001session with the close session come back you guys will need to take action and then we need to adjourn. So if there's a five 10 minutes in between that'll be just a break because we actually call the regular meeting to order at 6 and then we'll go ahead and approve the agenda and Katherine read the commission vision. I just didn't want to put on two different agendas. >> Thumbs up. Okay. >> Right. I'd like to call our meeting to order. >> We need to do roll call, please. >> Horton >> Here. Kent >> here. >> Santiso >> here. >> Ben Riser >> here. >> Williams >> here. Young >> here. >> We have that form. I have a motion to go into close session. >> So move. >> We have to actually read the code
002and there's two separate codes that we need to read this evening. >> Okay. I moved um to go into close session per Iowa code 21.51A to review or discuss records which are required or authorized by state or federal law to be kept confidential or be kept confidential as a condition for that governmental body body's possession or continued receipt of federal funds. and 21.51 I to evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment hiring or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual's reputation and that individual requests a close session. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> All in favor? I guess >> I'm going to do a roll call. >> Horton. >> Yes. Hower, >> yes. >> Kent, >> yes. >> Santiso, >> yes. >> Williams, >> yes.
003>> Okay. Motion passes. session at 52. We'll go over to A2. I move to adjourn. >> Okay. >> Kent, we'll second. >> Kent, it's a yay. >> All in favor? >> I >> All right. So, at 553, we are adjourned. meeting and we will call to order at six o'clock. >> That was exciting. All right, it's six o'clock and we'll call our meeting to order. >> Here, hower. Kent >> here. here >> and rice >> here. >> Williams. >> Young >> here. >> I would move to approve the agenda. >> I have a second. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I >> and I will read the district mission which is to teach all and reach all. The district vision will be a school district that brings learning to life for everyone. And
004our board mission to partner with stakeholders to teach all and reach all through governance of board policy and operating protocol. >> Our first agenda item today is from the Fourth of July committee making a presentation to Mstead. >> Are they here? Yeah, they're I think they're caught in the back in the back room in the overflow. Did you find somebody? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Nice to see you again. to see you. >> Um Tim Mueller and Larry Splanssky were both on the uh fourth of July committee and uh Urbanell schools has been worked very well cooperatively with the fourth of July committee for over since 1960s. Um I became involved with the uh committee back when I was principal at Homestead because wanted to know what was going on when this carnival showed up in
005front of the school. And uh they told me I can't get off until I get a replacement. So, you know, I'd love we'd love to have the current principal come and join the committee, but but anyway, um we had last year we used more of the pl the parking lot than we normally do because of the construction that was going on at the high school. Homestead was very very cooperative. This is also the 250th year anniversary for our country and we did very well financially. So, we have a check. Well, I've already given the check, but we have a picture here. or giant check for the for that we gave to Mstead Elementary for the media center. So again, thank you for the support that the school gives to the fourth July committee. in the
006middle. Keep in the middle. There you go. >> Perfect. >> Thank you so much. We have quite the full house today to recognize many outstanding achievements. So, I'll pass it over to the team to do some recognition for the board. >> You're up. >> All right. Um, so yeah, um, acknowledging and recognizing some, uh, students who have had outstanding athletic, performing arts, and academic achievements. So, uh, first up, we're going to have the All State Honor Band with Mr. Tom. >> And from there, you go right in the >> And they all >> they're all going to go for over here. >> All right. So, band kids, make your way to the front. >> All right. >> Starting with uh South Central Iowa Band Masters Association Honor Band. They had uh their event this past
007Saturday recognizing Camden Bennett, Mali Brimmeire, uh Juno Dwis, Gaffne Harzi, Henry Hoffbar, Maverick Johnson, Gemma Giuliano, Emry Len, Parker Len, Ashley Mllis, Paris Nelson. Congratulate all of them for their hard work. everyone in this. >> Sure. Yeah. >> So, I'm gonna have you actually I'll have you >> pass the certificates down if you can make them out. If not, that's okay. >> Yeah. Thought we can do this here. >> Take one down and pass it around. >> And then we're kind of going to center right here. And if we can get everyone in maybe two lines, if it'll work. There we go. >> Find the window. >> Mr. Dog, you should be in there as well. >> Oh, you want to perfect? Okay. Okay, here we go. One, two, three. >> Great. Congratulations. Our next
008recognition uh goes to two seniors um who participated in the Iowa Allstate uh Honor Band. I'm sorry, Iowa All State Allstate Band. And um what is special about these two students is not only that uh they went through a rigorous interview uh audition process um they've done this four years in a row. So uh both gentlemen made all state uh band four years in a row and uh yeah just so excited uh to give this honor tonight. So Aiden Lren and Oscar Dixs Congratulations. >> All right. And Mr. Adam Brown with some choir. >> Hello. Uh, I would like to recognize some of our students for being selected to the Iowa All State Chorus. We had 23 Yeah. Come on in. We had 23 students audition with 10 being selected. Being selected to the all
009state chorus is the highest individual honor that you can achieve here in Iowa. Um and it is an incredibly difficult process starting all the way back in August where students audition in groups of two, three or four uh to make it as an individual. So those students that were selected are Logan Augsberger, Nolan Become, Mali Brimire, who could not be here today, Braden Cox, Charles Malone, Brody Rhodess, Abe Rohos, Kate Shoemaker, Natalie Tip, I don't know if Natalie is here, Sam Veer, That's all of them. Here we go. >> All right. Up next, we have assistant football coach, Rusty Tulle, uh, presenting some awards on behalf of head coach Pete Trainer. Um, and these are going to be academic all state football awards, >> which my understanding academic all state is a 3.7 and then
010they uh you also are involved in other sports and that's a cumulative GPA for high school. Um Brad McGraing and Jacob. All right. Just a little bit. There you go. Perfect. Okay. Here we go. One, two, three. Congratulations. >> All right. And then up next, we've got head coach Corey Brown for the middle school cross country team. Uh, recognizing the seventh grade girls team for their outstanding performance at the state championship. >> Liv Ber, she's here. Glen Fisher. Addison Kent, state champion. Join A Wall. That's Do we have any other Jay-Hawks? Come on up. Josyn O'Brien. >> Meline. >> My neighbor. Second place in the state. Um was they did a great job. Awesome kids. Worked hard. Um It was our pleasure to work with these awesome student athletes. >> If you stay in the
011back and then if you come forward rows, I'll have you both come up and >> looking good. Okay. One, two, three. Congratulations. One more. One more. And then up next we've got middle school volleyball. Um they're receiving acknowledgement for their undefeated season this year. Coach Phel >> um I know this hasn't been done in 11 years since I've been here. So, and uh just to say a small bit, if you could have watched them play, they were just fascinating to watch. They would pull and if somebody was sick, they took their place. Like, it was just incredible. So, Mary told Abby Legler is at volleyball. Windmley Naz. Ashley Schneider and Nina Severson. Okay, ready? Here we go. If you guys want All right, up next we have head volleyball coach Amy Hbert and she is
012presenting some academic all state awards as well. All right. >> So, these two ladies right here have two out of three things. ACT score above 27, GPA above 3.85, and the top five to 10% of their class, but I think they're both ranked number one. Changed. All right. So, I have a Ava Wadier and Maggie Walker. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. And the last one is for academic all state swimming. We co-off with Johnston. Coach Robertson isn't here tonight, but uh Maria Tles, congratulations on academic all state swimming. One, two, three. >> Hannah, too. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Power. Good night everybody. >> Next up on our agenda is the fiscal year 25 audit presentation. It's not act to follow. We know vacated the room. >> Thank you for
013having me tonight. It's a pleasure to present your uh June 30th, 2025 audit report. Um, I'm going to talk mainly from the handout. Um, but if you have any questions on the bound document, I'm happy to answer those as well. The first page is just kind of an introductory to the financial statements. Um, the first part of it has the district officials and then on page four is the management discussion and analysis um of this report. And if you don't at anything else in the report, you might want to refer to that management discussion analysis. It's a quick year to year-over-year comparison of the district and it also gives like reasons why things fluctuated throughout the year. So, really good summary of your financial performance for the year. Um and that's followed by the governmentwide
014financial statements which are the consolidated view on a full approval method of the financials and that's followed by the fund financial statements which you're probably more familiar with um as you refer to the budgets as your budgetary basis. Um, and then another thing I like to point out is on page 78 is there's the revenue and expenditures, and that gives a 10-year his history of the district. Um, so it's a good place to look if you're looking for what's changed over the years. And then the last place is your compliance section, which we'll talk about a little bit later. So the next page of the graph is your required communications. And we really think of this as the report card for the audit. And the main reason that I'm here with you tonight is to
015give you those results. When we come to the district to do the audit, we do three different types of audits. And the first one is the financial statement audit. Um we received an unmodified opinion on the financial statements, which is the highest form of opinion that you can receive. There was an emphasis of a matter paragraph within that opinion and that is because the district was required to implement a new standard this year uh which was called compensated absences. The results of that is that it it made you recognize um different types of compensated absences that you haven't had to recognize in the past, mainly uh sick leave. um it resulted in about a $1 million uh restatement to beginning fund balance. That just kind of shows you how how large your um sick lead
016is within the district. Um but it's still an unmodified opinion and every district was required to implement that. The next type of audit that we do is a government auditing standards audit and the purpose of that is twofold. One is to look at your internal control system or your checks and balances if you will and to make sure that it's functioning as it was designed to function. And the next part of that audit is looking at your compliance with laws, regulations, contracts, grants, etc. Um, for the internal control, I'd like to point out on page 83 is a summary of your prior year findings. Um, last year you had three significant deficiencies in regards to internal controls. This year the district was able to realign and reassign those duties and um corrected all three of
017those significant deficiencies from the year before. So that's really to be commended. Um that's that's great progress. So there were no internal control findings and there were no compliance findings for that audit. The last type of audit we do is the federal single audit. So if you have federal funds above 750,000, you're required to have a federal single audit. This year, your total federal funds expended were about 2.8 million. Uh we audited the child nutrition cluster which was about $1.6 million of that funding and you also had no findings in relation to that audit. So So a very clean audit actually. It's a good report. Um, the next two pages I'm looking at your revenues in your governmental fund and your expenditures and just kind of a quick snapshot compared to the year before. Your
018revenues for 2025 were 75.5 million. In 2024, they were 71.5 million. So about a $4 million increase. Um, property taxes increased about $1.2 $2 million and that's primarily because your assessed value within the district increased about 9%. Um that was offset slightly by a decrease in your tax rate. Um other local increased and that's primarily instructional support tax and also tuition increase from the year before. And the last one the intergovernmental increased about 1.3 million. um that's primarily um due to your state aid increasing this year. And the next page is looking at your expenditures for the year. Your total governmental expenditures for 2025 were 74.9 million compared to the year before which was about 78.2 million. Um so it was actually a a $3.2 million increase. Um if you look at uh instruction and
019support service together, they increased about 2.5 million and that's your increase in salaries and benefits and also the increase in the cost of supplies this year and that was offset by your capital outlay um which decreased last year it was about 7 7.4 million this year it was about 2.1 million. So that's just the capital projects that you have going on within the district. Your debt service this year was 8.6 million um which was the principle and interest that's servicing your debt of the district. Um which at the end of the year was about $85 million. And with that I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Sounds like good news. >> Yeah, it was a good report. Very good report. >> Thank you, Steve, and your team. I know you did a lot.
020>> They do a very thorough job. >> I'll pass it over to you, Rosie. >> So, for the more you know, what I want to report out is a few things tonight. Number one, um just the board will be um invited to go to Day on the Hill and for the community, this is a a day where um educators and board members can go and hear about what's in the upcoming session and go to the capital to advocate for public schools, talk to senators, house members. We also have for the second year in a row some Urbandale students presenting a showcase project on um project-based learning in their learn to soar class which you might remember was added last year. Um this is their entrepreneur course where through collaborative project based learning working with businesses,
021government and nonprofits on authentic projects students can apply their academic learning and refine their employability skills. So, our kids will be up in the uh center part of the capitol showcasing their work again. Um there was a question I think a couple of board meetings back on substitute requirements and I put some information in I believe one of the Friday updates for the board, but I just wanted to reiterate for the public, our substitutes are required to be authorized by the board of educational examiners where you can find additional information. They all are required to do the mandatory reporter training. They have 60 hours or higher of credits, background clearance, and there's a whole list of training that they have to go through through what we do in Vector Solutions. And that includes um responding
022to bullying. I think that was the meeting that that came up to uh for, but I also will be publishing this on the website so that everybody can see um what our criteria is and then the term of their license is for five years. So, look on the website in a couple of days and you'll see that all posted on there. Um, we want to remind the public that our preschool registration starts with a pre-registration and that will be online at 6:00 p.m. on January 22nd. So, if you know anybody that is going to be registering, you can let them know. It's a pretty quick 6:00. People go in and and you get a lot in the first part of it. So, mark that on your calendars. And then March 2nd is where our kindergarten
023through 12th grade registration will start online. And we want to remind all families that have returning students that they're required to register for the upcoming year. And then on a good note, I wanted to highlight that we received a donation to our angel fund from the Community Foundation of Greater De Moine for $5,000. So, the Angel Fund, remember, is our um school lunch fund where students and assistants need um need our help. And I also wanted to remind everybody the Letterman locker, 15% of your purchases go towards that fund. So, we don't keep any of those profits in district. We send them all for that fund. So, those are what I had under more, you know, um am I next to capital projects. >> All right. Um, capital projects. I've got the 10-year plan um,
024put out there on assembly for you um, to see. And basically what we need is board action to approve that plan. Um, capital project funds are used for um, different purposes. Um they're totally separate from the general fund and any other fund and they have specific uses that they can do and I have them listed on assembly here. Purchase of uh improvements and grounds, construction of school buildings, opening of roads to school buildings, uh purchase, lease or lease purchase equipment or technology exceeding $500 per transaction. Um payment for debt not u not including any interest or bonds. procuring acquisition of library facilities, repair model remodeling, reconstruction, rental of facilities, um energy conservation, equipment purchases for recreation, um lease purchases of buildings, demolition, cleanup, and these revenues cannot be used for any employee salaries, travel, printing
025costs, media services, or any other type expressly not authorized by the Iowa And >> that will be on the January 26 agenda for requesting approval. >> Any questions? >> I have one question. I'm trying to find it again to make sure I read it right. Um, so under fiscal year 26, central office remodel parking retention is what all is encompassed under that? >> Let me bring that up real quick. Um I think if I'm remembering correctly that is the that's basically what we have set aside for remodeling of central office or purchasing of facility for central office. Um that of course as we all know that's probably not happening this year. That will just carry and roll into the next fiscal year. And then if and when that happens, we're still budgeting admin office lease
026through the rest of this project. Is that just as a placeholder until >> Yep. >> That was my only question. >> What other questions might you have for Steve? >> Okay. So, excuse me. So, I'd like to invite Lauren and Melissa up to talk about, excuse me, updates to our affirmative action. >> Oh, yes. Um, to our affirmative action plan that we will also be bringing you back in, >> Steve, you don't need one. >> Yep. >> We'll be bringing Sorry, we will be bringing back on the 26th for your final approval. You guys go ahead and start. >> So the authorative action plan, we propose two different categories of changes. One is just simple job title changes to reflect the current job titles here at the district. And then the second larger change is
027to make language changes to reduce the district's legal risk surrounding that language. So any reference or indication that the district considers race, sex, or any other protected characteristic in employment decisions has been deleted. Um, and that's necessary to comply with state and federal law and to preserve funding from the state government and federal funding. So you've been handed a handout that I created to take you through the historical context of affirmative action and to bring you to the current reality and to explain why I'm proposing these changes. Um, so let's talk about the the history first. So under both federal law and state law, we have anti-discrimination statutes that prohibit schools, employers from making decisions based upon race, sex, gender, disability, religion, you name it. Okay? There's also historical context for affirmative action plans like
028you see in front of you. From a federal standpoint, in 1965, President Johnson signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to keep written affirmative action plans, which essentially is gathering data about your workforce's makeup, gender, race, and then setting goals to to figure out a way to have your work your workforce match the re region the region demographics. Um, that only applies to federal contractors. you're not required to do that, but I'm I'm giving you that information because that has changed and that's going to set the tone for the state as well. The state also requires um school districts um in 1986 passed this law that requires you to adopt these written affirmative action plans. Okay, so it's very similar to the federal federal requirement. In 2023, we started to see a shift. Okay. The
029US Supreme Court ruled in a case involving Harvard, Harvard and UNCC that it's unlawful for those universities to make racebased admissions decisions. And then once President Trump became um president, we started to see a huge shift. So in January of 2025, he signed two executive orders essentially targeting DEI and in that affirmative action. As part of one of those executive orders, he revoked President Johnson's executive order to require written affirmative action plans. So those are no longer required by federal contractors. So he wiped those out, at least for race and gender. Okay? So that kind of sets the tone of where we're heading. Those executive orders also instructed the US Department of Education to start seeing what school districts are doing. Are they complying with the anti-discrimination laws or are they engaging in this sort
030of affirmative action? Since President Trump has signed those two executive orders, the US Department of Education has done a number of things to target schools related to DEI and affirmative action. One, you likely know this. They issued that dear colleague letter to schools receiving federal fundings notifying that they have to stop stereotyping and using preferences and that their failure to do so could result in f losing federal funding. They also launched an end DEI portal where members of the community can report illegal discrimination occurring in publicly funded K through2 schools. They have initiated numerous investigations along with the Department of Justice against schools and universities, including in the state of Iowa that are using DEI and affirmative action. And I believe in April, they required K through2 schools to certify that they're complying with anti-discrimination
031laws. The EEOC has similarly issued guidance saying you cannot use race or gender or any other protected characteristics as a factor in your hiring decisions. The FAQ has a question, can we use that as a factor as long as it's not the sole reason for hiring someone? And the EEOC says, no, you can't use it as any factor in your your hiring promoting decisions of any sort. So, the federal government has made it clear they will not tolerate affirmative action because it violates uh title 7 essentially. Okay? and your and fed your federal funding is at risk if you engage in affirmative action. On the state level in 1996, the Iowa Supreme Court actually said you can't use affirmative action either. So that case involved the city of Waterloo. I've got it in your handout.
032City of Waterloo promoted a black man over a white man and tried to use their affirmative action plan to justify that promotion decision. The Iowa Supreme Court says no, you cannot use race as a factor in your promotional decisions. And so in that case, the city of Wateroo had to pay damages and essentially promote that white person to the position that he should have had. Then we we come to 2025 with the state. And I'm sure you're all familiar with House File 856. And I laid out in that handout the most the three most relevant points. And essentially that law says the school districts cannot engage in illegal DEI. And as part of that definition, we can't be using race, sex, color, ethnicity as uh as a factor in our hiring decisions or employment decisions.
033So you may be asking, well, why are we still required to have these? Well, the legislature overlooked uh Iowa code section 19B.11, which is what requires this. I reached out to the Iowa Department of Education and essentially they admitted, look, it's over it was overlooked. They're likely going to take action this session to get rid of that code section. But for now, school districts have an obligation to submit the plan and focus on just gathering the data. So to summarize, the district is still legally obligated to submit this plan to the state and that focuses on data collection, but any references to engaging in actual affirmative action, so using uh protected class to make a decision should be removed to protect and preserve your state and federal funding. Um, so I know that's a lot
034of information to digest in a short period of time, but if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. um those questions now. There is a policy 426 I believe is the number that will be adjusted once the additional information but right now you remember law is takes precedent over policy. So, just know that we're aware of that and that will be adjusted as appropriate. If something comes up between now and January 26, feel free to reach out to Rosalie and I can try to answer any questions that way. I know it's a lot and I just tell you what the law is, but yeah. Thank you for explaining it. >> All right. Thank you. >> So the next item is the first reading. We are revisiting policy 105 which is will be a new
035policy. Um the information that I garnered from the board um if you look on the bottom of paragraph one the sentence that was added no student shall be subjected to discrimination and district programs based on the basis of race color creed sex religion marital status ethnic background national origin disability sexual orientation gender identity or socioeconomic background. We received no feedback on uh any of the policies other than this one. We had one email that I know the board also received the same email and my understanding of that feedback was um that the term discrimination is not um it's not inclusive enough. It's not explanatory towards bullying and harassment. But that was the that was the change that I made to this based on what I thought the feedback was. So I'd be interested in questions,
036comments, we will vote on this. I will ask you to vote on this at the next January 26 meeting. >> So any changes we need to make at this meeting because we won't be able to do that in the next. We've run into that before. But if we make changes that change the spirit of the policy, then we can't >> we still have to have two readings. >> Oh, I'm sorry. There was one other change in the bullets under definitions. Um the second bullet about harassment. Um where is it? I'm sorry. >> Toward It it's says harassment and bullying mean any repeated and targeted electronic written verbal or physical act or conduct toward any individual. It originally said toward an individual but to make that more broad. I wanted to change it to Amy. >>
037I think the suggestion from the community member who emailed us instead of saying no student shall be subjected to discrimination the suggestion is to say the definition includes bullying, harassment or bullying based on the student's actual or perceived characteristics and then continues on the basis of what are I just want to hear your thoughts on how it's written any changes that you may want to see or how you like it. >> I guess my my one question I had Dr. DACA in that first uh that last thing where you list the variety of ways be discriminated against. The way it reads to me is that that is a list. Nothing else is available to be pretty much discriminated against. Right? Says no shall be uh subject to discrimination on the basis of illicit but doesn't
038say like or any other >> perceived. I don't know if that kind of does that language limit us just to those I have that way as opposed to leaving it more open or any other perceived trade characteristic or >> I was wondering about that too >> and that was taken from the old policy. Um that's how it was written in 545. I mean I don't I don't know what other we're saying included but including but not limited to or >> right it's not >> adding a catch all at the end of it. Yeah, something that can include I mean because there's right there's as we've seen anything can be used to be bullied against somebody, right? But that the way it's written makes it seem like it's just that it doesn't leave it like an
039openness to potentially other characteristics that >> we may not think of this time. I would look for your suggestions >> if I mean I don't think that changes the spirit of it if we just added a catch all at the end. Do you guys >> I don't think so. >> So could we add a catch all I you know I'm asking for >> or any other actual or perceived trait or character. >> Yeah just that little catch all at the end. I mean those can be those are some of the more common ones but we can say these are examples of and then >> it's the in case we forgot about it clause that you see in all the contracts that you sign. Is that here? >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> I'm just adding that
040at the end of the sentence. >> I don't know. >> I think to the next. So, I would ask Stephanie to come up because policy 535B is um this is also first reading and you'll be asked to approve at the a second reading on the next meeting. This is about student directory information. Stephanie Davis, director of student services. Um the student directory information policy is to help clarify. We have our students records policy. We brought that to the board for approval earlier this fall. um we separated out the two sections of the student reference policy because it was um a little cumbersome and hard to determine exactly what we needed. So this policy um this additional part of the policy helps to clarify um what we're looking at. Directory information is a type of um
041information under um the federal I have it in my head all the time but or federal um family educational rights and privacy act. Um so this is prescribed by federal law which items are part of directory information. It gets kind of confusing because of the name. people automatically think it's talking about a school directory which we do not use but it is in fact the type of um the type of information. So I know that there was a question regarding what third parties are we addressing here. Um often the third parties are our own PTO Herbath the Urbanddale Schools and Alumni Foundation Urbanddale Community Education Booster Club. We currently have a contract with just who does our school pictures. Those are the types of third parties that um we may release the directory information with
042approval from families. Okay. Have any questions on this first reading? Thank you. So, but 602 exhibits and regulations in um August of this year, well, sorry, in August of 2025, the board approved policy 602, which was a uh part of the rewrite of policy 545 where we separated all of those out. These, what you're looking at here, these are not um voted on, but these are something that the board needs to um take a look at. And if you look, they're legally required notices drafted and I based these on the IASB policy. And we added gender identity to each of these exhibits. I checked them twice, so hopefully I didn't miss one, but I think they all have it in there. And these are just something that the board is asked to review. These go
043along with that policy and they are the mechanisms to carry that policy out. Any questions though? We will put the Urbanale U and clean up some of it, but that's the that's what they look like. And then the last one is another annual policy review on 535 in November. I believe when I was out that policy was approved. And then 537. So you've technically reviewed that one. Um but 537 on library records is also one that the board has to review. I added the 535 exhibits and regulations in there because those are also something for you to take a look at annually. So you have a lot to read. Thank you. >> I'll pass it over to you for the student rent report. So, um the past few weeks there's been a digital citizenship week
044where students were invited to participate in a competition that allow them to submit their artwork that represents the UCSD values of digital citizenship. And there were a few winners for each elementary school, middle school, and the high school had one winner. Winners would have their artwork be the background for the school computers for your specific school. >> So, here's an example for the high school mirror. >> Oh, cool. >> Just the background. >> Nice. >> Set up just a plain boring U notes. Um the boys varsity team have been for basketball have been having a great season with a six and three record and they just had a six game win streak and their next game is this Friday at home against Dingley as well as the girls basketball team. >> Um we're coming up
045at the end of the semester so semester ends Wednesday and we have Thursday and Friday off of school for a long fiveday weekend and then so we'll start second semester next Tuesday after MLK day. Um, yeah. Oh, and then show choir season's kicking into full gear. We got our first competition this weekend. So, that's kind of what's going on. >> Thank you. All right. So, moving on to some presentations. The education support personnel salary. Um this we're asking for the board's permission to um repeat a practice that we is this the second year? >> This is the second year. This be the second year. Yes. >> Um we receive a a lump sum from the state and last year we did the same plan where we took that amount and divided by how many um
046classified hourly employees we have. And this is a little bit over. Um I think it was like $4. It came to $251 per employee um and some change, but we're asking to do a $255 supplement for those employees. And the the district will cover the other fourish dollars. And I think that was >> $2,100 of the district funds to kick in and make it um a more round figure. And you can see the list of all the employees that are on there that will receive those stipens. >> Just to clarify, it's $4.25, not $5.25. >> $325. >> So, we can fix that for the next for the next meeting. Make a note. >> We have the 25175 and the 255. Good to clarify. >> And if there's any questions, we can >> grateful that we
047can do that. >> Maybe you can explain why we chose to do this. >> Oh, yeah. >> Why you chose to do the lump sum over like the penny an hour? Um, yeah, we did have an option to add it into salaries, but when you basically put a couple cents, it's not going to be, it's still not a lot of money, but we felt like this was a better impact, a bigger impact on the employee to get a little bit of money you can go do something with that you were thinking maybe I couldn't afford to go do or just kind of helps you out with that. So, that's where that comes from. Right. At risk dropouts. >> All right. Um each year we bring to you the um dropout prevention at risk FSA for
048uh getting an additional spending authority. Uh this year our spending authority um is 1,333836. um that's required um for this to be submitted to the SBRC for that spending authority. Um and that's what we're asking for and that will come for the June 26 meeting for approval. >> January >> or January 26. >> Yeah. >> And Miss Stephanie will go through the So each year in conjunction with this application um we are asked to bring a report to the board regarding our at risk program. Um one of the things that it asks us is to give just an overview of our program and um just to give you an idea of um at risk is any student who needs additional support not meeting or or not expected to meet established goals of the educational curriculum.
049um and could include homeless youth dropouts, returning dropouts, and potential dropouts. And this is from the Iowa Administrative Code. So, potential dropouts meet two or more of the following. And this is some of the criteria that is used within our program to identify students who need additional support K12. um whether they have a high rate of absenteeism, truency, frequent tardiness, uh lack of connectedness to school, students who are not involved in um additional extracurriculars, um looking at ways at elementary, who has that connection, that person that they feel comfortable with, um poor or failing grades, and achievement scores two or more years below the level in reading or mathematics. So, our program goals um are to support academic learning and content areas, support career and vocational development, promote connections to school, um involve our families
050in the community in educational process, and promote social emotional growth, and increase our student attendance. Our staff over the last year, and of course, we're reporting out from the 2425 school year, um we have a variety of different staff members. We of course have our alternative program Metro West for students who need an alternate pathway to graduation. Um which includes the director, the counselor, the teachers. We have at risk teachers. We have one at the middle school and three at the high school. Last year um at risk had a 0.5 school to work teacher. Um JAG is funded through at the uh is funded through at risk. um and our at risk associate at the middle school. Our facilitators of family outreach, we have K12, we have um three elementary facilitators, one at the middle
051school, and a half-time FFO at the high school who is also our juvenile court liaison and then our student family and community services specialist um who is our district social worker. Additionally, most counselors are funded through at risk. there's an overlap in the programming um but their work is often under the counseling program. So I'm I'm going to focus this evening just on our at risk team. Um so with our at risk program this this last year um we provided a lot of opportunities for student academic support whether it was through um as I said through our alternate program at Metro West through our teachers and at the high school with the recess program Oasis at the middle school. um additional support through executive functioning skills, teaching students those skills to be able to engage
052in um and work through their class classwork. Um we also include credit recovery and virtual learning through admentum. Um and then work experience and service learning. Um as we heard there um our learn to sore class is going to be work um speaking at the at the capitol soon. um the service learning awards experience are also under that same window providing at risk students additional support. Um many of the work much of the work that our FFOS or social worker um do into providing families connection to different resources whether it's our holiday outreach backpack buddies um tier 2 character strong interventions and also providing different parental support whether it's um food and clothing resources utility resources and alerting them to different lowcost and free activities to do as a family within the community. We have
053um provided peer-based programs and ongoing attendance support above and beyond our chronic absenteeism compliance. Um it's so important for all of our students to engage in learning and be in school as well as summer programming both um experiential and our summer high school summer school for students to um access credit recovery. Um and then we also provide transportation so to our students who need um an opportunity to get to school. Um with our highlights over this last year, we have maintained high levels of four-year graduate graduates. Um we have increased the number of students served by our FFOS and um we have had a very successful format recently with our um Jay-Hawks on the way. That's the transition program for fifth grade students going into sixth grade to make them more comfortable and have those
054connections with with the middle school. It's scary transition and it's nice to have that opportunity. Um we have maintained the number of students utilizing credit recovery. Um lots of strong outcomes with credit recovery and broad family outreach supports. Um with this year we have been engaging in a program review. Um we started that over the summer and this first semester we have been digging into that. So on January 26 we will bring a report to you on the status of the program review and many of the things that we learned. Um continuing this next year with our ongoing program improvement really identifying those areas that we need to look at and address. um and for this year continuing with our current programming as I said at the next board meeting we'll bring a report to
055you on the update of the program review and I will also be asking you to extend the approval on the existing at risk um program handbook to comply with um Iowa Department of Education requirements with our application for the additional funding. >> Any questioning authority? >> Spending authority. My goodness. No money. I just wanted free money. Excuse me. Additional spending authority. Excuse me. Are there any questions you might have this evenings? >> I was just wondering how um what does it look like when a student gets kind of referred into this into the atrisisk program? Is that something like the classroom teacher says to the social worker or a guidance counselor or what does that process kind of look like? >> It looks a little different at each grade band whether elementary, middle or high
056school. Often um there are the student study teams at each building that um MTSS or multi-tered systems of support um teams that are looking at different students. It could be a classroom teacher making a referral to the counselor to the FFO. Um when we start to get more into middle and high school, we look at the type of support that's needed. Um, if it's more academic support, that might go to the at risk teacher, but also providing some of those executive functioning skills and social emotional support. Whereas if the support that's needed is more on the social emotional side, um that the counselor and FFO would likely work in conjunction to determine who is the best um what intervention is the best for that particular student as well as if student resources are needed, family
057resources, that generally lives with our FFOS and our district social worker. >> Thanks. in your when you come back for the overview, do we track the kids like what happens to him, you know, if student A gets identified as at risk in fourth grade, do we follow him all the way to see if he graduates or if his situation changes where he where he graduates out of the program and is no longer an atrisisk student. Do we have you know any type of numbers of how a student transitions in and out in and out of the program of being of identification of at risk? >> We do. We do. We have that we have information and also looking at our students who are identified for example for the Oasis program and middle school um what
058that graduation rate looks like. So that is part of what we're looking at. This is kind of a broad overview knowing that we have >> Right. But I meant like when we did that could we see that be part of it? >> I would agree. It would be nice to see what successes we're seeing and if we're doing a good job of not just looking for graduation but seeing ongoing services >> or if they can graduate out of the services because you know that's what we really hope for. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. >> Do you have any? So, I would move that we approve the audit that was presented tonight. >> I'll second that. >> A roll call. >> So, we will start with Kent. >> Yes. >> Santiso, >>
059yes. >> Williams, >> yes. >> Young, >> yes. >> Horton, >> yes. >> Motion passes 70. >> And I would move to bring the consent agenda forward. Anyone have any coins for conversation? >> Entitain a second. >> I'll second. >> And then the roll call. Start with Santisel. >> Yes. >> Ricewike. >> Yes. >> Williams. Yes. Young. >> Yes. Yes. >> Hower. >> Yes. Motion passes 70. >> All right. You want to keep going or take a stretch? >> Well, I believe that this is not um an incredibly long portion. Um >> five minutes. >> Okay. >> Oh, I need a five minute break. >> At the next meeting, it'll be a longer Yes. >> session. Denise Wooden, the director of district leadership and improvement and Julie and Dr. Dhaka had asked me to um
060as we had some new membership on the board come to you with some board development around how we work together as a board leading to the opportunity for you all to set some goals for yourselves. So tonight, I'm just setting you up. You're going to have a little bit of reflective homework to do between now and our meeting on the 26th. And on the 26th, we will work for probably half hour, maybe a tiny bit longer, um, depending on how the conversation is flowing. Um, so that will be a a longer amount of time for us. So part of what you have in front of you are the Urbandale Community School District actions of excellence. These six actions of excellence are six of our district values and the bullets underneath them are the actual actions
061for how employees in Urbandale carry out those values. So for example, our value of continual improvement is carried out when employees demonstrate high expectations for themselves and for students. When they provide feedback to others in a constructive and respectful way, when they strive to improve all aspects of the employee and student experience, and when they seek opportunities for improvement. So does that kind of help you understand how to read each one of the six values? Continual improvement, joy and learning, culture of collaboration, committed workforce, optimization of resources and character and action are then broken out um just to help us know exactly how it is that we make those values come to life in the system. These are used in our hiring processes. They're also um part of our classified evaluation system. Each of those
062six values use takes those bullets, breaks them out into rubrics. And so all of our classified employees this year are setting goals based on the actions of excellence. They're often used in recognition opportunities. So when I'm working rounding with an employee, for example, and they ask me to recognize somebody, I often try to tie that back to one of our actions of excellence. Thank you for demonstrating that culture of collaboration when you that sort of thing. So they're used in various ways throughout our system um to keep them alive. The actions of excellence, I was trying to think back to when they were created. It's we've this has been very longstanding. I would say we're past 10 years now um of use of the actions of excellence. They were created by a group of employees
063representing all of the different types of positions in the system and they worked together to unpack what each of these means for UCSD. So, in knowing kind of that background, you have a a document front and back with those six actions of excellence. And on the left side of each one of those tables, you have those bullets that appear in the poster that tell you how an employee enacts th that action of excellence. So over these next few weeks, I would like for each of you to do some individual reflection. You all have some board member experience now, right? Some of you for many years longer than others, but now everybody's kind of into the role. You've had a little training, you've had some time with the attorney, you know, all these things. So now
064start to unpack a little bit. what does it mean to seek continual improvement for our system when I'm a board member? And so if everybody can do that for January 26th, then we will spend some time in conversation and partners unpacking. Okay, what does that mean for us as a board? What's going to be important? Any questions? I think so. >> All right. Thank you. >> A second. >> I will second that. >> All in favor? >> Anyone opposed? >> Thank you for staying that long for your