S-O School Board Meeting, Mar 17th, 2025

001thank you Stan might be able to answer that question I'm not really fully listening but so what about you do you have any kids that are not taking that are like Western not that are not taking private school and we do get that was YouTube just my test to make sure it was working we so going we don't have that problem that right the Sue County Schools have yeah well just cuz I heard either your principal or your super I can't remember talking about it and that was the concern is we're we're funding not only our own kids but a lot of non kids that don't attend our school we're paying for them to go and we really don't break even break even what that cost so like yeah I could see and I think

002that's why Su land in general really clamping down because those schools have a much bigger financial obligation that they're at risk for than maybe we do you know our biggest risk would be kids that don't really plan in going to college they just Tak them to get extra study BS but I think that's going to be minimal coming coming down a little bit I don't know I haven't I there's good arguments on both sides of that are we a high school let's have them Tak our high school class want to set for Success col when I graduated probably took yeah that makes sense put the um but yeah covered in elective crsu so I didn't to any of that but I had to take child for my teaching and I had to take counted my

003bio as an El what's your prediction give me credit start what is it 82% what 82% what 82% no school they increased it to like 6an afteron big to I had to take their version of child py and their version of Bio so yeah sry that's okay I'm glad to hear that yeah it's good to talk through yeah how are you oh it's 5:30 so right I need to make sure on here okay is it is it on yes I I won't touch it okay I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order um do I have an approval of the agenda first of all so moved second okay all in favor say I I I it's passed next we will go over the five Schoolboard Basics put students first follow the law and your

004own policy respect the chain of command based decisions on shared objective information operate in the public eye okay and I don't think we had any visitors fill out a form did we no okay and we'll move on to the consent items Kinder gave us some additional U bills here actually the main one is the parallel Technologies there's a couple bigger bills for that that is the camera doors and swipes that we approved a couple months ago this is the they require 50% down to order things okay the rest are all pretty normal okay my eyes weren't lined up there at first I thought that was count for them out was like holy cow no okay was there any questions on any of those okay if not is there a motion to approve the consent items

005I'll approve the consent items as presented second okay all in favor say I I okay and next we'll go to our principal reports so um conferences went really well last week very pleased with the continued um parental and familial involvement um at the elementary school and um the collaboration that happens between staff and Families um so I don't have a percentage but um I know that a few teachers again had 100% I know that all of them had scheduled some and and connected with the families I know that some were planning to connect in uh they were disappointed that they didn't make it for the uh scheduled time but we're planning to connect in a different manner whether it be a phone call or a email with the family here this week so um I

006said that that would count in terms of that connection so that's that's a good thing um St continues to I see I see a lot of good things from staff in terms of making those connections and and working as a team between the home and the and the school so that's definitely a good thing so um highlighted a couple of different other events um and things that were happening at the elementary building on March 3 we were very pleased to work with Katherine nazers in the public library uh to welcome our community readers into our classrooms again I know the te the staff and the students always really look forward to that event so it's a it's a fun time to kind of a break in the day but also to continue to focus on

007our literacy goals and some of those kind of things um so it's just kind of a fun way to celebrate that read Across America day and Dr Seuss Week and so I had our our spirit days that week as well and so it's fun to see the school spirit flowing through the kids and to celebrate some of those things so um April 7 we are planning to begin our Iowa Statewide assessments of student progress our isas tests uh in the elementary building that's just our third and fourth grade and so we'll work with those grade level teams to uh make sure that those schedules are hammered out and the kids are are as best set up for success as we can so um we had some interviews for our open fourth grade position ATO Elementary

008um we're pleased for Carly Von retell um to accept the offer repr presented assuming pending board approval but uh we're excited to to get her to be a part of our team um has a few connections up here a good college friend that already teaches with us and so uh it's it's fun to hear that some of our current staff is doing some recruiting for some of their college um Companions and and um some of those kind of things and so um doing something right obviously if we have people reaching out and saying hey it's not it's a good place to be so uh that's exciting so um yeah and then just kind of uh and maybe this kind this last Point kind of ties in with our PD but we're working through transitions for

009students next year um what it looks like class rosters some of those different kind of things and taking some of our Wednesday times to um at least I am trying to look at some Wednesday times to best uh accommodate what that transition looks like to best set set up those kids for success and and a seamless transition from from this year to next year so PD we continue to focus on our mtss process our Mentor Mente program um and then that math uh curriculum stuff um that's kind of taken a little bit of a backseat unfortunately but we'll get back on that train here and uh hopefully have something for you guys here in terms of a proposal and how we want to move forward here the next next little bit so and then the

010staff attendance and PD attendance is that hasn't been reported is is in there for now too so a lot of good stuff and you mean a proposal for the math math curriculum districtwide yep yep so I know we have had some staff take some visits um to other other districts and kind of look at a couple of the ones in oper ation that we're really considering and so we're hoping to get a few more of those visits scheduled and really look at effective implementation and uh reaching out through uh our principal Network and and other schools that to see how they like it and what what achievement or differences they've seen from implementing some of the curriculum that we're we're considering so yep narrow down to a couple really good options I think either way

011we're going to have a very high quality curriculum to offer it's just prence and and um implementation and yep yep cost will play into it a little bit you know so but we want the best for our kids too so okay thank you Mr Herz at the high school we had conferences earlier in the year so nothing to report there um midterm was last week and from year to year very similar um dnf list and and also the high-end A's and B's pretty similar numbers there across the year so not seeing the growth there we're hoping to see definitely still a lot of freshmen on that list and that's something that we continue to to work on just trying to help better set up our ninth grade students for Success yeah I don't know if

012we have all the answers we need yet so we still working on that uh Decap we had a training last week Mrs rugles and I went to that got some really good information we've made some good progress on that uh definitely grateful to our staff that have helped contribute to that plan because a lot of teachers helped contribute to that Mrs Ruggles and and various other staff help on that plan so could you remind us what that stands for again district career and academic plan so it's what we report to the state is how we're meeting um kind of that four-year planning post secondary Readiness and uh work-based learning initiatives that the state wants us to hit so yep that's coming together due April 1st so it's got to be done here pretty quick and

013we're very close spring practices and competitions are underway track had a meet today I think golf is hoping to get started here very quickly the course is supposed to open April 1 so exciting things happening there in in athletics and then individual speech uh just had 18 performances um at individual State this past weekend and they had a good they had a good showing there we just posted on Facebook several ones and a few twos so excited for them U planning for next year talking about shifting success back to the end of the day tried it at the middle of the day to help balance out lunch shifts we went down from a three lunch shift to a two lunch shift lunch for half of the kids the other half of the kids in success

014you know some positives there kind of breaks up the middle of the day um but some negatives especially at the high school in seventh and eighth grade kids missing for athletics 9th period class versus success things like that so shifting it back to the end of the day that was feedback from from staff we're making that change for next year and then talking about high school registration a couple things we're considering this is an idea we got at the Decap meeting offering um comp one and two or comp and lit through NCC to count as our fourth year of English um that helps kind of take some of the load off of our high school English but also gives kids the opportunity to take college classes to work towards that you know Associates or fouryear

015degree whatever they need to do so kind of a win-win it's good for kids and it it helps us with some of the scheduling constraints too so something that we picked up at Decap I thought was a really good idea and we're going to try to do that and then careers we're looking at requiring that um for nth and 10th graders so as we register we'll have kids sign up for that and then there'll be some changes to graduation requirements and things like that that we'll I'll I'll bring to the board to yeah get their approval for so PD very similar to Mr Doo um we did send out an uh an interest uh survey to see kind of what staff are hoping to have training on for next year the highest results were things

016like classroom management English language learner uh support and grade level collaboration time as well as kind of choosing their own which is what we do with I dippy there's some flexibility in there with their individual professional development plan goals so yeah some good ideas that we can use to help develop the plan for this next year and then our isasp testing 7th and eth or excuse me 5ifth through 8th will be uh April 8th they'll start and then High School are starting a a little bit later to help stagger that because we have quite a bit of shared staff so but uh like our plan and should easily be able to finish before the deadline and at the end is our staff attendance any questions is there any other classes that are now that uh

017double qualify like the English sure yep so we in our Reg registration guide have a list of NCC classes that we offer dual credit for so most of those are a college class and elective credit for us this would be a unique situation where we're saying you can have college credit and it will meet a required Credit in in English credit for us that's something that I don't know that we've done I was just trying to think of other I can't think of anything that does that else and English is a little unique in that you have to have four years of English where the other subjects a typical path is you take our three years and then your fourth year you would take maybe a college bio or college cem or a senior Math

018something like that so um yeah so for counting as dual for a required and college this would be something new we'll still offer a fourth year of English for our non colge path students because we have to offer four years of English at so so but you know maybe instead of having two sections we might be able to have one section just based off of needs so could also help like a student that's going to graduate at semester correct we done help them to meet those credits yeah MH okay okay thank you both and we will move on to Mr da so um trying to highlight things that maybe we won't talk about as much in the other parts of the the meeting here um as we've talked about a lot of time with our

019district literacy math why I put this here is not filling the tag position but shifting those responsibilities and just working that out and hopefully ideally using that as a goal as we've been talking about our budget try and keep as many of those Elementary positions and those class SI as down in the elementary as possible um we finalized some of those sharing agreements in February and we'll continue with that tonight and as um Mr Kent Deale mentioned and Casey added on to that about the math curriculum and just talking about that in the resources and just keeping that in mind that that's that year so we'll probably have a bigger purchase to approve here in the next month or two before we get to the end of the year so that we can get that

020math curriculum in place for next year even though it's for next year typically our cycle is we we purchase that on this year's budget in the spring just as an FYI not that we're worried about that but just reminding you um a lot of times with discussions on conference affiliations and just as an update I think you know last last month the meeting was moved up a little bit due to some conflicts we met on the 12th but we approved applying for entrance to the War Eagle um basically make the long story short we've worked through that process um I met with the War Eagle they accepted that um and then potentially doing that for next next year also met with the sand at the end of last week and through some discussion approved Ling

021out usually you have to do a Year's notice but um not 100% there but we're close so um as of right now all T all plans and intents are for us to be in the War Eagle next fall so that's kind of where we're at and I haven't shared that with the community but I did share that with staff and I'll do that later and if they're watching they know now um oh and retention engagement we did by pizza for the staff at parent teacher conferences one of the two nights that they had those um started working and this is crazy to say but started to make plans for some of our end of the year recognition and PD and things like that because that stuff is around the corner two months from today we're

022going to be knocking on the doorbell to the end of the year which is crazy to think about um and then these guys have spent a lot of time in myself less so but some as well just about filling the open positions and shifting things around and things like that and that's just kind of the name of the game this type of year um for the financial goals the stability and the viability we'll talk a little bit about tonight but about save and pepal projections things like that we've been doing a lot of work with Bonds in terms of our bond sale coming up and learning a lot about bonds and the things that we have to go through as a public entity on that that I wasn't aware of which is fine that's part

023of the process that's why you pay people to guide you through that um done a lot with our management fund and projections um and just talked about ways that we can continue to kind of manage the budget and cut costs um for next year without necessarily always eliminating staff and like I've mentioned before and and moving forward we're still exploring the possibility of going from seven to six bus routes and looking at that and me and Amos had a lot more discussions on that in the last month and everything else you can just read right there so that's all I have okay moving on to UMES um Finance I don't know if you guys want to summarize kind of what we've met on so far cuz these two guys are in finance so you're asking

024us yeah sorry sorry say if yeah we we've met did you have anything to summarize or no just that the staff negotiations it sounds like you guys have met and they've come back and I got some a little work maybe to do but hope get that wrapped up here by end of the week maybe yeah it was very promising and and I appreciate their work on that and so we've done our initial back and forth and have met so I'm hoping by Thursday we when we have our budget hearing hopefully that if we can get everything done that we'll have a special board meeting so no promises but that's our goal that we'll have that done on Thursday and then policy committee we met virtually I think way back a month ago I emailed them

025one that will approve tonight that we're doing as part of the the bonding process that's required but really there isn't any other updates okay then we will go on to recognition of Excellence so student council representative Brianna Taylor's here to read that for us hi um starting with Iowa vocal Jazz Championship our high school jazz choir night sounds has once again been selected as one of the top eight 2A Jazz choirs in Iowa for the Iowa vocal Jazz championships they will perform and compete on April 1st at Dallas Center Grimes High School in De Mo this is an incredible achievement for our students um in the high school Erica Rosenberg and myself represented siblo cheen all young women and ourselves in such a professional manner at the Iowa state capital on Thursday February 20th we

026were very well prepared having created packets of data and supportive documents that we handed out to all the legislators we were well-dressed professionally greeted each person with a smile and handshake and commun communicated clearly and professionally uh Mrs Ruggles could have not been more proud of two high school students we were confident courageous in all of our interactions the bill we were supporting has now passed through the education Committee of the White House and now a subcommittee and is on to Appropriations um I am told well Mr Ruggles was told that this is a large part due to their our efforts and our persuasive speeches um we are featured in the Northwest IA review The Gazette Tribune and now um Dakota news now on ksfy um with wonderful pieces um we were shining examples of

027what students can be and do and then in the Middle School fifth grade student Lincoln croit took first place at the brail excellence and literacy competition um as for wrestling Matt NE has been named the 2025 Northwest Iowa wrestling coach of the year um these following wrestlers competed in the state wrestling tournament held February 19th through the 22nd at De Mo Jackson vanders SLO K Julia East buyer and Dawson Byer with a seven Place finish uh February generals of the week for um the month of February 7th we had for elementary school brillan hbert middle school Matthew Clawson High High School Lily Marco and the staff Janice Gro for the week of the 14th we had Arya schne I believe I'm saying that right for elementary school middle school Paisley Kus and Lucy High Trader

028High School Anna zarz and staff Jada Marco for the week of the 21st we had Elementary School I'm I think it's Stephanie s Stephanie Stephanie Lopez santis Middle School meline gar and high school Erica Rosenberg and myself and staff Amy Elser the week of the 28th we had Elementary School Joshua lemon Middle School Lincoln croit High School Ben Poppin and staff Jody Roseberry thank you very much and of course thank you for your hard work it was fun reading about that in the paper yeah thank guys really appreciate it all right and that was all a part of caps yes so part of caps yeah correct through our internship so great yeah of course thank you very much representatives of course thank you guys so much I'll take it back okay thank you next we'll

029go on to our uh discussion items with our literacy presentation science hello how's everybody doing tonight good hello all right well I want to respect your time I know you guys want to get out and enjoy the nice weather too so I'll do kind of a modified presentation I want to give a flavor for how we're supposed to do APL which is one of our district initiatives but also want to probably do more teacher talk than I normally do but I do want to give you guys a chance to experience the APL um instructional strategies so typically in APL you give a student they'd walk in with their bell ringer card so there something the kids would have when they walk on the door for me um they get one a week on a Monday

030so we get a new card and it includes questions that I'll ask to get the conversation started and then I also use it as a way to quickly determine if we're getting the job done so I Pro I'll have the objectives on the Whiteboard so the objectives for this particular lesson will be provide evidence that the science staff is implementing District initiatives with Fidelity share success and challenges vignettes from our science teachers and discuss how isasp and act data can be used to determine how effective we are at hitting our science standards so when I'm done with my presentation I'll do a quick analysis with your help see if I accomplish those objectives so those are three things that I'm hopeful that will accomplish during this presentation slash lesson um I always wrote the bell

031ringer and so typically have the kids quick write some ideas down in interest of time I'll give you 30 seconds to just discuss with your partner just discuss um this particular question what is something you feel you've accomplished as a Schoolboard member or administrator this past school year and what is something you feel you haven't accomplished yet that's a big question I would probably give the kids more than just the 30 seconds to ponder that but since um you guys are more on top of it ready to go you only need 30 seconds versus the minute so even if you don't have time let's say that Jamie and Greg had a really great conversation about something they feel that they accomplished and they didn't get to the what have you not accomplished yet that's fine

032so you're not getting Zapped if you don't have accomplished but if you're having a great conversation and you're really involved I don't want to stifle that but for those of you that hey I got my idea already figured out let's move on to the what I haven't accomplished yet you now have something to do and instead just kind of waiting there for the rest of the Plass to get done so that's how we typically run a a bell mirr so and what I'll do as a teacher is once I let students on the clock I'll go to a student or students and listen try not to insert myself in the conversation but so that when I the Bel buzzer goes off I'll say who'd like to share and if you're like most students um nobody

033wants to share especially first period algebra so I'll typically ask a student I've already talked to so I've already talked to so I know I can go to him and he'll give me an answer that we've talked about I won't be surprised he won't be embarrassed um I won't be calling out on cold turkey onh he'll be shocked he'll know that okay if nobody's volunteering you're on the spot so he knows that he'll be ready okay so 30 seconds talk to your table partner something you feel you've accomplished as a school board member or administrator this past school year and what something you feel something you feel you've not accomplished yet 30 seconds go I hope com this way actually connected with three or four of them two or three of them and so some

034possible that's a big question impr fac impr what is the biggest what parents wow that really nice I think the one heard from teachers a step in the right direction Elementary yeah I app parents have really amaz fa for as small as we are offer good luck you know it's not easy to maintain that's pretty impressive we referee a lot of schools I'm sure you have like Sergeant bluff's weight room is not very big now for so yeah I know that's a good that's a good um anybody like to share an accomplishment they've um completed this school year um sure Laurel thank you um our board was awarded at the um conference or the convention for their for our efforts in um earning enough points to get boardsmy um so that was something that we've

035accomplished impressive doing enough learning together sure yeah I would imagine it's pretty difficult to achieve um there's not a ton of schools that so yeah workshops and yeah Iowa Schoolboard sponsored workshops yep I'd like one more if you could if yet else I'd like to sure yeah uh came in on Friday to get a little bit of extra work done and and uh you know one of the district goals is to is Recruitment and Retention of uh staff and so kind we have a few openings in elementary school and so wanted to take some initiative and and reach out to some possible applicants um whether or not they knew of our openings and uh we were fortunate that we had a couple local colleges send us uh graduates coming up this uh this spring this

036may so just kind of reached out to some of the people who have endorsements and some of those kind of things and let them know about our opening and let them know about the good things here happening at so and seeing if they'd possibly be interested and got got a little bit of a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel there haven't seen applications yet but um was able to connect with a few of them and hopefully put a positive taste in their mouth for so and maybe we'll see some applications here come so that's impressive you know it's funny 24 or five years ago right you didn't have to aggressively pursue people would come to you and it's very interesting the number of applications we received was almost overwhelming right versus

037now where we're looking for when my wife and I were in tea for coming to Iowa she applied for a she was Aid in the school second grade job 600 people te and now yep it's crazy y so Greg and Jamie had a really I had not thought of this one what's something you guys said you were proud you had accomplished as the school board facility improvements and that brought a good conversation about we visit other schools as officials and there are several schools we go which you were like w we have an amazing ATO and that's something that parents have said to me in other schools too oh said but oh you guys got a great track or oh that's a really nice gym you guys have and um so it's impressive would anybody

038had a chance to talk about something they would have accomplished not accomplished yet that's still on their to-do list I kind of mentioned in my board report we haven't closed that gap of the D and the F lifts yet and frustrating at times trying to figure out how we can best do that and maybe not seeing the results we want to so yeah that does frustrate us the and the Freshman that's a persistent work in progress some years are more difficult than others um but good awesome well I don't want to do too much talking you guys are capable of reading but I want to my next part would be I'm going to present evidence that we as a science staff are completing District objectives these are objectives at the school board boy how long

039has it been Mr these literacy goals it's been years oh yeah cuz when when I came they weren't new they were in place 10 years Laurel for sure yeah I was probably on the board I not on the board I was here a few years before yeah it's been so probably n n years going to say somewhere I was thinking about 10 yeah I that to be 10 cuz it was going before we were so um okay so in 2023 I don't want to I I'll talk a little quicker than I probably normally do in class 2023 the science department when our curriculum review um district teachers concluded that new textbooks were not necessary at that point because our previous curriculum review we had still had really good literacy resources so instead we went with

040um more of the stem resources activities to try and get more towards differentiation Hands-On approaches um we're still working hard to cover our litery goals we and that's definitely we um we have amazing science teachers um in our district and pride ourselves on complying with District initiatives and that's much compliance as it's not something we got to do it's not a box checking exercise something that we do because we like it the kids like it um we're provide the resources um we provide the support from admin um that's a huge component of comp or implementing District initiatives um one of our district initiatives is to continue to incorporate close reading strategies um at all levels this takes the form of small group reading using text trade books they're call in elementary um to critical reading

041passages in the high school um this past year uh my sophomores struggled mightily to clear their mobs it's a really good conversation with parents at conference is I have a daughter in sophomore so firsthand Ann uh experience of the oh I didn't clear this mob and it's the third time I'm really frustrated talking with parents and kids you got to read that passage which may seem long but reality isn't that long but when you're used to consuming bits of information Tik Tock Facebook type blips and you go to see a paragraph that this long the brain does kind of go in overload mode and like ah I can't I start reading and I'm I'm just bored immediately so trying to shift the brain to consuming bigger pieces of information when you're used to small or

042like video clips that on Tik Tok is 4 seconds you go to click on a mob and it's a 4minute video on cell respiration the brain's like who's supposed to be doing this um so having those conversations are very important and I'm pleased to report the sophomores as expected have been making the transition so now test scores are up and the confidence level is higher the frustration level of course still yes my daughter's still too high um but manageable levels so that's an example of if you stay with it you can achieve this critical reading skill number two um continue to provide students opportunities to productively struggle um I want to thank Mr desale for inspiring that component um we do refer to the productive struggle pyramid right outside the high school office often remind

043the kids that okay this component called um grind is something you have to keep doing not just once once a month um working on mindset I don't think we do as good a job in the district as we probably used to working on mindsets um that was a big push six seven years ago I think we kind of let that slip a bit but a lot of stuff on our plates um continuing to emphasize formative assessment using Bell ringers objective checks and exit tickets which I'll use exit ticket here shortly um formative assessments would be non high stakes tests I mean this is that's a paper and pencil test after unit formative is um walk in the door here's a question get you thinking um type of questions versus high stakes testing objective checks um

044which I'll do here shortly to see if we're completing the lesson and finally Contin to continuing to employ APL strategies time on the clock Push Pull strategies that engage students in limit teacher talk which is still a issue we all have um what I like you to do is take 40 seconds and discuss to your tablemate one of of the pieces of evidence that I provided that stipulates that District science teachers are implementing um school board approved initiatives which one of those four do you feel you've heard is the grape vine or your own children um either heard oh yeah I hear kids doing this um or um questions about what that looks like or um I haven't heard much about that or any questions have for me so basically I'm it's pretty wide open

045the 40 seconds discuss her part which one of those objectives you have a question on a comment on or parent have said something to you 40 seconds go know something he's done struggles ands do those expectations could could be I'm not sure who actually started good idea to get started thinking right away understanding of and I know the the first one too where they do the close read they're helping with you said that we agreed um Kender would you mind sharing the comment you had about um I think it was number number three do we talk about objective checks yeah yeah so just having students in school every unit there's a Jeopardy that parents do with the kids and go over the objective checks too so it's fun I always appreciate the the row that

046are non science really the parents need help the 9s stuff we don't remember from high school it's funny you say that because and I'm not trying to Che my own horn I really am not but one of the one of the side effects I had not realized was what an opportunity as Mr mentioned opportunities with parents a huge opportunity because parents have to email me I did the objective checks of course in certain instances you got to verify that with the wife because um sometimes you're not always sure but it was an opportunity to talk to parents as quick hey thanks Kendra for helping Su get it done by the way Su is a great kid in class um or um hey good job beating Tim how's he you know how's he doing or what

047just kind of a followup question so those are opportunities um that a side effect um any other comments about the evidence that science department is doing the school board approved initiatives oh the bill ringer uh cards and you know one thing as we listen to these L these pres presentations from other from other teachers they they bring that up Bell ringers so I don't know if that was started by the science department or in I like to take credit for a lot of things but that is not just science that was AP boy thato that was probably one of the best PDS and we stayed with it for several years um you know consistency is huge but that was something that that was Bill Bor era I think that all of us were supposed to

048be doing and teacher Ed 25 years ago that that was we didn't call it B I don't know what we called it but you're supposed to do something where you get the kids thinking anticipatory set y I mean whatever they old term yeah was the term you're supposed to walk in and boom kids are engaged um I didn't really do that until here8 years into my career when it was one of those things that was expected of you um that's such a great opportunity to get the kids to think but also okay I had no idea I had done that terrible of a job teaching yesterday because you guys don't see what we need okay I need to you know back up investigate what happened so yeah that's huge huge another thing I thought of

049was the ACT you know I think that uh I always found that a good you know measuring to or bar to continue to watch and how that you know what they do in the classroom transpires to the scores on AC absolutely and I have some evidence that proves that science is doing an amazing job with that I will take we will take credit for that um I have some I think I've heard you say that before I will take the we'll take the credit for that one um the next page I don't want to go through all of these um the next two pages so one of the objectives so I just completed the first objective which was to provide evidence that science staff is implementing District initiatives the second objective was to share success

050and challenge vignettes with our science teachers so and I the science teachers do amazing job this is some reflective pieces that I think it's important for us to do as educat um something I do in my classro to help students succeed was the first question what is something you feel you have successfully accomplished which something I asked you guys when the CL or when this lesson started and then a challenge you've yet to overcome so just in the interest of time I think what we'll do and I'll do this in my classroom on the spot looking at the clock okay uh early out today I got to get going here with this lesson so I'm going to do is I'm going to give Jamie and Greg um kindergarten first and second grade pick one that

051you want to read about just to share just something that popped out it can be the success it can be the um the challenge or whatever caught your attention I'll have Mr do Mr Herz do um third fourth and fifth sixth grade and then I'll have Mr do Laurel and Kendra do Mr tug and high school teachers so if you just want to take I'm going to give you a quick give be a quick minute 20 seconds to find some of the stuck out talk to your partner um again we in a class I would spend more time breaking it down to smaller pieces this is a lot to have kids do at one point or people so understand that we would take a little more time because there's a lot of information but in

052the interest of time I'm going to give you a minute 20 pick out something that stood out to you that you'd want to discuss or just have a conversation about so 1 minute 20 seconds go good to see I say right at least one stem activity for yourl rotation wanting to make more on things but seeing each we learn and then in terms ofs good ide you know I think the cool thing is is we talked how important the for assessments B and APL is and almost I mean I just kind of scan through it but especially in these three that we're kind of talking about but talking about the Bell ringers and the APL and some of those kind of things so that's really neat and and yeah it's not as as much as

053we'd like but um due to some of those strategies it's as effective sometimes made me think saying that so as administrator you have a unique perspective of can you tell the structure in place versus not that stood out absolutely do you communicate that to other teachers that this might be a solution to some of the issues you're having do you find that to be how CH is that probably depends on willingness to learn grow make changes it's the crucial conversation it's the it's the piece to yeah the asking questions the inquisitive and reflective pie trying to get if I mandate it it's one thing and I might see it but it might not be as effective get the St You're Expecting and have they lost M it's like this easier and that's where I would

054to start the conversation during success disruptions you're seeing that's going to but it doesn't affect their actual science class versus things can unravel quickly the AP so moving that to the the aa's teacher teacher tools for student engagement we'll have some hopefully being able to call it's they're incorporating more best practi St in addition best practice that's what US called yeah yep um just in the quick interest of time um I did not get a chance to go talk to this table over here so I'm curious if you guys had any something that stood out we thought it was interesting Mr tuji saying that um his students have improved on writing claims since that's a big part of high school he made comment he goes you can always tell a kid from a different school

055when they come in because they strug with claim writing struggle as we all do particular good to start itly you know a big reason of our successful science has been consistency um we've been the same science teachers for years and years and years um and that makes a massive difference yeah um Team Greg any that stood out from you from the lower elementary uh I just put the little lesson learned um during the week and the followup the following week with with hands on I thought that was I noticed that too actually see how something works as still just seeing it on paper right right uh Mr Herz or Mr does they anything from the uh Middle School that stood out the upper grades in the Middle School consistency with the Bell ringers and APL

056strategies they all mention that in some way shape or form um proud of our science teachers um a lot of good work the next part is is um again um it's perfect for a science class because we would spend time critically reading a graph a chart um Ines of time the um talking point three is our isas scores um as you can see our middle school and 10th grade take the fifth and eighth take science although fifth grade is considered Elementary for Iowa technically okay and so is sixth grade so is sixth grade yeah now affect that does not affect science but y so the middle school is from 8th grade those are the current 9th grade last year eighth grade and then the high school is the current Juniors last year sophomores so those

057our our scores compared to other schools um I joked with one of the Sheldon science teachers that they um notic seem to have kicked it up on Notch so um competition is healthy um I talked to the hlp science teacher year amazing guy said did you know your scores are like off the charts for science no yeah huh how about that just what's your secret didn't didn't know he had one so I don't know um Jamie mentioned ACT scores so I have 30 students this is just the current group of kids um 30 so students have taken the ACT over the past year I just quickly did some averaging because that the current years have not been released yet so I just took the scores that the kids have taken so far so it's kind

058of an incomplete picture but 30 kids so far average is 22.8 math is 20.1 the science 24.9 English 20.3 and the reading is 22.9 so science is the highest um it's no secret we practice that all the time it's part of the kids' Bell ringers as part of their mobs it's part of the inclass work it's part of their assessments we do a lot of critical reading on act type passages the graph below that just I couldn't quite figure out the way to present this but of the 30 kids um 16 of the 30 their highest scores in science that's what that graph shows is that what the kids' highest score was on um uh two the two of the kids the highest was the math and then the 11 others had the reading was

059the highest and apparently nobody yet um has an English score that's higher than the other three um on the flip side is is our ACT scores from previous years and I'm again proud to report that um our science scores are um higher than the other curricular areas and they're also higher than the state and National averages and again that's because the kids work hard we push them um at that particular moment they may not feel like doing an ACT prep passage but it's very freshman are a little Bucky because of the first time they're doing it by the time they get to sophomore and Junior it's kind of like oh oh yeah no problem we do it we know what to do um we know we got to struggle through it um and that's just

060part of the routine um I'd like to take a quick 30 seconds talk to your partner um pick any data point from the isas or the act that you think um helps support the claim that um anything that anything that stuck out to you could be a similar score a question you have or a comment just anything that stood out to you of of Interest with the data quick 30 seconds go 16 kids that scored highest in the science subtest overall I don't kind good work know you can always always tell the ones that good good parents at home your excuse It's been drill to me by you I'm thinking math and science are typical no it's good for [Music] the that's probably just familiarity with it if you've been practicing any class I say

061just even the IPS consistently above but that's why I always say I don't put stock in higher going low I I didn't have inass we could have reacted that you go what's going on science I went down 10 points because they does that really mean did they really do that poor job that year it could have been who knows what was going on that week one day it was a bad week and we could have taken the test that year at week earlier and maybe been right in average that's why I always say at the trend in the long term but you know reach out but do you think they solved it last year you know what I mean like why did that happen um more students that Exel yes there's a whole host of

062factors when you do it in one day and this is the part that's awesome is when you have to tell kids hey that sounds like a great conversation I'm going have to cut you off because we move on but that's that's what we want in our class from that engagement level um something that we got talking over at Greg's table is that you know 17 years ago I had a conversation with a parent at conferences how come my daughter's um Chemistry Grade at the time was an A but her ACT score is a 17 her ACT score she says she's not smart but her her Chemistry Grade says she is well that's because Act is tested differently than chemistry class why I don't know so that prompted a very tough conversation among science teachers is

063to are we teaching kids what they need to do to be successful or is it just because what in our classroom so that prompted some conversations about we need to be doing more critical reading because Act is not testing science content in fact you don't have to know anything about science take the science act you have to be able to read critically so that prompted some very good conversation over the past many years so that our ACT scores are more reflective what we're doing in the classroom um how about um Team Laurel any comment you guys have um Stan no I haven't yeah just the overall consistency of the scores we kind of talked about just the ACT been pretty consistent and what it is in relation to the national average or the Iowa average

064and then the same thing on the isap specifically at the high school and I said that's also why sometimes remember it's one test on one day in time did we really you know do we need to pull Mr wedge in in 2023 and say hey buddy dropped nine points what's going on we and you know we're no that you know that could who knows what was going on that week that's why sometimes you have to take those tests with the grain of shult because look at next year is pretty much consistent again so that's why you factor a lot of things look at it longitudinally and compare yourselves because you got to remember it's an important data point but it's one data point um the last tucking point I have a couple more one is

065the stem expo's coming up J April 15 we're good to go there um it's been kind of a this say April 12 oh yes it's been changed 15th what is that that's a Tuesday isn't it yeah it's the 15th 15th yep y um already elementary teachers are doing some the projects um Mr tuji started his so it's a great way to um I guess advertise we do in our classrooms is tough to to find a date when it's there not a million conflicts but I think we did a pretty good job um other thoughts I want to say on behalf of the entire science department we are very grateful for the continued support from our parents admin team and School Board um we continually receive more praise and positive feedback from parents who support our

066efforts to raise rigor and expectations um as one parent told me at conferences today's sacrifice is tomorrow's benefit um so um that's been a as um all of you know it's been a tough battle sometimes to convince that we talked over at Laurel's team parents more than the teachers but I think a consistent um exhausting sometimes um approach does benefit is is worthwhile I want to remind everybody here science is not a unique subject but it's an amalgamation of math so we collect data reading we read charts and graphs and we write about what we did so it's really not a unique subject so when we have conversation with the parents I'm just terrible science no you hate math and so that part of science makes it very difficult well I hate to read too

067okay that makes science even more I hate to write too well that makes science imp impossible so having those conversations is important um was not suching a science skill um again thank you to Mr Delle for the productive struggle um we refer to that constantly in our classrooms um and just again thank you for all the support over the years not just approving budgets and and prep posos but just the day-to-day grind of here's what we're trying to do it may be difficult now but give us some time um so closure I would typically have you write answers to these questions but given time constraints we'll just quick talk so your ticket out the door as I call it it's your exit ticket so I would normally collect these as the kids walk out the

068door so I could read them quick and oh Jamie put oh okay um can't Bo okay well I see we're not getting the job done because they still think this okay so I got some work to do tomorrow so um just quick talk so and and to insist I get one question from you so make me think so that'll be and that's sometimes what I'll do is say write down a question you have for me for class time tomorrow so I'm going give you quick 30 just a quick question um make me think 30 seconds a question for me um about science anything you've been thinking about 30 seconds go one the right one um you go back when you started that's a good one that's a deep thinking one questione off that essay words

069or less that's a good one um I would say you know we talk about teachers and I told teer so terrible as we go so just understand it's going to be tough um I think I should have done better job of kids for what relates them sure you're saying get on board I should have done more J of it's going to be like I do know it's going to be tough but you can do it that would have I think laid the groundwork for oh he's not just two as one of your classmates he's trying to destroy a GPA the quote have to get that name um okay I I talked to Mr Herz so I know what's coming so I'll have him go first and you guys can surprise me mean we be done

070then so what would you do differently based what you know now what would you do differently if you could go back it's a great question um so before I answer that question I was talking to Mr I was talking to a new teacher here at so so a couple weeks ago and he was having some frustrations I said you know a couple 25 years ago I should have been paying the school for to teach because I was terrible as we all were and are sometimes still and so don't let these small these things things that seem bad now bring you down and so same advice I gave him is something that made me think I wish I would have known better to prepare the kids for here's what's coming I'm I'm going to ask some

071some things out of here that's going to be kind of difficult and the parents too so it didn't come across I was trying to as one of your classmates put it he's trying to destroy my GPA um I'm not your enemy I'm on your side I wish I done a better job of laying that ground work so now I know more about how to get kids on my site before I ask them to do tough things that's a great question um table Greg that was a good one you got to try and that was a good one that was a good one um go to them first and I would typically at just about before he said go I would said hey can I come back to you so you read my mind so I'll

072typically say we'll come back to you give me a few more seconds we'll go over to these guys and I'll come back to you guys so they know oh yeah I just need a few more seconds um Team lurel okay so one of the things you talked about was letting kids do retakes on tests so I guess the question is what do they have to do to be able to retake or do they just maybe coming into it go yeah we get to retake it anyway so big deal that's a great question I'm struggling with that mighy in math I've have not found a way to make it so in science they have to do their mobs before they can retake if they don't have their mobs then they cannot retake the test that's your

073only score you're ever going to get so that's help with homework completion and a side note the kids are I don't think they're tricked but they're certainly oh well if I do my mobs at least I can retake the test so I've got a fail saate um that's retaking the science test is a lot of work so the kids that really want it do it um so they have to jump through some hoops that end up helping them anyway um math is a little trickier trying to find a way for the kids to retake because there's a lot of kids I have a certain daughter who does that I can always retake it yeah so I've yet to find a solution to math I think the science works pretty well because they have to do

074their mobs that's a kind of built-in system so I'm still working on the math because I think it is important best practices research show that kids do deserve a chance to improve if that's what the goal is I should have another opportunity if it was a bad test date that was one test we took what if you had a shot at it but or are you playing games are you just you know so that's a great question that's something so what do you think that is what percentage do you think that is so for science about 70% of the kids retake it are the ones that got a b or maybe C+ they want the a I got a B plus I can get an A there's very few that High's got obliterated I'm going

075to do it and get a better grade um there are some and there are some I try to Target and there's a few but so it's interesting that the ones that retake are the ones that already kind of got it they really want that a they want the b or dad says I need at least a c on the test so I got to retake it um not as many and that's something that we've tried to work out for years not as many as the F kids will retake it even though they did their mobs not all the fkids retake it oh they they'll do the mob but still not take it some will do the mobs just not retake it but most kids that failed didn't do the mobs to begin with so that's

076a a persistent problem um however homework completion is really high this year in our bio and scci biochemistry like 97 8% completion rate for homework which explains why there's so few dnf kids in chemistry and biology whereas the science 9 I think most completion rates 40% so which explains why the science n scores are really low and it's prompted some tough conversations that's a better through second semester or not not really so and but you know if you look at previous years freshman scores are lower and MOB completition rates typically do increase um so it generally that's a great question great question if you have the answer toate freshman to do that yeah let us know that's a that's one that's a constant challenge yeah so it's it's more of a freshman thing then it

077is yeah and it takes time for them to realize the system you know kind of oh got to do my Mo you know um so but we have noticed that the sophomores are way better at their MO completion than the Freshman the reading scores are better so by the time think the Juniors you know I told the Juniors this the day I said you guys are taking unit six test this is your 23rd science test so you know what you need to do and and they do for the most part so there is that I guess it takes a little longer for it to to syn in other than that thanks for being great students um I'll write down I would collect your I would collect your exit slips and then read them it later

078but since you all did a great job everybody gets an a except I can of all a so we'll randomly give Jamie a B minus so I'm wor over that you not going to retake it no he didn't do his M so stuck with that um once again thanks for all your support over the years and um keep keep uh keep pushing okay thank you thanks Mike okay somewh here two- minute board policy on finance so I knew we had enough other things so I just kept it here just to the discussion on our voted P so as we've talked about next fiscal year FY 26 this coming year it is up for Renewal and that's the portion there's two parts there's the board approved which is 33 cents that the board annually approves and

079then there's the voted part which can be up to a167 um that has to go in in front of the voters and then that can be for up to 10 years and so we'll be doing some literature and education and we do that and looking at doing that we'll we'll have some discussions before we get there this summer um and you guys as a board will kind of decide how we're going to do we can have some options on when we're going to do that and that'll be talked about later but I just wanted to present some data as we look at this so our voted a approved PE I kind of highlighted us and then what I did is I chose area schools I kind of went straight across the top straight over to

080okaboji and then I just kind of went straight down and did all the schools that fit within that quadrant EC was kind of close right in there and then um akan is right next to one that we did and they're rough layer size so that's maybe two that don't quite fit in there but you'll see was kind of close to the line of but I did basically every school within that quadrant so that's that's where they're coming from here um so as you can see our voted approved p is 67 cents but if you looked at this last year the rate is only 10 cents why is that well we have an income sir tax amount that um we collect money from so that lowers that rate okay so when you look there but just

081to show so if you look at other schools and where their rates at compared to sio cheens um most schools across the state they're vot approved one the most common rates it'll be 67 cents a buck or a buck 34 there's Sometimes some reasons based on history white could be something odd than that and you'll see a school one school that is odd outside of that but pretty much everyone else is at that either 67 cents a buck or a buck 34 so like Akon's voter approved one is at a buck boy and Hall is at a buck 34 really the only other ones that are at 67 cents like us are the two lion Schools central lion and West lion dropping way down to the end there are 67 cents a piece if you

082go outside of that esterville Lincoln Central is at $134 George Little Rock theirs looks at 67 cents but they have that in instructional excuse me the income sir tax so I put in parenthesis what their rate would be if anyone has that so they would be at a134 you'll notice four districts right now don't have a voter approved one I would group three of them together and there's a reason for that Harris Lake Park okaboji and Spirit Lake with some of the property values and other things that they get because of the county they're in and the valuations that's part of their reason so that's a little bit different than the rest of the state so I think that's there's a reason they don't have that so really the one that's comparable that doesn't have

083one a voter approved one was Moc who let it expire in 2011 Spirit Lakes in 2013 but like hlp and okaboji have never had a border approved portion because they haven't needed that valuations are a little over different in that area we'll say right so George little rocks really $134 H HMS they have a um income sir tax but little smaller amount percentage wise so that's why their rates at a125 Rock Valley's at a buck Sheldon's at a buck 34 Senter that's the odd one they're at a dollar three and I looked at that several ways that is what they're at I'm sure there's a reason I don't know that s Central is at a buck 34 that one's in there by accident I didn't realize after I did this I was doing meant to

084look up s Center and I had copied s centrals in there as well so that was just by mistake but it's still interesting data South Orban is at of buck 34 if you would factor in the income sir tax amount take that out and then West lion 67 cents and West Sue $134 so just kind of showing you where other districts are at as we have those discussions that ours are at 67 cents when we renew that are we going with that are we changing that what time of year we're going to do that but kind of frontloading that as we have those discussions probably in April or May and leading to do doing that renewal and setting that process up starting in June so qu questions on anything with that the property tax amount

085we definitely seem like an outlier there that's because our property tax rate is only at 10 cents so that's why ours are so much lower because the rest of it is coming through the income sir tax for that right um portion of the the P so yeah that's that is exactly why and that's one of the tools we're using to control our rates other schools might have different tools I mean everyone usually does something with their rate one of the tools we've used is income sir tax amount and it saves roughly 5657 cents of on Rate Property Tax Rate when I was looking at this ISF said generally speaking if they had to throughout the state had made a map they said the areas that use the income Sur tax are generally more of your

086rural agricultural based ones because with your farming Community kind of spreading out who's paying for that because of um property tax versus your urban areas like a De Moine they'll leave that as property tax they don't want to because they have less people that are dependent on that and it's more about getting the income and distributing that out so they said generally speaking your urban areas don't have an income s tax and your rural areas are more than likely to that doesn't mean that's a rule or anything but that's just kind of what they've noticed excuse me if there's no other questions that's all I have more discussions in the next few months that's uh 10 years that you do that yes it's renewed for 10 years correct so and that last com you can

087kind of see the dates of when they expire and I don't know this but I'm making an assumption cuz that's was coming into this year so like West Lions I'm assuming in this past year they did the work to renew it unless they chose not to but it just because there's expires in 3 months so I'm assuming it's actually renewed and it will be before the end of the year that because if you were starting on that now you wouldn't get that done this year so we'll vote on ours this fall then and that's we'll discuss this summer or this fall correct yep there's a couple with h which will'll present there's some rules of thought we'll we'll talk through and I'll have you guys decide generally speaking and looking into this there's a little

088more cost but generally speaking there's a a better turnout and a better vote when you don't do it paired with a general election date I found that from looking at other schools in isfis their the recommendation is because then people are coming out to vote just on the voted pep part so that's one of the things we'll discuss when April or May we'll decide when we want to do that okay moving on then to new business consider approval of summer school program so I move this to the front and then these guys can go when they're done here but I'll Mr Des will explain this yeah so just looking at our um success or kind of how we've done summer school in the past we feel like the jump start model where we give kids

089a summer break before they kind of get back into school has been very successful in terms of of getting students here and as opposed to stretching the school year out and um you kind of get to that Memorial Day point and everybody's kind of like oh I just need a break and so I think that's been a been a good thing for us so we continuing to propose that we um keep that structure uh another piece of conversation that we've had traditionally we've had um three weeks of four days uh and twoh hour days for our summer school but one of the things that we talked about here lately is the uh Athletic Association the girls Union both have a dead week for extracurricular activities to allow families to take some time off and so

090in the past we've had summer school over that dead week uh this proposal is recommending that we try and stay away from that to give families the opportunity you know if siblings uh from the high school have some time off it gives families time uh we want to continue to value that family time and so uh making a couple other changes to adjust for that time loss not necessarily so we're this proposal is looking at two weeks of summer school but increasing the both the number of days and the number of hours per day um to allow the kids to kind of get into the routine of school a little bit more uh one of the conversations we were talking about going down to two weeks was um 2 hours is maybe not quite enough

091um we tried to align some of the times up with families for drop off and pickup maybe 11:30 Works a little bit better over the noon hour for families to come and uh pick their kids up and that Transportation Works a little bit better um and also then um in the morning when they can kind of drop them off um and students can go on the playground some of those kind of things before that that 8:30 start time so and then we're hoping that that half hour day kind of assimilates them back into that school mentality again and learning mentality again a little more quickly um and then also going 5 days a week just for some consistency um there so um yeah Mr Delle was we had some good conversations about it in terms

092of uh what that means for us financially and I'll let you kind of speak to that if if there are any questions about that but feel like this is a great opportunity to Value the family time but also um really get our kids in these um the kids that need a little bit more support get them kind of back into that school mode again so the proposal is for two hours 5 days a week Monday through Friday uh 8:30 to 11:30 for kids and then staff would come and have a little bit of prep time before that so three hours Monday through Friday thank you what did I say two two sorry yeah three you had the hours right but you had you had the time you said 8:3 11:30 previously it was two we're

093proposing to go to 3 now how many TP kids do you typically have in this oh good question uh 10ish per grade um and yeah it and that may be a little generous and it kind of depends on the grade level we've seen more participation at the lower grades than we do kind of in the fifth and sixth grades um and I'm talking grade level for next year you know what I mean so this year's fifth graders would be counted as sixth graders in our summer school um but it's right around there I mean maybe eight is a is a better number but um that's a rough ballpark Jamie just just off the top of my head and looking or remember trying to remember attendances and some of that kind of stuff so and then

094we're hoping for some consistency too where if if people commit to being a summer school they can can be there for the whole time so and we get it that vacations happen not necessarily during dead week but outside of that or we want to take time off to travel a little bit in the summer we understand that too and we can make accommodations for that too so so dead dead week is the week before this correct last week week in July it's a partial week in July and a partial week in in August so you think teachers response will be good for the hours and that time yes I put it out there preliminar preliminarily to some of the staff that has worked previously just because I wanted their experience of what they would think

095of going five days a week and um Extended the the the two hours to three hours per day um unanimously it was like the this is a good idea let's let's give it a shot and see what happens so for those that responded to me anyway so any other questions there and yeah the services that we'll continue to provide will be a lot of the same stuff that we've done just maybe a little more in depth and uh opportunity to dive a little bit deeper in with three-hour chunks of Time Versus two is there a motion to approve the summer school program is there any part he said something about you were going to talk about the financial side oh yeah because if you do the math five days at three hours for two weeks

096so five three hours a day and then you have two weeks 10 it's about we used to do four days for 2 hours yeah right so that's what we'd move to so 10 days over two weeks at 3 hours just doing the math there that's 30 right where if you did two 4 4 8 12 that's only 24 so overall there's a few more hours but we estimated it'd be it'd be a little about 3,800 not quite 4,000 bucks increase 2800 2,800 sorry yes yes sorry 2800 just under 3,000 um 2800 what does that come out of then we use our atrisk funding to pay for that yes so there will be a little more cost of this mon but I think there's enough benefit and in in the grand scheme of things it's not

097huge or a back back breaker if that makes sense and it's B invite based on isasp uh isasp also are um State reporting screeners so fast and already um okay proficiency from those according to the state as well and then there is some teacher recommendation this kid just kind of this the student just kind of struggles getting back into the groove of school they would really benefit from a couple of extra weeks of getting into the groove of school before school actually starts just some of those kind of things so yep okay but mostly based on the assessments so you can't just call and sign your kid up no okay not necessarily we can have that conversation daycare exactly the risk uh fund has money in it for this type of stuff yes yes we

098might have to to change cuz we always we always attempt to through various things we usually have more usess for it than dollars because you want to zero it out because it doesn't carry over oh really and so forth so we typically do but we pay for it out of that and okay shift something else around make a motion to approve the sum of school program as presented by the diss second all in favor say I I okay that's passed consider approval of construction bids for facility and for projects so we just need to formerly do this move ahead they have been given orders to proceed based on the Assumption and meeting some of the things we put in place in terms of um you bet thank you guys in terms of some of our

099estimates and models but officially here I'm going to open the bid tab on the Elementary first and this is kind of what site logic uses to fill it out so that you can see this isn't the greatest example so does does it mean that there wasn't more interest in this and we had some vendors but some ultimately those that ultimately it's kind of an interesting process I've never really been a part of that directly and so they'll have people there with envelopes but it doesn't mean they all they they're kind of seeing each other out and turn it in Len L's the only one that ended up submitting a bid for the overall project and then we open that up um there were several subcontractors but a lot of them then will put their bids

100with the general so that we don't see that but they'll get it to L&L so so um that was their bid for the overall and based on site logic's estimates a few weeks ago and where they were hoping and what we were trying to ballparking it came in lower than what we are guessing so that's that's why when I contact you guys and said we received some positive bids and good news that is that is good news there so we were pleased with that so that would be for the elementary portion of the work the geothermal HVAC and then the um how do we want to call it entry that yeah the entry the remodeling of the classroom to make that the new office and secure entrance and then changing the existing office to some

101classroom space that that's what is all included in that came to a little over 2.9 Million and I want to say a few weeks ago they were hoping to that 3.1 was site logic's estimate if I remember right a few weeks ago this is for the high school and the middle school part that in includes the work on pulling the wires for the fire alarm system at the middle school in the high school and then the secure entrance at both and the roof Fork there was some concern that overall would be bigger than what we can potentially afford to do through the revenue bonds so as a as a way to do that that's they added in the bid package to these alternates so there were different pieces of the roof to do so that

102if we had to cut something maybe we don't do the whole middle School roof we just do a portion of it that's what those alternates were things came in well enough and under budget that we're we're um confident that the whole at the bid price here the whole package can be done together but that's why that happened we did get one contractor that bid the roof just on their own separately and then lnl came back and ended up doing that as a whole package included and then there was another builder that built that build the package as well and you can see they were significant ly lower there's about a 100 Grand difference in their bids for the high school high school and middle school portions of that project kind of gives you an idea

103of their bids so basically L&L if if you include everything with the roof package in total and the work for the fire alarm and the entrances came to the High School Middle School portion came to about 1.4 million and so you're adding those two together as we move through those be more specifics that's presented to me as well but this is what the overall package looks like where's lnl out of Sous City I believe and I could be wrong in this but we're looking I'm I'm pretty sure they were one of the contractors or the main ones when we did the band Edition um they look familiar and then looked at their card and Kender and I were talking about that when we did the band in the high school H system The Boiler Room

104what's that I think they were from Su City now say that I don't remember the name and had their I I wouldn't have come up with it till these guys brought their bid in and looking their card and I'm pretty sure yeah none of the guys that came were part of that so it's not like they personally represented that but um I'm pretty sure they were the ones that have done that work and are familiar with our area questions I can answer for you so this LL then they'll do both both of uh both package one and two for correct okay yes I know in the past we've always had problems getting people here and let McDonald seem to kind of specifically for the the RO yes the roof part and I would have like

105to work with them but they got it and they could end up being the sub on it I don't know where that'll go they're not right now but they they might put in a package and work with them for the roof that that could happen they did put they are in contact with them I don't know where that'll be because L&L will sub that out and work with them on it so um yeah they bid it in two parts it's kind of interesting um because pyic said they've done that before in situations like ours because he said your vendors come they'll bid the first one you open it up and then that might affect people's bids on the second part and I do think that happened how it affect it I can't tell you but

106they're all watching and then then they're making phone calls and coming back cuz some people will say we got the first one we want to make sure we're competitive on the second one he goes or you can have companies that think we didn't get the first one but we want the work so they'll change their bid for the second and yeah we had a company that ended up not bidding the first half saw the results and then came back with a bit on the second half of the project and I mean people C left and had discussions so I mean that's why it's fascinating I don't know what those discussions were but there were discussions had that was for sure okay any other questions okay I'll ask for a motion make a motion to approve

107LL Builders the bid for elementary and also the middle school high school model construction projects okay okay all in favor say I I I that is passed resolution declaring an official intent under treasury regulation I'm not going to read the no so before we can do that we'll have to have a motion to in a second to approve of this but we do have to read the resolution if anyone would feel so inclined to do that and I did print out and highlight the parts that need to be readed need to be readed need to be read for this part okay let's this one here resolution declaring an official intent under treasury regulation 1.5-2 to issu debt to reimburse the school district for certain original expenditures paid in connection with specified projects whereas the school

108district anticipates making cash expenditures for one or more Capital Improvement projects generally described below Each of which shall here and after be referred to as project and whereas the school district responsibly expects to issue debt to reimburse the cost of a project and whereas the board believes it is consistent with the school district's budgetary and financial circumstances to issue this declaration of official intent now here here forth be it resolved by the board of the of directors of the CIO CH Community School District state of Iowa section one that this resolution be and does hereby serve as a declaration of official intent under treasury regulation 1.5-2 section two that is responsibly expected that Capital expenditures will be made in respect of the following projects from time to time in such amounts as this board determines

109to be necessary or desirable under the circumstances then and here existing or excuse me there existing section three that the school district responsibly expects to reimburse all or a portion of the following expenditures with the proceeds of bonds notes and other indebtness to be issued or incurred by the school district in the future section four that the total estimated cost of the project or projects the maximum principal amount or the bonds notes or other indebtness to be issued for the foreg goinging projects and the estimated dates of completion of the projects are reasonably expected to be as F follows do I need to list all these projects then so so the project would be I yeah I if we highlight that that the list of the projects says the funds from and then you can

110kind of Che the section so the list of the project would be installing a geothermal system and other HVAC improvements at the elementary school building repairing and replacing portions of the roof and installing a voice activated fire alarm system at the Middle High School building and constructing secure entrances at all buildings the fund from which original expenditures are to be Advanced would be the capital project save and pble funds total estimated cost of 6.5 million amount of borrowing anticipated 6.5 million estimated date of completion will be December of 2025 section five that the school district reasonably expects to reimburse the above mentioned project cost not later than the latter of 18 months after the capital expenditures are paid or 18 months after the property is placed in service section six that this resolution be maintained

111by the secretary of the board of directors in an official intent file maintained in the office of the secretary and avail at all times for the public inspection subject to such revisions as may be necessary is there a second so to kind of explain no before we go on here to explain what we all read here in addition to allowing us use the revenue funds for the project this also allows us once it comes in to pay for things that we reimburse ourselves out of the pep fund for things that we've paid for ahead of time right that are factored into the cost of the project um or as a part of this overall so from the date that we approved this we can go back is it 60 days yes so yeah from March

11217 now we can go back 60 days whatever that comes to I'm ballparking at January 17 but it'd be a little bit before that for things that we've paid for specifically this project we could we could use the funds that we get from selling these bonds to pay ourselves for that which will be a help yeah okay now is there a second or a first somebody make a motion was that the motion oh yeah is there a second I'll second okay I'll in favor say I I and that is passed resolution fixing the date of sale resolution fix fixing the date of sale of approximately $ 66,1 3,000 School infrastructure sales service and use tax revenue bond series 2025 approving electronic bidding procedures and approving official statement raas puru to the Iowa Code chapter 423

113F the board of directors of the cvch Community School District the issuer is currently entitled to receive the proceeds of the Statewide School infrastructure sale service and use tax and whereas pursuant to the election Duty held in The District in accordance there within where therewi on November 2nd 2021 and pursuant to Iowa Code chapter 423 F the board of directors of the C cheen School District approved the revenue purpose statement and is currently entitled to expand proceeds of the Statewide School infr infrastructure sales service and use tax and whereas the board finds it advisable and necessary that bonds authorized at the election to be offered for sale for an authorized School infrastructure purpose as defined by The District's Revenue purpose statement and it is in the best interest to issue bonds and whereas the board

114deems it in the best interest of the school district and the residents thereof to receive bids to purchase School infrastructure sales service and use tax revenue bonds by means of both sealed and electronic internet communication and whereas the board has received information from its Municipal adviser recommending the procedure of electronic bidding so as to provide for the Integrity of the competitive bidding process and to facilitate the delivery of bids by interested parties now thereof it is resolved by the board of directors of the Sibly oan community School District in the county of Oola state of Iowa section one the parody of the competitive bidding system and the electronic bidding procedures attached here to are found and determined to be to provide reasonable security and to maintain the Integrity of the competitive bidding process and to

115facilitate the delivery of bids by interested parties in connection with the sale of approximately $ 6,130 th000 School infrastructure infrastructure sales service and use tax revenue bonds series 2025 section two that all electronic bidding shall be submitted in substantial Conformity with Iowa Code section 75.1 4 and chapter 554 d section three the school infrastructure sales service and use tax revenue bonds series 2025 in the egre amount of approximately 6,100 $30,000 the bonds to be issued in dated June 3rd 2025 to be offered for sale section four that the secretary of the board of the school of this school district shall cause to be prepared an official statement and to schedule the sale of the bonds the bonds to be offered are School infrastructure sales service and use tax revenue bonds series 2025 and the principal

116amount of approximately $6,150 th000 to be dat to be dated June 3rd 2025 the official statement shall include the following terms electronic bidding procedures attack to this res resolution are approved time and place of sale sealed bids or electronic bids for the sale of the bonds of the SI Community School District in the county of Oola state of Iowa the issuer will be received at the boardroom of the district until 1:30 p.m. on April 23rd 3 2025 the bids will be publicly opened at that time and evaluated by the superintendent of schools Secretary of the board and the municipal advisor and referred to and referred for Action at the meeting of the board of directors sale and award the sale and award of the bonds will be held at the board meeting scheduled at the

117same date manner of bidding open bids will not be received no bid will be received after the time specified above for necessary for receiving bids bids will be received by any of the following methods sealed bids sealed bids may be submitted and will be received at the boardroom SI Community School District SI Iowa electronic bidding electronic internet bidding will be received at the boardroom SI oen Community School District SI Iowa the bids must be submitted through parody official statement an official statement of information pertaining to the boards to be offered shall be prepared by The District's Municipal advisor including the statement of the terms of offering and of official bid form the official statement shall be may be obtained by the request addressed to the Secretary of the board of directors ciban Community School District

118120 11th Avenue Northeast SI Iowa 51249 712 754 2533 or Matt guspy Piper Handler and Company 3900 INR Soul Suite 110 de Mo Iowa 50312 515 247 2353 terms of offering all bids will be in Conformity with and the sale must be in accur with the terms of offering as set forth in the official statement legal opinion bonds will be sold subject to the opinion of alers and kly PC attorneys of De Mo Iowa as to the legality legality legality of their their opinion which will be f together with the printed bonds without cost to the purchaser and all the bond and all the bids will be conditioned except to the extent necessary to issue their opinion as to the legality again the bonds the attorneys will not examine or review or express any opinion

119with respect to the accuracy or completness of documents materials and statements made or furnished in the connection with the sale issuance or marketing the bonds right reserved the right is reserve to reject any or all bids and to wave any IR regularities as deemed to be the best interest of the public section five that the preliminary official statement in the form presented to this meeting be and the same hereby is approved as to the form and deemed final for all purposes for rule 15c 2-12 of the Securities and Exchange Commission subject to sub revision Corrections or modifications as the superintendent and board secretary upon the advice of the district's Municipal advisor shall shall determine to be appropriate and is authorized to be distributed in the connection with the offering of the bonds for sale so

120a few things I'm required to tell you guys before we go well number one this is why we pay Piper Sandler to do this and the legal stuff with allers and Cooney they put this stuff together so we do this legally so that yeah we approved that last fall I think 20 225,000 but they're providing the wordings for this otherwise we'd have to do this ourselves so the position I just got to remember the preliminary um official statement is a document kind of listing like our background and our ability to pay and things like that so that's one of the things that is fixed um and provided for through this resolution and it's attached we do not have to read through that thank right but you've seen that and then we have that signature page

121what it does that it it's approving using Piper Sandler it's approving using the parody system for people to submit and purchase the bonds so we're P we're approving all the technicalities and then it's listing the dates April 23rd that Wednesday board meeting is when we'll officially approve this and then it lists the dates when the cash will come in from the sale of that so those are all things that have to be handled um from a legal aspect through this resolution and I did send that POS I'm required to say that too to you guys about a week ago we have reviewed that we haven't noticed anything but they said it's very important it's really the ownership of the school and the board that that is accurate and from our knowledge it is and so

122that's why it's attached to this document but that's kind of a an official document to prove where our Readiness for this project to happen and and the indebtedness from the bonds okay is there a second second all in favor say I I I consider approval of fireworks at at the baseball game the friends of fire the friends of so baseball are looking to do that fireworks again in the past the dates been to to be determinate is this year um I must have I don't think it was the initial idea was May 30th um I might have left that on there from last year that's my apologies I know that it is accurate the dates to be determined and they're trying to pick one that will work and then as we get closer it's other

123dependence we just need to approve to allow them to do that at a b a to be determined which they will work out with Mrs eler is there a motion I'll make a motion to approve the fireworks is there a second second all in favor say I I okay that is passed uh for consider approval of forgiving Miss time for seniors so this is on here because we've had a change since last board meeting we've now missed a day of school so this is to approve for giving the seniors this is not talking about the day in general this is just the seniors that they would still graduate and if we would make up any time that we would forgive that and so that's what we're voting on I will say separately um I have

124not intentionally said anything of what we're going to do with that day I'm not trying to jinx us this week or anything um we'll see where we're at at the end of this week but I I will say this I'll present that in April or or may but hopefully we won't have a lot more days but really looking at potentially forgiving those because of what we just talked about the construction project they're going to be itching to get in the moment we're done with school and yeah if we miss a lot of days we would throw those on at the end and we talk through that but that's less days for them to work and I know they're ready to go so I'm I'm just kind of giving you a heads up probably next month

125I'm hoping by April we'll have a good idea of being through all of our snow days and then we'll talk about potentially forgiving them or what those look like in general but that's why that's not on this meeting we're just talking about the seniors specifically here and right now they only have one they only have one and if we approve for giving them if we would get more we have now that we've had one we're approving those as well okay for giving those as well questions or someone want to make a motion make a motion to approve the M forgiving the Mis time for the seniors second okay all in favor say I I I that is passed approval of sharing the librarian position so we've been talking and working our way through this that's

126why this wasn't included last month with the other sharing agreements but um as we've talked about so Dave Johnson's retiring we're not filling that tag position those Duties are going to go with Lisa Lo who's our librarian and we're working through she's going to add the necessary endorsements so but in order for her to do that and the tag position instead of sharing her one day a week with hop she's going to basically be here um five days a week to do those duties does that make sense but we're going to share her to be the librarian of record with hlp because you need to have a library and record on task and then she'll go over there on as needed if they have some issues to come through and we know they'll have a

127project Midway through the year that they're going to need some assistance on because they're completing their building project and that's going to be done Midway through the year whether that's at Christmas or spring B break and when that happens they're going to be moving their library from the exist in elementary to the new one so like of course we're expecting her or I mean we're understanding that she'll be spending some time during that time but for the most part in a normal week she will be here all five days okay is there a motion uh so do we get the credit uh as far as the sharing so this is a position we've shared for cost but you don't get the what you're alluding to you don't get the um it doesn't come with operational

128um sharing doesn't you don't get additional shoot excuse me you don't get the additional students for it but most districts that share it they do it for the cost purposes right but we're reaping the benefits of that so we never ever got those correct we never did get students it was just it was a cost that you're sharing your cost any other questions okay make a motion to approve the sharing agreement with hlp for the librarian second all in favor say I I opposed and that is passed approval of AA purchasing agreement similar to what we've approved in years past but we have to approve that for the delivery of those products and most of it's through the F Food Service um it's 50% per case but what is not spent on administrative costs at

129the end of the year is rebated back to schools and as of right now there's a lot of changes with the AAS right now though this program is expected to continue okay any questions okay I ask for a motion I'll make a motion to approve the aea purchasing agreement as presented second all in favor say I I that is passed consider approval of PSO pathway courses with University of Iowa so Mr Herz and myself have spent a lot of time on this and lurel is familiar with a lot of this in short previously we agreed to set up a PSO Arrangement between us and the University of Iowa that we had to do now that's in place because we have a student requesting this um we have to approve with Iowa to set up the

130necessary courses that they want to take they have to be within their tracker major and these are the courses that they are requesting for next school year um and they're listed there I won't read through them all they're going to take all those classes they are going to take all those classes correct going to have time for anything else so the long and short of this I can't reveal the name but um homeschooled students are allowed to dual enroll for classes here and so this is a student that is not here full-time that they're dual enrolled sure okay okay I make a motion to approve the requested P SEO agreement with the University Iowa okay is there a second second all in favor say I I and that is passed first reading of board policies

131changes so I kind of briefly I don't even know if they remember this I said about four weeks ago to the policy committee that we'd have two changes that are necessary um for legal reasons and specifically was given to us by allers and Cooney that we need to on 74.2 R1 the change it's an updated change and then 74.2 R2 it's a new policy as recommended to them and so I basically told Laurel and Jennifer we can review these but these are legally requested so um on the one it's eliminating the stuff that's crossed out I'll just talk about the first one first it's eliminating that and then we're going to add that somewhere else so this is based on legal requirements from allers and Cooney to be updated with some of the compliance for

132the sale and payback of bonds in our debt obligation and the recommended motion is written there so yes if somebody would make a motion unless there's questions I make a motion to approve the first reading and skip the second reading of the following policy 704 uh2 R1 second all in favor say I I I that is passed first reading of new board policy 70402 R2 and then 70402 is an addendum to that both the policy and the first regulation and it's this is new and it kind of replaces that eight that eighth point that we just deleted and its update of what's required for us with investors to move forward with the sale and payback of bonds I make a motion to approve the first reading and skip the second reading of the following policy

13370402 R2 second all in favor say I I I and that is passed consider approval of new contracts so we excited for this um the first one carlyon renel that is who Mr um desale Kent desale was referring to at the beginning of the meeting when he was talking about hiring someone so that um he said if board approved that's what he was referring to there um she would be a fourth grade instructor um Madison Nagel as head volleyball coach Bailey Fitch as JV softball coach for this summer Emily manzan Rees is a full-time um PA at the elementary she had been full-time before and then had gone to be a sub and part-time and is moving back into a full-time row Ro excuse me and then Justin Krueger as a sub bus and activity

134driver and he's working with Amos on getting the school bus portion of a CDL is there a motion to so do we have a marity softball coach working on that okay we do have some if no one Mrs Elser is speaking with some people and if no one accepts we have a plan in place for that but okay it isn't finalized yet so I don't have anything to present y well I was just wondering because I don't see it's advertised anymore so yes I just was figuring I I don't remember saying that one but is there a motion I'll make a motion to approve the new contract as presented second all in favor say I I and that is passed at the board table discussion tool okay so I got this idea from or this

135specific scenario from someone else we can get some education credit for it but it was brought forward through a an iasb Regional guess I call it regional meeting where the idea came from and and I thought there's some interesting Concepts that come from this so um we'll go through that the scenarios we're going to go through are listed right there but um what this go is just talking about the difference between ethics and what's legal when we're talking about making decisions as as a board and board policy specifically and what we outline um and it's going to have four scenarios to go through and we'll just go through those together and then have a like conversation with that um won't take super long but it says there's some basic ethical principles that are discovered and

136what does it look like um matching that up to our own code of ethics and things like that and so what they're talking about ethics is that the discipline dealing with what is good good and bad and the moral duty to follow through on that obligation that's kind of the Webster's definition um ethics the science of human Duty that's a definition by David swing and or the obligations of morality by um kosi so reading through this is there a difference between what is ethical and what is legal and can you give an example in relation to Schoolboard work but is there a difference between what is ethical and what is legal let me reframe this could you do something in general as a board that is legal but not ethical that's what they're trying to

137get at right there's things that we could maybe legally do but when you think about it ethically or morally from an from that end of things it might not be it could be perfectly legal and sometimes you can do things the other way too that that there is an ethical issue but according to code or policy is it legal to do as well so it says what is legal is allowable under the law a majority of the board meeting over coffee without posting to discuss changes is not legal we can't do that okay now it says while what is ethical may or may not be allowable under the law as an example it says meeting with one board member and talking about things and how you vote is legal under the law but meeting with

138a board member to kind of solicit a vote ahead of time and then meeting with all of them I'm not hinting at anything here they're use they're using this as an example um but soliciting votes ahead of time isn't ethical but technically there's nothing that prevents two people as long as it's not a majority or a quorum of the board from talking right so that's where you're talking about the differences between is it legal or is it ethical the first one's obviously you can't have a meeting of your board together without being in open and public and posted ahead of time that's not legal that's pretty clear this one is where it gets yeah there's nothing that prevents two people from talking about that but it might not be ethical and so that that's what

139they're talking about the differen is sometimes things can be legal but not necessarily ethical right interesting enough a lot of these scenarios as we're going in through this I talked to Lan about this she goes all of these scenarios are based on things or situations that got presented to them so they probably they probably happened somewhere that yeah she goes we don't just randomly make them up they're based off stuff that was presented or has happened at IB that they've been found out about so I so very real world applicable so why is it important for us to conduct ourselves in an ethical manner as well as obeying the law and I'll answer that well obviously we want the trust of the public right we want to follow the law from a legal standpoint and

140do what's right but ethically we want the support of our community and to do what is right and so that people don't question our motives and things like that um and it says it's clear why we have to act Within the law because of State mandates and things like that like we said but what's interesting it says there's seldom penalties for violating a board's code of ethics but there are penties when you violate the law right but the state's code of ethics is in IA different story regardless the board pays a price for unethical Behavior even if there's not direct penalties but you you pay the price through losing the trust of the people your public your constituents and and each other potentially right and so um there's things to consider when you're making those

141choices is basically what they're getting out all right so here's the scenarios and you can see them on there and I'll give you each a little time to kind of think through yourself and then we'll talk through here so it says consider the scenarios and we'll talk through this as a board so the first scenario is you're a Schoolboard member your niece is going to be the subject of an expulsion hearing so we've had those you guys are familiar with that and you go into close session your niece has told you ahead of time that she was not directly involved in the fight so she's going to an expulsion heing because of some fight evidently but she merely tried to help out her best friend by Best Friend by reaching in to stop this quarrel

142what should you do take of wait until it gets to the hearing because you have the chance to ask them questions at the hearing you do you do have a chance to ask those questions I mean but what what they're that was if that was your niece you kind of you have to pull yourself out of it and they're getting at she's telling you this ahead of time yeah before the hearing right like stop that conversation right now yep right and that's why I said earlier most of these things are based on situations that have happened or got presented to ISB so you should just expel yourself from that though yeah and that's what I'm kind of hearing that you guys are saying remove yourselves right M and this is the ethics versus legal is

143there any legal requirement that tells you you have to remove yourself in those situations probably not actually yeah you're right I don't think there is but ethically making that known is is different right so it says due process requires board members to remain impartial and I don't think you said it directly but you were you were saying that kind of going down that line there Laurel it says whether or not you can remain partials up to you but as an experienced board member that quoted saying this is the time to do what best for the board and what is best for the child so an attempt to take part in the expulsion hearing as a board member would open the whole board to accusations of favoritism especially if you front loaded or they had asked

144this of you ahead of time so you might remove yourself but then wish to attend the hearing as a family member if they asked you to be a part of it it they said it was her their niece or something right but making it clear that you're you're there as a relative and not as an acting board member if you can't be an impartial and you're acting on behalf of the student right because as board members we've talked about how you on those things whether that's an expulsion hearing or the recommendation for a termination or anything else that's why you're impartial because if we get to the point where that's appealed we have to present that to you as a board so you hit that one right on the head okay so this is we're

145a five member board they're using this scenario as a seven a board that seven members you could change the numbers to be five but you kind of you'll get the point so you're a Schoolboard member your board just voted four to three so they voted in favor to privatize your transportation department you were not on the prevailing side so they're saying you individually were on the three side you believe it will ultimately result in less convenience for parents and maybe even a less safe environment for students a reporter approaches you after the meeting and asks how you feel about the board's decision knowing full well how you voted right you feel it was a wrong wrong-headed decision but you also feel that you need to have the Integrity to say so so what should you

146do so you're done with the board meeting the vote went through it moved forward but it wasn't unanimous is what they're getting at how how do you respond or how do you handle that in public well you could say yeah disagreed with the way that uh it went in the meeting but you know I'm we're going to move forward and yeah cuz everybody knows you voted against it right so you can't say yeah I was in favor yeah correct yeah and there's nothing that legally says how you have to answer but from an ethic standpoint and maybe some our own policies of how we respond in those situations right in the public and and that's what you're getting at you can say that we're going to move forward when when I read this it struck

147um we did this in one of our work sessions I don't remember which one um and Lan brought it up and then you guys reinforce that too but I don't remember what scenario she was using a school district but they said a 3-2 vote they said they had a new superintendent they said moving forward that means it's five nothing or a 4-1 vote you remember that when she said that and I just that stuck in my mind because then we have to move forward because it was approved we're moving forward together and that's what I think you're getting at Jamie says so you were elected to be a member of the board it is expected that you will express your opinions clearly prior to a vote which I'm assuming happened in the situation I'm assuming

148they said that once it's taken as a board member it's important not to work against the success of the board's expressed will and that yeah you're like you said yeah I was against it but we're going to move right is that you said that we're moving forward together or something like that and that's doesn't mean that's easy but it's important for members to consider before they speak to that press it' be wise to tell the Press and you could say a Community member I'm in certain there as well that even though you voted against this you support the will of the board now that that vote has been taken and we're going to move forward I've thought of a few situations that I've seen like in other parts of the states or nationally where there's

149a controversial vote and then you get a quote from a board member who was against it right and when I don't know the full details but I hear that my first thought is oh they're having troubles in that district and I don't even know anything about it and I'm just going by how that looks perception wise and you're going uhoh right and so you never want that to happen third scenario you are a newly elected School Board member and you are a former chairman of the keep Graceland open committee the group opposed the closing of Graceland Elementary School that that position basically got you elected as running on that platform since you have been on the board you've received information regarding why the economic and curricular reasons dictate the school must be closed however to

150vote to close the school would be letting down all of those Community supporters what do you do so if I was summarizing you kind of campaigned on this issue but once you got on the board you kind of saw the other side of things and realized why they made the decision and actually flipped positions support it I think I'd make sure during the discussion part of that decision that you bring up um possibly facts that you weren't aware of like it's stated here I mean if you learn new information that can very easily change your opinion on something so I mean you can't you can't promise that forever especially if you get new information that makes a dis difference for the district need be able to tell that to your explain it to the people

151yeah but I mean you could easily bring that up in discussion too yeah so this yeah you're right and this was on wasn't on here but was on notes I read or something leading into this but they say ethically you have the right to weigh the factors and change your vote ethics you should be able to they said actually legally promising a vote to someone ahead of time and then not changing based on facts is actually more of an issue right and not that saying that they promised anything here but you get into trouble when you promise a vote like to this group or whatever and not that there was anything underhanded happening but they they say a actually that's more of a issues when you promise and you don't change based on facts and

152you guys have said that all you're elected to cast votes in the best interest of the children of your District once you have the information indicating the condition of the district and the educational needs of those children and how that dictated the school must be closed your responsibility is to those children in the district not to the people or the group who elected you right on it and I always think that's that is a great time in your discussion piece when you're meeting as a board talking those things through that the public can hear that and then you can directly and clearly CH give the reasons why you made that choice all right the fourth one you're a school board member and your spouse is a teacher I like this one and I'll explain why

153in a second so you're board member your spouse is a teacher your spouse's age and experience in the district means he or she could take advantage of early retirement the superintendent has recommended a policy which would not only be financially advantageous to you but would also allow for that fun family travel that you've been longing for but you truly believe that this would be a good for the district and you want to support the super tendance recommendation so number one your spouse works for the district they would benefit from this policy if you approve it but financially everything's saying that they should do this and the superintendent's recommending so you're not going against any recommendations here or anything that they said right it's all in support of the superintendent and and you will benefit or

154your spouse will benefit from it what do you do see you later not touching that well you you really can't and I mean years ago we did have a we had a staff member who had a husband on the board and I believe if I remember that's been a this been a while ago that if it was uh decisions that were made that would affect like this type of thing decisions that would affect them that they would have to withdraw their or withdraw from voting so I mean that's only it's a no win if you try to take part in that and ethically I it's wrong but legally I don't know I don't know that there's anything because legally you can run as a SP if you're spouse works for the district okay and I

155don't know that legally I don't know this that anything things preclude you from voting for that I think ethically you're right you want to at a minimum make that known ahead of time if people don't know hey we could Ben cuz you you're spouse could work for the district and you're voting for The Early Retirement policy but they're not eligible for it too right right here they're saying they're you know they're eligible for it and remaining objective and that they Ben benefit from it and and they recommend them what you said abstaining from the vote and letting people know it's it's kind of I I liked it because you benefited from it but the school was too they were they were recommending it you know so it made it look innocent and and maybe in

156the end it was it it it would have been a lot easier to say it's unethical but obviously if you voted for it but the superintendent was recommending no but you vot you wanted to vote for it because it benefited you purposely but that makes it too obvious that's why I said I like this one cu the superintendent was recommended it looked like the school wanted it and you benefit from it right but that's why they said recommended knowing that and abstaining from the vote and you could say your you could say your thoughts during the discussion hey we're going to benefit from this and I but I still think this is the right thing but I'm abstaining when the actual vote is taken so the conclusion it says talking talking this through and looking

157at our own ethics policy I'm not going to go through this um Slide by slide here but what I wanted to point out here exit from that and the what I what I attached is just in our own policy 204 our code of ethics and how it's written and it just lists some dues and don'ts and I won't go through these all but it says as a member I'm going to listen respect the opinion of others we've looked through some of that but it says what your responsibility to the the district and the community considering yourself a trustee of public education um an important responsibility of the aims methods and attitudes of the district to the community you know it goes through those different things here um and cooperating and how you cooperate with other

158board members and so that's how our code of ethics and not that we've reviewed this in I mean we've reviewed it but we haven't adjusted it since I've been here but there are a lot of good points in here and many of the things we talk about when it says what does your own policy say um it maybe won't address and you can't address every situation specifically because you can't address everything specifically upfront we'll just say that way but I think putting in the frame of mind I think when you act ethically in terms of making choices that the best for the district as a whole right versus um not making a choice BAS on one small contingent I think that's one way that you can kind of sum up the ethics here in doing

159what is right and always making it a public decision you know it's say not discuss the confidential business at home or in the street or the office as an example and we've talked about that one before and and tonight too so I just thought I'd finish with that in what our own ethics policy is for the board any other comments with that good to good to be reminded yeah okay um before we move into Clos session does anyone need to take a room break okay you don't anticipate any formal action after the I think this is kind of more the kind of like your quarterly yeah wait yes but this is my annual this one is correct it is my annual one but I mean what we have done after this we'll just do our

160standard next meeting points so there's not really any like they have to approve or no there won't be any that's I thought they usually h