasing. Uh but we're really proud of our high school and the work it's done to keep that number going up. Similar at Gateway in the 223 school year, we had a 62.22% graduation rate. In the 2324 school year, we had a 75% graduation rate. And so we know that I mean gateways may have been around in different forms for a while, but building that campus um and and providing that space for our students where they have that safe,
020supportive, more personalized learning environment is really one of the contributors to that giant jump that you see there. Can I just go back to that real quick? One thing for the board that uh I'd like to kind of define so everybody knows what graduation rate in the community. graduation rates figured over. You track kids starting as freshmen through all four years. And so if you start with 400 kids and you end up with 400 kids, uh you have 100% graduation rate. 400 kids, 300 kids, obviously it's a lot lower. And so it's a very accurate assessment. And um the thing I would point out on both those items, the the 94.74, I got to believe that's the highest graduation rate um OHS has ever had. I can't imagine it being higher than that. And then
021also the gateway for an alternative school to be at 75%. Uh they're doing a fantastic job as well. That's one of the highest graduation rates for an alternative school in Iowa. So, uh, we're just really pleased with that information and really proud of those schools. Thanks. Similar, we have dropout rates and that's the percentage of the students in that class that drop out uh in the 22 23 school year, just under 3% at high school and just under 2% for the following school year, 23 24. Gateways dropout rates in um 22 23 was almost 12 and a half% and you see that giant decrease in dropout rates at Gateway as well down to 4.3 83%. And so again there's a lot that goes into that but being able to decrease that much in such a
022like a short amount of time is is really a huge um celebration. And I think uh dropout rate how how you define dropout rate the difference between that and graduation rate is graduation rate you track all four years. Uh dropout rate is how many students uh drop out of your school on a yearly basis. So if you have 1500 students in your high school and 150 students drop out you'd have a 10% dropout rate for that year. Um what again we're really excited about by this is 1.94 probably is one of the lowest dropout rates we've ever had um at OS. Um and also I the magnitude of that is from the difference between 3% almost 3% and 1.94 is probably 30 or 40 kids that didn't drop out and that's huge. Yeah that actually
023you can see that here when you look at the number of dropouts. So we pulled data from 2020 school year through now and you look at that enrollment number and how it's increased but the dropout number has decreased just even in the quantity of students. And so it shows you then where that calculation is. But it's just really exciting to see both the number of dropouts go down as our enrollment goes up and then that percent also decrease. And there's just several things that have led to this. So I actually asked uh principal Bramsh and Ruff to share what are the top two or three things that you feel are the reasons that you you have this data that we're seeing the increase in graduation rates but also the decrease in the dropout rates because
024when you think of the graduation rates like Mr. McGory mentioned we're talking about like a cohort of kids but then the dropout rates are the entire school at any given time. And so we had to look at both this group of kids that we had last year as well as what are we doing across the system and really you think back to the be the best plan that Mr. Mcgory presented several years ago and how that's come out to play in our systems. And that systemic approach is something that both principles mentioned has been a big part of the reason that they're seeing success and really the ability to create that safe, supportive culture with their classrooms, smaller um learning environments. You know, we cap our class sizes at all of our buildings. We're able
025to create that personalized learning experience which and then turns to students feeling safe and supported. uh we provided so many more resources in terms of teaching staff both uh ELLL special education um reading intervention, mental health support. I think about the therapy classrooms, the brain health room, we have the Zen room at Gateway and all of those things then contribute to decreasing absenteeism. both buildings absenteeism is down this school year and ultimately when kids come to school we connect with them and so we have those stronger relationships with kids and so it's fun to hear the principles talk about these kinds of things that sum up the results of years of work that the district has done to redesign our district create um buildings where we have you know we've opened Fney we have Liberty
026and Evans smaller cohorts and groups of kids in a which then the ramifications are all of these things and then ultimately graduation rates. You want to add to that? I think the only thing I would add is um we will put out a uh with this information a press release tomorrow. Uh we'll go out and I'll send that to the board so you have a copy of that as well. We'll open it up for Did you have anything else, Mark? We'll open it up for questions. So Mike or Maria, so our graduation rates is over the four years. So if we have a kid move out junior year, that counts against our graduation rate. Correct. Yeah. And tell me if I'm going to give you too much history on this. Is that um graduation rates
027people forget that graduation rates really didn't exist that you know until probably the late mid 90s. And so, um, when you, to your question, Jeremy, when a kid moves to another school, if they go and enroll in that school, then it doesn't count against your graduation rate. That every student has an ID, state ID, and it follows them. But if that student doesn't uh enroll in school, it counts against your dropout rate because they didn't enroll in school. And what they're changing this year that I've been advocating for for quite a while is you and this is why dropout rates are a little deceiving because um up till next year you could have had one kid be a dropout five times because they could start at your school then stop and then come back over
028a four-year period and if they every time they did that you had to count them as a dropout even though it's just one kid. So, so, um, yeah, they they really do do a nice job of tracking kids at the state level, but the pro not the problem, but the issue with that is it takes you almost a year for the state to actually confirm what your graduation rate is. So, that's why we're just getting this information from for last year a few weeks ago. Yeah, I was going to say that is you think of certified enrollment is October and then the state has to track all the students with the IDs and eventually then it translates into those percentages, but it's it's almost a year old data at this point. Any other questions? Thank
029you. Thanks, Maria. I think I'm just going to stay here for the rest of mine. Um the next thing I have for the board is um uh the schedule for the director's uh school board meetings. Um it it's I'm not really seeking um action on it. I'm more get wanting to get feedback and I'll give a quick overview of the calendar. It's it's pretty similar to this year. Not a lot of changes. Um same amount of meetings. Um, so there aren't any significant changes uh to the calendar. Uh, you can see here that uh uh Good Friday is a lot earlier uh in April than it was this year. Um, but really not not many changes, but I wanted to see if the board had anything they would like to change about the calendar. Anybody
030want more meetings? No. No. If you do, feel free to to email me that. I'll probably finalize this uh probably in about a week or so. Um, next thing I have for the board is just to review uh homecoming this upcoming uh school year. Uh, you have that in front of you as well. Uh, there's some pretty significant changes to homecoming this year. Uh, that I think are exciting actually. Um, they are are proposing to move the parade to Saturday uh, the start of homecoming um, and then have the formal dance that night. Um I think the rationale for for those are that we're we've added some activities during the uh the week such as the Hall of Fame dinner. Uh and then also um which we're excited about. We're bringing back the light at
031uh cross country meet that Saturday. So we didn't really want that to conflict with the dance. Uh so they're they're putting that uh the Saturday before. Um, I've had parades on a Saturday at other schools. Uh, what you find sometimes is that, uh, you get more alumni to come back, uh, if it's on a Saturday. Um, but, uh, I wanted to see if the board had any questions about any of the events, how if they had any concerns about the changes, and if you wanted to chaperone the dance, if anybody wants to cher the dance. any any changes? Okay. The next I have is um as I updated the board, we we looked at um what what do we want to do with the property on Four Street that we have now? That's um uh
032where the houses have been knocked down. And I've given this a lot of thought and what I'm going to propose doing is that we put it on for now hold. And I basically this is what we sent out to our committee. We recognize that this is a big decision and we want to take some time to consider options and district needs. We will be doing that over the next year or so and in the meantime uh we plan to make that space temporary parking. So, we'll use this temporary parking. It's it'll be very easy to convert that to temporary parking. Um, with how level it is and then um putting gravel on it. Um, my hope then is I won't get any parking questions as we do that, but uh um I wanted to see
033if the board had any questions about that. I we're I think we we just need to spend more time what is the best use of that? And I don't have I don't have anything which which is a good thing. I don't have anything like this needs the high school needs this in order to they're missing this piece that that is so important that that we need to have it. So any questions about that or thoughts. Okay. The next thing I have is um just a reminder, this is probably for the community as much as anybody, but uh that we have a retirement celebration this Friday. Um it starts at 2:30. Um what I like about what we're doing this year is that we'll have actually all staff in there because we'll be having staff development
034and then we'll have the retirement party right after that. Um from 2:30 to 3 will be the retirement uh recognition part and then we'll have a reception down in um uh the lunch uh the the cafeteria area. Um so we're excited about that. We have 19 retirees this year um with a total which is unbelievable 373 years total experience that will be leaving this year. Um, and we're just excited to celebrate that group. Any questions about that? Then then the last thing I have is I wanted to mention uh something special could really happen this week, later this week at the Drake Relays. Delilah is going to be competing in the in the discus and shot put and she has a legitimate chance of um actually winning both of those. A legitimate chance, very legitimate.
035Um and that would be amazing. And historically for us uh you know, anytime you make these statements, you double check that you know that you're we haven't had anybody uh win at the Drake Relays. um the champion um since 1988. It was a relay. Uh Dave, you I don't know if you were in that or not, but you were not. Okay. Okay. But so it's been a long time since we've had that. Um and we're excited for Delilah and we're excited that she has this possibility of making history. Uh she will be throwing um the discus uh on Thursday afternoon and then uh Friday morning she'll be doing the shot put. And I think Christina, that's everything I have. All right, that was a list. Um, next is board member topics. Anything to add? Right.
036If there's nothing else, I will take a motion to adjurnn. So moved. We have a motion, a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor, raise your right hand. We're adjourned.