FHSD Board of Education Meeting-May 15, 2025

001Good evening. We are glad that you are here. Uh board, I'd like to begin our meeting with the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Uh in board and to the public, I'd like to share two things before we do the agenda. One is that director Caroli Owens is joining us through Zoom. Um, and then we're watching it and she's following the uh policies regarding being able to be present through Zoom as long as the camera is on. Hello to Carol Lee. Uh, second of all, uh, before we approve the agenda, I would like to direct everyone uh, to review our strategic plan online. You see different signs on

002the doors when you walked in. Uh, you'll see our mission of empowering students to be lifelong learners prepared for the future. You'll see our vision for 2030. You'll see our four priorities or pillars, four pillars focused on teaching and learning, people in workforce, finance and operations, safety and security. You'll see it uh here as well. You can find it on our website. Um so this is the agenda that we all created in order to help us pursue these goals. And with that, I'd like to have a motion to approve the agenda for May 15th, 2025 as presented. So second motion by Jane, second by Mark. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. The eyes have it. We'd like to welcome Miss Jennifer Jaws to present our special recognitions. Joles. Thank

003you, President Blair. Tonight, we have packed the boardroom with high achieving high school students from across the district who have racked up a number of honors this year. In just a moment, I'll invite our high school principles to come forward to introduce the students. But first, let me share a bit about each of the achievements we are highlighting this evening. We are recognizing eight National Merit finalists tonight. To become a National Merit finalist, students must submit a detailed scholarship application in which they provide information about their academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. A finalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT or ACT scores that confirm the

004students earlier performance on the qualifying test. Only about 1% of collegebound high school students are chosen as National Merit finalists, who then go on to compete for a variety of National Merit Scholarships. Six students are being recognized as Missouri scholars 100, a statewide program that honors 100 of Missouri's top academic honor students in the graduating class. The program is sponsored by the Missouri Association of Secondary School Principles. Schools across the state are invited to nominate candidates and selection is based on a formula that uses the students GPA and ACT or SAT score. The students must also have excellent attendance, be an exemplary school citizen, and be involved in school activities. 49 students from our three comprehensive high schools were named AP Scholars with distinction in 2025, the highest level of honor, for earning an average

005score of 3.5 on all AP exams taken and scoring above a three on five or more AP exams. We will also be recognizing three St. Charles County STEM award winners. Each year, one student from each of the county's public and private high schools who have demonstrated outstanding performance in STEM related pursuits are brought together for a breakfast and awards ceremony organized by the Economic Development Council of St. Charles County. Students enjoy a buffet breakfast and hear from a panel of professionals who work in STEM related fields. And finally, we will recognize one candidate for the US Presidential Scholars Program. This national recognition program was established in 1964 by executive order of the president. Each year, up to 161 students nationwide are named presidential scholars. It's one of the nation's most prestigious academic awards for high

006school graduates. Candidates must score exceptionally well in the SAT or ACT and be nominated by the state to qualify for the national award. Due to other commitments, not all students who received these honors could be here with us tonight, but we will recognize those who are in attendance. And with that, I'll invite our first principal, Dr. Dave Wedlock, to the podium to introduce the students here tonight from Francis How High. I know we've got a few in this group who have to leave here to make it to a jazz band concert by seven. Uh students, after you receive your certificate, please walk to the front of the room and we will take one big group photo with everyone from your school after all names have been called. Parents, you are welcome to step forward at

007that time to snap a few pictures of your own if you'd like. Dr. Wedlock. Okay, so we have an outstanding class of 25 at South High School. Um, we say that because almost nine of ten of them are involved in school activities. They've earned more than $20 million in scholarships and as these students are an example. More than a third of the class was doing highlevel college work as juniors. So these are fantastic representative of the class of 25. Let's begin with Ben Copeland, Harper Culverson, Ian [Applause] Curran, Paige Douly, Ethan Harbrink, Rashad [Applause] [Music] Jane, Addison [Applause] Maize, Addison Neman, [Applause] Liliana [Applause] Mantia, Near Maha, Mukerji, Max Newman, Parker Nordgarden, [Applause] Matthew [Applause] Reeri, Jason Romberg, Jace [Applause] Royer, Lily Toma, [Applause] Parker [Applause] Williams, Taylor [Applause] Whitten, and of course our StuCo

008president, Alex Zang. [Applause] bring you guys this front row. Yeah. We're going to make three rows. This is going to be tricky. There you go. I said he's probably looking for the body. There we go. Don't scoot in. There you go. There you go. All right, you guys. We might have to do a little photo shopping. It'll be fine. Big smile. Okay, one more smile. I'm going to move your smile. All right. Five. Good job everybody. [Applause] Congratulations. Thank you, Dr. Wedlock. And next, I'd like to invite Dr. Leak, principal of Francis House Central, to come forward to introduce her students. Whenever you can make the way, Good evening, President Blair, Board of Education, members of the Executive Cabinet, Dr. Rums. Good evening. You're okay. You can come close. It's my honor this evening to

009introduce to you Carter Berg, AP Scholar with distinction. Birdie Breitton, AP Scholar with distinction. [Applause] [Music] Charles Facel, AP Scholar with [Applause] distinction. Da Amood, AP Scholar with distinction. [Applause] Audit Ma AP Scholar with distinction national merit finalist and St. Charles County STEM award [Applause] winner. Thomas Ramos, National Merit Finalist. Elena Rickers, National Merit finalist and AP Scholar with [Applause] distinction just a little bit. Come around just a little bit. Perfect. Okay. new spot because I just learned that there we go. Perfect. Right there. Perfect. All right. Big smiles, everybody. closer picture. Three, two, one. [Applause] All right. And finally, I'll invite Mr. Fletcher, principal of Francis How North, to introduce his students. Mr. Fletcher. Good evening, board. First up, we have Amari Ammons, AP Scholar with distinction. Rachel Brimmer, AP Scholar with distinction. Cherry

010Anne Clark, AP Scholar with [Applause] distinction. Amelia Hec, Missouri scholars top 100. Alexander Prudome, National Merit finalist, AP Scholar with Distinction, St. Charles County STEM Award winner. Gavin Schwar, National Merit finalist, Missouri scholars top 100 and AP Scholar with distinction. All right, you guys. This one's going to be the easiest. I like this one because you guys Okay, [Music] smile. So, families can come up. It's kind of next, we want to take a moment to honor are 2025 senior class presidents from Francis How Central, Francis How High, and Frances How North. These students juggle all the typical demands that come with high school, keeping up with coursework, participating in sports and activities, preparing for college or whatever comes next, trying to maintain a social life, and spend time with family. And on top of that,

011they dedicate countless hours to representing their peers as senior class president, a role that is quickly coming to an end as they prepare to walk across the stage in just a few short weeks. Please help me recognize our class presidents that are here with us tonight. Max Newman, senior class president from Francis How High School, and Colin Smith, senior class president from Francis How North. While they're lining up for a photo, we also want to recognize Mackenzie Solace, senior class president from Francis House Central, who was not able to join us this evening, but we'll give her a round of applause anyway. [Applause] Okay, perfect. There you go. They are perfect, guys. We might have to put stickers on the ground. Perfect. Good job. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] And for our final recognition this evening,

012we want to highlight some hardworking and talented students who are earning an associate degree before they finish high school. The district launched the early college program in 2019, which offers high school students an opportunity to earn transferable college credits while still enrolled in high school. The program allows students to take classes on campus at St. Charles Community College and other partner colleges as well as online. Students can earn enough college credits to complete all or part of an associate degree while concurrently earning a high school diploma. The classes also count for high school credit. Nearly 1100 students have participated in the early college program with 14 students earning their entire associate degree prior to their high school graduation day. Tonight we have the honor of recognizing four Francis House students who are eligible to graduate

013next month with their associate degree pending successful completion of their spring classes which we know is going to happen. Students, when I read your name, please come forward to accept your certificate. And once all students have been recognized, we will take a group photo with the board. From Francis House Central, Colin Granger is earning an associate degree from St. Louis Community College this year, as well as a precision machining certificate. He was recognized earlier this month by the college for being the first and only student in history to complete both an associate degree and the 18 credit pre precision machining tech certificate as a high school student. Congratulations, Colin. From Francis How High School, Addison PCEL is earning an associate degree from St. Charles Community College and unfortunately she could not be here tonight. from

014Francis How North. Phoebe Dins is earning an associate degree from St. Charles Community College along with Searsen who unfortunately could not attend tonight. But let's give it up for Phoebe Dolins who is [Applause] here. Last picture, I promise. [Music] That's perfect. All right, you guys. Here. Big smiles. One more. Perfect. Good job. Good job. All right. [Applause] Our student board representative this month is from Francis How North. As you know, the purpose of the student board rep program is to honor and recognize talented students, elevate student voice, and provide growth opportunities in the areas of public speaking, leadership, and governance. Students are selected for this honor by their principal with input from the student body. They have an opportunity to prepare and deliver a short speech to the board and public that is focused on

015their school or the district. And with that, I'll invite Principal Fletcher back to the podium to introduce our board rep from Francis North. Good evening board uh district leaders in France community. I have the pleasure of introducing our student board representative tonight from France North, Miss Maline Hec. Maline has been at Francis Hall School District her entire educational career. Uh she started at Harvest Ridge Elementary, progressed to Barnwell Middle, and eventually ended up at Francis Hal North. She has also attended various summer camps and programs the district has offered throughout the years, including STEM camp in elementary and middle school and credit advancement during her high school career. Throughout those 13 years of her education, she has experienced a large number of opportunities that the district has provided uh over that time. During the last

016four years at FHN, Meline has been highly involved in and outside of the classroom. She is our current student council president, the treasurer of HOSA, the secretary of our Asian-American association. She is also a member of our Knights of Excellence mentors program. She's a part of Max Scholars. She is on our student advisory council and is also a member of National Honor Society. She is also an editor for our school yearbook and they just had their last work night. So, she came straight from school from working on the yearbook. Uh, so I'm thankful for that. Meline has also taken a number of honors pre-AP and AP courses throughout her high school career along with completing the entire biomed project lead the way program. As you can tell, Maline has been continually challenging herself through rigorous

017coursework, taking on leadership roles, and getting involved in a variety of activities at school. Through all of that, she has earned a 4.6 6 GPA, a 32 honor ACT, has been proficient or advanced on every EOCC exam. Next year, Maniline is attending Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville to pursue a degree in biology on a pre-MAC on a premed track with a minor in chemistry. Maline earned a full tuition scholarship at SIO. Please welcome to the podium, Miss Maline Hec. Good evening everyone. First, I would like to extend my sincere thank you to Dr. or Mr. Fletcher for the warm welcome. Um, your support truly means a lot to me and I'm honored to be selected as a representative for friends North High School and I would like to express my gratitude to the FHSD board

018of education for this opportunity to be the voice for my fellow students. I would also like to apologize in advance. I did like doc like Mr. Fletcher said, "I came straight here from school and I'm also recovering from a cold and I'm out of cough drops." So, if if I start coughing, I'm really sorry. Um, I would like to take this moment to express my gratitude to the dedication of our staff members who work tirelessly to make Francistown North a place where students can thrive. Thank you to Miss Keel in the journalism department whose unwavering support has helped me to grow as a leader and a person. I would also like to thank Miss Stoker in the English department. Being a TA in her success class has given me a new perspective and taught me

019the value of empathy and patience. Their commitment to our education is admirable and your efforts do not go unnoticed and we are fortunate to have such a passionate and caring staff guiding us every step of the way. I believe that teachers are the foundation of our educational system and without their dedication and passion, our district would not thrive as it does today. I would also like to thank Miss Case for her dedication and commitment to her students, which I was able to experience firsthand through the MAC scholars, the club that she poured her heart into in an effort to make every student in the club feel like they had somewhere to belong. Although the board has decided to end her employment with the district, I wanted it to be known that teachers like Miss Case

020who prioritize the mental and physical well-being of their students do not go unrecognized. I would also like to recognize the opportunities that I have had the chance to take advantage of at Prince Tom North both academically and beyond. Academically, we are priv privileged to have access to programs such as blended classes, dual credit courses, and the PLTW program. All of which has challenged us to crit think critically and prepare us for the future, ensuring that every single individual is equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed far behind high school. Um, beyond academics and the extracurricular opportunities at Friendstown North have allowed us to discover our passions, build lasting connections, and develop valuable leadership skills. Personally, some of the best friends I have made are because of the clubs at North, and the memories

021that we've created together are ones that I'll carry long after graduation. Through these experience, I've not only formed lasting friendships, but I've also developed developed essential skills like leadership, communication, and problem solving. As I close, I wanted to share how incredibly proud I am to be a Knight, especially as we step into this new chapter with the new building. The unwavering support of our community and the dedication of our educators has profoundly shaped my high school experience, and their influence is something that I will always carry with me. Thank you once again for this opportunity to speak and for the continued support of the board, our staff, and our community. Thank you for your time. Thank you. She's big smile. All right, Jack, come right here. It's so uneven. There you go. Great. Perfect. Okay,

022big smiles, everybody. One, two, three. Perfect. Did you give her [Music] So, welcome to uh up front here and director LT is going to you welcome. Yeah, Maline, welcome to the board. Um, you are welcome to participate in everything and ask questions. The only thing you're not allowed to do is vote, but we're very happy to have you with us tonight. Yes, we have your cough drop supplied. Thank you. All right, we're going to move towards patron comments and I want to read what uh we read every single month ahead of times. Uh during patron comments, residents of the district and staff members are invited to address the board of education on issues related to the school district. Speakers are called forward in the order of signup and each speaker has three minutes to make

023their remarks. Please remember that only one speaker is allowed at the podium at a time and combining time or giving your time to someone else is not permitted. The board appreciates that you have taken the time to come this evening and we value both your input and your perspective. I'd like to remind everyone that we expect that speakers will remain civil and respectful when giving remarks. If anyone fails to comply with board policies, regulations, and rules, we reserve the right to cut those three minutes short. We also ask that patrons in the audience remain quiet in order to be respectful of the speaker's aotted time. And so, uh, President Blair, I'd like to make a motion. Um, in the interest of being an inclusive district, one that we have claimed to be for a very

024long time, I understand that a a pastor, John Amanuklu, who's standing up in the back, um, has requested and been denied his opportunity to speak at this board meeting. Um, Pastor John is a nationally known speaker. Um, very well known, has completed um the paperwork needed to to speak here and yet he was still denied. I think if we are going to do what we claim that we are, and that is inclusive, we have not only a pastor, as I'm sure Stephen or President Blair that you can relate to, and also a black man. Um, I would like to request and make the motion that Pastor John be given the opportunity to speak for 3 minutes. Is there a second? I'll second. [Music] Okay. We uh we were guided to to not do this because

025the person um does not live in the district and the policies say it. But um that is that is incorrect. I believe that right the policy has been honored over and over again. That's that's incorrect, sir. I did everything that you asked me. All right. Not only that, Stephen, but sorry, but policy has been broken in a different way. We're going to call the vote. Okay. All right. Um, all in favor of letting him speak, that's censorship. Um, all in favor of letting him speak, say I. We're denying him a first amendment right. All in favor of letting him speak, say I. I he needs to Okay. All in favor letting him speak say I. Well prepared to bring right as of right now. This is a conversation among board members. Yeah. Thank you so

026much. Board members, all in favor say I. of of allowing him to speak. Of allowing him to speak of allowing to give him his first amendment right. I Okay. All against. You're you're voting against. If you're voting against, say I. I. I. That's not okay. Let's state the motion clearly, please. The use of the motion. Okay. The motion is to allow doc or p doctor, sorry, pastor John M and Chuku to speak uh speak for three minutes during patron comments and give him his first amendment right. So in other words, to change the current policy. Uh the policyy's already been changed. We've allowed people longer time than 3 minutes. So you're going to make it a motion to change current policy. And there's a second. I All in favor? We're talking amongst ourselves. Yeah. All

027in favor of the motion. So, can we discuss real quick? Yeah, that would be good. Just just real quick. So, this is the third time I've asked you. You are in the audience. You are not allowed to speak at this time. I'm not talking to you. But before you work, you're not allowed to speak at this time. Everyone in the audience should be quiet at this point. You work for the people. Everyone in the audience should be quiet at this time. Director Harmon. Okay. All in favor of changing the policy um vote I I'm in favor of giving Pastor John an opportunity to speak tonight. I Okay. All opposed? I I What are you guys afraid of? Motion does not motion does not pass. And so we were operating off of our current policy and

028the current policy says you have to be a resident in order to speak. You have not. He has a legally executed document. You have not proven. Yes, I have. I have done everything. You are now disrupting an official meeting. Uh if you continue, I will ask you to leave. Sir, you're right. You're already telling me that I'm not welcome because you're defrauding me. And I will bring suit against this district if you do that. This this is that lawsuit. This is your final warning. If you do not stop and take your seat, you will be removed from the meeting. If that's what you want, you are being disruptive and you have refused to comply with board rules. As board president, I'm directing you to leave the meeting now. So, you want me to leave now?

029Unless you're able to apply by the same rules we expect everybody else to live by, as a legally executed document. problem abiding by. So right now you're still speaking but ask me to abide by all of the rules but you're you're defrauding me of my freedom of speech. You're going against your own policy. You are being disruptive and have refused to comply with board rules. That's not right. As board president, I'm asking you directly to leave the meeting now. This district, this is your last chance to sit down and be quiet or else you'll be removed. Will I have a chance to speak? You need to respect everybody else here. I can't sit down. You can speak. You've been emailed about this. You have also have opportunity to email us as well. by my rights.

030This individual is being disruptive, has refused to comply with procedures, and will not leave voluntarily. Officer, please escort them from the meeting. The procedures are not balanced. They're not balanced procedures. Actually, they are because that's right. I was not allowed to speak. So, officer and everyone should be seated as well. allow them to rob me of my freedom of speech. There's the same policy that you are in violation of. You're going to defraud me of my freedom. We we have we have the right to enforce our policies to censor a black man who comes in your district. A black pastor who comes to your district, you have a right to defraud me. So that's diversity, equity, and inclusion, right? Not a good look. Not a good look. I'm embarrassed. So again, we ask the patrons

031in the audience remain quiet in order to be respectful of speakers allotted times. And now, where's the list? Who's the first speaker? Laura Freshman. Laura Freshman. Laura Freshman is our first speaker. You have three minutes. Good evening, Francis How leaders and stakeholders. I come to you tonight with deep concern and a sincere desire to speak up for the incredible educators who serve this district. Lately, I've heard accusations that suggest our librarians and teachers are promoting harmful content or trying to groom children. These claims are not only false, they're also harmful and demoralizing to professionals who have dedicated their lives to supporting and serving young people. And as a result, some of those professionals are choosing to leave this district for opportunities elsewhere to Francis How's great detriment. Let's be clear, becoming a certified school librarian

032in Missouri is no small feat. Per librariancertification.com, a candidate must first earn a bachelor's degree in library and information sciences. After that, candidates who have a teaching certificate must still do a 39-hour master's degree program, while candidates lacking a certificate must do a 58-hour master's program, including both library science and education coursework. In both cases, the candidate must complete a lengthy practicum under a certified school librarian. That's years of study, thousands of dollars, countless hours of dedication. I promise you, no one on this earth is doing that to harm children. These are highly educated experts passionate about literacy, research, and supporting students intellectual and personal growth. At Howell, where I teach, our librarians do everything possible to encourage a lifelong love of reading and research and create a dynamic student- centered space. From hosting book

033club meetings with themed games and treats and establishing a chapter of the epsilon beta honor society to creating enticing book displays and supporting teachers and students through research and multimedia projects. We wouldn't be Francis how without wonderful librarians. They are central to student and staff academic and personal development. Despite that, we are seeing policies passed and proposed that undermine their integrity and make their work needlessly harder. Even though no one has formally challenged a book in this district since the new rules, they make it far easier to do so, creating a chilling effect that doesn't serve our students or reflect this community's values. History offers us a sobering reminder of where this road leads us. According to the Harvard Research Libraries Guide to the History of Bookbanning, this practice started around 259 BC when a

034Chinese emperor buried hundreds of thinkers alive. Later, some of history's most important scientific minds, among them Galileo and Darwin, had their work banned. In more recent history, the Confederacy banned Uncle Tom's Cabin for its anti-slavery message. Nazi Germany banned books by Jewish, queer, and dissident authors. During the Bosnian War, a national library was shelled, destroying millions of books, and soldiers murdered people who tried to save them. In each case, the justification was the same. Leaders said they were protecting people from dangerous ideas. But history shows us clearly book banners are rarely remembered as heroes. So I ask you, is this the legacy that any of us wants for Francis Howell? Twice in recent elections, the voters here have made it clear. They want schools that focus on education, not culture wars. We have voted for

035stability, for professionalism, for a rejection of hate and division. So let's listen to the voters. Let's trust our professionals. Let's keep our schools places where ideas are explored, not erased. And let's get back to a school board meetings are focused on success. The board welcomes Maggie Theater. Go ahead. You can start. Ready to go. Okay. Um, hello members of the board. I'm a senior at Francis Hala High School and I've been a part of this district for 12 years now. Um, I'm hoping you'll consider my statements a bit more heavily, seeing as I still am in currently an enrolled student and I'm actively witnessing things occurring on school grounds. Throughout my last four years in high school, I've become aware of the various issues and problems concerning LGBTQ plus students within the district. I'm aware

036that of the former attempt to pass a bill about bathroom policies, and I've witnessed plenty of discrimination against my peers across these last four years. I've heard slurs being hurled, my peers being bullied for being quote unquote different, and full-grown adults attacking my underage peers simply for not aligning with their ideals. While I may not be a student under the Francis Hall district for much longer, I wish to set a president for those who come after me. I want to see the children of the next generation succeed. But that simply isn't possible if we're forcing them to high parts of their identities or even going so far as to harass them for not fitting into the traditional mold. LGBTQ plus people in general have existed since the beginning of time, even if our existence hasn't

037always been highlighted. We have always been there. I understand that many people may view LGBTQ plus people as immoral or wrong. But that does not change the fact that we do exist and we won't be disappearing anytime soon. We do not wish to replace the identities or values of those around us. We simply wish to be treated as equals, as human beings, rather than a sort of boogeyman that will infect everyone and around us with our agenda. Currently almost four out of every 10 queer children in the school system consider suicide. Roughly 15% of them actually attempt suicide. I am a part of that 15%. It would it frustrates me to no end that people would rather focus on such a small percentage of the population to target rather than focus on the genuine issues

038within the system. The Gender Sexuality Alliance Club is one of the very few queer safe communities where I feel I can be completely open and accepted. I'll be honest, speaking up here and speaking to you today is something I feared for many years. I'm aware of the possibility that I also may be harassed. Am I prepared for it? No, absolutely not. But I have to do what I think is right for others. I want to protect the future generations of kids. Regardless of how the adults around us feel, us kids within the district have our own feelings. And I feel you should prioritize the thoughts of actual students rather than their parents who most likely don't know everything their children have witnessed. Please elevate the voices of students within the district. Allow them the platforms

039to stand up for themselves and let them speak over the sea of adults who may attempt to silence them. as said in Romans 15:7, "Accept each other as tr as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory." Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. The board welcomes Kim Gunars. The board welcomes Ken Gunars. Okay. Board welcomes Andy, Eric. Thank you very much. Uh, I'll make this brief. Uh, I address you tonight to request an amendment to the language of board policy 1430. Uh board policy 13 1430 states that parents guardians may visit the classroom for the purpose of observing children at the school. However, the district does not permit others to conduct such an observation. My request is a modification of this language to allow licensed therapist to conduct an observation of

040a child under an IEP in order to provide continuity of care during the summer recess or extended break in the school year. In real life, my son, our son Austin, is under an IEP, and this summer he will attend a learning and behavioral school. Um he is a second grader at Independence Elementary and the elementary school would offer a consultation but there currently under this policy is no option for his school to observe and understand where he is as of today. They must rely only on the consultation. Observations are critical to the therapist to establish current states and develop a care plan for the summer. observations and consultation is far superior to console only. I don't think that's uh in discussion. Uh which is why many Francis How employees and therapists and special education students

041will go on site to other locations and observe students before they attend uh the Francis How schools. Um, I just ask that that uh be that uh you know pleasure be reciprocated by the school district and allow the therapist also to observe a child who will be attending their school over the summer. I understand like many policy exceptions, you may feel that this opens the district to distractions or unwanted observations. However, by restricting the observations to licensed therapists or medical professionals and to only children under an IEP, you may mitigate this exposure. Regardless, the benefit to the child of a continuum of care cannot be understated and will in turn benefit the child and the student and the school when they return the next fall. Uh, finally, I've spoken to the assistant principal at his

042school and to the director of student services. Because of the board policy 14:30, there are no exceptions. The policy is clear. Therefore, I am asking for a revision or modification to this language to allow to allow such exceptions. Uh, as I've previously discussed, I close by asking for your prompt review and modification of this policy as summer is approaching and at least one child could use your help. Thank you. Thank you. The board welcomes Jamie Martin. after Jamie Martin will be Harry Harris and David Jorski if you wanted to start lining up. Sorry, I should have sat closer. Good evening board. Um, as you heard, my name is Jamie Martin and I'm a mother of four. I have three students currently attending Francis How, one recently graduated, so we're, you know, happy about that. Um,

043but sad that she's leaving. Uh we're a family of faith. Uh for nearly every Sunday my entire children's uh childhood, they went to church and we are pretty strict about content in our home. For years, we haven't allowed rated our movies. We're pretty strict about music. We um are we have pretty um pretty serious screen time policies and and cell phone monitoring systems at our house. And um I think it's important to trust parents to make decisions for their kids. I'm grateful that our policies and our systems do just that. And I'm grateful that we now have a board membership that is willing to place the trust in the parents rather than mandating what can or cannot be on our shelves and what can or cannot be in our libraries. When I saw an extremist

044pack raising tens of thousands of dollars in my school district, I stood up. Since 2021, there's been division, headlines, social media feuds, attacks on teachers, those policies I talked about that undermine the trust of parents. But what we haven't seen for the last couple of years is a solution to the odor at one of our high schools that's caused health problems and even a hospitalization. We haven't seen needed updates to curriculum funded. We haven't we have seen we haven't seen solutions to a toxic culture and climate causing our teachers and administrators to leave. And we haven't seen actually with the last board majority even the removal of books that they found so concerning. So I'm not sure how they didn't manage that. But with three other moms, I founded Francis Hal Forward, where we pride

045ourselves in building community by having civil conversations with parents and teachers of any political walk of life. We really just don't care. For two years running, our community has stood up with us. Record numbers of voters turned out to vote against this chaos and division. And just last month, we won our second election, shifting the board back to this common sense majority our stakeholders are desperate for. Thank you for your time tonight, board. Thank you for the way that we handled this agitator from outside our state to come in and try to talk to us about our children and about our community. Thank you. The board welcomes Harry Harris. Good evening. Um, apparently we're going to start out the meeting by pointing out who's black. It's me. Hi, it's me. So, thank you for opening

046that. Um, I'm irritated that even having to be here tonight. I get one night a week to actually do what I need to do and catch up with life without everything running around, but then I hear that some extremists are going to try to invade our meeting and come in and and start complaining about our community. No, I made sure to be here tonight so we didn't have to deal with stuff like that. And to let you all know that I don't want any of you allowing that. So, I thank you for that. In my house is what you're not going to do. You are not going to come into our community and you are not going to come in here and try to start trouble and stir the pot. We had somebody like five

047years ago who came to a meeting who got in his little suit and thought he could just come up in here and talk and say whatever he wanted to. He wasn't a member of our community and we said no then. So, thank you for keeping that tradition up. Can we stop? Can we stop the crazy? I truly thought that after last month's meeting which was saying y'all were all smiling, everybody's happy. We're getting in position. I thought we got to sanity. Clearly, clearly I was wrong. But can we go that direction? We don't need some outside shy, hustler, clickbaiting person coming into our community through a outside national political group and an extremist church bringing them in here to try to stir the pot to try to get everybody all riled up. We know there

048ain't no porn in our schools. We know our librarians are good, hardworking people who deserve our respect. And people can try to ignore people who are speaking on this topic all they want to, but the truth of the matter is our schools are good. Our employees are incredible. And we don't have all of these issues that somehow keep trying to be brought up when you're on the losing side of the coin. That little girl just sat up here, poured her heart out, and told you all what she was the 15% of, but no, you would rather create some issue. Shame. So, the rest of you, let's do better. Let's start moving in the right direction and let's get back to a level of sanity. Thank you. [Applause] The board welcomes David Jorski. [Music] Hi board.

049Happy new year. Is this thing on? Um quick. I was here on uh December talked to you guys about bathroom policy. mentioned to you that you actually do have a bathroom policy. It's written on your door. It's not being enforced. Okay, fine. I also mentioned the fact that you guys should really look at the Winsville policy which is very clearly and and easily written and it actually addresses everybody's needs in terms of privacy in a bathroom and comfort in a bathroom. And I think it's important for that to still be said. I think you should look at the policy that Winsville has. It's well worth looking at. Uh I can tell you right now that I learned not too long ago, my daughter, who's a senior now, has never used the bathroom. And I asked

050her why. She says, "I'm not comfortable using the bathroom at school." Think on that. in terms of the books in our school, in our our library, uh I'd like to address that as well. And and to me, the problem is you have you have to distinguish between what a uh a school library is and what a general library is. School library is much different. One of the major differences in a school library is a parent can't come in there and supervise the kind of books that your student the child is getting. Whereas if I'm going to a public library, I can do that with my child. That's very important to me. I think that you need to have that distinction in terms of a school library. Now, I understand that there's still pornographic material that's

051in the schools and my and I've written up a small statement about that. Many of these books contain explicit sexual content, graphic violence, and language that most parents would not permit in their homes. By the way, that senior that's graduating when she was in 10th grade, she brought a brought home one of these books. So, they are there. Some even promote themes that are developmentally inappropriate for young minds. These are not matters of literal literary expression or of freedom of speech. They are matters of age appropriate boundaries and responsible education. Let's let me be clear. I'm not advocating for censorship of classical lit literature or the silencing of diverse voices. What I am asking for is common sense. I'm asking for that that material available to children in school libraries does not focus on the

052sexualization of our kids. Thank you. Um the board welcomes Ashley Bills. Good evening members of the board. My name is Ashley Bills and I'm here today not to speak about one individual, but to raise serious concerns about systemic issues within the workplace culture of this district. I want to speak on behalf of employees who feel silenced, unsupported, and harmed when they try to do the right thing. During my time in the district, I experienced a pattern of exclusion, misinformation, and isolation that made it nearly impossible for me to do my job effectively. I was routinely left out of key activities, denied meaningful communication, and misled about training opportunities that would have helped me grow. This type of environment is not only demoralizing, it's damaging to employee morale, student outcomes, and the district's overall success. When

053I attempted to raise concerns through the proper channels, the situation became worse. I followed internal procedures in good faith, but instead of support, I faced retaliation. I was subjected to repeated and excessive disciplinary action for minor or unclear infractions, and it became evident that my efforts to speak up were being used against me. The disciplinary process appeared weaponized, and it created an atmosphere of fear and anxiety. Among the reasons cited for discipline were matters as minors initiating casual conversation with colleagues, asking for input about my appearance, or apologizing to peers. At one point, I was reprimanded for speaking too quietly on the phone. These actions taken together sent a message that those who raise concerns will be targeted, not supported. Eventually, I was accused of serious wrongdoing, not based on evidence, but simply but seemingly

054as a pretext. When that allegation failed to produce proof, the justification for my termination shifted to something else entirely, a system failure I had no training in or author authority to correct. This shifting rationale speaks to a broader issue of administrative accountability and procedural fairness. As a result of this ordeal, I have developed a permanent medical condition that I will have to manage for the rest of my life. The psychological and physical toll of this experience is real. No employee should be made to choose between their health and their job, especially not in an educational institution that is supposed to model integrity and equity. This is not just my story. It's a reflection of a system that does not currently protect its people when they speak out. I urge this board to take a serious

055look at how this district handles complaints, supports its staff, and ensures that retaliation does not take root. Finally, I want to be transparent. I am seeking legal representation to address the harm I've endured. But I chose to speak here first to give this board an opportunity to reflect, respond, and take action before this matter progresses further. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to ensuring that this district is a place where fairness, safety, and accountability are not just ideals, but everyday realities. Thank you. Thank you. The board welcomes Anita Keenir. Got it. You said my name right. Thanks. I should have mispronounced it for Adam. My coach should have this one. Good evening. It looks like uh the state is fully funding the formula based on the Desi recommendation of uh an increase

056of 497 million. There are many things that can happen. The increase to early childhood tuition could definitely be reduced. Um the district should take the burden off of employees and employee family insurance. Francis Hall North still has a toxic odor. We need summer school to be moved. People at Francis Hall North are sick. The idea that we have had preschoolers in that building who can't even explain when they don't feel well. Essential skills kids had to be moved this week because of the toxic odor. These students also may not have been able to verbalize or understand why they aren't feeling well. If you were swimming in a pool and someone dumped toxic waste in it and you were at the other end, would you stay in the pool? I don't think so. Thank you. Thank

057you. Uh, board welcomes Chris Heyman. Board welcomes Chris Heyman. Hey, the board welcomes uh Katrina Sherman. Is Katrina Sherman here? With that is the end of the patron comments. Uh, at this time I'd like to welcome FHEA for their comments. Good evening. My name is Francine Hill and I am the FHA president. As we approach the end of this school year, there's so much to reflect on. We opened a beautiful new school that should have been a bright spot for our district. Unfortunately, this new building has been plagued with an issue causing the shine to be lost. Teachers and students are still dealing with the toxic odor despite numerous claims of resolution. We ask the dis that the district gives uh relocating summer school serious consideration if for no other reason than to complete the

058repairs that they already know will be required. We want to thank the board for considering our request to wave the sunshine request um request fee for our second set of emails. We understand this request has more emails than the first request. It will be helpful to see any changes in locations, intensity, and description. Our district has also been preparing for many new leaders next year and shifts in our current leaders to new roles in our district. We want to wish everyone the best of luck in their new roles and we look forward to working collaboratively on our new strategic plans and other district plans. This includes attending the board retreat this summer. It's always interesting to hear the plans the board has and learn who will be serving on committees and the buddy schools that

059each will have. We also hope to have more opportunities to work collaboratively with the district on reducing the stress on our teachers, finding a better work life balance, and many other concerns. We want to get back to being a team and not just having to bring issues after the fact. We are vested in the school district. Many of us live here, bring our children here, and love our communities. I've heard one or two comments about the president doing union business. Please understand exactly what that business is all about. It's about the teaching and working conditions of our teachers, which is also the learning conditions of our students. We work to improve the climate and ensure that the teachers have what they need to do their best job. We give them the ability to voice what

060they need without fear of any consequences. The union work only helps with retention and support of our teachers. Our work is intended to help our district be the best it can be. It was a great to hear from the citizens in our schools how important those things are to them too. I always enjoy talking with the members of the community about our district. We can learn so much from each other. It has been great to be part of that team. Learning more about each member of our board has also been a wonderful experience. We look forward to building relationships with each member in the near future. Even though we were very sad to say goodbye to all those leaving our district this year, we look forward to meeting all the new teachers, staff, and administration

061next year. Let's power through the end of the year with all the great instruction we see all year. And we hope everyone has fun plans for the summer. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to welcome FSA for comments. [Music] Thank you board. My name is Heidi Nixon. I am the vice president of technicians for FISA. At the April 17th board meeting, we spoke in depth about the odor issues of Francis Hal North. Likewise, the board of education showed strong and unified support for the staff and students of FHN. We thank you for that. The staff felt heard after months of minimal conversations related to the ongoing issue. Unfortunately, just yesterday, multiple classrooms had to be cleared for the majority of the day. Multiple staff members complained of headaches and breathing issues. These

062were classrooms outside the 1400 hallway that has been c the central focus of the issue. The mitigation attempts are proving to not be enough to eliminate the issue and that is what needs to happen. The odor needs to be eliminated, not just kept at bay for a week at a time. You asked many questions of SM Wilson and gave many directives to district leadership in April, including communicating directly with stakeholders instead of just administration. Direction to conduct a survey of students and staff related to health issues that are occurring in the building as well as a move of summer school if the problems cannot be alleviated quick enough. Since then, weekly updates have been sent out to staff, students, and families. Building modifications to help alleviate the issue have been undertaken but have not been

063successful. Administration has yet to send out a health related survey to the students and staff. The senior class has taken it upon themselves to send one out that they created. Seniors should be preparing for finals, graduation, and the next steps in their lives, not the health effects of toxic gases in their school. This survey needs to be made a priority by administration and sent to the entire student body and staff of FHN. At this time, the board needs to direct administration to move summer school to another location in the district. You are putting the health of dozens of different staff members and hundreds of different students at risk. We have seen firsthand that the staff members have had se severe medical issues due to the constant exposure in their classrooms. Students have had less medical

064issues as they are in the same room for considerably less time. As summer school classes function differently than the normal year where classes are roughly 50 minutes, there is a greater chance that more students could have severe medical issues. Finally, we want to wish students good luck as they prepare for their finals. To our staff and students, the finish line for the school year is in sight. We can do this. Finish the year strong. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. And board, I'd like to have a motion to approve the consent agenda for May 15, 2025 as presented. So moved. Motion for Jane and second for director Ponder. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. Um I'd like to hold something. Well, we just Okay. No. Uh motion passes. The consent

065agenda is passed. Next, uh, we have a motion to wave the sunshine fee as presented. I have a question on this one. Can we start off with a motion? Is that your motion? Yes. A motion for Ron? No. No. I'm just We need a sec. Motion and a second. Motion. Motion for Ron. Second for Amy. Uh, all those in I'm sorry. Discuss. Yeah. And I I brought this up last month. It's just curious that it comes up so so soon again. It just seems odd to me. We didn't approve two requests last month. And now and my my concern then was was are we going to play is it was there a reason if if we approve some and not others, is it for special interest reasons? And I I I believe I said that

066last month and now here we are again. And I understand they're asking for a request. I just don't understand why it's justified for FHEA, but then it wasn't justified for for a private citizen for two of them last month. So I guess I just don't understand the distinction here either. I mean, do we change the policy then to say FHA? I think I think the distinction was that FHA was asking as like a a body associated with the school district versus a private citizen in which case sunshine requests could be quick and you know fast and furious. We get so many that there's not enough time to do them and it takes additional work from the administration to perform those duties and so there has to be a line somewhere. So the question you mentioned

067last month was where should we draw the line and that's where we're at right now. And and that's my curiosity is is this going to be the special interest group that doesn't have to worry about sunshine request. I I'd just like to say something and that is that I don't think we're looking to change the policy per se. Waivers have always been allowed. I get it. My my belief is that you know some of the other requests that we get may be made to get information from us to maybe for uh complete a a thesis or you know some whatever reason there is out there that people want information of what we do. I believe that this information directly impacts the students and the teachers in the building and I I don't agree with just

068like we've been told we have to sunshine things. I don't I don't think that we as a board should have to do that. I know a previous board member, he uh even paid a fee to get that information. That was something different. But it but let me back up and just say I think that those emails if they could help uh either make a change in the smell or urge somebody to do that. I think we need to decide this on a case-by case basis. It's just my comment. I understand and I get it. So you're making this distinction in this case for a certain issue or a certain position. So when it comes to a point where you don't agree with the position, you're going to deny the request. I think that's a dangerous

069precedent to be said. But not dangerous, that's a little extreme. And that we've had enough extremist language here lately tonight. But it's yeah, you approve one but not another because you agree with the issue. That's just my concern. I think the difference favorites. Pardon? I I think that the difference is, you know, a personal request for information versus a request that is for the benefit of our students and our teachers within our organization, I think. And as an organization, we need to support that information because it directly benefits our teachers and our students versus someone personally just looking for information. And I think that's the distinction we need to make. We're we're looking I mean they're they're operating in good faith with us. So I get it. I hear what you're saying here. Again, you're

070making the determination that somebody out there is operating in good faith. It's just so now when you deny it. I think you're saying to the people, we don't trust you're in good faith or we don't trust we don't believe in what you're trying to do or we don't tr believe in your position. I just think it's I Well, I I get it. You I get it. You're You Yeah. And however you're going to vote, you may believe the intentions are good as long as you agree with the intentions. It's just a dangerous here. Again, it's just slippery to me either. So, that's that's all I wanted to say about it. Thank you for that. I I do think to we have to look at the amount of time and work and resources that a sunshine

071request takes and what is that you know what is that um you know that good faith type of uh reciprocal uh situation and and you know if we did say you know that we could you know you know basically um waiver you know multiple requests that were from the public I think that we would see almost no end to that I think we'd be opening ourselves up for even more issues because then we would have lots and lots of people who anybody the person who was just asked to leave perhaps you know and that that would be something I think that you know we have to consider you know um the the time the work the expertise the resources you know that go into making those sunshine requests that we're legally obligated to do. I

072I agree. I see where you're coming from, R. But in this case, I don't think a one-sizefits-all. And what I mean by that, you know, there's the uniformity of addressing everything is the same, but I don't think all situations are the same. It's me. As long as you agree with the requesters's position and what their intent is, saying that's that's where you are. That's what your vote is going to be. Discernment, right? Any more discussion on [Music] No, just thank you Sarah for clarifying what I couldn't say anytime. All right. So, all those uh so the motion is to wave the sunshine fee as presented. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed say no. No. Eyes have it. And Kly delayed but it was I. Kly also voted I. Next up,

073a motion to approve Ford asphalt to provide labor materials for asphalt and concrete improvements at Francis Hall High to include base bid plus alternate number one as presented. Second Jane, second was Mark like to welcome director of facilities and operations Loom Stencer to present. Thank you, President Blair. Good evening, board. Um before you for consideration this evening is a recommendation to award a construction contract for concrete and asphalt improvements of Francis Halh High. Uh the majority of the current pavement's been in service since 2010 and has developed conditions that are beyond conventional repair such as seal coating and crack filling. And just for the board's awareness, generally asphalt has a useful life of 8 to 10 years uh with appropriate maintenance. uh that surface obviously's been in uh service for 15 uh 15 plus years

074there. So pending your approval this evening, this project uh would commence at the conclusion of the academic year. It's a fairly large scope uh roughly around 522,000 square ft of pavement equivalent to 12 acres. And uh with me I have our partner with Hollison Miller, Justin Durham. uh he they helped with the bid specifications as well as the uh bidding and uh pending your approval uh would uh handle the construction administration uh for that project. So I'll turn it over to Mr. Durham. All right. Thank you, Mr. Stutzer. Um we just wanted to go through the bid tab with you guys. So just so you know, we did have a good bid day turnout. We had uh five participants on bid day. Um our low bid was Ford asphalt. Um and as Mr. Stutzer said

075we're doing the entire site. So, it's a lot of asphalt. There's a lot of full direct repair replacement. So, we're going to actually cut out a lot of the asphalt that is currently there all the way down the subgrade and replace it back in full. So, there's a lot of repair work, a lot of intensive work that's going to happen. Um, and debriefing with Ford as we talked to them about their bid to make sure that they were comfortable with the numbers that they had provided. Um, they did let us know that uh to take about 6 weeks to do all this work. So, when we found that out, we kind of preliminary started to work with them about logistics. We are working at a high school site, meaning this is going to be busy

076throughout the summer. There's going to be people needed to come and go on the site. And so we have worked with them to phase around the site a little bit. So they're going to do it in thirds, so two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, always allowing some uh access into the site operational so that staff and students and patrons can still access the site, access the school as needed. Also, we're conscious of the building that's being removed next door. So um we've kind of coordinated all of that with them. that were happy with their bidday numbers and uh we're also happy to let you guys know that as part of the asphalt improvements we did a lot of concrete improvements and so those are removing a lot of the concrete that's around the track and

077then also what's around the concession stands making it more ADA accessible kind of leveling out some of those grades and and making those 2% or less so that if we have patrons that are there um they'll have a little bit easier time standing there to get their coffee and hot dog on a cold football night. So, um, just taking some of those things into, uh, consideration as we did that. And then, as Mr. Sutzer also, um, told you guys, we did alter number one. So, that is to fix some of the, uh, concrete work that's just on the, uh, parking lot side on the south side of the concession stand. So, basically, what we're going to have is a very good-looking, brand new parking lot in its entirety. Um, a new trash dumpster pad and

078lots of new concrete around the concession stands and the track. So, it should look very good as a a site in hole when we are complete. So, Um, with that, I'll open it up to you guys for questions. Any questions for the board? I have one. Just logistically, is it uh is the asphalt that you take up is that recycled? Is it or is are I guess my question is is it new asphalt going down or are we taking up what what we already have, recycling, and putting it back down? So, when they do take the asphalt away, they will take it back to the plant and they will recycle what they can. the new asphalt that we will bring in, we allowed up to 30% recycled content. So, it's not virgin asphalt and there's

079really no reason to do that. 30% recycled asphalt is kind of a APWA standard and so that's what we abided by here on this project. How long do we expect the the asphalt that's being laid down to last us? Um, like Mr. Sutzer said, it should last another 8 to 10 years. So, that's the life that it was there now. You can prolong that with some intermediate repairs and you know what we call crack fill and seal coat. Adding new oils to the asphalt makes it look nice and new. Those oils also keep water from migrating through the system. Um what happens is water migrates through the asphalt cuz it's porous gets down into the subgrade. It weakens it and then that's when you start to see what we call alligatoring or those cracks that

080happen in the asphalt. So um I would expect it to last at least 8 to 10 years. Yeah. And maybe longer with some maintenance. Yeah. or I just want to point out we have um been very transparent and owned when bids have ultimately come in and gone above the budget amount that was shared as an estimate early on. And um as Justin said, it was a good turnout for this. And as you'll see in the notes that the initial um budget for this was presented around $2 million and that the um proposed co project cost with contingencies is just over 1,700. So, um 1.7300,000 that ultimately could be used. Yes. Thank you. Um for other projects down the road, which is a celebration. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for calling that. I didn't want to.

081Any other questions? That's a heck of a deal. We almost approved $1,700. I don't think the contractor would be too want to go back to Yeah. Might have a tough conversation tomorrow. Yeah. All right. Any more discussion? All right. All those in favor say I. I. I. I. All those opposed say no. Eyes have it. A motion to approve CCR roofing to provide labor and materials for roof section replacement at Holland Beck Middle and Fairmont Elementary to include base bid plus alternate number two as presented. So moved. Shane with a motion. Second. Director Ponder. Uh would like to welcome director of You're here. I'm here. Um once again uh for your consideration board is a recommendation to award a construction contract for roofing re uh roofing roof section replacement at two sites uh Fairmont Elementary

082and Holland Beck Middle. Uh there's one section at Fairmont and two at Holland Beck Middle. The roof section that's being replaced at Fairmont uh has been in service for 21 plus years. and the two sections at Holland Beck have been in service for 25 plus years. I would like to highlight uh in 2016 at Hollandbeck um I think there's some storms came through and there was just a coating that was applied at that point in time to help it get by uh but the the framework overall for that roof system is 25 plus u years old. So generally roofs uh you can expect about 20 years of uh life expectancy and uh correct me if I'm incorrect Justin but I think on pending the board's approval the warranty for the new roof section is 20

083years correct. Okay. Um so pending your approval this project would commence at the conclusion uh of the academic year. Uh the total square footage of uh roof that we'll be replacing for those three sections is 31,000 square ft. Okay. So, I'll turn it over to Justin as Hollison and Miller handled the bid specifications and uh just like the asphalt improvements, they'll help administer the um construction administration pending your approval. Thank you, Mr. Settzer. So, I'll just start off with this one. Um we came in under budgets again. So, we had estimated on this one about 797,000. Um we tracked several projects uh in our office and we were coming in around $25 a square foot for similar projects like this. Um, we only had two biders on bid day, but that didn't really hurt us.

084Um, in this case, uh, we came in around $19 a square foot, which brought us to that total bid on bid day. We did have two biders. U both had worked with the school district in the past, both very reputable people. Um, I will let you know that we did reach out to other sources, other call roofing and others that we had worked with here in the past. Um, the storms that blew through in the late winter and early spring completely filled up their schedule. So, they were just unable to participate at this time. So, that's kind of the reasoning for the lower turnout, but we still are happy with the bid day numbers that we did receive. Um, in debriefing with CCR roofing, um, you know, they are very comfortable with their number. They're

085excited to get started. As a matter of fact, they actually called me today and asked me if they could go ahead and order materials. I asked them to hold off a day pending your guys' approval. So, they're ready to go. Um, for durations on this, uh, project, we're looking at about 8 days of work at Fairmont Elementary and then another 13 days at Holland. So their plan is to literally go to Fairmont, start and finish, and then take that crew and move directly over. So we've got about 3 4 weeks worth of work for them to do what they need to do on both sites. And then we are also um on Fairmont Elementary School, there are some solar panels. And so those will be removed and reinstalled as part of this project. So you'll

086continue to get that payback of that solar energy that you're receiving from those panels um for the next 20 or so years. So that was good news that we were able to salvage those and have those reinstalled. So, just a little bit of clarity on the solar panels. We we actually still have about 10 years of usable life on those. So, that's why we're going to install reinstall those. Uh the inverters are still good on those. And we had a third party uh verify that is is the whole roof. It's not the whole roofs, it's parts of the roofs. Yeah. Roof sections. And so, Fairmont specifically, it's really that large uh front portion of the building at the main entry. Um, if you actually get on Google Earth, you can see where the solar panels

087are. It's that exact roof section. And just a question about the solar panels. Are we seeing a good amount of return on our investment for their presence on the roofs? You know, that's a that's a good question. I'd have to pull some utility data. Um, they still have a lot of useful life to them for 10 years. And so I'd have to kind of go back and compare uh building energy utilization prior to them being installed and what that is today. And I just uh we've got a bond program we're trying to run and execute and so I haven't had the opportunity to do that. Sure. When you have time, I'm curious. I'd like to see if that's something worth looking into in the future. Okay. For other schools as well, if possible. I can

088expand on that a little bit. So as Mr. processor said we did have an electrical engineer come out and assess that system to make sure it was still good and operational. Um the alternate price was 1 or $16,417. So over the next 10 years that payback would need to be at least $1,600 to pay for itself and our engineer did feel that that was well within the realm of expectations on what we should see produced. So that's why it somewhat justified the putback of those. Absolutely. Yes. So we we did look at that before we accepted the alternate but as you mentioned the holistic approach on in terms of what the savings are. Mr. Whenever you have time sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So do we have to uh with the removal and the

089and the reinstallation of the solar panels? Do we have to bring in a third party or is the roofing company doing it? Roof company uh is handling it. Uh so and Justin can chime in here. What what I understand about the roofing industry is some uh have the training and are capable to do that and then there's others that will use a third party sub to perform that work. Uh this company does it all turnkey and uh we'll handle that scope uh internally. Are we protected if they get damaged at all? We are. Yes. Good. Any other questions we can uh answer for the board? All right. All those in favor say I. I. I. I. I. Releas. I. All those opposed say no. Motion passes. Thank you. Motion to approve authorizing the defecence, discharge,

090and payment of all or a portion of the district's general obligation bonds series 2020. the series 2020 bonds including but not limited to the 3,190,000 principal amount of the district's general obligation bonds series uh 2020 maturing on March 1st 2039 and the 10,600,000 principal amount of the district's general obligation bonds series 2020 maturing on March 1st 2040 and certain documents and actions as in connection therewith. So moved. Motion by Jane, second by uh we'll have Amy on this one. Amy a second. Uh and now we have our chief finance operations officer, Carol Embry. Good evening, board. Thank you. And I'll remind you, you can always tell when an attorney has written the motion. They are much more robust. So, as noted, we do have this opportunity uh to pay off outstanding general obligation debt. It's

091already embedded within the motion, but I'll reiterate that this is relative to series 2020 general obligation bonds, and it includes two parts. One is 3,190,000 and the other is 10,600,000. And the reason we have this opportunity is because we do have excess funds in the debt service account, the bank account. And you'll recall that when I presented to you about the debt fund, debt service levy uh contributes to that using our assessed valuation in the levy calculation. And we're allowed to keep one year's worth of payments. So if you have excess funds beyond your one year's worth of payments, then you have options in terms of how to address that. So because neither of these uh pieces of this bond issue are available for immediate payoff, there will be an escrow account that is established

092and that's a standard process. All of this information has been provided to us by our partners with Piper Sandler, Dr. Brent Blevens. You met him in November. And then our other partner is um Miss Ali Rafferty and she serves with Thompson Coburn uh attorney's office. So they vetted all the information, provided us the documentation and with your approval this evening, we'll move forward with addressing this uh this defeasence. Happy to answer any questions you have. I know I've asked this before, but in order to for clarity for people that maybe haven't thought about this. So, we're spending down debt. We are spending down debt. Yes. When we spend down that debt, uh what else are we not paying for? So, because this is the debt service fund that is funded by the debt levy that

093there's nothing that's not paid for. This is just excess funds that enable us to make extra payments. So there's actually no downside to paying. There is no downside. No, because we're not going to need or because our ability to leverage is what $3 billion or something like that. Actually, uh three approximately 350 million. I thought it was 3 million currently. Still a lot of money. Okay. That's after considering the exist. I just want to be sure that we're not paying down debt and then we'll regret it later because we need that funding for there is there is no downside to uh this opportunity. I think this is one of the more uh interesting conversations stuff that before being on the board I was not aware of but the idea that you have certain levy uh

094money that goes into one pocket that you pay all your operating expenses and you have a certain pocket that is all your debt related and what I'm hearing you say is money that's going in our debt service pocket can either be used to like do what what we have been doing or in this case pay extra principal correct and so this is nothing from your operating fund is losing out. This is just us using the pocket, our right pocket to pay for right pocket things. In this case, good stewardship includes paying down principal. Is that that's that's an accurate depiction. Missouri statute guides us in terms of how we keep these funds segregated. We are required by law to have a separate bank account for debt service funds so that we ensure that we are

095appropriately using those funds only for the retirement of debt that's been approved by our patrons. Any other questions? All right. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed to say no. Motion carries. All right. We have a motion to approve the project agreement, temporary construction easement agreement, and the roadway maintenance and utility easement agreement all with the city of St. Peters as presented and to authorize Dr. Kenneth Rumpus or Miss Carol Emmery to sign all related documents on the district's behalf. Do I have a motion? Motion. Um, director Ponder second second director uh vice president Grder and Carol's here. So this is basically a formality anytime you have governmental entities that uh share responsibilities for the same uh property if you will. Uh in this situation the city of St. Peters, director

096of transportation, reached out to me and shared that they have federal funds uh for addressing the St. Charles County Roadboard needs including the resurfacing of Jung Station Road from King's Crossing to Country Mill Court and they have a timeliness issue in terms of being able to meet that need. uh she indicated to me that June 1st is a deadline for them and uh so this is timely for you to consider. Again, it's a formality. All of the documents have been vetted by our legal counsel uh to ensure that they are appropriately identified and uh with this they will handle then the filing of all the easements that type of thing uh and be able to move forward with the work. So we have to grant temporary easements as well as other uh actions that are

097noted here uh that gives them permission if you will to do that work within our property boundaries. Any questions? I do. This this authorization that we're giving for Dr. Rmpos and and yourself, Miss Embry, to sign all the documents. Is there this is just for this project? Correct. Okay, cool. I was because I know lose you so I don't you know I want to think ahead. Wait hold on. Okay I got it. Just this project and any any property in the future that would be impacted you would have separate documents uh in each situation. Thank you. [Music] Anything else? All right. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed say no. The eyes have it. All right. U next one. A motion to approve the final bus lease rental ECSC/ special education

098as presented. So moved. Director Kushkar. Uh seconded by director Ponder. Back to you. So basically the board of education approved this during the November meeting in 2024. And for your recollection, this is relative to our early childhood special education buses that we rent. We must rent buses when it is applied to early childhood special education because that's the only way that we receive the dollar fordoll reimbursement of our costs. So what this includes then is the documentation for Sand Tander and Midwest and the district. And uh it does uh represent a slight decline in the total that was originally planned for because we modified the two-way radios. Recently you approved a different radio for our buses and uh so now this uh has been modified to reduce the radio cost out of these buses. So

099it was originally 4,ion313175 over a 5-year period and it's now 4,178580. So again, it's a formality that our attorney uh recommends and all documentation has been vetted by the attorney. Any conversation? Just want to share for the public if you're thinking that we're just not asking questions, it's because we've had this information ahead of time to think through and process and she's been responsible um in those conversations, too. So, um Okay. Sometimes she answers her questions four times. Yeah. Sometimes she ask she answers her questions. Happy to do so. Yeah. And we appreciate you. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. Motion passes. A motion to approve the finance and operations report as presented. So move. Motion by director Pushkar. Second by director Ponder. Okay. So, uh this evening

100we are providing for your consideration a budget amendment and transfer report that uh does show our fund balance uh as projected at this point in time at 29.2% including the budget amendment before you this evening. You'll note that there are no recommended changes for the revenue budget in the current FY25 year, but we do have a $2 million increase on expenditures relative to benefits. This slide shows you the total budget amendments that have been brought forward throughout the year and for revenue. And this slide shows you expenditures. This shows you the detail line. It's relative to employee insurance. We found ourselves in need of making yet another transfer. So you'll recall that we transferred $4 million already to help the fund be propped up so we can pay the bills that are collected from us

101by our third party processor. and we needed to transfer another two million. The uh fund balance trajectory now with this new budget amendment and not including the state adequacy target increase does show us dropping uh each year and headed towards a 13.86% but that's uh a few years out in FY28. So I'll comment about this state adequacy target. So, the the House and the Senate did uh recommend a budget that includes full funding of that second phase, which is $385 per student measure. I've shared with you multiple times that in our district, that could mean $6.4 million. Originally, we budgeted half because we didn't feel confidence uh for future revenue growth that we would receive that where it is now. So that occurred on May 9th on Friday and uh the session actually ends tomorrow.

102So there still still are considering other bills that could impact public education. So May 16th is the end of the session and then uh the governor then has a window of time all the way to June 30 of 2025 to review all line item requests and and veto out uh or remove certain requests or modify uh numbers. So that clarity on what the state adequacy target will be won't be known until June 30 and um then it would become a matter of will it be funded and so we need to be thoughtful about what we uh consider for the budget moving forward and we'll continue to engage with you on that. This next slide shows you the bond financials and as you can see uh we have $4.3 million that we have not yet committed.

103I want to um mention also that um the information that was shared earlier if you note on the screen uh that Mr. Stutzer presented those are relative to capital funds. So that's fund four. The bond fund of course is kept separate just like the debt service fund is maintained separately. The next slide is our self- insurance summary and both the bond fund financial and the self- insurance report are posted separately. the entire report uh each month for your review. And as you can see, when we compare July through April for FY24 versus FY25, in spite of the $6 million infusion that's included on that revenue line that's highlighted in gold, we are still short compared to the balance that we had maintained at the end of April in 2024. So that was 3,173 and we

104uh currently in at the end of April had been 552,252. The other uh unfortunate news and I've shared it with you uh during these meetings is that the um the health insurance committee met on May 6th to hear from Marsh McClennon Agency, our district broker about the uh current projection of our health insurance increase for next year. And at that point in time it was seated at 20.7% increase within our operating budget we have 8%. So I appreciate the conversation earlier about the debt fund and the important thing to understand about the operating fund is it does pay for all people and benefits. So any transfer out of the operating fund or any additional budget allocation to cover health insurance costs will further uh be uh a detriment in terms of what we're able to

105do for salary and and benefits negotiations in the future. So, just want to highlight that it's all the same uh bucket of money and we will have another meeting on May 27th with the employee health insurance group and um the goal would be that we reach consensus to make recommendation for the board of education for your consideration. I'm just curious, Carol, do they give you at those meetings, do they give you an idea of what makes up the um increased cost? Is it catastrophic? Is it GOP? or do you know they didn't get into a lot of specificity that was our first meeting once the committee was selected and I'm expecting that we'll have additional detail information in the upcoming meeting so this is just a reminder uh and I just commented about all of

106that basically so I can move on from the new information for planning purposes as we are developing the FY26 budget uh Mr. Durham was here this evening with Mr. Stutzer and a reminder the Hollis and Miller U facility master plan work continues and the survey is closing tomorrow and I'm not sure where the number is now but we had already received approaching I think 7 to 800 responses from employees. So we're we're pretty pleased with that. Again uh giving them an opportunity to share their experiences in their buildings. uh the demographic study work that continues as well and that will complement the facility master planning work. The whole intention of that is to provide all of you a roadmap on what the needs are in the district in the future and as you well know

107the budget development work continues and I'll be back up for a very brief presentation later. So in the June meeting uh we normally have recommended the health insurance uh information during a May meeting and so uh we'll be exploring what are our other options to get your uh approval on the health insurance maybe before the June 5 meeting. Uh and then typically we would provide you with that full budget recommendation June 5. Then you would have a few weeks and then you would vote on it uh during the June 20 meeting. As a reminder, just like the state of Missouri, we're required to land the budget and have approval of a budget before we roll into July 1. Uh the statute indicates that if a budget isn't approved, then it replicates our existing budget. So,

108but you have any questions, I'm happy to answer those. I don't recall what did you say when that demographic study completes? You know, I checked on that the other day to seek an update and uh they just are still in the throws of gathering a lot of data and uh I'm expecting that they'll wrap up probably within the next 3 weeks on their portion of it and then that will that data will be provided to uh Hollis and Miller for including within their work. But we can certainly bring information to the board once we have that piece of it. Earlier you mentioned that the uh Prop S bond fund still has $4.3 million in it. That number has been the same for a little while. U my question was whether or not there's conversations on

109when that needs to be purchased by because I know it can't sit there forever. And then what is the plan for uh projects be presented? So, as I've engaged with bond counsel on that, uh, so long as we have a very clear intention and I would offer to you and, um, you know, the teams of people doing the work are feeling it, we have moved a lot forward very quickly. So, I'm very thankful and appreciative of that. Uh, we were waiting for all the final numbers to come in on the other projects and then would bring recommendation to you for those next projects. So, at this point in time, I feel confidence I I had learned there was a three-year window, but that it extended to a 5-year period of time. And so, so long

110as we keep moving forward and don't pause uh in making recommendations and you approving them and getting the work done, we should be fine. Thank you. Anything else? All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. The eyes have it. Motion to approve the purchases as presented. Second. Director Pushkar the motion second with the director Ponder. Any conversations? All right. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. Eyes have it. And now if you want to look there our policies and regulations areformational only at this time it will be will be brought back for a second reading and vote in June. Start by taking a look at the first reading for the policy and regulations. Um now we look at curriculum first reading. Uh these curriculum items areformational

111only at this time as well. They will be brought back for second reading and vote in June. Was there any comments from the board on that at this time? All right, moving on. We have a motion to approve the curriculum documents as presented. Second. Motion by director Pushkar and second by Director Ponder. A board. Any questions or discussions? Looks good. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed say no. Motion carries. And now we are at presentations. We have a brain pop presentation. We like to welcome Dr. Meredith Bates, instructional technology content leader to present. Or I'll just introduce Meredith. Uh Meredith is one of our two instructional technology content leaders. And at our last meeting, you asked for a little information about BrainPOP. And so Meredith is one of the

112two leaders in our district who helped facilitate that. So she's here tonight just to share a high level overview of the tool and how we use it in our classrooms. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to come back and speak on this again. You having fun yet? It's past my bedtime. Okay. So today I'm here to give you, like Connie said, a brief broadlevel overview. And my goal for tonight is to give you a better understanding of what BrainPOP is, what it's capable of, what its intentions are as far as an instructional tool, and how it fits into instructional time. So, previously we had an active subscription for K through 8th grade. And basically in a nutshell, BrainPOP is known for being a digital video content library with short digestible animated videos on complex

113content that break it down for younger audiences. So, while some of that content is available for free on YouTube, without an active subscription, what our teachers are missing out on are the integrated tools and features that allow them to differentiate and extend with each video is a curated ecosystem that BrainPOP develops according to standards of all kinds. So they align to Missouri state learning standards and they have leveled content based on the standard and based on the content itself. So it highlights what the students are learning and allow them to connect it with other content areas and the world around them. There's also leveled assessments with each video that help the teacher gather instructional data to make informed decisions. And BrainPUP also provides a whole teacher page of support that helps them to not only

114find the videos that they need and the content along with it, but also use the data that they're getting to differentiate. And it's not a very broad level where it's, oh, you could try these instructional methods. It is to differentiate this video or this activity in this way for this kind of learner. Do this. So it's very explicit and helps guide teachers very easily to make those [Music] modifications. So what it does is basically support instruction and best practice instructional strategies. Like I mentioned earlier, it aligns with Missouri learning standards, but it also aligns with our strategic plan and our instructional framework. RIPOP is continuously looking at their content library and evaluating and updating it to align not only with the standards but with the needs of students and teachers. They support assessment and data

115collection. They have tools that allow teachers to easily personalize learning paths for students, modify, accommodate, differentiate, and use the data that they get. They meet diverse student needs. They have a multilingual movie player. They're compatible with Microsoft Immersive Reader. They provide leveled pause points, speed adjustments, and close captioning to their videos. They're engaging. Students really enjoy seeing these recurring characters. They use humor in their movies. And they are friendly and inspire curiosity from learners. They have gamified assessments which allow students to demonstrate their learning in a way that is more engaging and less like filling out a test. And they also align with our digital citizenship kind of initiatives where we want students to be safe and respectful online. They have the ISTY steel seal of alignment and they integrate digital citizenship and literacy. So,

116these are some of the topics that got the most views when we had an active subscription. Social studies, science, ELA, and math. Social studies had over 30,000 views. Science had over 29,000. ELA had 8,500, and math had 6,000. And you might notice that you see supply and demand under both social studies and math. I think that's important to call out because learning doesn't happen in a silo. And it's really important that our students make the connection that they're learning more than one thing at once. So BrainPOP helps them bridge that gap and see the connection between classes, between content, and bridge the gap to the world around them. I can tell you it was really um shocking when my first grader came home and started talking to me about economics and Barbies. She made the

117connection with the world around her and supply and demand. I think we call that transfer. Yes. Yes. She was very um persistent about why she didn't want the one on sale because nobody else wanted it. So when we look at what it does to support as a supplemental resource, it's very robust. If I was a middle school social studies teacher teaching a unit about the American Revolution, it is designed to be a supplement to my instruction. It's not designed to replace me or provide a comprehensive curriculum. It allows the teacher the tools to make those instructional informed decisions based on what I know about my students and what I know about my content. These are like allocart topics or activities that I can use per student, per day, per standard to really meet my students

118needs. So I can differentiate within the video and the accompanying resources. I can have them build the vocabulary if they need to. I can do some time zone which is taking it's an interactive timeline where they're given dates of historical events and they are organizing them in a broader context. So it might start out with uh something that happened at the Boston Tea Party and then Taylor Swift. So starts out very easy but then it gets more difficult to decide where and when something happened in history. I can do some experiential learning which is my favorite part of brain pop where I am demonstrating what I know in a creative way while also experiencing a different content in the context of it. So I could be showing you what I know about the American Revolution

119by coding a museum where you click on different artifacts that I choose and that will tell you how that relates to the American Revolution. So within that coding experience, I am practicing computer science, um algorithmic thinking, computational thinking, troubleshooting. So that building that perseverance all while demonstrating and letting the teacher gather that understanding and that data of how I'm doing as a student. So in instructional time when students are getting on Brain Pop per grade level, this is kind of the recommended use you would see in a classroom. For our earliest learners, kindergarten through 2 grade, you would see it maybe two to three times a week. These are short 5 to 10 minute chunks. They are going to be doing them whole group. So I'm not just sitting there watching a movie. BrainPOP really

120encourages more of an interactive experience. We are watching bits, turning and talking to each other. It becomes more of an active learning experience rather than passive. For intermediate, we're going to transition from BrainPOP Junior to BrainPOP. And you're going to see more of a mixed access. So depending on the content area, students might access it three to five times a week or they might just review with a video or uh refresh their memory, build some content knowledge. And then once we move to secondary or middle school, this is where it becomes more specialized and the frequency is more targeted. Students might access Brain Pop every day for the duration of a unit and then the next unit they won't access it at all. So, it's very intentional in its use. All levels and all aspects

121of BrainPOP include that teacher support that I mentioned earlier where it provides you very explicit suggestions for how to modify the content based on student need. So now that we have a better understanding of what BrainPOP is capable of, these are some direct quotes from Francis How teachers about how they used it in their instruction and the impact that it made on their teaching. So I'll let you take a few minutes to take a gander at that. One of the things that I noticed in reaching out for feedback and quotes and talking with teachers through the years in this position is that they use BrainPOP, no matter the grade level, no matter the content, as a tool to easily differentiate, modify, and extend learning to meet the needs of all of our students because it's

122all baked into that curated ecosystem per video, which is also aligned to the standard with a subscription. You can search by standard on YouTube. You're kind of hoping somebody tagged it right. So, and finally, these are the subscription components to the brain pop package as a whole. And this is what really sets them apart as a supplemental resource because in these buckets, they are really defining their audience and able to specialize the platform. So the look of how the students are accessing the material in addition to the content. So what questions can me and my friend Moby answer for you guys? Is Canva the LMS that's used across the entire district? Canvas. Canvas design tool. Yes. Canva. Canvas, you know, it's all it's it's me. Canvas, nice place number. Yes. Does Brain Pop integrate with

123Canvas? Yes. Okay. So, teachers could put the assignments from BrainPOP into Canvas. It's not a true LTI the way that Google is. Okay. But you could direct students to access through it, but we also use Clever. Okay. Um I'm familiar. Mhm. Okay. Awesome. Um, and I'm noticing that you really highlighted the crosscurricular application of the tool. Um, when we look at how BrainPOP has been used in the past, are we seeing it used a lot? Like what's the what would you say half of the district, 25% of the district, 8 through 8ish? I'm used in what in what would you categorize? Well, I'm hearing it I'm hearing it in a couple ways. I'm hearing it as a supplemental tool. I'm hearing it as differentiated um ways to learn. So, I'm imagining perhaps small groups. So,

124if whole class instruction isn't working, maybe a small group gets a brain pop assignment and it helps them work through something that was more difficult of a concept possibly. Um I'm imagining kids if they're all done with their curricular work, maybe Brain Pop is there to enrich. Yes. Um, so I'm kind of imagining it kind of being this universal academic plugin. Um, that seems to be something that our teachers enjoy and rever. Correct. And we had really good usage steadily. We were sub active subscribers for a very long time and our usage remained steady throughout that whole portion. Um, as far as using all of the features, we were those are pretty new in the realm of BrainPOP. So if you're looking at overall usage, we were there. Okay. And and would Brain Pop fit

125into that multi-tiered support system model, the MTSS that were Yes, that helps. Thank you. Have a question. Um I'm trying I was sitting here thinking about how to present this because I couldn't come up with a good example and I think I just found one. How often is it updated? Is it and the what the example I came up with was like you know when we were well I shouldn't say we but when most of us were growing up we had nine planets in our solar system and now Pluto is not a planet anymore maybe it is again I don't really know it's not dwarf moon but it was and now it's not so if things like that happen how is it updated when is it updated who's who opinion are they using yeah the

126content and the videos uh so they they consult subject matter experts and then They have their educational experts and they work together in a team to develop these videos. Um, as they do system updates over the summer because that makes sense. Sure. I I have never asked how often they do content updates, but you see very relevant references in their videos. So, I would assume it is ongoing. Well, I just if my child comes home and says, "Daddy, we have nine planets." And I would say, "Yes, I know that." And then these people up here might say, "No, we don't. We have eight." And Mr. Dellay is over here saying, "Yeah, eight." Right? And and then how do we know how many? Well, you're going to check more than one source. I I think so

127that that's my point is I I think maybe we, you know, and I would like to understand how it's updated when it's updated, whose facts or opinions are saying Pluto is or isn't a planet, for example. And and and so they would go to the subject matter experts, so scientists and astrologers and people like that. I would hope so. Don't open me because I I'll say not. I would also remind you just that our our teachers are previewing materials before they're using it. So, if they were to pull up a video and there was something inaccurate in it, they might choose not to use that video um for the activity or the lesson or the small group or or whatever. Well, that leads me to my next question. If there is something that is inaccurate,

128is it available or is there a a submission available for the teachers to say, "Hey, I just came across this. This is inaccurate. submit it to Brain Pop for removal, deletion, edit, or even send it to our own teachers or Yeah. and send it to our folks as well. Say, "Hey, I just found this. This is inaccurate. Can we don't use this video? Pluto is not a planet anymore." We in the education profession, we can consistently do that. We can look into it. I don't know that I've ever heard of that happening to know for us to know that there is that possibility. But Meredith is in frequent contact with the vendor and so I think we found something we would certainly share that information. Yeah. Well, and forgive my example because I just came

129up with it. But sure, we can look into it. Yeah. Thanks. I didn't know this was new to me actually that they will align with um Missouri state standards. Yeah, they align with a lot of different state standards, national standards. So, we can select basically Yeah, with that standards alignment tool, you would go in and say, I'm looking for ELA 2.3, what have you. And if they have any content aligned to it, it would pull it up. You'd have the video and any corresponding activities, graphic organizers, games, assessments, right there. And they're all leveled. Excellent. Well, thank you for this. This was Yeah. Can you can you give us any um idea of or maybe you need to contact them to do this? Find out how they update for current um legal or federal requirements

130because that could affect funding for the schools and we need more money not less. Could you elaborate on like what sort of federal Well, the like I think there's a move forward to do away with DEI and I think that was one of the reasons that um and I'll speak I don't like to speak for other people or other boards, but I believe that was one of the Stop smiling. I believe that was one of the reasons that the subscription was discontinued. The world has changed since then. There's new federal requirements. Um, like I said, I just I think we need some assurances that they're they are aligned with those federal requirements because they're not going to be the ones that are going to lose the money. We are I can certainly ask any other

131what's the cost? Have we gotten to that point yet? Well, that would be part of the June 5th presentation. Thank you. So, this will be more of anformational uh presentation and then we'll decide. Great. Thank you. This is more asking questions about women. Can I ask my highlevel questions then to go along with your presentation? Just I don't expect answers to these. Just I look forward to answering it. So number one would be are we utilizing all the resources already included with curricula that we've already approved? How are teachers incorporating that in the class? Are we fully utilizing that? Two, what other resources have been considered in addition or besides brain pop? And part A of that question would be, are there free resources that could provide the same thing to make to go along

132with with meeting our curriculum needs? So, this bra takes student data. So I I I don't know how Scott would feel, but I would probably say the same as me where if it's free, I'm not giving it any information. So, okay. And then four would be how does the effectness of brain pop get evaluated? So going along with as far as matching up with pillar one, we're supposed to be by 2030 70%. We're supposed to be on on track or better at certain scores. I have it down here and I look, but how do we evaluate BrainPOP along with the curriculum to make sure it's truly effective in meeting the needs of the district? I'd be curious how how that is really evaluated. And then the final final question would be is what does the

133new academic officer bring to the table regarding brain pop? Does he have experience with something else that would go along with item number two and number three? What does he bring to the table of being new to the district? So, those are my questions. So, Rockwood uses Brain Pop. They have a Brain Pop subscription. There you go. I like I said, I don't expect an answer to all of these as those are questions out there. Zoomalt and St. Charles. So, but not all the count not all the schools in this county use Brain Pop. There are other resources. Have we checked with them to see what they use? How do they use it? What do they use? So yeah, we can look into those things. Yeah, that's thanks. One of the things too that she

134mentioned with the the paid version too on the assessment side just to be able to school I mean they get real-time feedback basically right on how the kids are progressing and things like that. So yeah and with the teacher dashboard I'd imagine that they can see growth. They can see growth and then from that dashboard they can do the individualized learning paths. So I see a group of students needs some reteing or review and a group of students needs some extension. It is literally a click of a button to provide that curated e ecosystem activity for those students and get more data back. I understand that but understand that that is totally different and we evaluate their usage by orally 70% of students and 50% of students in a student group achieving at proficient or

135advanced levels in all tested areas. So how did my question is I I could give a rip how they score on a brain pop question. How does it match up with our strategic plan and how was it evaluated as to whether or not it's helping us or it's providing nothing if we're going to spend on money on something that really isn't improving. So that's we understand the question. I we committed um as the board asked more questions about different resources and technology tools the last couple of years we committed providing data. Um sometimes it's around usage, sometimes it's around outcome and performance. Um but we anything that we're investing in, we want to make sure that it's being used, that it's supporting the work of instruction for our students. So um we'll work to get

136that information. If the recommendation is to utilize it, uh we would share how we would be incorporating some of those measurements. Any other questions? Thank you for the presentation. Thank you. We would like to invite Miss Jennifer Joles, chief communications officer to present an update on the district strategic plan board. As Miss Jolles goes to the podium, u thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit of an update tonight around our strategic plan. Um it's always an exciting opportunity when you create the new one because as a district we get to come together and really reestablish where we want to be in the future and who we want to be as an organization. And that's what this represents. And I know that President Blair opened the meeting tonight. I'm asking people to share

137it up. It was posted around the room um hoping that more people are accessing and looking at it. It really is critical when we think about setting uh the direction for the district and establishing our priorities and our goals moving forward. We've heard a lot tonight about the fiscal resources we have and the reality is they're limited. And so um looking at our strategic plan, are we investing in our people um in our resources that we would use for instruction in our students? and the strategic plan really provides that clarity. I continue to be proud of the work the team has done to create uh the initial draft and the others that have contributed to it. Um this update will focus a little bit on the work the pillar teams have been doing over the

138last couple of months. As a reminder, the board approved the overall focus areas, goals, and key performance indicators previously so we don't keep coming back to the board for reapproving the plan. At this point, it will be providing updates throughout the year around the work that's happening each year and then additional approvals will come through the budget or through specific resources, programs, and or people that might be tied to the strategic plan. So, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Jules, who's really led our work internally as we prepare this, and she'll speak to where we're at moving forward. Thank you, Dr. Rumpus. And for those who were wondering about Director Ponder's comment about Pluto, I had a chance to look it up. It it did not actually disappear. It just was reclassified in

1392006 as a dwarf planet because it failed two of the three criteria required to be a planet. Who knew? So, was the criteria say that? I didn't memorize all of that, but a quick Google will tell you something about it has to orbit. So, I know for sure that one of the things it doesn't like circle the sun like in an exact circle. It's like an oval. It's not regular. That's one of the ones that it doesn't do. Learn something new every day. You learn that on brain. I might have. I have been a Brain Pop user and I personally do love Tim and Moby. So, very good. All right. Sorry to take us off topic. I just wanted to share that that piece of information. So, we are excited to share an update with

140the community about the work that's been happening around the strategic plan over the last few months. Um, first we'll start with just a quick review for how we got here. I know we have some new board members and maybe some folks in the audience who haven't seen the other presentation. So, as many of you recall, we kicked off the strategic planning process about 16 months ago. We had a board workshop in January of 2024 and that provided four focus areas for the district which ultimately became the four pillars in the strategic plan. We then spent about five months gathering input from stakeholders across the district, parents, students, staff, leaders, community members. And during this phase, we launched a series of surveys and roundts and facilitated several focus group activities to get feedback. During phase three,

141a 21 member strategic planning team convened and created an initial draft of the plan. This plan along with the key performance indicators was presented to the board and community initially in October last fall for feedback. Then we took feedback, made some adjustments and last November the board approved the highle strategic plan that you have at your seats and that others can access with the QR codes around the room. We are now in phase five and the work over the last six months has been focused on developing the specific strategies and action steps needed to accomplish the KPIs and lofty goals established in the plan. Pillar teams made up of various stakeholders met between January and March to develop an initial list of strategies and action steps for consideration. They presented these to executive cabinet for

142feedback in April. And then we shared those with principles earlier this month. And so I just want to take a moment again to recognize and thank our pillar teams and pillar leaders who have been working behind the scenes to further refine this plan and get us to this point. They've spent a great deal of time and effort on top of their regular job responsibilities and we're grateful for the many voices that help shape the product that we're going to share with you today. So again, you have this at your seat. Um, for those in the audience, as I mentioned, you can access this either on the district website under the about tab, strategic plan. It lives there, but you can also scan the QR code if you want to follow along. And we'll just do

143a quick review of the components that are in the strategic plan before we go down to that next layer that will be new that we're sharing with you tonight. So, this is all review. So, the mission of the Francis House School District has already been referenced tonight. It is to empower students to be lifelong learners prepared for the future. This has been the mission for many years and we believe it will continue to serve us well. Um the vision statement, some of you have referenced those as well. Um so you can read these five statements. These were approved in November and they really helped to describe the future that we want to create here at Francis How really centered around looking out to the year 2030 and the type of district that we want to

144be. The strategic planning team also refined a list of five core values that you see here um that we want all members of the Francis How community to model and uphold. So, um, these again are new language and we'll be sharing this out with the community more over the summer and into next school year and really, um, hope to rally some folks around these new values. And finally, our priorities. Um, as Dr. Rumpus reiterated in his opening comments, the purpose of a strategic plan is to set the direction and establish priorities for the district that ultimately allows us to align resources and efforts to ensure we are meeting the needs of our students, staff, and community. And we know that to achieve the lofty goals we've set for ourselves, we must be disciplined and focused

145on the most important work and this plan helps us do that. The plan goes on to identify specific focus areas within the four pillars and we'll get to those in just a moment. Um just a few things that I want to note. Um as we present the next layer of work, you'll you'll note this is not a flashy plan. Um there are very few shiny objects in this plan. Our pillar teams really focused on the foundational impactful work that we believe we must do to move the district forward over the next 5 years. So you might not feel super excited when you read about the work that must be done, but we believe the excitement will come in the form of wins. The impact will be exciting. So all kids reading on grade level will

146be exciting. All students feeling safe will be exciting. I also want you to understand that action steps with more specificity about the who, what, when, and the timelines and budget. All of that will be embedded within the strategy. So we won't get into all that minutiae today, but rest assured that those details will be in place to ensure that we have effective implementation plans and can monitor and report on those appropriately. Um we've already talked about how the strategic plan is intended to provide direction and focus our efforts on the work that matters. Uh it will also ensure that our school improvement plans and individual department plans are aligned so that all staff members are working toward the same priorities. Um the last thing I'll note is that this plan is really intended to guide

147the district for the next five years. And for that reason, some of the strategies are written with broad language so that they can serve the district for those full five years. And then the action plans will include specific items that will happen um during timelines within those five years each year of the plan. So with that in mind, um you do have at your seats, I think it was inside of that um branded one, you have the unbranded, just the white plain table. Um that's the new information that we're sharing for the first time, sharing with you for the first time tonight. And so um what you see on these blue slides as I move through the four pillars this is the um the the KPIs or the measures of success that you already approved

148and then we'll move on to um the white slides you'll see which will be the strategies or the new information that I'm sharing with you tonight. So on this slide uh under the teaching and learning learning pillar which is pillar one you'll see four strategies that will help us achieve our student achievement goals. Um, I'll move through this pretty quick, but the four strategies within academic achievement involve implementing an instructional framework that helps teachers be better teachers, ensuring that supplemental resources across the district are consistent and of appropriate quality and rigor, implementing consistent assessment and grading practices, and implementing proficiency scales in all subjects and grade levels. Within the student support bucket, we'll be developing a district-wide multi-tered systems of support plan, establishing a team to develop effective frameworks and practices, and developing master schedules

149that help us better support student learning. And for the final pillar one bucket, college and career. The work will focus on diving into the data to better understand what skills our students need to be successful in the world. Establishing a comprehensive college and career readiness framework aligned to workforce needs and expanding real world hands-on learning opportunities for students. Moving on to pillar two, people and workforce. We established three KPIs or measures of success that are focused around staff satisfaction, staff retention, and teacher certification. So under workforce planning, we will focus on two primary strategies. Approaching workforce planning in a systematic way and hiring a thirdparty provider to conduct a staffing analysis to ensure we have appropriate staffing levels at all uh levels of the organization. Under staff recruitment, the work will focus on developing an

150annual recruiting plan, fostering strong relationships with university and college partners to create a pipeline for future teachers, working collaboratively with our labor associations to ensure salary and working conditions are where they need to be to attract top quality teachers and staff and reviewing and potentially enhancing employee benefits such as parental leave. The final focus area of pillar two is about staff retention. Strategies here include improving culture and climate across the district, creating a teacher work calendar that maximizes staff development and student learning, developing ideas to encourage staff to extend their careers and delay retirement, and finally promoting and rewarding teacher attendance. Pillar three is focused on finance and operations and the three KPIs in this area are keeping the fund balance at 15% or higher, having zero findings in regular audits, and continuing to ensure

151we are spending taxpayer funds effectively. Under resource allocation, we will focus on identifying additional revenue sources such as grants, donations, and partnerships and continuing to analyze expenditures across the district to ensure we are utilizing our limited resources on the district's top priorities. In terms of process improvement, we will complete the demographic study and facilities master plan work that is already underway. Look for ways our departments can function more efficiently, ensure written operating procedures are in place, and better align planning processes and perpetual calendars with resources. For the final focus uh area of pillar three, service and compliance, the work will involve continued efforts to educate the community about district finances, making sure we are appropriately prepared for audits, and reviewing our financial procedures to see where improvements can be made. Our fourth and final pillar

152is safety and security. And you'll see the three KPIs here are really about ensuring our students and staff feel safe at school and in their workplaces, conducting emergency drills with diligence, ensuring our schools are appropriately secured, and mitigating cyber security risks. Um, see, there are three strategies within the culture, climate, and communication focus area. The work will involve developing and implementing a safe schools curriculum intended to decre decrease bullying and harassment among students, increasing opportunities for student voice and attachment, and better promoting and expanding opportunities for parents and community members to be involved in our schools in the district. It's important to note that while the strategy around parental involvement lives here in pillar 4, some of the action steps will also positively impact our teaching and learning goals in pillar one as well as

153other areas. Under physical security, the work will involve regular safety and security audits at all buildings, enhanced safety training for staff and administrators, a dedicated security team to oversee safety efforts districtwide, and continued efforts to strengthen partnerships with local law enforcement and first responders. And the final focus area within pillar 4 involves the security of student and staff data. In this area, the team will be focused on reducing the likelihood of cyber attacks, ensuring laptops and other network devices are appropriately updated, supported, and secured, and providing staff training on cyber security, furpa, AI, and other technology topics. I know that was very fast, but again, you've got the handout there at your seat, so you can look at it a little more closely. Um, so really what's next? So pillar teams are currently creating action

154plans with specific timelines and responsibilities. They will finalize those later this month or early June so we can be in a great position to start the school year off strong. Any items that would have a budgetary impact would follow the district's established approval processes. So if there are any initiatives that would require staffing or purchases over $25,000, those would come before the board following those um typical processes. Um, still to come, executive cabinet and the strategic planning team will review the work of the pillar teams and ensure there is alignment with the stakeholder feedback they reviewed during phase three. We will ask incoming superintendent Dr. Dominguez to weigh in on this plan as well. And then in early June, the school improvement planning process kicks off with administrators and teacher leaders and the intention is

155that this plan will be ready to drive that SIP work so we can get that alignment we talked about. We'll be highlighting our new vision statements and core values as we welcome new teachers and staff and administrators this summer. and we will be diligent about monitoring progress and making sure u making adjustments as needed to ensure the best outcomes. Our intention would be to provide a formal update to the board and community four times a year. Those presentations will look at what we've accomplished over the previous several months and what's ahead for each pillar. And then we'll develop a visual KPI scorecard that would be updated. Many of the items lend themselves to just updating once a year. The ones that can be updated more often would be updated more often. that that would be

156posted to the district website so that folks can monitor our progress in a very transparent way. Um we also envision that the strategic planning team will come together twice a year throughout these next five years to review progress and recommend adjustments that may need to be made so that this really is a living document and we can be responsive to things that may be changing and adjustments that need to be made. Was a lot of words in a very short amount of time. That's really the update I have for you. And again, just a big thank you to the pillar leaders um and all the pillar teams who have been working diligently to put that next layer um on this plan. So, we'll continue to keep you and the community updated as progress in the

157work moves forward. [Music] Questions? Excellent. Thank you, Jen. I would I would say what this is exciting. This is really exciting. I mean that's the only disagreement I have and I think everybody who sees this will be excited about it too. Really thoughtful work. Thank you. Well done. Thank you. And now like to welcome director of facilities and operations Saloon Ster to present our construction update. This is our quarterly update. All right. Uh, thank you, President Blair. Again, uh, district leadership's commitment continues to provide, uh, bond and and also capital project updates on a quarterly basis. And so, I'm going to jump right into it. Uh, just a couple of opening comments. Um, you'll see through the slides that the work is ongoing. All the the partners are doing the best they can, but we

158April was the wetest. uh April in St. Louis history uh in the 137 years that we've been tracking participation uh in the St. Louis area. So we had uh 10.85 in of rain in April alone uh that impacts u a lot of site work and uh you'll see some of those limitations in the presentation. So, we'll jump right into it. And again, we always try to give just a highlight of uh the process timeline that it took to get to the necessary approvals uh from the board for the work to advance. So, I won't articulate those are in front of you. You can uh review those at your leisure. Uh really just want to highlight the progress that's taken place. So, over at Henderson, uh this is the classroom storm shelter edition. The slide on

159the left is the um exterior of the building. They have they've actually done all the masonry work. They're currently on the south elevation uh working towards kind of the center part where the connector is. And so you can see how wet the ground is. Uh fortunately, we don't have a whole lot of sight work to perform. We've got the scaffolding there that's for the most part fairly stationary. And as they move around the building, uh they're able to move that around to uh do perform the masonry. On the inside, uh you can see we have paint on the walls. Uh so progress is really moving along nicely. The roof uh is in place. We just have to do some uh some uh metal uh banding around the top once the masonary uh work on the

160exterior is complete. On the interior, you can also see all the all the duck runs uh are complete. Uh they're working on the the insulators were there working today to insulate all of the supply lines for uh water and also refrigerant. um case work has also arrived on site and so as soon as uh we're able to provide whether it's permanent or uh permanent or temporary uh conditioning of the space obviously we don't want to install the case work for the restrooms if the the space is not conditioned uh it's woodwork it'll start warping and we'll have to uh uh to pivot. So very pleased at least on the interior how that's going. Uh tenatively right now we have another meeting uh here in the next week or so. Tenatively we're hoping to have at

161least the interior of the classroom storm shelter edition sitting there ready for furniture late June, early July. Uh that that'll be dependent on what we're able to complete between now and then. This is the uh gym edition. Uh, a lot of progress actually has taken place since these pictures were taken. Uh, all the exterior CMU walls are complete. Uh, the the area above the CMU walls is framing and the crews are there. They've actually got those areas framed out and now they're putting on a product called Dens Glass. Um, that that'll serve as an insulator as they work inside. Uh, yesterday the floor was poured. As you can see in these pictures, you got all the underground electrical uh and plumbing already uh in place. And so the the floor for the gym was poured

162and crews continue to make nice progress there. Moving over to Fairmont. Again, this is a project uh that was delayed getting out of the ground. Uh we ran into some some permitting challenges. Um but as we work through those, we really lost almost three months of uh schedule. and so and and compounded by rain as well. So right now um as you see here, we've got the footings for that uh class edition in place. I was on site today and the plumbers and electricians are doing their underground roughins for for this edition. Hopefully they'll get that completed. We'll start going vertical and get the slab cord and get to the point where the Henderson gym edition is at the uh softball baseball complex of France Central. That project is been complete I think really for

163a couple really early April and so this is the final product. It's been a very nice complex. It's paid a lot the the board approving the lights and doing the full turf surface has really paid a lot of dividends. Obviously, if you, as I just noted, we've had one of the wetest Aprils uh and we've been able to still continue to play uh games and competition and and the added benefit is some of the games that were supposed to be visitors games uh got moved to our facility because we could accommodate them. So, uh, that really helped keep kids in in in class and not put them on a bus to to go to our visiting site having requiring them to leave early, losing out on instructional time. So, it's been a very nice addition.

164Uh, we appreciate the board's approval to move that uh, project forward. Uh, transportation maintenance facility. This is a project that's probably been hampered by weather the most. Uh as you can see it's just a mud pit and we've started on site work. Uh but just the sheer size and weight of the machinery it's it's just difficult to perform that site work as wet as it's been. Um, having said that, this about a week out. I was there this week and they were able on a couple of the dry days we've had to continue developing the sight pad and the we had some iron workers there that are starting to work on rebar and hopefully it stays dry enough where we can start excavating for the footings for the slab for the metal building that'll eventually

165sit on that site. And then the wrestling facility uh and multi-purpose facility over at Francis Al High. Again, um this is a week old, but you can see the footings are all really done. Uh for those of you that have been by there on that campus here recently, you can see all the scaffolding has been set up. They actually have the west and partial north part of the wall um masonry wall already erected and they'll continue to work to get all the exterior walls and then any structural steel that's required for that addition. So remind me that that's a storm shelter. It is a storm shelter. That is correct. That is a storm shelter and uh has uh two restrooms in there for facilities in the event of a an emergency where we have to

166shelter in place. And then the auditoriums uh this is how high uh we were able to work with building leaders to advance um some of the work and uh they there was wasn't a whole lot of programming there just as you guys know from what we've shared that space was just so limited from a number of seats. So unfortunately they end up having to move a lot of their programming to other places and so they were able to free up that space and allow demo to start earlier. We started demo I believe April 26 and you can see all the seats are gone. Uh they're working inside the auditorium in the lobby area, the restroom uh prefunction restroom lobbies area. Uh demo's going really well and um we're pleased with the progress that we're making

167there. Over at House Central, uh we will they still had some programming left. Uh I think their last show in that space is tomorrow and so demo will begin demo will begin uh on May 19th. So next Monday. Moving on. Remaining prioritized bond projects that the board approved at the March 14th uh exploration and and really our pathway moving forward at the March 14th, 2024 board meeting. Phase one HR HVAR improvements uh those are slated for this summer. What's taking place right now is we're meeting with all the building leaders kind of setting expectations uh that way they understand the nature of the scope that's taking place. Those meetings are going well. We have a couple more meetings to get them the full information as we work through sequencing. Uh there's a lot of other

168things that we also have to consider as part of that. We've got summer restorative cleaning from a custodial standpoint. So all of those teams are working together to be able to ensure that we have a successful project, but more importantly that come uh come August, we're pretty much ready for students to return to those spaces. And then phase two, uh we're currently working uh with our partners to develop that scope out. Uh we've had uh a lot of meetings at those six sites. I do want to note at Sager we did bring a recommendation at the I think it was the last board meeting to advance the cooling towers. Um those developed u some conditions that we could not repair and we were worried about those cooling towers being able to make it through this

169upcoming academic year. So that work is being advanced but the remaining uh work will take place in the summer of um 2026 with all of the other sites that will be receiving phase 2 HVAC improvements. So our timeline uh respective to phase two is really to bring a formal recommendation to award a construction contract for the demo and installation as well as the purchase of the equipment around the September board meeting. Um we have one kind of capital project uh that is uh actually just wrapped up uh today. Obviously, if you recall, as a district was growing in the '9s, uh we had the need to be able to add mobile classrooms uh across I think it was about so Cosley, we had a total of eight uh but it's predominantly elementaryaries and then a

170couple of middle schools, Holland Bay and Barnwell. Those haven't been in service for I think 10 plus years and so they were predominantly used at as storage and as you recall we brought that recommendation earlier. we were still heating and cooling those spaces are not well insulated. So, we we were just weren't being good stewards of of textiles. So, we brought the recommendation forward. Board approved the demo uh of those and pleased to say that work is complete. Uh this slide is about two weeks old, if you will. The last site was Harvest Ridge and they just wrapped that work up uh this week. So, there'll be some seating and strawing to return those uh those green those areas back to green spaces. And then pending capital projects, uh, Fairmount Hollandback roof section replacement. Again,

171you approved that, uh, this evening. And so we'll issue a contract for that. Asphalt improvements at Francis Hal High. And then the three three projects below that uh, were approved at the previous board meeting and we're working on scheduling. So that's all I have for you this evening, board. And if you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer. Any questions everybody? No, just compliments. Yeah, progress is exciting. That's it. Is Yeah, it's a long time coming. Excited for our our Did they scrap those community as well as our students and staff? So, these are much needed improvements. U Did they just scrap those um trailers? They did. Yes. We couldn't give them away if we tried. I don't know. There's crazy people out there. So, what are your thoughts on Pluto? On

172what? Pluto. Pluto. Planet. No planet. What do you think? I'm not going to step into that, but appreciate the question. And I appreciate for everybody else to pay attention to the notes behind each of these agenda items. So, in this case, u it was answered that there's been 22 days lost because of rain. So when we come around July, August, and things might be a little bit behind schedule, it's good to know that here we are in May aware there's 22 days of lost construction because of the rain. Yeah. And we're working with all of the the projects that are the most impacted by those weather days. We're working with our partners on those to find uh strategies and efficiencies, whether it's um on dry days, double up on on staffing to be able to,

173you know, move those projects forward. uh been in the business a long time and I know and understand that when school's going to happen one way or another, it's just uh how do we ensure that all the spaces are ready for our staff and our and more importantly our students. Do we have a anything else like in the backlog already kind of planned or thought through for capital projects or is that just pending pieces? Yeah, that's a great question, Vice President Rder. Um, so as part of the capital budget for FY26 that Miss Emry presented, uh, we're working through those, uh, board approvals, u, those placeholder budgets. And so we still do have some projects for FY26 that we will bring forward. Our teams are working on the back end, just doing discovery and and

174doing all the due diligence. and uh we'll bring the necessary approvals whether it's a request to issue or let bids um and and go through that process and bring the appropriate recommendations as we work through that. So, we're not completely done with the FY26 capital cycle projects. We still have some more to do. We'll bring those forward as we work through that process. Okay. Yeah. I just know like I've heard some issues to the Holland Beck and I just didn't see Holland Beck and on there with anything. So maybe I can follow up with you guys and see what's on what's in the backlog. Sounds good. Do the rain delays cost us anything and money at all? No. Typically what what happens in that process is um you know the the general contractor will submit

175to the design team as well as the district, hey, you know, we've lost a number these number of work days uh due to weather. Uh we call them weather days within the contract. All of that language is articulated in the contract. And so what ends up happening is they'll submit those, we review them to verify uh that that's truly the case and the uh substantial completion dates gets suggested by those number of dates. Uh so no re now the only thing I'll share with that is um if we're not in agreement um we don't extend those days and the expectation is still for that contractor to be complete at that substantial completion date and um if they're not then we've got language in the contract to to address that. Awesome. Thank you. We we ran

176into that a couple times. Was it with North weather delays? We talked about this last year a couple years ago. playground. It was a playground playground. Yeah. And that was these questions were were asked back then of him and and it's they they they take care of it pretty pretty well. Any other questions right now? Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President Blair. I just I just wanted to bring up the fact that Well, we could, but I was going to bring up the fact that I don't think we mentioned to the student that um her that we she can leave if cuz you're probably at school tomorrow. I do actually have a really big test tomorrow, but I am going to study. Okay. Okay. We just want you to know

177we need to make a Maybe you should go home and study. No, it's not an AP exam. It's a human body systems test. Oh, you got that aced. I don't know. If you guys could um sign something that could make me skip school tomorrow, I'd very much appreciate that. Any doctors in the house? Night, Jack. No, we're going to just keep going on ahead. Um and um does anybody I asked no one here needs to take? You all have. We've watched. Um but everybody here is okay. Keep going. We're okay to keep on going. All right. Uh, with that being the case, we invite representatives from SM Wilson to present. [Music] Hi, good evening. Uh, it's nice to see everyone again. And I don't guess there's any uh slide or anything. I don't think there's

178no no no presentation. Okay, sounds good. Um, so we're here tonight to give an update um on what we've done the last four weeks since the last time we spoke. Um, last time I was here, we were getting ready to mobilize on the site the following day with the engineers and others to do a big investigation and and that did occur uh the day after the last board meeting. Case engineering sent four plumbing engineers. Um, CXE sent two. We had two different plumbing contractors and several SM Wilson people. We spent the day on site investigating the building. And um as we mentioned last time, there was a chance that we may not find may not really have an aha moment uh where we find the uh problem and it's clear and we know what to

179do. But we did collect a lot of information and the information that we collected gave case engineering the data to uh develop the report that was issued a week later. And I believe you've all seen that report. Um, so since then what we've done is we've installed air admittance valves on all the uh vents through the roof on the building. There's probably 60 roughly air admittance valves. So the roof at this point is valved off from being able to emit odor onto the roof. Um, and that was one of the things that was determined during that site visit was that most likely the majority of the smells or odors being experienced were coming through those plumbing vents on the roof and being drawn back in through the air handlers as we had mentioned previously as

180well. Um, so we did install all the air mittens valves. Uh, we installed air monitoring devices which we have Kevin Roberts here tonight with Pension. Pension is the environmental company that's been hired to perform the air monitoring services. Um, and he's gonna talk about that in just a moment. So, we did install the air monitoring devices and those were located in the areas that had the um, highest density of odor reports over time to, you know, try to capture the most data possible. Um, we've also spoken with the city of St. computers regarding their sewer system and any problems that could be present in the sewer system that might be negatively impacting the building and the connections. Um, St. Peters did take the time to go back and look through their plans and their response

181was there's really nothing in the area that could be impacting uh the new school most likely. So, um, we did perform that task. Uh, we also tal uh spoke with the city of St. Peter's health department just to communicate with them uh the condition, make sure they understand what's going on, make sure that we share the steps taken um the results from the air monitoring and and everything that's going on. We want to be sure that we um are doing what we can to make sure the building is a safe place for everyone. Um St. Peters felt that everything performed to date was acceptable. what they would have done. They really didn't have anything to add beyond what we've done so far. But they are talking with building inspectors. Uh just another layer of discussions

182internally with St. Peters and uh the potential for them to come out and do a site visit too if they feel that that could be helpful. Um we've tested the pressure differential and the zero mains uh and the bins through the roof just to double check. St. Peter said they don't think there's an issue, but we also wanted to verify that the sewer main outside the building isn't pressurized and maybe pushing air back into the building. Uh what we found is it doesn't appear to be the sewer main outside of the building tends to be neutral pressure or slightly negative, which is what you would expect. Um the vents through the roof tend to be neutral, sometimes slightly positive, sometimes slightly negative. So um no real significant results there. Um, and we just continue to

183monitor and respond the best that we can uh to any reports. Uh, right now the uh case engineering report report is being reviewed and we've implemented many of the recommendations and I think uh the engineer record is also reviewing the report and preparing a response um from what was stated in the report. So, at this point, I might turn it over to Kevin so he can speak to the monitoring results. All right. Thank you. Good evening. Again, my name is Kevin Roberts and I'm the environmental operations manager for Pinchin LLC. I'm also an industrial hygienist that specializes in worker exposure and uh chemical constituents. Uh we installed in on April 25th five indoor air quality monitors with telemetry systems that are hooked up to modems in a cloud system. Uh these monitors are running 24/7

184and collecting data every second. So since April 25th we've got a sample point from the five monitors every second. Um we are using Ray Systems multi-ray five gas monitors. These are the same monitors that construction workers would use to enter a sewer. Same monitors that would be used for workers to enter confined spaces to figure if it's safe for them to enter. Uh these monitors are model 6228 if anyone needed to know that information. Um we besides the uh monitors being calibrated before being uh installed at the facility, we've also uh performed calibrations on site as well as what's called bump testing. That's coming out with a known concentration of gas of the constituents that we are monitoring to show and pumping it in front of the air inlet to show that the constituent is

185reading uh all those were have passed the calibrations for that. since the uh installation since the April 25th um we have had uh um and I guess one of the points to make is these meters are uh designed to read what for OSHA standards would be uh so of course we're looking at the OSHA permissible exposure limits each constituent has its own regulatory level what you're allowed to be exposed to before engineering controls or respirator protection or things have to be implemented for that. Um, all of these constituents are in the parts per bill or parts per million. And so our the lowest our monitor can read down to is a 0.1 part per million, which would be equivalent to 100 parts per billion. A lot of these constituents for sewer gases have a very

186low odor threshold. Hydrogen sulfide, for example, has an odor threshold of 40 parts per trillion to eight parts per billion. So you can smell that constituent way before we can actually pick this up. Again, OSHA PEL for hydrogen sulfides 20 parts per million. So again, we can smell it way before it becomes dangerous to us. Since then we've had uh with hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide and leel which is the lower explosive limit be like methane gas that would build up to be at a concentration that for explosions are flammable. None of those have been detected over the 0.1 part per million. Um, as far as oxygen that we are monitoring, the oxygen levels have all been within what OSHA regulates are at normal atmospheres at 20.9 uh% concentration and we uh that's within the threshold

187of 19.5 to 23.5. As far as VOCC's, volatile organic carbon compounds, uh we've been within regulatory limits and recommended limits for uh for those constituents as well. Throughout the time, we've had hits some hits, but nothing uh drastic. Those hits typically are when the classrooms are dismissed, kids walking through the hallways. We're picking up VOCC's, which are on deodorants, hairsprays, colog, markers, pens. Those are being detected as students are walking by. We've installed alarms for each of these monitors. So if we come to a certain threshold, that monitor would send a text message or an email to myself as well as SM Wilson and several Francis House School District personnel to show that we've hit a certain threshold that we may need to um evacuate students or so. Since that time, we've had no alarms

188that have been triggered. Each of these alarms had been set at not the OSHA peel, not the recommended exposure limit that Nyosh does, but at the ACGI lowest conservative threshold for constituents. And none of those have been anywhere close to that. So based on these constituents that we're monitoring, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, our oxygen percentage, lower explosive limit, and VOCC's, it appears we're all in compliance with regulatory and recommended levels. Thank you. Matt, can I ask a clarifying question before? So I I don't want to necessarily respond to online concerns, but that's where things are going. And a couple of things you said that have been things that we've heard. So, one thing we've heard is that methane is not measured, but you're saying the lower explosive limit that is what is one of the

189things that is being measured. So, so methane is um is a gas that can cause explosives. Um so, hydrogen, methane, all of that. It's not being monitored specifically for that gas. However, any of those constituents that can cause it to become flammable was measured in the lower explosive limit. We measure for that. Okay. And then another thing that we've heard is that these meters um potentially are not accurate because of balancing issues within the building and the system. Is is there any truth to that or is that been a concern that you had to address? I I don't have a concern with that. We've calibrated we're um we're going to be calibrating again next month or not next month early next week that it's a requirement. They should be calibrated or recommended they should be

190calibrated monthly. Uh we're going to be we just hit we'll hit three weeks of monitoring tomorrow. So, we're going to be well within the uh the month of of calibrations. And again, the bump test has shown we put hydrogen sulfide next to it. It's getting hit. And we put le uh chemical that could be flammable. LEAL went up. Carbon monoxide, carbon monoxide went up. So, it's shown that they're reading correctly. They don't have one meter that's super high that the other four are close. They're all reading pretty much the same throughout. Thank you. Um, I have a question for him. I apologize for not catching. Do these numbers that are listed within the board docs, do they correspond with people's experience of the odor over the last couple weeks? Is there a situation where people

191are spelling something but it's not even appearing here? I'm just Yes, you said that. So, actually on April 28th, we performed the bump test. On April 28th, uh about three hours after I performed the bump test, I was called in by SM Wilson saying, "Hey, what are the monitors showing?" Um, he wasn't privy to be able to see the live data at that time. Um, looking at the data, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, LEAL, VOCC's were not spiked at all. Again, I know there may be concerns with that. My only uh point to make is again many of those constituents have such a low odor threshold. We are physically able able to smell it way before 100 parts per billion where we can detect it. Oh, just quick question. Um, has there been any reports of

192any noises or gurgling or anything like that associated prior to or has anybody even paid attention to that in the schools? I I just um as far as gurgling and like a plumbing system like a dring or anything, we haven't heard any reports of that. Um, yeah, that's the answer basically. Yeah, we haven't heard any gurgling ourselves or heard of any reports from anyone else experiencing it. So the um the question might be so we we have valves on the uh rooftop vents. The valves are are one way so they're not blocking the air. The the vents on the roof are designed to pull air into them. And that's what these valves do. They let air in but just not out. So it um they're used often in plumbing. Um typically in interior situations where

193you can't get a vent to the roof, you would install an air mince valve on it and allows the vent to uh vent air in interior to a building. So it keeps any odors from coming out but allows air into kind of like what we have on our sump pumps in our homes. Water goes out, doesn't come back in the pump. Yep. Exactly. So great question. Um, also I wanted to note along with what Kevin had said, uh, we are adding another air monitor in a location on the east side of the building that had some recent, uh, reports of odors and just being thorough to make sure that we're monitoring all the spaces that are experiencing odors, we are going to be adding a monitor there as well. So, as soon as we can

194get that available, installed, we'll do so. Uh, I see five different columns. Um, is there any odor that we're not testing for that we should be? I don't Is there anything else besides these five that Sure. I guess I can let Kevin answer that one. Those are those are the typical sewer gas constituents. If you're any type of sewer gas odor or confined space entry that associated with sewer gas, that's what you would uh be testing for. Yes. I have a question. Where do we go from here? [Music] Good question. down the building and start over. No, don't do that. Um, but where do we go from here? Really, a lot of the next steps hinge on the uh response from the engineer record. They they are the engineer. They designed the building. They designed

195the plumbing system and the HVAC system. Um, all those elements. And it it is in their court right now to respond to case engineering's report. Um oftent times engineers don't always look at things the exact same. So case engineering uh came out they performed their study they looked at the drawings they gave their opinion of what they saw in a fairly black and white manner in their report and uh now that report is with mccclure engineering who's the engineer record uh and I believe the district is waiting on a response. How much priority has this been given? I mean without the with other these other engineers. Yeah, definitely. So Essen Wilson is personally not controlling that response from um do you want to push given top priority? I think we just actually pinged them again

196uh earlier this week to try to figure out today actually uh when we will receive a report and actually demand it one. So, um I know the executive team is working on on that in terms of a response, but I don't have any other information outside of that, but it is at the top of the property. Yeah, I wasn't pointing fingers inside. I was pointing fingers outside. I I certainly understand you don't have I mean, I know you don't have control over their activities, but So, Honer Architects designed the building and they are uh partnering with uh Mccclure Engineering. They've indicated that they are going to provide us with a daily update and get an official formal response. It won't come on. Oh, there there it came on now. Uh and provide a formal response

197uh to the request relative to the case report. The daily update, how long will take them to get us formal response? Question. All right. Our student has a question. She attends Francis Elmore. Yeah. So, um, when you said that there was like you could smell it before it got harmful, what do you mean by harmful? Because to me, I feel like if you smell it, that is harmful because it's distracting you from learning. It's like it's causing you to like cough and stuff. Like I personally am not usually in the hallways that are like most affected because I spend at least half of my day in the English hallway. But um I know a lot of people who are personally affected including Colin who's sitting right over there. Um and just yesterday one of my

198best friends, she was in her business class which is not even in the 1400s hallway. It's in the 1300s. but they had to actually move to I think they she said the arts hallway because the odor was so bad and the whole class could smell it. Um, additionally, yesterday was one of the days that I actually was affected by the odor because it's the day I had home room and my home room I I had to get to get to my home room to my third hour class. I passed that 1400's hallway and I just that was what one of the only days that I've actually smelled it in person since I'm not in that area usually. But it's it was like it's crazy. But I was just What do you mean by harmful? I

199I don't believe I used the word harmful. I said the odor threshold is at 40 parts per billion to uh eight parts per billion. Unfortunately, we can smell it before. And if I did use the word harmful, I apologize. Um, yes, an odor can be unpleasant and it is it can be obnoxious and distracted and um people that have hyper sensitivities uh may have more serious effects to it. And I'm very empathetic towards that and people that may have been affected, you know, with this situation. All I can say is based on being a scientist in industrial hygiene, what OSHA allows is a regulatory level. What they say is a safe level. Not talking about odor, what you smelling it, but what a concentration of a gas is, but is a safe level. We looked

200at that. We're nowhere near it. We go down to the lower tier, which is a recommended level by NYOSH and the CDC. We're nowhere near that. And then we go down to what ACGIH has for any exposure and we're and we're below that level as well, which is the most conservative level they give. So again, I apolog I apologize if I said uh it was not harmful. I meant to say that it's based on regulatory and recommended exposures. It's appears to be at a safe level. [Music] We have teachers who have been struggling with this since August. We have students who have come to us and shared their experiences and we're not able to find what it is. So what are we not looking for? I guess is the is it what could it not

201like what did we not think of yet? Like I know that's a weird way to ask that question, but like I don't know like are there high schoolers on the roof like smelling? No, I'm sorry that's wrong. I they wouldn't be doing that. But I don't know what I don't know where to go from here and I I know that there are human beings who are affected by this even if the machines aren't detecting it. Yeah. And what are what are they smelling? Like is it those gases? It's just at undetectable levels, but it is those gases or do we just literally not? It could be various things. Um you know, typically the gases that we're monitoring are what are normally associated with sewer gases. Now there of course there's different biological contaminants that may

202be part of the sewer gases that may be somewhat that may be uh airborne as well. we have not uh monitored for that and it's a little bit harder to to do that is we have to be as soon as that odor hits or so to be able to be out there and collect that sample but uh at this time we've not sampled for anything biological maybe that's the next step then um because I mean we're at you know I mean last month we we were really begging and pleading for an answer I mean we're still getting impact and and we we have students who are experiencing it and that is deeply concerning um that that there we're we're looking trying to look at that building as how do we utilize it and we can't

203and it's a brand new building. So if we are testing for biologics can we what can what aren't we testing for that we can throw at this point into the mix? Yeah, we we can um perform biological testing such as fungal or mold sampling um which would be uh cost effective. It's pretty cheap able to do. We'll be sampling for viable and nonviable spores. We don't have to wait 14 days to incubate for those types of samples. And we do have comparisons. We always take an outside comparison sample. Now, keep in mind mold is naturally occurring. So, even when though you think of an operating room at the hospital, if I go in there and I take uh take an air sample in the operating room, I'm going to find mold in the air. Okay?

204Every time we open the door, every time a window, every time we walk from outside our car into our house, we bring spores in on our clothes, our hair, our pets bring it in. So, we will find it in the air. CDC, OSHA, the EPA have not established safe levels for mold. Okay? Because susceptibility to everybody is different. Uh, I always give the poison ivy analogy. We could be in the same room. I'm allergic to aspergillis, a type of mold. Uh, you were not. I'm having itchy, watery eyes. I'm having trouble breathing. I'm having headaches. Certain things like that cuz I'm allergic to that type. But the reason why they have not establish that because susceptibility, everything's different. Everybody's different. So, we take an outside comparison air sample for that day. And what we like

205to see is the same mold types we have outside is the same mold types we have inside. However, we want to see those concentrations inside at a lower level than we have outside. So, if we have a 200 count of aspgilus outside and a 150 inside, we're at a safe level. If we have a 200 outside and we're at a 10,000, we are amplified and we can have we have got poor indoor air quality and we've got a fungal source or or something that could cause hyper sensitivities. Go back to Jame Director Pushkar's question. What's next? What's the next step? You have a question on No. Okay. Was that question? No. Well, just Yeah. Hold off my question. Let's just to push on that a little bit. Um I don't know that anybody thinks this

206is mold. Mhm. Doesn't smell like mold. I think we're just desperate. It's coming and going. So yeah, I think whatever we can do to take that next step if it's contacting again the EPA, contacting somebody that can come in and identify what that scent is or the odor is I think is it and if We're if we've got five monitors in there right now that are not detecting things and we're going to add another one. Okay, cool. But it's not picking up whatever is happening. Yeah. And that the type of sensitivity you have with that odor threshold. Um I don't know exactly uh many instruments that would be able to detect that that concentration. We and we're we're we know there's no plumbing leaks. We did. So, uh, the day after the last board meeting,

207we did smoke test the plumbing system again, um, for the third time, and there were no leaks detected. There was one, um, floor drain in an outside room. It was in the domestic water room, which is an exterior portion of the building. That was a dry trap and the room filled up with smoke. Uh, it was easily identified. Um there was one floor dra clean out in the kitchen that um had a it had a rubber seal in it, but it wasn't tightened down very well. So there was kind of some slight wisps of smoke coming out. We found that tighten the cleanout down. Um otherwise the we smoked the entire west side of the building. There was smoke coming out of all of the vents on the roof. Uh so the plumbing system was

208full of smoke and there was no smoke identified in the building. Um, so that would tell us that there's no plumbing leaks at that point. The plumbing system when we smoke test it, it becomes a closed system. We just a short description on the process of that. There's a smoke machine on the roof and we inject smoke into one of the plumbing vents. That smoke runs, it pressurizes the system and you start seeing smoke come out of all the other plumbing vents that are associated in that plumbing system. So any event that's smoking, you cap those off and then that seals the system and then you pressurize it with smoke. And what that does is if there is any openings in the plumbing system, it's going to fill a room with smoke. Uh at the

209same time, we turned off all the uh HVAC equipment so there couldn't be any smoke that was present in a room that was being drawn out. Those were shut off during that time. Um so if there were any plumbing openings in the building, it would have been very obvious. We looked above the ceilings. Uh we had uh several people investigating and there was nothing found. And and are there any tests right now that are looking for like organic decomposing things in any of the air vent systems? Is there a test or a device that can find that like decomposing organic matter? It's typically like organic matter or a dead animal smell or or certain things like that were probably one of the hardest uh things as an industrial hygienist to find. But no, there's no

210specific test just for, you know, an unusual odor and say, "Hey, this is what we have here." Unfortunately, we have to kind of know and pinpoint what constituent we want to sample for. Each each constituent has its own sample media, flow rates, volumes, all of that that we need to be pulling. Well, but even with that, even if it was that, the decomposition rate would have it would just be gone by now anyway, unless it just something's continuously dying up there, right? Right. Um Matt, you and I talked about um core samples last time. We did. Um so, we do need to follow up again with the engineer. Uh we had spoken to him previously and they had indicated there was no fill that would be coming up through the building, but that is on

211our to-do list to follow up with. So, we'll do that. Um, most of us, many of many of us that I turned it down a little bit. That's okay. Many of us have smelled it at one point or another as we've been called over or we've been there and so we know that it it exists. Is it fair to say that as long as somebody is smelling something, there is an issue that needs to be resolved? Like you would never say, you know what, some buildings have a smell every once in a while or no. As long as there is something, there's still something to solve. That's our commitment. Yes. As long as somebody's smelling something, we're here to chase that down and get that resolved. Even if it's um you know the if somebody

212says they smell something and then nothing for a couple weeks and then a few weeks later they smell something that's still not the building you purchased. So we're here to make sure that that the building is quality building and uh there's no odors when we're done. What are the next steps? the the next step really the uh the hinch point on uh the next action items is really Mccclure's or owner's response to the case engineering report. Um you know we we've seen the report. There are a couple items listed in the engineering report that are identified as potential issues. Um case engineering is not the engineer that designed the building. They're a third party consultant hired. So really it's waiting on Mccclure who's who's the engineer who ran all those calculations and designed the plumbing

213system to respond to those. So waiting for Mccclure. What are the other action steps like what what's the next do you need any authorization from us to knock on doors that have been knocked on? What what do we do to team up on this question? Right. We're all on the same team. We're all wanting absolute best for our students, absolute best for teachers. And so right now we're all together. Um what's your recommendation on what the next steps are? It's not necessarily a recommendation. I mean we're turning over every stone that we can to try to solve this issue. Uh but as it's been noted, Mccclure Engineering is the engineering of record on this project. So for us to go make changes without recommendations from them, there's some legalities there that we have to have

214conversations about and all of those things. and we won't do that in a public setting. Uh but really the the the their response is what's going to drive the next actionable items for us to be able to at least solidify a direction uh to try to bring this matter to a close. So how many square feet are in Francis North? 110,000. 410,000. Do you know how many cubic feet there are? I don't expect you to know that. A lot. I do not. Okay. and and I'd be have been I would have been shocked and give you a mens a hat if you did. Um my question is we have four uh five monitors for 410,000 square ft and how many cubic feet. Are we sure that those five monitors are covering every square foot of

215the of those buildings? No, as as our partners just mentioned that we're covering the areas that we have had uh reported consistent u you know that every inch is covered. Maybe Kenny can talk a little bit about the range in terms of what the monitors in terms of just a simple yes or no. Is it are the because you know it's being smelled and it's not being smelled monitors aren't picking it up. Maybe we need more monitors. I don't know. Maybe I can I mentioned a little something there. So um part of the the monitors um with the HVAC system there's a certain amount of air changes that happen in a room or a corridor uh every hour. So the the air even though you may not feel it, the air is moving and getting

216changed out. So with a monitor in the room, I mean my thought would be is if there is a compound that you're trying to detect, at some point that compound would pass by the monitor and it would be able to sense, but not if it dissipates. If we're if we're collecting a a sample every second, we are going to get a hit at least one or two of those seconds or longer during that time frame before it dissipates. The monitors are covering the range of square feet. If I can be assured of that, then I'd say okay, we're we specified locations where they had re the odors to be most prevalent in those areas. I think this is a the point where the board isn't responsible for making the plan. We're responsible for approving the

217plan and I just would like to know like whatever the that plan is if somebody I mean I don't know if it's Dr. Rumpus or Saloon with you. I know certain things are waiting for the engineering company to respond. Uh but just be able to communicate with us, the people watching us online, the people who are going to be listening to this tomorrow. Just what are your best ideas for the plan? Um and how do we support it? And that way we can look at and say here's what we try to do. We treated this with as much urgency as possible and we get a chance to just recognize and identify to the public that we're doing everything possible. And so the question is like give any next plans, any next steps to share or

218or is that something that you guys will talk about after this meeting and then share some time along the way? We can certainly discuss it, but as I've shared that the action plan, I mean, we're we're continuing to do a lot of work at the building level to explore and we're making calls to other organizations that are have experienced a similar issue with the new construction bill and trying to just turn over every stone. But respective to your question, we have to get a response from the engineer of record and that is what we're waiting. or I would say there's pieces related to that we can discuss when we reconvene those session here shortly. So speaking of like next steps, how are we able to support the teachers and the staff and the students who

219are affected by this smell? Because I don't think moving rooms is going to cut it. That's a good question. Um I think you know the district has a process for an accommodation process. Um, and I know there's several teachers that have gone through that at the building level to be able to meet their needs and put them in an environment that's conducive for for them. So, uh, that's really my best answer for you respective to that. Okay. Next question is, um, what's our deadline for determining whether or not we move forward with summer school in that building? We were asked last month to look at that. We have considered contingency plans which really the only option would be moving summer school to Francis Hall Central High School. Um based on some of this ongoing communication,

220we would expect to make that decision in the next week or so given the logistics that would need to take place for transportation and moving classrooms over to House Central, but they would be able to accommodate um our secondary summer school program this summer. And there's additional logistics to that. Obviously, the board has approved some pretty significant capital work for the auditorium over there and um there's going to be times throughout the summer where new electrical connections are going to need to be made where we're going to need to kill power to the building. So, we're exploring what all of that looks like. Uh that way we have a solid plan uh where we can support, you know, instruction during the summer months without disruption. Any more questions? Thank you for your time tonight. Thank

221you. All right. We'd like to welcome Dr. Connie Buckman, chief academic officer, to present an update on the board's request to review policy 6310. Good evening, board. Um during the April meeting, you asked uh us to gather some input from our library media specialist, our LMS around policy 6310. That's the one that addresses our book collection development process in our classroom libraries and also in our learning commons. And then it also addresses book fairs. And so Dr. Lemurs is our director of curriculum. He also oversees the learning commons and associated programming across the district. He regularly works with Jeff Baragowski who is our lead library media specialist um and serves as a library media specialist to one of our middle schools. During a recent learning common advisory meeting, LCA, I'm just going to see how

222many acronyms I can work in here. Dr. Lamers was able to gather some input from the LMS who are present for that meeting. Um they had conversations about how things are going and how they're implementing the requirements of the new policy and regulation. Based on the input gathered from that group of LMS and then also our our um desire to honor the voices in the community that want some transparency, we are recommending a few adjustments to policy and regulation 6310 as we move forward. And so we believe that the adjustments will allow our LMS to continue to meet their goals of being responsive to student and educator needs. It should also allow for some increased efficiencies in their work. Um we're working through the language changes. Our intent is to bring you an updated draft

223of the policy and regulation. Bring it to the policy committee in May and then we would bring the draft to you if that goes well to the first June board meeting for a first read and then you would see it again at the second June board meeting for a a second read and vote. Um in general the recommendations that we're working through include uh removing the ISBN number as a required category in the monthly book purchase list. So right now the LMS have to list out the ISBN number for every title and we're just going to take that column off. One of the things the LMS shared is that's a one of the most timeconsuming parts of the report to get that in there to make sure it's all accurate. Uh we plan to adjust

224allowing titles to be immediately ordered and used and then still adding them to the published list for the next board meeting. And so our current practice causes adults or students to have to wait a month or two months depending on when their request comes through before it can be fulfilled. Our goal is to meet those requests with a quick turnaround time. So this allows our LMS to be responsive and it also allows that continued transparency for people to see the titles. Um, another adjustment, titles that are already in the collection would no longer need to be added to the published list. So currently our LMS have to submit information when a book is worn, I have a copy of Charlotte's Web and it's falling apart and I just need to order a new copy of

225Charlotte's Web. That has to go on the list. And what our recommendation would be if you already have it in the learning commons and you're just ordering a replacement copy, you don't need to do that. If you uh need an additional copy of the book or a student wants an audio version of a book that we have in print or um you want to order a a a copy of the book in a different language that those additional copies of a title already in our collection would not need to go through. Again, this allows them to place orders quickly when the need arises and then just lightens the workload on the volume of books that they have to put in that uh monthly report. Um, another adjustment, award nominees can be ordered when the lists

226are released. They don't need to be added to the monthly list. So, our LMS all typically order all of the award nominees for their level. So, those are the Mark Twain nominees, the Newberry Awards, the Truman's. Rather than each LMS having to collect all of the information and submit those titles in the monthly report, we're suggesting they follow their normal review process and then just they can order those nominees for the award books. And then finally, we're suggesting a revision to the bookf fair portion of the policy so that moving forward we would just follow our typical contract approval process with no special steps necessary for bookf fairs. Um, our typical contract approval process would have bookf fairs coming to the board for approval just like any other contract in the district. Uh, we just

227don't need to call it out specifically in the policy or regulation. And so, just in general, we believe that these adjustments to the the policy and the regulation will help alleviate some of the workload and frustration for our LMS while also continuing to honor that spirit of transparency. And um, again, we plan to bring a revision to the policy committee meeting in May. And then if that goes well, you would see it for a first read in June and a second read in the second June. [Music] Any questions? Yeah, I'm I'm thinking about the ISBN numbers. They have that on the list then when they order those books. Is that not correct? I mean, they when they order a book, they don't say, "I want Charlotte's Web, I want ISBN number." I'll be honest, I

228don't know. I haven't placed a book order. Okay. Yeah. Well, I don't I don't think they would be able to order a book without just with just a title because there's really close names in titles and they might get the wrong book. Oh, but my point is if they're if they're ordering a book with an ISBN number, what what is so difficult about copying a I think it depends on where they're ordering from. If they're just placing an Amazon order for a few books, they might just go into Amazon and type the title in and order the book. And right now, what they're having to do is collect all the information to fill out the different columns on the spreadsheet. Now, we discussed that um those handheld. We don't have those. I don't know. Are

229you talking about barcode scanners? Yes. Yeah. I don't think the district has those for teachers or we mentioned that as a cuz it they brought up the fact that the ISBN number and you know, all the information that they had to fill in would be, you know, so we offered these handhelds. Typically, um, when I know as an ELA teacher, you know, when you go into a system like Fallit or Destiny Discover, the the when you search by title, it also brings up like the cover. So, you can be sure without the ISBN number that you're getting the right book that you're looking for. So, it's and if we can save them that step, that that saves them that time, that gives them that gives our students their time. So we're we're providing that back

230to our students by giving them that time. They also get orders. Huh? They also get orders. You can download an order into a PDF, have the PDF translate into an Excel. I mean Oh. In 2010, it's 2025. Jean, what? Well, I I Okay. An e order of what you order. You have to get some sort of receipt of what you order. I just tell Alexa what I want. My name's not Alex. Sorry. So, it sounds like the result of the conversation was to maintain the spirit of 6310, which is the transparency, right? And embrace that still, but then add uh different changes that would improve the efficiency. And so, the idea is to keep the transparency in 6310 um and but then to find ways to make it more efficient. That is our recommendation. Any

231other questions to 6310? Thank you and thank everybody else who is part of the uh the work as well. Uh but we are at uh one more. Would like to welcome Chief Finance and Operation Officer Carol Embry to present the shortest presentation ever. Shortest. Are you ready? Okay, Dr. Rumpus. Let's do it. I heard that. Needs a cough drive, too. If Michelle will pull it up for me. Do you have it? Michelle, come on. You don't have it. Would you can you open the PDF? Yeah. Okay. So, we can we can vamp uh what you see before you in the PDF and posted online for public consumption is our budget development update. And as you know, we've journeyied uh through multiple uh presentations and the budget development calendars posted for you. The fund uh information

232is posted for you each time. And here we are talking about general fund and teachers fund. And so, uh, this one is my least favorite presentation actually because there's not a lot of interesting facts to share, uh, other than this encompasses the majority of our budget because it takes care of all of our people, all of our supplies, and our purchase services. And so, we provided you the revenue by object for the revised budget as it currently stands, showing that our local revenue is 69%. Then on our expenditures, the largest category of course is salary at approaching 60%, benefits 22 uh.8% and those two combined is 82.7%. The next slide provides you with the salary by object and you can see that we're almost at $150 million and it has all the objects listed out.

233This follows the same format that we're required to use for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education of our annual financial reports. The next slide provides benefits by object and of course not surprising the employee insurance category is the largest of those. Then we move to slide nine and that's purchase services by object and uh you can see there are a variety of services there instructional being the greatest of those. And then lastly is our supply category of our operating funds. And uh you can see that uh there those are kind of spread out but general supplies would encompass the largest percentage of 42%. If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer those Michelle. It's okay we're of course I do. Yes. Um yes you know I would like to see please tell

234me it's not going to be a really big deal but how much do we spend on mileage each month? on mileage. Yes, ma'am. Uh I I would expect it's very minimal. Uh because don't really approve a lot of travel here, but we can we can take a look at that and see if we can tease that out. Yeah. Long time ago, I kind of advocated for like a district car or two. Oh yes. Let's say Michelle's got to run over to Fairmont and you know that sort of thing to save some of the mileage. But in order to do that, we would have to track that almost every month. Well, and I will tell you last year, so tonight you saw come to fruition the capital recommendation on the roofing and the parking. And in

235March, I presented on the capital budget and referenced those placeholder allocations. A year ago for the capital, we included the idea of bringing on vans or that type of thing that would be student appropriate to cut down on some of those travel costs. But what I would say to you about any of that, absent having the appropriate staff and systems in place to be able to implement that, we fall short on doing it. So it it can be done. It takes a lift and um it's on the list. Okay. It's on the list. Yeah. Every idea I have, it's on the list. No, they're great ideas. Great ideas. We just have to prioritize our resources. That's people and money. by expenses. Let's see um for every 10% of of uh certificate administrators or 10% of

236regular salaries. Should that be certified? What is certificated? That's certificated is the actual label that is applied to our certificated staff. Oh, so we're not certified. Yes. I had a I had a superintendent one time say that we're not like beef. Certified like beef. We're certificated. So that stuck in my brain all these decades. I'm going to use that from now on. You are certificated. I am actually not certified. I'm highly certificated. Yes. That's a little factoid that no one here thought they would learn tonight. Okay. Are there any other questions? Obviously, my junk fell flat. Question on health insurance. Yes. Last year, the revised budget was at 25 million. This year, you're looking at 29 million. So, that this would show you that additional uh four and then we added two tonight, two more

237million. And so you're seeing the actual out of district funds the the expenditures. Yes. So now we're we've heard from Marsha McClennon a 20% increase 20.7 on top of that and that that only addresses the anticipated costs in the next plan year. It does not do anything to prop up the fund balance. And you know, probably ideally at this point we should have $7 million as an ending balance at June 30 and we are far from that. So some significant decisions will need to be made. What's the difference between rentals and rentals equipment? Well, we are uh required by the department of elementary and secondary education to categorize these things separately. I don't know the complete answer to your question, but I can get that information. So that was hand. This would mean that it's

238a different object code. Ah, okay. And so it it probably provides specificity in the Missouri Financial Accounting Manual as to what should go there. just raise your hand. I would imagine just looking at the label that the other one should say um rental maybe services or something where it's not uh necessarily an equipment item. So is instructional program improvement the same as professional development? Uh so professional development like if you're thinking about the 1% requirement for and that's function code 2214 that would be distributed throughout there would be salary and benefit codes there would be supply codes we would find that in a v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v v

239v v v v v v v v variety of places. All right. Thank you very much. I disagree, Miss Emry, your your presentations are always fascinating. Oh, yes. Thank you. They are. No, really. You do a very good job at what you do. All right. We like to invite our superintendent, Dr. Rumpus, to speak. Oh, you mean the one that's leaving? That's the one. Not yet. Thank you, President Blair. Um, I just cut out about half of my comments because we probably have another 60 to 90 minutes of clue session. So, um, I am proud to announce that all three of our traditional high schools have been named Project Lead the Way, or PLTW, distinguished schools for the 2425 school year. This is actually the fourth time in the past 5 years that all three

240comprehensive high schools have received this recognition. As a reminder, PLTW is the leading provider of transformative STEM learning experiences for our students, providing hands-on learning in engineering, biomedical science, and computer science. And this award recognizes that um our district and these schools are committed to increasing our students access and engagement in these incredible programs. Um I also want to celebrate and congratulate our amazing transportation department. They scored 100% a couple weeks ago in the Missouri State Highway Patrol and Bus Inspections. To have all 161 buses pass on the first time with zero issues really speaks to our drive, the mechanics, the work that they do, our drivers and the care they put into taking care of our buses and and really our students as well. So, I want to congratulate Jen Simpson and our 200

241employees in that department for the the work that they do. Um, not only taking care of our buses, but getting our students to and from school safely each and every day. Um, we started this month celebrating teachers as part of teacher appreciation week. And as we end the school year and recognize our student achievements, I really want to thank all of our teachers, our staff, and our administrators. Um, their dedication to this district and our students each and every day is what leads to the incredible celebrations where we had tonight with our many of our seniors and our students that are graduating as we look toward the end of the year. Um, it's hard to believe that while we have a couple weeks of school left, this is our last board meeting that we will

242have while students are in session. And so, um, our high schools are busy preparing for five ceremonies coming up at the end of this month, beginning of June. We have awards ceremonies and field days happening throughout the district. You know, there's a great energy as we get to the end of the year and really a celebration of the work that has taken place all year long. Tuesday, June 3rd will be our last day of school and it's an early release day for all of our K1 students. You know, our seniors will end um a week early from that. Um, I also want to take a minute and thank um Michelle Jones filling in tonight. We know Miss Heepler has been out. Um, you know, to have one presentation we we didn't have pulled up is

243really incredible, Michelle. And I I know it's stressful to be in that seat as we're at 5 hours of being together tonight. That's my fault. It's my fault that she didn't have it. Have we ever heard that? I think I know. Yeah, the camera's still rolling. And I believe that was my on me without Yeah. 10:06. Carrie Liberty said that was my fault. That was my fault. Um, and last board, I want to thank you for your service. we um came to I'm sorry May May 15th when we said yeah uh you know you begin gathering here with us at 5:00 and so this is a long meeting and while um you know we're able to have a little bit of fun at this point um it's a significant commitment of your time and dedication

244so thank you as always for what you do for the district. I thought with a change in leadership we you know shorten things but no they got longer. Thank you President Blair. So four comments I have I have one thing make it clear because got a couple emails and you know what a couple emails translates into a lot of stuff especially when it impacts me as well AP exams. Yeah. Could we review how AP exams are given when you've got some students with the Chromebooks you can't adjust the font and the Chromebook may not necessarily work. The space bar and it may not necessarily work. Some kids are getting the wired computers. other kids getting crump. Can we just do paper until No, until we have it the same across the board or can it

245be looked at? Can we just review it and say, "Hey, why can't we just do paper across the board? The kids can do the work right there in front of them, whatever." Yeah, I I know the concerns were raised that we addressed um in the moment when they came up a couple weeks ago and you know the reality is um months of planning go into that and so part of working with AP and their expectations around testing what options we have and so um as that concludes for the year right now and we have an opportunity to look forward to next year and um you know reflect on what went well, what didn't, what options we have for next year. So we'll definitely look into that. One thing that I could say as someone who

246has finished her last AP test ever, thank God. Um, so can AP test even be considered standardized if some students for the same test are getting the big like screens like I or compared to the students literally in the room next to them, same test on the Chromebooks. in. So like for my AP bio test, I was in the room with the Chromebooks and my sister was in the room with the big giant screens. Is like is that even like allowed? You know, like is that that doesn't seem to be standardized? It feels like some people have a little bit of an advantage that they have bigger screens. It's a great question. Okay, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, and I I think that's exactly what Director Harmon was just talking about. So good. Thank

247you for your your feedback there. Thankfully, I was lucky enough lucky enough to have a big screen for the BLE test though, so not complaining. Any other word comments? I have a request. I'm sorry I'm going off book right now. Um I need to um ask this because it has been brought to my attention. If you didn't know already, um I'm a hockey mom. My son plays for uh Francis Health Central. He's a senior this year and he's graduating and I still look forward to going to future hockey games um coming up in the future. One of um the things that I'm curious about is um what develop like I'm I'm going to ask for this because I don't know um I don't know the history behind it and I don't know the why but

248I know that in some way shape or form the hockey club athletically is excluded from a lot of um other events within our school district. Um, and so for example, like this year was the very first year our boys were allowed to have a float in the homecoming parade for Francis Health Central. And prior to that, there there was like there wasn't um I also was talking to um one of the board uh members and they said that they're not allowed to announce games. Um they're not allowed to um share scores. And I don't know how I don't know the details of all that. I just know that I've heard some rumors in the past and I don't know if any of them are true. I just know that I was curious if I could

249get some clarity on that. So that because in my opinion, I feel like these boys and girls who play hockey for our schools work incredibly hard and some of them are amazing players who are going to go on to their colleges and maybe even their, you know, minor league or who knows, we might have some future blues players or who knows. Um, but it it's um I I would like to see the students feel connected to their schools through that sport, but I don't know the reason why some of the decisions that might have been made in the past happened and I was just curious if I can get some clarity on that. Yeah, director be happy to we can talk about that. We can also maybe that's a retreat option to share some information

250about it. I think the short answer I will provide is that it's not that we are excluding them. I think that it's actually these are club teams that utilize the Francis how name and if we want to treat them as our programs there are other regulations um accountability mechanisms and things that would need to be put in place in order to do that and then we get into mission sanctioned sports title N and a lot of other things and so it's a worthwhile conversation um we want all of our students and the activities they do to feel part of the district um we also have plenty of students that participate in a lot of things and if we do that for one non-sanctioned club team. We would have to do it for all but love

251to discuss that with you. Just help me understand. Thank you. I just want to say thank you to all of you guys also cuz as I'm just acclimating myself to the board here. It is an extraordinary amount of time and hours that everybody in this room puts in to make this district run. Like a shocking amount of commitment. So, I just want to say thank you back to you guys for all of your dedication and effort and also to all of our teachers and our students and families um to really enjoy the summer and um yeah, thanks for everybody's time and commitment to making this district better. All right, just want to end off and saying congratulations to the Hall of Fame winners. Um uh Director Pushkar, uh Vice President Grder and myself were there.

252just a great event including Hall of Fame winner Dr. Kenneth Rumpus. Um and it was great to have a big surprise for all of you involved. Um just a fantastic deal. I believe that the other award winners are going to be shared in different ways. So we all celebrate that. And the last thing I was going to say was that our strategic plan includes again pillars about teaching and learning, people in workforce, finance, operations, safety and security. And this is just one part of all this. And so you're all trusted and equipped and empowered to achieve those goals. And um our next meeting for June 5th and June 19th. And with that uh do we do a motion to close or motion to go to close? I have a question really fast. So, I'm not

253sure if you guys know anything about this, but ever since, you know, the whole like thing where the Wi-Fi or like we had to stop school because of the like hacking or whatever. Ever since that, um, our publications program, the program that we prim primarily use, it's called Justins. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of it being part of like a publications dad, but, um, that program is actually blocked on our school Wi-Fi. And so I'm not sure if you know anything about that, but it makes it impossible for you to use personal devices at school on just which is the program that we use to create the yearbook and the newspaper. Um, and we have it like uh some way to go around it for only the devices that are like hooked up

254in the room, but like it makes it impossible to work on our personal devices, other places in the building. Um, and overall it's just like such a difficult thing to have to work around for something that is so crucial for our I think you're ask thank you so much for asking that question on this for all of us. I think there's a process. So first thing to do is talk to people within your own building and talk to them and you have a principal here who stayed the whole time in support as well. Um but that would be the next step is to talk with people within the building and then see how that works and then outside of that if there's a need um there's other people whether here or here who are willing

255to help. So that's a very good question and for you and whoever else is listening the first step is to go within the building admin and trust them and sound good. You were fantastic today. So um so round of applause to our super representative. All right. Uh motion to adjourn open session meeting. Second motion by director of pushcar. Second by director I'm sorry president. Um it's has to be adjourn open session meeting and return to close session please. Okay I I was reading the highlighted. Okay. Here we go. Motion to adjourn open session and return to closed session. Motion by director Pushkar. Second by director Ponder. All those in favor say I. I. And the