001tools and programs for our board of education members. I want to thank the board members who could join us that day and elected officials. We also hosted the Chamber of Commerce morning brew event at Louiswis and Clark before the tour. It's just a great day to highlight the wonderful things that are happening in the SCS and we have a lot of things to be proud of. Winter sports and activities season is in full swing. This year's turkey tip off was awesome. We usually pack the gym, but it seemed like there was more people than ever. I mean, it was just just amazing. Uh the the SHs gym was packed and the Pirates Warriors competed hard in all four games. It was a great night for our community. Special shout out to our performing arts departments
002as well. We had awesome fall plays and se uh several tremendous choir and orchestra concerts this holiday season as well. And um we've had some students make the all state auditions for St. Charles West. And highlighted by Luca, help me with the Thank you. Luca is what I hear is the highest scoring uh section trumpet, meaning he's the all state jazz ensemble. He's the highest scoring lead trumpet in all state ensemble. So basically the trumpet player of the state of Missouri. Would you Is that Yeah. You there's no no way I'm a musician. I'm a one of a like want to be like music art guy. So I don't know. That's I mean that's the highest level. Correct. So Landon's on that list second jazz alto saxophone. Harrison Henderson second chair member of all state
003jazz ensemble. We just talked about Luca Cash Buer uh uh earned the one piano chair in the all state jazz ensemble. Three St. Charles West students made the all state jazz ensemble with one student also earning alternate recognition. So that's just awesome. Congratulations to the es sports team. Did you know we have an esports team? >> Yeah. >> Are you ready for this? State champs. >> Yeah. Dr. Lewis and I checked them out this year, didn't we? That's another area. I don't play video games. I I didn't know what I was watching, but it was pretty cool. Um it's called Overwatch 2 is what? And they won the state championship. Way to go, Coach Msina and the Pirates. It's pretty cool. Um I think they're called the Cyborg. The You can make fun of me
004over there. Do you know what? Do you know Overwatch, too? Oh, okay. Jeremy, do you play it? Okay. >> Jeremy looks like a gamer. No, you look like you're smart playing games. I can't. All right. Anyway, I just think that's so cool. Not only do we have an esports team, but then we won the state championship. I mean, that's really cool. So, we have such talented students and I know we're all so so so proud. Board of Education seats are up once again. We have three up for reelection this year. Um so we're excited about that for uh the April election. I'm almost done. Sorry about this voice. We have worked hard to prepare for this meeting and tonight we will have an important discussion presentation on we have the St. Charles West student reporter
005tonight. Consent agenda items, student achievement report, facilities plan report, 2425 audit review, a big bus bid review. It's going to be awesome, right? Stan, um, a roof bid review, and a district financial report. Winter break is just around the corner. Our last school day, December 19th, was an early release day. I want to encourage all of us to finish this calendar year strong. It's amazing that we're already here at winter break. Uh, in 2026. We will continue to be all in together as we move forward. Happy holidays, everyone. And uh this is a testimony. Obviously, I haven't felt great for three days, but I love this place. I And I just keep talking. >> I love this school district. I love our staff. Love our students. We just have a great place. And when you
006don't even feel very good and you can't wait to get to work every day, it tells you something. I hope our staff, our students, our families feel the same. I'm very very very proud of our school district. Happy holidays everybody. Now I'm going to stop talking. >> Thank you Dr. We will move on to item 3.04 which is communications. Item 3.05 audience comments. >> All regular and special meetings of the board shall be open to the public. Since the board desires to be a good listener and be responsive to the community, persons desiring to address the board may do so during the time so on the agenda and According to established procedures, during the audience portion of each board meeting, patrons are invited by the president to speak for or against any proposal on the
007tenative agenda or on any other school concern. The individual is asked to identify him or herself comor at the discretion of the president. Patrons may be recognized at other times during the board meeting. The board is very interested in audience comments. According to board policy, members cannot respond during the actual meeting. The board will listen to audience comments. If necessary, additional followup will occur through district administrators. >> Daniel, we have two audience comments tonight. The first one is Brendan Karns. >> Good evening, members of the board, central office, and St. community. My name is Brendan Karns. I'm the president of the St. Charles Education Association, the exclusive bargaining organization for certified employees and nurses in the city of St. Charles School District. As the first half of our year comes to the close, our members
008are working hard to support our students at every level. With negotiations coming up next month, our negotiations committee has been working hard to prepare and we look forward to a positive and productive negotiations with the board of education and central office. SCEA is proud to have four winners of the Missouri NEA cheer grants for um for a grant. Current members team up with a retired Missouri NEA member to write a grant for their classroom. All four of our winners came from Harden Middle School. Uh Jackie Sers teamed up with our board member, retired Hazlewood educator Karen O'Harn. Kelly Peters teamed up with Harden teacher Barb Candela. Marne Weinberg teamed up with retired null librarian Beth Stagal. Angela Wagman teamed up with retired Hazlewood teacher Pat Minute. Thank you to all of them for putting in
009the extra effort to help make your classroom stronger. Um Dr. Seit spoke about our St. Charles West Jazz group and uh we were treated to a performance by them at our Missouri uh NEA fall gala conference. Got a lot of positive feedback on uh the performance. It was great. So thank you guys for that. It was a terrific weekend as well for myself um Harden or um Harris teacher Jennifer Powers and St. Charles high teacher Lopez reach of learning and things we will bring back here um to help improve the outcomes of our students. Um and I just wanted to conclude by uh wishing everyone a joyful, restful and safe winter break. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, Teresa. >> Hello. I'm Teresa Lnick, a mom of a St. Charles High graduate and taxpayer. Um,
010thank you to all the school employees. Um, our daughter attended St. Charles School District from grades 5 to 12, had amazing teachers and a dedicated staff. And thank you, board, for your job. It's unpaid, but you still do it. Thank you. Um, my husband worked for the school district delivering food for the school cafeterias. This district uh couldn't serve the next generation without everyone doing their part. Bob went on to glory five months ago. Um, on a personal personal note, Bob passed in his sleep at home with a grin on his face. And this tells me things. Life is short. Know where you're going and get connected to your creator. Um receive Jesus into your heart to know peace and joy in life and know peace in eternity. Um that grin on Bob's face and
011expression of all um it spoke volumes to me. Um we have a national religious holiday coming up um Christmas. Uh, my prayer is for everyone to know Jesus. And my Christmas card to you is in a song. Um, goald. Joy, joyful, joyful adore glory to the sun above melts away. Fill us with the light of day. Drive the dark oftous and remember Jesus is the reason. We will move on to item 3.06, our high school student update. Tonight, we'll be hearing from a student from St. Charles West. Good evening everyone. My name is and I'm a senior at St. Charles West High School. I'd like to thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to speak on the successes and challenges that I've seen at school. Uh just some quick facts about me. I'm the
012founder of our districtwide speech and debate team. I'm the president of Max Scholars at my school and I play varsity tennis. Uh I believe that the greatest success that I've seen first at this district is the ability for both schools to act as one entity to provide students with the greatest opportunity possible. My best example for this would be my speech. The only reason that this team got off the ground at all was because we were able to use the resources from both schools to make the most of our potential. An early example of this was our first fundraiser where our St. Charles High representative, Mrs. gave us the idea and supplies to host a car wash. And just having extra students there from St. Charles High School made it so that we could both
013get more and more cars. It's a pretty small example, but I believe that this serves to show how the unification of the two schools can benefit because of two classes over at St. Charles High School. And by taking these classes, the school turned into an extension of my own as opposed to just another high school. This made me more comfortable enough to look into whether or not it was possible to combine two schools in one team. But there were and still are a lot of challenges to overcome. While there are some due challenges that the greatest amount of collaboration between the schools from the student side, the two biggest challenges that and still do information and communication. What I mean by information is the ability to simply know about the possibility of uh integrating both
014schools. For example, I didn't know that I could take classes at St. Charles High School until I went out of my way and asked some upper classmen who done the same. So, I wouldn't have even known about the fact that I could find those schools if I hadn't had these upper classman talk. There was no streamline process to Hey, I have this opportunity. If my class is offered at this school, I can straight up go St. Charles High. My second uh biggest challenge would be communication. I as a student have no real process to directly address the student body of St. Charles High School. I have to rely on what my teacher and sponsor for our speech and debate team here has to say to their representative over there to try and communicate between students.
015And as president, this is a real challenge. What I value most in a speech debate team is direct communication between students. Any questions and answers that they have that I could answer must go through their representative and my representative first. This communication stems further beyond just me and them. Even to get this team started, I had to talk to my athletic director and then their athletic director as well, which would have served to be a big problem if I hadn't already been taking classes at St. Charles High School and wasn't familiar familiar with some of the staff over there. So, that's the main challenges that I have with my speech and debate team. And the only other real would be the standardized testing process at this district. I know that this year we'll be offering
016district for students in our district and posting it here. But I believe obviously I think that we should first see how the outcome turns out. But I believe that offering two standardized tests, one in one would be more beneficial to the student body in the spring or the fall. The reason I say this is because having one in the fall, just based off my personal experience would get the seniors that are like scrambling to raise their a more like homely environment and more like streamlined process of take the test at their home school or at their home district. And I don't think that we should move it just to the fall because the spring does have its own benefits such as getting some underassmen to take their test earlier. I wanted to talk about >>
017Thank you very much for coming to share. We appreciate your time, any information you share. Any questions or comments for if not >> actually just one comment just to let you know we are doing testing. We're going to start testing in the fall as well. So we will have a fall and spring testing. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. At this time, we're just going to take a brief couple minute break. If anybody would like to leave at this time, feel free. And we'll start back here in about two or three minutes. Okay, we will start back with the meeting item 3.07. I make a motion we adopt the agenda as presented. Is there a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? I oppos. Next, we have the consent agenda. For efficiency, the
018school board utilizes a consent agenda. Items placed on the consent agenda are routine in nature or are among the many decisions that the board has already determined are in the domain of the administration. I make a motion we approve the consent agenda as presented. Is there a second? All those in favor? I oppos. We will move on to item 6.01 which is our student achievement. >> Well, good evening everyone. We are excited um we have members of the CNI department and we are excited to present our annual student achievement report to you. Uh just keep in mind the data that you will see is based on last year's school data. So the 2425 school year data uh map and ELC data. Um so I'll introduce them now. Um but we have Caitlyn Cromian our math
019and science coordinator, Dr. Jessica Rico, our ELA and social studies coordinator, and Megan Bowers, our assessment data and learning coordinator here as well. So, we're going to go ahead and just jump into it. Uh, we will start with our demographic data. Um, as you would see, um, we had last year we had about 4,00 students. Really no significant growth or loss um, last year when it comes to our student enrollment. Um, our early childhood enrollment is based on this year's current numbers. So that's 256. Uh one of the things that Dr. Westbrook explained to us is that that's just beginning of the year numbers. So we'll see that number grow throughout the year as students uh become of age in order to enter our early childhood center. Uh demographics have relatively stayed the same. Um
020I do want to point out just our free and reduced numbers are holding at about 40%. Um when you compare that to 2021, just we always keep in mind that during that time that's during the co years. um we were operating under uh state funding where everyone got food for free. So um those numbers are not the best indicator of where we were when you look at 21 and 22. So we are stabilizing at about 40% free and reduced lunch. Our gifted numbers had a slice slight increase. um homeless enrollment stayed about the same and did we and we did see uh decrease in the amount of students who receive special education services. So this is our annual progress report or also known as the APR data. Um so uh four years ago now we
021the state implemented its latest accreditation system which is known as MI6. Um, and under M6, if you look back in 2022, uh, City of St. Charles School District, we received a 77% on that. The 2023 school year, we dropped the percent to 76%. Last year, uh, slight increase, 76.7%. And then this year, we are excited to announce that St. Charles School District, we are at a 90% on our APR. Yeah, we can absolutely clap for that. And then On the left hand side here you will see the composite. So the composite is the three-year average of the APRs. And so um the 2020 2022 data falls off. And so we're looking at the 23 24 and 25 data. So we are at 82.4 for our composite APR u which is fully fully accredited. Keep in
022mind that it's the composite score that the state looks at when awarding accreditation. So we are fully accredited. I just wanted to show just county comparisons. So in the blue you will see um this year's APR and in the maroon you will see our composite APRs compared across the county. Uh Fort Zumalt this year had a 96% Francis 90.2 or farmer 80 and then Wville school district was a 90. For those of you who don't know this this is how we get those points. So 70% of that score is based on student performance and 30% of that score is based on continuous improvement. So when we look at student performance we have what's called achievement status and then we have growth. So the achievement portion that is what we know as the uh percentage of
023kids uh proficient and advanced that looks at our NPI scores and then that's broken down by students and then it's broken down by student groups. Student groups are historically underperforming students across the state. They get lumped into one category. So when we talk about student group, that includes students with IEPs, students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, African-American students, and students uh non-native English speaker students. So those are our student groups. 24% of that score is also based on student growth. Growth is a very very complicated formula. It is pretty much impossible to predict. Um each year I stand before you and I tell you that I don't I I don't understand the growth formula and that has not changed this year. I I I still don't understand that. Uh Megan has done a
024lot of work with taking a deep dive into that and she can talk to that maybe a little more. um she has um sent out to building principles um some guidance on how to dissect that a little further. Growth can be a double-edged sword because it can hurt you, but it can sometimes work against you. You'll see that a little later when we get to some of our individual buildings. 22% of that score is based on college and career readiness. So that's looking at our graduation rate, that's looking at graduate followup, and that's looking at how our students uh test on those college and career readiness assessments like ACT and ASVAB and work keys. the 30% continuous improvement. That's where our uh student attendance scores come into play, our CIP, our self-study, uh climate and
025culture surveys, and then us submitting all of the required paperwork to the state on time. So, that's how we get the APR score that we have. Are there any questions over that so far? So, let's break down our scores and show where uh we saw our growth. So if you look at our key here, anything in green was target. That meant we received the maximum number of points that we could have gotten for those categories. Anything in orange is considered on track. Anything um in yellow is approaching and anything in red is emerging. I'm happy to announce that we saw growth in every single content area in all students and in our student groups. So that is a very big accomplishment for us as a district. Uh we saw growth that pushed us into the
026target category for ELA. We are so close in math. We are right under u that target threshold for math. Science we rebounded from our previous year's dip. Science continues to be an area where we we know we need to grow which is why we're very excited to have a science coordinator. Uh joining the team. No pressure. Uh and then social studies, we also saw uh a pretty good uh bump in our social studies scores uh which pushed us over that target uh into the target category as well. >> That's the teeth right there. I mean really honestly to see that student growth is awesome. >> It is. It is. And then when you look at student growth, um the one area that we know and we continue to say that we we know we have
027to work on and that we're things in place is science. When you look on student performance, the college and career readiness, we are approaching in this category. This is always a year behind. So this data here is based on the graduates from the class of 23 24. So last year's graduates, we saw some growth. I don't know if it's enough to change our score here, but we did see some growth last year, but that won't be reflected into next year's APR. We did get full points this year on our graduation rate. That is another point to celebrate. We hit a 92% graduation rate. So, we can clap for that as a district. And then we receive full points on our graduate follow-up surveys. Um yeah, almost yeah, we were 84% just five years ago, >>
028which is abysmal. We knew that was an issue. >> We've done a great job of getting that. It's awesome. >> And then when you look at continuous improvement, um, so we received all of our points in continuous improvement with the exception of attendance. We received three out of the four points. Last year, our attendance numbers dropped to 84%. And remember that is proportional attendance. So that is the percentage of students who are present 90% of the time. And so for us to be at 84%. That means, if you want to put numbers on it, that's about 720 students districtwide who missed at least 17 days of school last school year. So, 720 students missed practically a month of school last year. And so, that's why attendance continues to be a focus area for us. It
029is one of our goals in the CIP because we know if we can just get students present in the buildings and in seats then we can absolutely of course increase student achievement if they're just there. This next slide before I jump to this next slide um this slide is not a slide to uh to pick school against school but one of the things that M6 does require us to do is to be transparent and to show the public all of our data. And so this next slide, you're going to see the APRs for each of our buildings. And we have a when you see the slide, we have a lot to celebrate as a district. Uh beginning uh with Monroe, Monroe Elementary School received a perfect score on their APR. So we can clap for
030Monroe Elementary. No elementary is at a 92.5%. Harden Harden Middle School has seen tremendous growth over the past three or four years. Um When when this APR first came out under this new MP6 part was in the upper 60s and so now as a building they're sitting in the low 90s. It's incredible. Lincoln continues to do really great things. Harris uh saw really good growth last year as a building. Our two high schools really put in some work last year. We saw good growth at both St. Charles West and St. Charles High. Now I do want to talk about Black for a second because when I about how that growth piece can benefit you, but it can also hurt you. Blackhurst Elementary has had the highest percentage of kids proficient and advanced than they've ever
031had. Blackhurst Elementary has also had the highest MPI score that they've ever had. And Blackhurst Elementary received all of the points that they could get. So, in when it comes to student achievement, but for Target, which is Target, they the highest points that you can get and then we get their growth scores in. And it was just like someone popped up popped our bubble because they received some of the lowest scores in student growth. And it's it it can be especially for the the schools and the building leaders, it can be a bit deflating because they're doing really good work and it is showing in their test scores, but it wasn't reflected on that growth report. Um, and so Black has a 70%. And I can tell you that Coverdale and Jefferson, they are doing
032really, really, really good work, hard work within those buildings. Uh, and we know we have room to grow. Um, and our teams are working with all not just at Coverdale Jefferson, but in all of our buildings uh to really continue this momentum as we finish out the rest of this. Any questions on what I've presented so far, so you might not know the answer. Um, is the attendance more of a problem at the earlier grades or >> secondary >> at the high school? >> High school. So once um once we hit harden is where we start to see our attendance start to fall off. Now Harden has done really well over the past couple years with increasing their attendance. But last year even Harden saw a bit of a drop. I believe they were at
033a 80% attendance where the year before they were at 85. I they saw a pretty significant drop last year hard with attendance. Um and all of our buildings have school improvement plans that address attendance for this current year. But it's it starts at harder when we start to see that decline in attendance. >> Is that is that somewhat due to disciplinary things? I know as we get into junior high we hear a lot of different disciplinary things that go on suspensions. I mean suspensions play a part of it I but discipline at Harden has been drastically down. I mean we've reduced discipline at Harden uh by like almost a thousand um office referrals um just in the past couple years. So I wouldn't say it's attendance or it's discipline. Uh we've not been able to
034put our finger on exactly the root cause of it. I know one of the things that the principal has been doing over there is the most commonly missed days year after year and planning different incentives on those days so that students aren't missing. Uh but we've not been able to put our finger on what the root cause is. >> Tell me before those suspensions go. >> Starting this year, suspensions no longer count when it comes attendance. Starting this year though, >> I had a question. So are there universal things we're doing to improve um attendance or is that to building. >> So we have a universal as so elementary has some universals but then they also have building specific items and then um secondary they have some universal things. So all of our buildings um
035there are attendance letters that get generated through power school when students hit a certain threshold. Uh secretaries or counselors or principles are reaching out to families when students hit those certain thresholds. We are holding um diversionaries with when students hit a certain threshold. We're working with the JJC and Megan Meyer Foundation with some of our chronic absentee students. Those are universals that are happening. But then when it comes to incentives and things like that, those are more building specific. There's a lot more specific interventions within the schools. >> Care teams are doing house visits, lots of conversations with counselors, even more so than ever. And I think that shows you too going back to our um graduation rate that there's a lot to do with over success campus obviously in our our high school too,
036but I just remember even 10 years ago when a kid wasn't coming to school, it doesn't mean we didn't care. But now we have so much more strategic things that we do to really make sure I mean we everything we can to get a kid in school. >> These teachers are doing it with our staff, our counselors, and our principles. >> Principles are going to house, counselors are going to houses, >> professors are helping us. I mean, you name it. It's then it becomes becomes kind of, you know, then it becomes a family issue that we're working with, too. But we come alongside them, try to get to school best we can. But it's I I believe even eight to 10 years ago, it was kind of like, oh, we went to a point. We
037don't stop. We just constantly we're not giving up these kids at all. And that doesn't mean we did that eight to 10 years ago, but this is the this is where we're at. Part is we got to get kids. >> So, I'm going to turn this over to Megan. She's going to start diving into some of the actual data. >> So, this is just going to be a little bit of a deeper dive into student achievement. And so what you'll see is a series of three slides for ELA, math, science, and two for social studies. And what we want to first look at is Dr. Draper did just go over our successes with NPI, but I think it's even more powerful when you see that growth over time. So a couple of things to look
038at on this slide here is that you can see back from 2022 a little bit of a decline all the way down to 2024 and an 8.8 NPI jump in just the past year for all students and a 6.4 NPI jump for our student groups. So over the course of I mean we've been on continuous decline and then all of a sudden massive growth which is wonderful and target Dr. said for the first time well in the past four years in ELA so we can be very proud of that. The next thing I want to show you and once I get done explaining this the next couple of rounds will go a little bit faster. So when you look at this data, I know it's a lot of numbers. So let me focus your attention
039to what you look here. This is all students. We've got SCSD in the first column and the state of Missouri in the second. And then we have our student groups in the first column and the state in the second. The big number that you want to look at here to see like what we're driving home here is the percentage of students that are proficient and advanced. What we really are concerned about is how did that compare to the state and first of all for our own success what percentage of students did they get over that proficient line. So the first thing I want to show you for ELA for all students is 53.44% of our students were proficient or advanced in ELA and that is a 9.5% higher. It's 9.5% higher than the state average
040for proficiency, which is wonderful. And then our student groups, 37.1 of them were proficient or advanced, and that's 10.5 percentage points higher than the state. So the next thing I want to show you is a drill down. Again, a lot of numbers, so let me focus you in here. On this side you can see SCSD each grade level percentage of students proficient and advanced and then obviously over here we also show you below basic and basic and then this is the state in the middle are really the numbers that you want to take a look at because that's where we kind of identify how close are we to the state or we'd like to see above the state. Anything in blue here in the middle means we're above the average. Anything in red means we're
041below. But as you can the two grade levels that we are below within sixth grade. We are just barely below the state average in terms of the percentage of students proficient in advance. So that is you know we're there's some par there with the state but in other cases most other well every other case we are quite a bit above the state in terms of percent of students proficient and advanced. Some highlights 11.6% higher in third grade, 11.1 in fourth, and then this is the winner, seventh grade, 16.3% more students were proficient or advanced than state was 14% and English was 7.2. So that's English language arts. We're going to repeat that same cycle for math. Just over time, you can see that we have been steadily making progress toward our NPI and math since
0422022. But last year, just like with ELA, we saw significant growth compared to the past few years. So 8.5 MP points were gained last year for all students, 9.1 for our student groups. When we compare uh the percentage of students proficient and advanced to the state, you can see that we have 57 or I'm sorry 52.7% of our students in math or proficient or advanced which is 10.1% higher than the state. When we look at our student groups, we have 36.1% of them proficient or advanced which is 11.5% higher than the state. And when we look at our individual grade levels, we can only one grade level that was lower than the state average by6%. Everybody else was significantly I would say sign well except for like they were above but not significantly above the
043state average. So third grade 15% higher fourth grade 12.6th grade 9.2 eighth grade 12.1 and algebra 12.1% above the state. So science Um, you can see that this is not a surprise, but I remember we talked about this data last year. Not a fun slide to show you guys last year, but this year it's a celebration. Honestly, even though we are still not quite at the highest point we hit, right? 2023 was the highest we've hit um in the past four years. And while we haven't quite gotten like rebounded to that point, we've gained 10.6 points in one year for all students and 9.2 for student groups. So while we still have not rebounded, we are well on our way to making pretty rapid progress. When we look at our students compared to the state
044for proficiency, uh 42.7% of our students were proficient or advanced, which is 2.9% higher than less of a difference. two subject areas still greater. When we look at our student groups, 24.9% proficient or advanced, which is 2.3% higher than the state average. It's not quite what we'd like to see, but better, but I think better. We all know we can do better. When we look at the grade levels, what we can see is only one grade level was above the state average in terms of percent proficient and advanced, and Um so Harden had 8.1% more students proficient or advanced than the state. Um fifth grade wasn't too far behind with 2.2% less and bio wasn't too far behind either 4.2% less but we all know that these numbers are not what we want for our
045students to achieve. All right, government's going to be shorter because one subject, one class. Uh we saw huge growth, the biggest growth in this one content area or this one class really, this one tested subject. Um 17.7 NPI points for all students and 15.1 for our student groups. Um compared so you can see we had 51.5% of our students proficient or advanced and that's 10.6% our student groups 30.3 proficient or advance which is 6.5% higher. >> So as you can see as a district um we have a lot to celebrate this year. Um our graduation rate is up um 2.4%. uh graduate followup surveys. Those are the surveys that we send out. Uh those are up as well. We were 64% the year before and that was a clerical mistake. That's uh change in staffing
046at one of our high schools resulted in those low numbers. So we rebounded um and we have some systems in place to avoid that in the future. We saw APR increases at Harris, Monroe, Jefferson, Harden, St. Charles High, and St. Charles West, which is incredible. We saw NPI increase in student achievement in all four content areas for all students and for student groups. And then we are receiving recognition. Um Lincoln, I believe there are 2300 elementary schools uh in the state of Missouri and our own Lincoln Elementary was ranked number three. So that's pretty incredible. Uh as I said before, Monroe Elementary received a perfect score on their APR. And as a district, we had the highest growth in NPI or in APR uh across the St. Louis metropolitan area. Other celebrations, uh student achievements,
047we had 61 students earn their Adobe certificates, 34 students, uh earn their IRC's, 14 students earned the seal of biiteracy, which is pretty big. I would say that because you think we are uh for about what 1400 students in our high schools. Um and I went to my daughter's high school graduation in a neighboring district. I won't say the school and they have about 1,400 students in their school and they had about eight students who earned uh seal of literacy and we earned 14 as a district. So I think that's pretty impressive. other achievements. U this is our ACT average composite and we saw growth last year as a district as well. So the maroon represents city of St. Charles school district. The uh darker blue is the state and then the lighter blue is
048the national level and so we saw increase in ACT scores as a district. We have 31 students earn AP scholars, 13 students earn AP scholars with honor and 16 students earn AP scholars with distinction. Our department um continues to work very I'm so excited uh to have these ladies join us because they really do the hard work. uh they we as a team we are in buildings we are in classrooms uh meeting with teachers they are in PLC's meeting with teachers meeting with building leaders conducting instructional walkthroughs as you know we um rewrote lots of curriculum we've been rewriting curriculum um wooden wisdom was a big implementation year last year at the elementary level for ELA we also had social studies implementation last year we are in the a two-year rewrite with math and hope
049to finish that up this year. Uh and then I think more than ever our district is making decisions when it comes to what's happening in the classrooms based on the data that we are getting. Uh we implemented a new benchmark testing system last year at our high school levels. Uh and so I we we have come a long way as a district. We're starting to see those results, but we realize we still have a lot of work to do. And so this is just continued momentum for us as we finish this year and head into the next one. Are there any questions for me, my team? >> I have one. We had our first transition meeting this week, which was wonderful. Jeremy up and um a configuration. I'm thinking about transitions though. And Ellen had
050a great question when we were there and I I'm looking at those state numbers compared to our numbers for fifth and sixth grade. >> Is there a way that we can find out, you know, when their transitions were in those districts throughout the state and then compare? You know my the concern is that scores really drop during that transition year and what is the difference between when they transition at sixth grade, fifth grade into seventh grade? >> So is there a way we can look at that? >> I can I I have to look to see I believe the state um in the state report card I will be able to see grade level specific question or um test scores across the So, I'll have to look to see if that's released uh for grade
051level specific data. Um, as far as when different districts transition students, >> the majority are K through five and then six through eight. There are a handful of districts across the state that have five and six centers or very few like less than 10 I would say. So we can probably pull those out, those 10, and then compare them to the state scores and see, you know, is it even worse? >> Is Yeah, absolutely. >> I just I have a comment, but I think I mean kudos to you all. Great job for all the work you all have been doing. So, thank you to all of you and um just how amazing it is that not only are we seeing improvement across all areas with all students but with specifically as well our student groups
052I think is huge because a lot of times you'll see all students and the student groups still lacking not seeing but it's I mean very comparable throughout all the subjects so great >> mine's more comments too I think last year when we were here talking about this presentation there was a lot of questions and what are we doing how are we going to improve um which comes into what we're doing this year with our there's been more all good news and just seeing uh what all of the hard work has been giving us for benefits. So again, kudos to everybody that's been a part of it and even further right uh I have I pulled up last year's presentation >> uh for just a comparison on a couple of things that's just further goodness the
053the grand followup right we had improvement not only was it improvement we had zero points last year zero out of four and we're four out of four right obviously that's a big one the graduation rate 2.3 % what we were celebrating last year was8%. >> Yeah. >> Uh so I mean huge jump number eight last year celebration number three this year celebration. So I think even with some of those things in comparison when you look last year too on the on the deep data that we saw there were single digit differences. This year pretty much everything or most everything is double digit with stars next to it and we're talking about whatever else. even in the areas that we were good in before were better and even in the areas that we were struggling in,
054we're better and on the right direction for it. Um, and so I think our our challenge is just now to continue maintaining it >> and getting that 95%. >> Let's continue raising the bar. Absolutely. >> Any other questions or comments? >> Yep. Great job. Good job. Good job, ladies. I make a motion to approve the student achievement report. Is there a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor? I. That passes. Thank you all so much. >> Thank you, Dr. Draper. We will move on to item 7.01, which is our facilities plan. Typically this is done every two years in January. Uh but with the new reporting requirements by Desi, this becomes an annual report that we have to do. So uh you will start seeing this more than likely in December, maybe a month
055or so before uh our director of facilities typically would provide this report uh Scott Bennett, but since we pushed this a month ahead of his he wasn't prepared to do so quite all right with me. I will try to lead you through it the best I can. So CEP goal as you as you guys know you've seen it quite a bit by the 2930 school year the district will complete a comprehensive facilities improvement plan to ensure all buildings are safe clean and conducive to learning as measured by the professional analysis increased staff or state satisfaction scores annual facility surveys and completing at least five high priority renovation projects identified in plan that will be relatively easy considering we're in a bond but when we wrote this We did not know if that was going to
056happen or not. So, uh, very well covered because of that. Uh, staffing, you just see our breakdown within our facilities department. A couple things to note. I've already spoke about Scott. We have three supervisors that help us manage all of those individuals. Uh, positions on the right. Uh, Karen Hollander is a maintenance secretary, maintenance secretary for us. And then we do have a warehouse manager. U all, every one of these positions are critical to us. Uh, and you know, a lot of times we don't have the opportunity to highlight them enough. Uh, but especially when a snow day hits, uh, every one of these positions are absolutely crucial for us to be ready for the next school day. And, uh, they're working their tails off, making sure our grounds are appropriate for people to return.
057And, and they do, they work tremendously hard. Just think about shoveling your own driveway. think about shoveling the sidewalk going around Jefferson. Uh it's it's it's quite a bit a tremendous respect to each one. Uh curb appeal. Uh we get that quite a bit as far as asking what we do about how we provide good looking grounds. Landscaping twice a year. That's just the refresh the mulching that we a lot of times we do that around graduation. And then right before the students return, we do contract out to Nelson's land service for all of our mowing. We will I believe next year to go back out for a bit on that. And then we have ongoing tree pruning and care. As I've mentioned before to you all, we have a tremendous amount of trees in
058our district grounds. Beautiful, many of them old, but they do take considerable work to ensure that they are safe for our grounds. A good cold spell like this certainly produces a lot of weak branches. So, uh, safety and security, uh, reing the reistwide project that's still ongoing. We provided exterior door and window numbering on all of our buildings. Safety laminate was new. That was a state grant, but we've also spent some of our funds to do so. We've completed to get the lead out of school drinking water act that has been refunded back to the district for the expenditures that we've had on that. Continued improvements with security cameras. We have about 815 in the district. As a reminder, we do share each one of those feeds with the St. police department, city police department,
059uh annual inspections of fire devices and exit signs. And then we do uh state statute. Now with AE management, we are following those guidelines. Uh energy consumption. This is kind of a neat uh report that I receive at least once a month. Sometimes the report falls and we get two of them in the same month. But we spent a lot of money on building wide automation systems, LED lighting, uh new Hback improvements that just shows you what the Energy Star report has done in each one of those buildings that have had considerable work done. Few questions with success and Lincoln I think their scores dropped during the major construction and now we will work and hopefully rebuild those. I have asked the team to look at that to ensure that those scores are accurate. They
060did say the construction would would create some bad data on on that. So, but everything else if you see the score on the left is what they were before the work was done. The score score on the right is afterwards. The higher the score, the better. 50 is that med. So, they're performing much better with the work that we've done there. If you see that EUI, that's energy utilization index or energy usage index or something along those lines. That's where one where the lower the score. So, how much energy are we using per square footage? And That's how those buildings are designed uh to receive that information. So, a lot of good savings there. You see at the bottom what it cost us in September to to operate our building. Uh about $90,000 for one
061month. March you're going to see around 40 April 50,000 somewhere in that range. So, September is one of our highest usage months with the heat and the students return. All right. Construction improvements since the last report. We've had the Harris renovation, St. Charles West renovation, and then the roofing jobs on success, Monroe, Jefferson, St. Charles West, and Harden. Those are all complete. Uh upcoming bond spending. Uh some of which you'll see tonight with the roofing at Coverdale, LNC, Louis, Clark, Blackhurst. We are going to bring to you eventually Blackhurst BRB repipe. We did that at Harden about a year and a half ago. Continued renovations at Harrison St. Charles West. Early Childhood Secure entrance is what we're planning for a more secure entrance. Let me say it that way. Uh St. Charles High fire alarm
062initiation improvement 42 new buses which you'll see tonight and then office flooring hard and null. The one thing I didn't put in there was some HBAC work that's going to be done at null. That was kind of a last minute uh not last minute but because of the issues that we had there last summer we are looking to make improvements there along with at least one RTU ripped off unit at Harden to uh ensure that we don't have that same issue from the previous summer as well. Uh significant work completed since the last report. I'm not going to read through all of those. Uh and this is just some of the more significant projects that we've had. So, uh, you can see there's a lot of work that's being done. Obviously, not all of these
063go up to where we have an RFP or anything along those lines. Um, typically below 50,000 unless you see an RTU replacement. Some of it has been insurance related uh improvements. That does take a considerable amount of manpower on our end just to clear out and reintroduce that same material back in. So, a lot of lot of good work that's occurring within our facilities and then capital for fiscal year 27. That's the next school year. You see this overhang outside of here that looks like it's in really bad shape. It's because it is in really bad shape. Uh uh and a new chimney cap over there. Monroe skylights. We need to replace those. Harris concrete entrance Harris playground covered swing set an old playground. See a lot of playgrounds. We get reports from our insured
064and then safety compliance uh within the state that that guide us when they replace should look like for those and then you'll see the UTV to purchase two of those. That is not frivolous spending. I want to assure you those are not something for us to go have fun on within the district. Uh primary purpose we do have golf carts which are incredibly expensive now. Um but we could util take care of our sidewalks for us and save a lot of our employees in the future. So that's a goal for that and that's why that's on there. But I do want to communicate to it because it does look a little but I promise they have a really good reason. All right, any questions? >> I have a comment. The tour we took at Lewis
065and Clark, the improvements in that dental assistant program were phenomenal. And I mean considering it just started and it went from being really kind of rough to a very professional looking space within a year. It's amazing. >> So we did we get we had some state grant on that uh to help with those improvements. But I do want to shout out Craig Olsson who's our carpenter in the district and he does he did a lot of that work as well. Yeah, that's a great question. So, Harris has a has a >> they have a playground on the north side of that building that's tucked back a little bit from the front entrance. It's all g fenced in and uh that playground right now is out and it serves our kindergarteners and our some of our
066students with specialized needs. Uh, so that one is a is going to be a costly one to replace. >> We did it was earlier this year or last year that was the other one or something. >> Yeah, we actually had two playgrounds over there that were replaced and those were uh when were inspected they said we could not be on those anymore. Any other questions, comments? If not, I make a motion to approve the facilities plan review. Is there a second? >> All those in favor? >> I that passes. >> Hey, Heidi, before you jump to the next one, one of the things that Jeremy brought up that I forgot to mention in my report, um, he talked about moving his report up and his plan now being annual. So, under M6, we are now
067required Our plans are now annual instead of bianual. And then some things that we just had like an assessment plan. Now they have to be presented to you all annually. So um you'll start to see some of those. And another thing that I forgot to mention is that we every few years we have to submit all of these documents to the state. And so this is our review year for M6 cycle 2. So that's all due to the state by the end of December. We've already submitted it for feedback and hopefully we'll get positive results and then we'll officially submit it by the 31st of the month. But just wanted you to guys >> I didn't know if you said that when I was out I was going to mention that kind like the safety
068and security one we did last last month we still have good reports but that might just be a little quicker and shorter because we're doing them every year >> because of Thank you. We'll move on to item 7.02. This is our 2425 audit review. >> All right. There's absolutely no good way of shortening this. I mean, there's a good way. I don't think there is. Uh, but to put it, uh, and for me to be able to go through the screen up there. So, I'm just going to talk you guys through it if you don't mind. U if you go to page four on the audit report which is slide seven will be three pages slides ahead of the page report uh the what you'll see there is uh all the funds that we had
069added together for the 24 school year and if you look down through there the reason that you have a payroll withholdings on that $15,79 that's simply because when June 30th hit Delta Dental had not uh build yet. >> Can you It's on the It's on the third attachment. >> If we can pull it up on the screen. >> I'm sorry. I should have said that. >> So, page seven. Yep. >> Yeah. Now we're on page four, slide seven. >> There it is. Right. >> Apologies. Did I say that >> partially? >> It seems like it's a lot. >> Second attachment. >> So, is everybody following along? I'm here all night, guys. You're gonna have to bear with me on this. >> Sorry. Just put a little humor in there for a second. >> I appreciate
070it because we're talking about the audit should be humorous. >> All right. So, uh, we've got Delta Dental, like I was saying, that's the only reason that you see that payroll withholding on there. And then student scholarships. Sometimes that question may be asked, how how do we have so much money for student scholarships? That's actually our endowments. So, uh, we We have two endowments, long time endowments, uh approaching 100 years on one of them, uh that we still provide some scholarship money out to students for. Uh and then so like I said, all these are all of our funds uh together with the exception of self insurance. And that's what the next few pages will show you is kind of each fund broken down. We won't go through that. The next page I wanted to
071highlight for you all was page eight. And if you look at the bottom left of that where it says fund balances beginning and fund balances ending, that will show you that we did end with a surplus. That surplus was primarily due to um expenditures uh being a little bit less than planned, but also we had some er money that rolled into that school year that hit our books for that fiscal. So that's why you see that that that difference there mainly that's why you see that difference on page 10 slide 13 that's our self insurance where we have that now as a restricted fund. If you go to the very next page uh you can turn that over and you can see how that fund performed for the previous year. So that would be page
07211 slide 14. uh on the change in net position, it was about $170,000 uh uh gain in our self insurance fund. Now, to give you an idea, our stop loss is 200,000. Meaning, if any employee reaches that 200,000 mark, uh every every expense after that gets covered uh by insurance. So, you're you're really one bad claim away from uh from that changing. Uh so, just to give you a little bit of context there, uh let's There's a lot in between this that's just going to talk about definitions and stuff like that. If you look at page uh 17 slide 20, this is a this is a nice one for us to know. At the very bottom, you'll see a percent that says 95.9%. That was the amount of uh people that paid their taxes on
073time. And we use that to budget for the next year. So we'll take our total amount of taxes that we expect locally and then use that to budget for the we'll take 5% off. Any questions so far? I know this is extremely exciting. All right. Uh page 19 slide 22. Uh that's our legal debt margin on that on that paragraph which on the the third or second bottom paragraph you see that we're at we had 161 uh million dollars left that we could have took out that for obviously we don't even come close to that but that's what we could do based on state statute and the very top position it just shows we've had no new leases this Uh page 20 slide 23 that's our our capital spending. Okay. So you see our leases
074that we have uh out for first buses that have been spent. We do have copier uh agreement that we have out and then we have enterprise leasing which is all of our district vehicles. So that's just all of our operating leases that we have. Page Slide 24 is our federal audit portion. We are required to have a federal audit each year. That's what you'll see here. And the major areas that they really dug into this past year uh are highlighted by the little M. And that was special education grants to states, special education, preschool grants. So nice job to uh Ashley Jones and her team. And then as her co 19 relief was was audited and they took a deeper dive into that. with no concerns. If you look at page 23, slide 26, uh
075that's just our positive and negative for our budgeted amount amounts, you'll see that everything lands in the positive amounts for that or in the correct amounts for that. So, nothing new there or alarming there that would bring any specialized attention. And then I skipped quite a few on this because a lot of it's calendars and numbers that just represent like attendance and things that you've already heard quite a bit on. Um so that would take us all the way now to page 38 which is slide 41 I believe. And at the top of that page that's where the auditor gets to the point that we all really want to hear is how did we do the unmodified is the that you can receive a couple of unmodified is what we shoot for each year. It's
076what we have in our CEO. And then if you look below that, uh it says type A and type B programs. I I had to ask some questions on that just in case you all had questions on that. Uh type A means more than $750,000 of federal money. Type B is less than 750. Uh since we do have some of that, that's a specialized audit which you saw. We are not qualified as a lowrisk audit. That's why that's marked no because we are a cash basis district which is the majority of school districts in the state of Missouri. Because of that, we cannot be classified as low risk audit. If we were then if we were low risk, they would only audit like 20% of our federal dollars rather than 40. So, I did have
077to make sure I knew the answer to that. Um, but that's it. I mean, it's an unmodified report. It's a good report. I will say this, we got great information from our auditor, uh, firm, uh, the audit firm that said, you know, this has been the easiest audit that they've conducted on us. And, and I don't say that because of me at all. I'm just delivering the report. It was because of the great work within our business office. And uh, so and obviously within Ashley's office because she has a lot a lot of work with a lot of money through specialized services. just a just a great job and we couldn't have been happier for the outcome. To that point, we got great people all throughout this district doing great work. It really just you
078can see it and everything that we're doing. We're seeing great growth and increases and then just you know we can't we can't take this for granted this type of work and this type of water. So great job Jeremy, great job your team. Thanks to Ashley's group as well. >> I was a earlier So, I know how hard it is to get through these with nothing. And it's nice. I know last year it was three deficiencies. I think >> Oh, yeah. I meant I meant to point that out. My apologies. Thank you for bringing it up. >> We had three last year. We had no new findings this year. And when I say findings, they're management comments. They're not So, management comments. Uh, so we had three last year relatively uh small comments. Uh, so we've
079not we've got that narrow down at this point. We'll continue to work on the one about membership for transportation and how we report that. >> Any other comments, questions? Not thank you, Jeremy. And again, thank you to both Ashley's department and the business department keeping good records. So, I will make a motion to approve the 2425 audit review. Is there a second? All those In favor I that passes we will move on to item 7.03 the bus bid approval. >> Yeah. So u what we're proposing here are type A, type B and type C buses. This was been a pretty fluid process for us and u it's not an easy thing to select a bus because there are varieties and then there are also preferences uh from our transportation department. as you might have preferences
080with your own vehicles. Uh not saying that that is the sole decision maker for us, but I did give you guys a recommendation uh for each of these three types of buses with the type A being we did not uh I did not recommend low bid. Uh so I invited uh Mr. Stan Fowler here. He's our director of transportation as you all know. We also have the assistant director of transportation, Robert Anderson, joining us who are very very uh educated in busing. Uh and I listen to them frequently and asking questions and they probably get tired of me asking some of those questions. So uh Mr. is here to talk to you all about the type A buses in particular that I did not everyone so you can just flip them randomly as Uh no,
081simply put um just kind of give you give a little backtory context here several years. A lot has changed in transportation industry. Before I even became administrator here, I was given a lot of infamous something that is inevitable, but it's also something that I recognized years ago that sustain different ways to leverage our resources making sure that we have Part of that goes into creating one of the things that I'm quite proud of while pastime. That's the environment that we create. All the great people necessary. With that in mind, my sole focus really driver type. It's one thing on this bus. I guess I should say when going through this process back lot of people. One of the biggest things that came up really was space. This contributes to one of the things I Another
082aspect that we looked at again is it's kind of hard to explain us. last day. That's something So with the recommendation faced that I've received something that's preference That being said, I do want to add that while this research every That makes sense. Any other questions? Is the type of bus a selling point to getting bus drivers hired? >> It can be. It's not a leading selling point. Um, it is a selling point. Depends on the driver. Some type on it's not a selling point bus. That's 100% >> sometimes because they are >> so now you're I always say we have the finest fleet in the land Well, you have to first. >> Yeah. I think one of the reasons I mean it's a huge perk for drivers to have air conditioning buses and students
083more importantly. Uh but you know we see these uh domes do coming into effect you know a bus breaks down or something along those lines. One of those things happen they get stuck in traffic and that's for children. I mean I don't want to be on myself. Uh so I can't imagine do that with >> well those hottest days that we have on those buses his group and I even jumped in at times we're running around just to get them through the afternoon that speaking of comfort and safety and all those things the other day when we hit our day early release Our president, I'm assuming he was our president. >> Yes. >> He's a monitor and he was on a bus that had to go get children outside our district. They were on a
084bus for over three hours. And that doesn't happen every day. But that's what we're talking. >> No complaining. No. I mean, they just did what they needed to do that day to get those kids. They were on the highway for three hours. Just to add a little bit of context to that, it's not something certainly just a side note if you want to see some and we you know how much I love our staff you want to see some dedicated people who are positive every day come out the bus garage at 5:45 in the morning with me and it's just amazing how they show up every day right I mean they are they're actually very friendly It's amaz every every it's just >> we're no matter what we decide to do, we're excited about this
085new fleet. We're excited about because we feel like it's matching what our our our transportation department is all about and it's a blessing to have a department that you can count on. And the other day the work they did when we had to flip it. We haven't flipped an early release day like that in ever I mean long we were the only district in this county that didn't have to stop. Now there are some reasons for that kudos to this department. unrelated that day with safety road. >> How long are we pl using this last 10 years, right? >> Yeah, this past one was 10 years and there was a reason for that with some refinancing that was done. Uh I've spoke to Mr. Fowler about this a few times like what is the best
086time especially after uh Mr. Omar asked me that question about what is the best time to get your return on your used models. We're landing in that six to seven year range. Is that accurate what we spoke about? Yeah. So that's more than likely what we'll do to return on their use. >> I ask that too because generally I'm pretty tough on us for money, right? Uh but I I mean from everything I think it makes the most sense because even for just this purchase you're talking about $250,000 difference which isn't >> but when you're talking about how much these buses are used every single day >> and who's going on these right I think it makes a ton of sense to do what is essentially the right thing for essentially not not the lowest
087bit, the highest, >> right? >> Um, how do we feel about that price with it being only a single bit? >> Great question. Uh, I feel comfortable with where it's at. Uh, it is the 84 passgers 83 passengers. So it is it will be the largest bus in our fleet. So and we will have four of those. So I'm comfortable with that price. You know, we uh advertised just as we should and certainly spoke to multiple vendors uh to try to encourage bids and this was the only one that we received. And you know we do have uh uh Ken Pierce back there from Midwest Transit uh that's that's here in attendance. He's not on this, but I'm sure that there's some reasons as to why uh we did not receive more on that. >>
088So, I don't know if you can speak to that or not. Stan, >> all I can say is that I feel comfortable, but certainly would be great. >> Yeah, >> you would certainly like to have something for comparison, but there's simply not that many. What do we need that one for? >> That's our larger bus that we usight >> any other questions or comments? I make a motion we approve the bus. as presented. Is there a second? All those in favor? I passes. Thank you, Stan. Mr. Shields, thank you guys for coming. >> And and as I pointed out, I did want to point out uh Mr. Pierce, he had a ton of questions for us. Very good questions, by the way. Uh but he was very, very active in the process. Shows up tonight
089and goes through a uh through a lengthy board meeting. So, we appreciate your attendance. We appreciate you and your We will move on to item 7.04, the roof bid approval. >> All right. So, what you're seeing here is part of bond spending. Uh that is the retrofit restoration roofing projects that you that you see in the memo for Louiswis and Clark, Coverdale, Null, and Blackhurst. Thankfully, most of our square footage on our buildings is a restoration type of uh project instead of that retrofit, which would be a complete repair, a complete install. Uh so, um we are saving a good chunk of money right now by having this bond money out there and not doing a complete replacement of our roof. So, you will know our one that's closest to our projected amount was Louis
090and Clark. We projected that to be a$2.4 million job that came in just slightly over two million. Uh and then everything else is is well under bid or well under what we budgeted for. Uh what we budgeted for was worst case scenarios because the last thing we want to do is not be prepared. So you're seeing you're seeing and this would be our ninth roofing job. Now if these four are approved it would equal nine total buildings impacted already. Uh and all of those are uh we're saving a considerable amount of money in the timing that we're the other thing sorry the low bid for each one of these was shade roofing uh we did have conversations can they handle this amount of work in the time frames that we were we provided to them
091which is finished by September of next through the fall of next year because these do not impact our building operations they said it would not be an issue at all. Uh Garland consultant also agreed with that analysis based on his experience working with them. I will also say out of the if these are approved out of well I should say if out of the five jobs we had we've had one contractor that we were not pleased with that we would not invite back. The other four there's four others that we would this one very pleased with their work at St. They are based in Illinois. >> Uh, great question. I looked up I know two of them were from Illinois and I think two of them were if I can remember correctly were out of
092Missouri. >> Lakeside out of Missouri. Yeah. They are asked me that question today. They are labor number two maybe. So they are they are part to approve the roof proposal. Is there a second? All those in favor? I. That passes. We will move on. item 8.01 the district financial report. >> All right. Uh so if we look at the year end report that's so the very last one November 25 reports we go to the bottom of that you'll be at year end 2025 compared to November of 2024 under the above the expenditures with the salary starting with the salaries employee benefits purchase services and supplies. The only one that we're over on in spending so far in in this fiscal is salaries, which is expected. Uh we are about $900,000 more in salaries. Again, that's
093expected. That's where we should be at at this point in time. The other three employee benefits, we are down this year uh and along with purchase services and supplies. Now that that can switch a little bit because we are still operating off budgeted amounts, but so far our spending has been a bit slower in each one of those areas compared to the previous uh year at this time. So through November 30th. So that's of interest. We are getting very uh low from my uh opinion uh in the depository account for the bank, but we should get our first check from the uh from St. Charles County Collector this coming Tuesday. And once that rolls in, I feel pretty good. So, uh, they know I have my freak out moments all the time in November and
094December. And remember, when Mr. Shields freaked out, uh, Dr. freaks out. So, >> so, we're doing fine, but you know, it does it does create a little nerve wrecking. So, uh, so good news so far on on the financial front. A couple of things. Um, you know, I was looking at the previous years in December. We had a lot of stuff going on there. We had demographic study, bond resolution, defeasence, and audit. It's just a busy busy time. So, uh I thank you guys in your support for being here as always and always asking great questions. Uh federal rate cut did occur this week. As you guys probably know, the biggest thing uh that we that impacts us on that, the largest thing is the interest earned in our investments. So, um so we are
095watching that. We get updates on how that will us and will it impact the revenue that we did budget for we go very low on our investment budget for for uh so as we plan in July so uh we don't think right now that's going to impact us but obviously we're watching it we're watching and listening to the experts u Dr. Sebert was able to uh with your blessing from the last board meeting uh receive the lots for uh Greg Whitaker homes by Whitaker so that finalized. Now, we do have those. We will be having those in our possession very, very quickly. That's a great that's great and exciting for us. We're very appreciative of Greg Whitaker and Homes by Whitaker for donating that to the Louis and Clark program for future builds. Saves us
096a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money. So, we are truly grateful for that. The last thing in January, we're going to bring a steeple to you for a refunding of the 17 bonds after speaking with them. Uh we know that that will save us about $1.6 million in interest to refund those. So the timing is right uh to do that. So they will be joining us. More than likely, they will be here in January unless something happens, in which case I will do my very best uh to lead us on that. And uh we met with the standard before already for that ratings call this past summer. Didn't they told us we did not have to do another call. We just had to answer a bunch of questions. So, we sent that over to
097them for their review. And that's all we have in financial report. Speaking of January, we will be ready for this next legislative session coming up. So, we have priorities from NASA, but also from that I've been a part of. So, um, we'll be keeping you updated with that. And don't forget our SP3 litigation as well. I hope to have more updates January, February on that. >> All right. I make a motion to adopt the financial report as presented. Is there a second? All those in favor? I. That passes. I make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Is there a second? All those in favor? Hi. Thank you all for coming.