001there before you. No, we've already come back here. Oh, wait. We do have a wedding. [Music] Can I get an agenda? We can train you on Yes. Call the meeting to order. Would you all please rise and join me for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance 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. [Music] Right. Our first order of business is election of officers for we're looking for a nomination for board president. Mr. President, Mr. Chair, how's that? Perfect. M board member Schwarz. I nominate Michelle Orton for president of the Dickinson Public School District. Do we have Do we have a second? I will second. Do we have any other nominations? Any nominations? All
002right. Hearing none, we will do a voice vote. All in favor say I. I. Oppose say nay. Congratulations. President Orton. Welcome to Mr. [Music] Okay, we will now move on to [Music] A motion for vice president of the board. Do we have a nomination? Madam President, Mr. Se, I nominate Kim Schwarz. Thank you. Do we have a second? I will second again. Second by Mr. Wilkey. Do we have any other nominations? Any other nominations? One more call for nominations. Okay, hearing none, we'll call for a voice vote. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those opposed, say nay. Okay, motion carries. Our next item is additional agenda items. Removal of items from the consent agenda. Do we have a motion? Madam President, Vice President Schwarz, I move to approve the consent agenda as
003presented. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Mr. Wilkey. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppos say nay. Motion carries. Our next item is the approval for today's agenda. Do we have a motion? Madam President, Mr. C, I move to approve the agenda as presented. Thank you, Mr. C. We have a second. Second. Second by Vice President Schwarz. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppos say nay. Motion carries. Our next item is superintendence report. Dr. Luton, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam President. Uh just a reminder to look under the recognitions. We had our our Skills USA kids go to nationals and Miss Layman and Miss Katherine took them there. That's a lot of
004work for those individuals and our kids did great. So, um, like to welcome, uh, Miss Ela Bkart, our new your new, uh, administrative assistant, my new administrative assistant. We're excited about her. Also, probably, um, probably important to recognize Miss Peterson. And, uh, uh, I don't know, 15, 16 years, I don't know how many hundreds of board meetings that is, but that's thousands of meetings, and that's uh, tens of thousands of reminders to Dr. Luton uh that he has a meeting. So uh just heartfelt thank to her and I think we probably owe a round of applause under my superintendent's report. Uh registration for kindergarteners really following where it was last year. So we're at 286 which about six less than last year. Last year we started the year at that 315. It's started to uh
005get more busy in the front office. So, we're going to start to see those numbers trickle up, I'm sure. A back school breakfast is the 14th for elementary and then the 18th for the secondary. So, you guys are welcome to that. The breakfast goes from 7 to 8 a.m. and then it's uh get to listen to me for about 15 20 minutes. So, cabinet retreats scheduled for next week, Thursday and Friday. that involves principles and directors central office uh where we look at all the changes and all the things that have to occur in the school year and get a good plan for that. So there's a a North Dakota uh schoolboard association boot camp on the 7th for you guys from 7:30 to 11:30 via Zoom. Uh you can click on the registration there.
006It does take you to the link and let Twilight know also if that's something you want to do. uh goes over uh legislative changes uh legal items uh you know best practices for a board member those types of things so but there is a link there's about five or six things there so and uh that concludes my superintendent report madam president thank you Dr. Luton I do want to add that we do want to welcome on behalf of board Mrs. Bkart as well and then Twilight Mrs. Peterson. I there's no crying tonight. Okay. Um I think as a board we can say collectively that she's done so much for the board, for the school district, for Dr. Luton and admin and we can't thank you enough for everything that you've done for us and including
007tonight. I think you saved the day for me every time we have a meeting. So I appreciate and the board appreciates everything you do and have done. Thank you. Moving on to our business topics. These areformational topics only. Our first one is our RAS program. And we do have our director, Miss Mcnney, and our assistant, Miss Olsen. Please join us. Come forward. All right. Well, thank you again for having us this evening. Um, I know it's been a while since I've been in front of you, so a lot has changed. Um, this year, hard to believe, but it's already my third summer in the role of being the director of RAS. Uh when I first took the position, I had to doublech checkck my notes, but my number one goal really was to improve transparency
008and just communication as a whole. I feel like we've come a long ways since I began, and I feel like it's something that we're always just continuing to work on and do better. Um, one thing that I feel goes hand in hand and I've really been focusing on uh, especially this year with a lot of uncertainty in our world is just continuing to always educate about RASP and advocate for RASP. And anybody who knows me in this room knows that that's just that's who I am at my core. And um so really with that um for those of you that aren't familiar, RASP did start all the way back in 1991 as enrichment plus. Most of the years RASP has primarily been funded by the 21st century learning grant. Um as I'm sure most of
009you in the room have heard in the news, there's a lot of uncertainty with what's going to happen in the 21st century. So, that means there have been a lot of decisions that we've had to make in 2025 um that aren't our favorite, I guess, for lack of better word. Unfortunately, we did have to see an increase in parent fees for both this summer as well as as we're preparing for this school year. Um despite increasing those fees though, we saw a 37% increase in students this summer from last summer. Um in 2024, we were at 199. And as Mr. Keith Harris will attest to, I thought that we were looking at about a 10 to 15% growth. I was uh had a gut feeling that we'd be at 225 students. Rather, we were at
010272 this summer. At times, we felt that growth. Um we had to make some last minute decisions to hire additional staff than what we pre-planned for in the spring before enrollment. Uh thankfully we were in a situation we already had almost triple the applicants than what we needed for summer rest and I think that that that speaks volumes like we not only have had retention of employees but we have had those applications still continuously coming in. Um, as of even like two weeks ago, I had somebody calling asking if we were still hiring for some harassment, thinking we're a little far in at this point, but if you'd like to be in the pool for next year, you know, please reach back out. Um, I think even more important than just the growth to is
011the students that we serve. Uh, a lot of people unfortunately that advocating piece still just see us as daycare. they don't realize that we do have all the curriculum piece. Uh we still have all of the things. We have math, we have science, gym, uh art, all of all of those pieces. And I think on the same token like um gosh, sorry, I don't remember exactly what I was going to say again. Um yeah. Oh yeah, sorry. It's been an off day. I literally actually had told Dakota this morning. I'm like, I almost emailed Twilight last night like, is there any chance we can jump to August? And when we're in the middle of summer, sometimes by the end of the day, I literally do not have any brain left. Um when we have almost
012300 kids in the building over at Burke, uh again, Mr. Paris has seen a lot of it. Sometimes it's like a line of a dozen people out our door and it's like next, next, next. What can we do for you? Um anyway, uh even more than the growth really is about the students we serve. So this summer we've had 17 students who are on an IEP, 12 who are on a 504, one with a behavioral health intervention plan, two with safety plans, and even one student who came to us from Full Circle. So we literally have seen all I think sometimes uh people might think oh maybe we have a screening process and like we only take you know a certain type of child but really we have all kids um in the program and
013I think that that's part of that advocating piece especially to the community that we do serve as many and all students as we absolutely can. Um, I know I touched on like gym being one of our areas. This summer we were blessed to have one of our staff members who is a DSU student going into physical education. He has been teaching all of our gym classes. We also have our um curriculum coordinator, Miss Karen Riley, who is also a parrot in the district. Her passion is art. So, she has been teaching kids amazing art. Uh they've been diving into all sorts of mediums and doing things that I wouldn't even know where to begin. Uh we also this year added what we call grade specific floaters. Really it's like a parah within the school district.
014Um in the past we just had like your general par. And this year we realized that because of some of our kids who do have higher needs, we needed to be more hands-on. Uh we also added an improved calm down room. So last year it was kind of the first time we tried it. As you all know when you try something new, it doesn't always go quite as planned. Um, and kids really saw it as a way to just kind of have fun last year. And this year we really focused on, okay, what is it that you need to just re-regulate and get you back in the classroom? So setting that timer as soon as they came into the room, whether that student needed 10 or 15 minutes, usually 15 minutes was what we aimed
015at being the most out of their regular class schedule. Um, also this year we met with each principal at the end of um at the end of the school year and really looked at the students who were attending summer rasp and they helped us identify students who could really use some targeted education over the summer. So we started a tutoring program which was um most of the time a small group but sometimes one-on-one tutoring. Uh we had 30 minute sessions spread throughout the week in areas of reading, writing and math. Approximately 90% of those that were referred into our program from the the principles attended at least one of their sessions for the week. Obviously it is summer. We try to have a lot of field trips. Kids have sports etc. So there were obviously
016days that they were probably doing something that they considered to be more fun rather than being at tutoring. Um, but really I'm hoping that this fall we're going to see some of that come to fruition when we just have this big vision that we wanted to help more than what we were. Um, the kids who were already attending summer school or ESY while they were in those sessions, we tried to just kind of lay off so that they weren't in complete regular school year, I guess word. Um, as of today, we also started school year registration. Um, because why not? If we have one thing going on, we may as well have a hundred, right? Um, approximately the last time I looked a couple of hours ago, we were at around 100 students registered. Uh,
017last year, to put that into perspective, we had 267 students. Um, I'm anticipating growth, but I at this point I I'm not going to put a percentage to it because I have no idea what that growth is going to look like. Um, as I mentioned previously, we did increase parent fees again. Um, I know that that was, I believe, at least already shown to the school board and that has been on our website for about a week and so far we have not had any inquiries or concerns over the pricing. I know we tried to still um look at the comparatives in town and not have to, you know, don't go too astronomically high because we don't want to do that. Um, also this year we'll be open from the time schools out till 5:45
018as well as almost all of the no school um the no school days we'll have our full day program at Hagen. And we are still considering some over Christmas break. I know it's been an area that is tough for parents, but it's also been tough staffing wise because a lot of people plan their trips over that. So our plan this year is to put a bare minimum that we would have to meet and then if we meet that number um just find the appropriate staffing for that. Um speaking of staffing, really that's kind of our concern right now going into school years. We're just double-checking with everybody that had expressed interest in returning in the school year. Um, and then reviewing any applications that have come in to make sure we have enough staff to
019serve the students that will be registered. Any questions from the board? Just a big thank you for everything that you do for our students and children. It's a much needed program for sure. So, we appreciate what you guys do. Thank you. Thanks for your reports, Madam President. Maybe from that 21st century grant um you know, up until it still has not been released to the state, although there was media yesterday or last night saying that it would be possibly released. That's still a competitive grant process. We've applied for the grant. I don't know what the turnaround is on a state receiving allocations, looking at grants, awarding grants. Uh but it's probably not a a daily thing. So we'll just continue if we are awarded that grant to communicate with our stakeholders. So during the school
020year, each of the elementaryaries offers, correct? That is correct. Yeah. Some were in the one location, which this year was Berg, and then for school year, we'll be back in all six elementaryaries. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next item is a Dickson Public Schools Foundation update. We have President Ross and Director Williams with us today. Welcome. Thank you. One, um, I'd like to caveat on what the board has said. Twyla Peterson, um, love you. um is much deserved. Your retirement um as a former board member again on negotiations and everything else. Oh my gosh. Uh you you are the backbone of all of that without a doubt. And I caveat what the board has said. you're so appreciated and we welcome our new member and we hope for the same uh sort
021of expertise that Twilight is going to give you before she leaves and also uh RAS um been u a part of education for a long time and RAS has grown exponentially and is such an amaz such such an important part of our community and um with challenging times comes major decisions and I feel for you and um but you are much appreciated and so is your programming. So thank you. So why I've been called here today. Um, one I would like to say thank you again board for um allowing us to be present and give our yearly update on what the Dickson Public Schools Foundation is doing and what we have done and and some of our future plans. And I would like to introduce our new director who's not so new anymore, but she's
022a year in. She hasn't left yet, so I guess we're still doing something good. Paula Williams, I'd like to introduce her and say that she has big shoes to follow when she comes after Karen Heights and all that Karen has done. But we have done some um incredible uh we've had incredible changes in growth in this last year. Um it seemed like a great opportunity for us to kind of change how we did business, why we did it. we've really taken stock of um an internal sort of SWAT analysis, if you will, of what works, what doesn't, and where we need to go. But with that, I will turn it over to Paula to give the update. All right. Awesome. Well, this year, well, first off, it's been a whirlwind. It's been very exciting and
023cool. I I absolutely love being in this role and having the support of my wonderful board members. Leslie, president, Chris Farah as our vice president, Christina Wanko, our secretary, um Bob Allen, Jay Blleth, Garrett Nodland, and Dr. Reena Nording. We're so excited to welcome Kirk Ross and Ron Doctor to our board this year. They were just voted in. And then, of course, we have our exopicio, uh Dr. Luton, who helps us to uh run through our stuff. Um we also still have director of marketing, Marisa Reinger. she's still on the board and we just hired um a lovely in-house bookkeeper um on advice of the board um Renee Newberger and she has been an amazing asset. It was it's been just life-changing for me as I navigated through the first several months. Now having her
024has been awesome. So that's been awesome. As you know, our mission has been to support staff and students um in funding innovative and outside of the box projects that are not necessarily considered part of the district budget. We focus on academic success, college and career readiness, community culture, early childhood, STEM, um like things like the EL library, as well as providing some translation tools that we granted this year, early childhood, uh student wellness and mental health. We did fund some SEAL uh social emotional learning uh books and tools for our classrooms in the elementary school this year. Um and we also are working with professional development uh for our teachers for a book study called the anxious generation. So that's been kind of exciting this year. Um so far since 1989 we've been around and
025we've been granting um we've impacted $750,000. So that's been pretty great uh number. I me seeing that it was pretty great as my first year. Um this year however was pretty extreme. We had $96,000 approved uh for our grant program. So that was just phenomenal. Um we do always have scholarships every year which are uh funded by families that have memorial scholarships and uh that would be Callahan family Chalupnik Carlson um the rewarding kindness uh scholarship as well as Fields families. This year, Karma Gerby's family uh decided to start a scholarship and we ended up with $19,000 to start that. And the family also asked that we do two for the first year for the inaugural inaugural year. So, that was super exciting. We were able to bless two students for that. All in it
026was about $5,000 between each of those scholarships. So, that was really cool. And in the future, um, we as a foundation have decided to begin our own foundation scholarship. We've allocated, uh, almost imagining my office of garbage, $19,000 so that we have a tickets and public schools foundation scholarship. We're still going to be working on details and talking to our programs allocation committee and our board um to find fine-tune the details of that, but that is something that's new this year and very exciting. Um, as usual, well, each year we do have sponsorships for nationally qualified students and teams. Um, we will also sponsor things like the book corral or the steam carnival. In addition to our elementary career fair, which was pretty excit has been exciting over the years. Um, we are this year
027developing a sponsorship for teachers that are part participating in the student teacher professional development. We're still working through the details of that, but we are very excited to help our district and our district, new teachers grow and current teachers, um, be ready to mentor and mentor in the best way possible. And we'd like to thank uh, Dr. Lincoln for bringing that to us. Um it's just one additional way that we that he brought forward an opportunity for the foundation to participate in a much needed program for our kids schools be very beneficial I think to those teachers but that's hard when there's an additional cost when all you want to do is help and so we're able to help out those teachers as well. Um, we've partnered with Triot Cooperative. I think this is the
028fourth year this year um impacting our teachers directly over $131,000. Um, that's a direct partnership from them. They asked that we make sure that the teachers get funds to get what they want for their classroom. And so got numerous thank you letters, lots of different things. Some of them were buying just kind of fun stuff for the classroom. Some were buying bigger tools that they would use for teaching lessons. Um, but Trident Energy Cooper partnered with the US again, so that was amazing. It still amazes me how much a teacher can buy with $100 or less. Mhm. I mean, those are the people we want as our accountants for sure. our trademark event, the Mystery Theater fundraiser. It was my uh first year and I'm happy to report that we doubled last year's um income
029with the sponsorship, new location, new menu, lots of changes, new leader, and I really feel like it was a success. And we're pushing forward. We are uh going to open at the same place. We still have Josh Nichols, our director, who did an awesome job helping me uh to figure out how to navigate the program in addition to my board members and Marissa Reiner who come to sat aside me for a lot of adventures in planning a community event. Um we did host a open house for the high school. I had actually I was shocked because it was like dead dead and then all of a sudden I had probably like 50 or 60 alumni show up. Class of 1985 um and then in addition other classes but 85 was the big one and they
030were just everywhere and myself and Ron Doctor, our new board member. Um we toured them around the school and it was absolutely enjoyable. And then on Saturday the 5th we hosted our lunchon. We had a catered meal for the 50-y year anniversary or sorry, 50-y year reunion. Um, amazing group of people. Wonderful. And I was surprised at how many of them I recognized and knew as community members. I had no idea when they graduated high school, but it was super cool. Um, they enjoyed it. We have uh made some new excuse me, made some new connections. We have a lot more to add to our spreadsheet, which is one of the things that we do provide when people are planning their reunion, so that we can give them that networking opportunity to reach out, tell
031them what's going on. Um, I guess another thing is the Roosevelt outdoor classroom, which was a Alvin Chalupnik sponsorship from the foundation, uh, being built this summer. I'm not sure what the I just know they told me that it's going Yeah. in place. Some of the equipment anyways there been installed. I don't know if it's all installed. Yeah. So, I checked in on that. I knew it was going, but I wasn't sure what to say. Yeah. Go ahead. And just uh know that that's not the only um benefit from the LHUIC um to us. Um we're still we have a special committee that are looking at ways to honor um honor him and uh and whatever that might look like. We have a committee that's specifically designated to look into ways to ensure that we
032we make sure that we utilize the funds that he left to us in best possible manner. And one thing that we did do this year is we did have a Chalupic individual application and and scholarship. So a student did receive that on a smaller scale, but these bigger projects are things that we're definitely looking to fund and support for the district with that blessing that was given to us as the endowment. We have a new office space. Thanks to the district for housing us. I personally think it's great. I actually went to the storage space today, too. So that was wonderful. So thank you for that. It's a wonderful little office and Rhonda Devor is the secretary in that building and she's awesome. We get to have little chats every once in a while and
033we're the only people in the building. By the way, the office is in the Southwest Career Technical Education Center on the second floor. So, we're we're happy. Although I feel as though every time I go in there and then I'm caught between the two doors and then I'm always I it's like well especially in the summertime I feel like I should put my hands up like in the scanner going to the airports. Uh we did launch a new website last year. Um well before I took it on and uh Maurice and I have trained very hard to try to be on top of that and make that the best and to utilize it as a tool um not only for sharing our good news which it is updated at this point but also creating a
034little more of a networking connection with our our donors and our community our alumni. And do you have any closing? No, we um Does the board have any questions of us? Any questions from the board? Really impressed with what you're doing and getting in and helping out. It's amazing. When she says baptism by fire, I mean, we changed our bookkeeping, our accounting system, our I mean everything that we could possibly change. We just said we're going to do it on day one. Paula, how do you feel about that? and she was game. So, um, but we just really appreciate it. And if you have ideas, you know, if anything comes to mind that you think that the foundation could play a role in, as long as it meets our mission, we can always bring that
035back to, you know, our board and and you're always welcome to come to our meetings. Um, Dr. Luton is there and he he he um is a very valuable asset representing um both sides of the fence. So if you have anything you don't want to come to the board, please let Dr. Luton know because we would we would really appreciate. We're always looking for that next opportunity to to make a difference for uh schools and our educators. And I have reached out to some of the administrators in the district too and just asked, you know, what what does that mean? So if you hear if you hear something like that, you know, let us know. If it's on if it's not on our radar, we're not sure we can do anything yet. So well, we
036thank you. I did have a couple questions, but you answered them. Mission accomplished. Well, that's good. That's good. We're happy. We're happy when that happens. Well, thank you for what you do. Again, thank you so much for inviting us and matter president. I was questioning the direction. All right. Thank you. Thanks again, guys. And it's my 50th year, so I'll be in touch. Paula, awesome. Yes. Are you going to have frisbees? I just want to know. Yes or no? I was just in a conversation with Joel Howard. He's talking about some future things or whatever, but I don't know. He's like 50 something years. Yeah, it was an interesting conversation. We just had to call today. Thank you, thank you. Our next item is the update on the DHS rebuild. Dr. Thank you, Madam President.
037Just a quick update. Probably one of the biggest questions people are asking is the parking lot. And uh you know, the parking lot uh is in rough shape. It'll be uh one of the phases that'll be completed next summer. But that fence, you've seen that fence come out now a little bit more into that parking lot. The reason for it, we won't see a picture night uh on the the monthly presentation, but if you go back to that and the public wants to go back to that 718, the reason for that is is the sewer or the the run the drain runoff for the roofs comes out uh basically under that sidewalk where the students uh enter into the main building and then it ran out further to the south and that's where it exited
038over by the yellow building or the banana building. Well, that they're dealing with rain. We actually have rain this year. Uh so they've been dealing with that and what they've had to do is they've had to step back in further to the south in fear that might cave in as they start pouring the form the footings and forms for the auditorium area. So that's why if you go there now, you'll see it looks like looks like step farming actually and that's what they had to do. So, we'll still use that as an emergency exit, but that won't be the primary entrance until probably the beginning of November. So, and the parking lot, uh, they're not going to take any more parking lot. Uh, but they're not going to give any back either. So, parking will
039be a little tight, but that's the the price we pay for building onsite. So, one of those things you got to work around. Uh, real quick, I'm going to run through this quick, but if you go to the third page, um, basically it talks about the scope of work, current and upcoming construction. Uh, really they got, you know, if you look at that, uh, uh, academic wing, which if you look at the board right now, that purple part on the bottom that goes straight west, the footings of all and the farm, they're all poured for that. Uh, so that part's really done. Uh and actually tomorrow uh the first pre-cast shows up uh for the elevator part. So once one comes it'll just be constant. You'll probably see them coming down I94 if you drive
040on I94. Crane was on site I believe today setting up for that. Most of the footing work and the foundation pillars that is that's going on now is the east side of that auditorium. the west side uh where the egg and the music that's all been poured. It's really all that's left is that area uh where the commons are going to be and then uh you know the east half of the auditorium otherwise you know the the foundation of the school is probably 80% uh done 85% done at this point. So, uh it's kind of neat if you uh like I said, the walls first wall will be there tomorrow. Uh if you uh turn I lost track of my pages here. I need to count again. Really kind of the next um big item
041is kind of those pictures that you start to see. You'll see that's all the academic area and that's all been poured already and backfilled. You can kind of see on the one where it says new new util new utilities. Got a new transformer right there. You can see at the green and new gas meter that came in. So that's where those will be housed. Um that's kind of the big part. You know, you can see actually in that one where you're looking at the back of that uh I should have should have numbers on here. I'm going to have to have put numbers on here. Back of that excavator. That's the C part. And if you guys go up there uh and take a look at it, it it's pretty impressive to see the size
042of it. On paper, it looks like are we going to have enough space, you know? So, it's pretty neat. So, I think that concludes my um report. Madame President, you might Yeah. Go ahead. Same question for Dr. with parking. Do we know how many spots we're going to lose? And then what? I mean, do we have is there physically enough people? I don't have to walk further, but is there? Yeah, it'll it'll be tight, but there should be enough. Um, we lost essentially that first. I'll have to get you the number on it. It's got to be 70 spots. I bet it's really one column on the south. So, one whole entire row. One and a half rows, right? Really? Yeah. But I never I can't remember. Like it seems like the parking lot's pretty
043full, but I don't know. Is it is it complete? I mean, are we encourage car pooling for the first couple months or is there like enough I mean I know it's kind of parking lot's interesting in its own right. I know new drivers lot. I get all that but I'm just wondering I mean are there should be enough spots? It's going to be full. Uh if you were to go there in May and you looked on that back parking, you know, the back half that Yeah. really there used to be hardly anybody parking back there. That was maybe a third full at its height. Okay. So there's and there's still off streetet parking, you know, around there a little bit. Um I did visit with Mr. Brandt today, the high school principal, and uh next
044week he plans on beginning some draft letters on parking and entrance and exit of that building. He's already communicated a little bit on that, but he plans on doing more in the next week or probably two weeks from now. So, great. Thank you for that report. Yep. Our next item is our schoolboard goals and that we have assistant superintendent presenting today. Welcome. Today I want to visit with you a little bit about board goal number three which is the choice ready goal and so have included for you the choice ready chart just as a refresher uh because some of the progress measures that we're going to talk about today directly impact choice readiness and this goal is just for us to increase the percentage of students who graduate choice ready based upon the choice ready
045report which comes from this chart the one that you see on your paper copy. It's probably a little hard to read. Um, in that in that upper green box, just as a reminder, those are essential skills and all kids need to achieve that that group or the requirements within that. And then in the gold columns, they need to be ready in in two of the three in order to be considered choice ready. So, postsecary ready, workforce ready, and military ready. um two of those three with the essential skills categories um completed. We'll share more information with you with the choice ready um data for this past school year, but we do have a little bit of information. Now, what I want you to look at at in this particular chart is under postsecary ready, you'll
046notice heavy emphasis on ACT. Uh, and that makes sense because it's intended for kids that are headed to a two or four-year college program. And and you'll notice at the top of it, it says uh that they must comp complete those minimum requirements or they can use those additional indicators at the bottom, but in their ACT reading of 22, ACT math of 21 are indicators that you've used as progress meas measures in your core goals. Uh so it's uh a huge component of kids achieving post-secary readiness. If you look over on workforce ready and military ready, you don't see the same emphasis on ACT. In fact, other things are more prominent. Um and in workforce ready, it's not that academics isn't present in that. Um, one of the indicators can be um to complete dual
047credit courses or to um score at a three or higher on the North Dakota State Assessment. Um, so they're still there. It's just it isn't the same kind of emphasis on on what they're achieving. And then also in military ready, you know, our goal is to make sure that all kids graduate choice ready. So we we want to have a good balance in that as we look today at our ACT scores. This is an example. [Music] Thank you. Um this particular chart chart just shows you a little bit about the scores over time and again percentage of students who score at or above 21 in math or students who score at or above 22 in reading on the ACT. So this is percentage of those students this was taken from the juniors who took it
048this year um and and just those percentages of students achieving that. Um, this is the first year that in the more recent history that North Dakota hasn't required the ACT of all juniors. It was a requirement that they took it. They no longer do that and they no longer pay for it. As a district, we decided we wanted to to have that data and continue to have all juniors that would um typically take a a standardized test at that level to continue to take the ACT. And so we have a pretty good uh pool of students who participate in it. As the high school continues to work on their um choice readiness and improve their um efforts to ensure that students graduate choice ready. They're really rethinking that and and truly considering whether or not
049you could go back to the choice ready chart one for a minute. um instead of only offering the ACT as a junior level course, offering to students the ACT or the work keys. Um the work keys is an assessment that can be taken for um qualification for workforce ready and um work workplaces can also use that um through um job service. So looking at that as an option in the military ready the assessment that's used is the ASAP um which is a armed services um vocational assessment. And so just trying to see if if we're going to have juniors take a test, what's the test that's most helpful for them in their future and what um what is the information that we need also as an organization to um to help us along those lines.
050So if we look back at the next set of data, we'll move to the next slide. Shows you a little bit of the trend that we see with um ACT and math. Um again pretty um I guess plateaued at 32% of students um scoring at that uh score of 21 or higher on the ACT. 21 or higher in the ACT is typically considered achievable with students who are score a B or higher in algebra 2. Just to put that into perspective um it's a it's got some rigor to it. Um a 21. And then if you move to the next um this shows you the percentage of students scoring a 22 or higher in reading and the trend that we see there ticking up a little bit. Obviously every year is a different group of
051students but um tracking towards that goal that was set by the board of 60% in the spring of 2027. If if that were to be a change as a district uh with juniors of maybe some students taking the ACT, some students taking the works, obviously the percentages of students achieving would come from a different pool. And so it's something for the board to consider what that might look like and and if you're um in favor of that change. Um in addition on the um choice ranking chart, AP advanced placement courses also plays a role in post-secary readiness. So students can um one of the indicators that they can use in post-secary readiness is uh C or higher in an A advanced placement course. I wanted to share a little bit of information about that with
052you. Seven courses currently at our high school that are advanced placement. Um those courses include two in science, biology and chemistry, um AP calculus, two English language arts classes, an composition class, and a literature class, um two social studies, microeconomics, and US history. Um of the students that took those seven courses, 97 of them chose to take the AP exam, there's a cost to that, uh about $100 for each exam. Um, in order for students to generally qualify for uh university level credit in a course, you can just score a three or higher. Some of that is different depending upon the university, but that's kind of the score that you're looking at is a three or higher. 81% of the assessments taken scored a three or higher um on on the test. Average score was
053a 3.0. So, um, we have a number of students that scored a five, um, which is the top score on the AP exam. Do you have any questions about this information or any questions? Um, you said something that kind of struck me that I haven't processed it fully, but when you talk about um, a B. All right. So, you you could expect someone who got a B or higher in algebra 2 to get a 21 on the MAC or the ACT, right? So, do we can we can we go backwards and look at how many students got a B in algebra 2 math and how they I don't know if we've done that if it makes sense, but to me it it would kind of help um I mean got a couple things at play.
054I mean ACT is national, right? Same test, whatever across the thing. And then you have localization within the schools and what they teach and I mean the grading, all that kind of stuff. But it's one way to kind of look at that statewide and whatever. And so that would be interesting to me to see if if um so if we have 90% of our students who get a B or more in algebra 2 and those same ones taking the test are actually doing less than the 21 that would be that would tell us something at least in me, right? And then we're maybe we're right on track. Maybe that's exactly how we're doing. But um and I mean that's a that's a statistical analysis. It's not a guarantee and it's not a it's not that
055kids who don't take that can't score it either, right? But but generally I think it's like a 67% likelihood students who score a B or higher in algebra 2 will score 21 or higher on the ACT. Um I think it's the last time that I looked at that, but it changes every year. But your point is interesting. We certainly could look at that. of our students, what percentage of juniors took algebra 2 by the time they took the assessment and what did they score in that class? Just to know in line. I've been on the board a long time, most people really and I I appre and I know it's um there's a lot of extra challenges I feel like we have in southwest North Dakota. I do get that and I know it's it's
056tough and I I know it's a collective goal I feel like of this district and again it starts way back at our goals early on. if you like you talked about before third grade reading eighth grade math all that stuff plays into it's not like it's just a high school teacher for math is it falls on but it's still something that um you know we just you really we'd love to see that going up and I know our projection is and I get what you're saying about changing the pool but I don't know what I'll process thank you for the information I appreciate that we're tracking it it's good and it gives you stuff to think about so you can kind of you know at least for me what we can do going back to
057the first page Do we provide parents a little cheat sheet like this or something similar? I can't remember any chart. Correct. Um I believe that they do get the chart, but continuing to revisit it is important because if you don't live it all the time and think about it all the time and what it means to a parent coming in with a freshman is something different than it means probably when they're a junior or a senior. um I think is something we need to look at and and and Mr. things to your point as well um us ensuring that our efforts in postsecary readiness are solid is still really crucial. I just would comment I guess I mean that I was impressed with the advance I mean to me 81% scored a three or higher
058that seems really good. I don't know how it compares to other stuff but that's someone told me you can have that I would take it that sounds good. I mean that's it's not an easy task and it's a lot of work and so um so thank you for that you everybody's hard work on that. Any other questions? Thank you for the report. [Music] We are now moving on to our action topics. Our first one is statements of interest. Do we have a motion? Vice President Schwarz. I move to allow Michelle Wharton to participate and vote on the identified potential conflicts in accordance with NPCC 15.1717. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second by Mr. S. Any discussion? Hearing none, we will call for a roll call vote starting with Mr. Wilkey. I Mr.
059S. I. Vice President Schwarz. The chair motion carries. Madam President, Mr. I move to allow Kim Schwarz to participate and vote on the identified potential conflicts in accordance with NDCC 15.17-7. Thank you, Mr. C. We have a second. Second by Mr. Roi. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those. This will be a roll call vote starting with Mr. Seeks. I. Mr. Wilkey. I ask you, Vice President Schwarz. And the chair votes I motion carries. Looking for an Madam President. Mr. Wilkey, I I move to allow Bren seeks to participate in welcome vote on the identified potential complex in accordance with NDCC 1510717. Thank you, Mr. Ro. Do I have a second? I'll second that. Second by President Schwarz. Any discussion hearing? None. We will start with Vice President Schwarz. I Mr. Wilkkey. I chair votes. I
060motion carries. Madam President, Mr. Seats, I move to allow Dave Wilkey to participate and vote on the identified potential complex in accordance with NDCC 15.10717. Thank you. We have a second. I'll second that. Second by Vice President Schwarz. Any discussion? Hearing none, we will start with Vice President Schwarz. I, Mr. Seks, I. And the chair votes I motion carries. And we have one more background. Vice President Schwarz. I move to allow Jason Roowski to participate in how we identify potential conflicts in accordance with NDCC 15.17. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Mr. Wilkkey. Any discussion? Hearing none. We will start with Mr. S. I Mr. Wilkkey. Hi. Vice President Schwarz. I chair. Motion carries. Our next item is school board authorized representative. Do we have a motion? Madam President, Vice
061President Schwarz, I move Superintendent Dr. Martin Marcus Luton be named the authorized representative of the Dickinson Public School District and shall include and not be limited to Department of Public Instruction in the legislature. Also, Superintendent Gon shall be the authorized representative for the district for all federal pro programs, including but not limited to all school service programs, comprehensive school reform, federal vocational programs, the energy and infrastructure and impact office, title one, title two, title three, title four, rural and lowincome school grant program, e- rate and job service programs. I further move assistant superintendent me Melanie Catherine also be an authorized representative for title one, title two, title three, and title four programs. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Mr. Sneaks. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say
062I. I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion carries. Madam President, Mr. I move to designate director of student services Sherry Twist as the authorized representative for the Dickinson public schools 6B and other special education grants. Thank you Mr. We have a second by Vice President Schwarz. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor please say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion carries. Next item. Madam President, Mr. I move to designate board members Kim Schwarz, Brent Seeks as the authorized representatives of Davidson public school district on the Southwest Area Career and Technical Education Academy governing board for the 2526 school year. Thank you, M. We have a second. I'll second by Vice President Schwarz. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. All those opposed, say. Motion carries. Our next
063item is for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program. Mr. President, Mr. Seeks, I move to designate Assistant Superintendent Keith Harris as the authorized representative for 21st Century Community Learning Center grant for the 20 2526 school year. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second by Vice President Schwarz. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. All motion carries. Our next one is designate our homeless liaison. Do we have a motion? Vice presidents. I move to designate Stacy Kwine as a homeless liaison for Dickson public school district for the 2025 2026 school year. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Wilgie. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor please say I. I. All those opposed nay. Motion carries. Next one is for the foster care
064leaison. Madam President, Mr. Okay. I move to designate Stacy Kwan as the foster care leaison on for the Dick Davidson public school district for the 2526 school year. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second by Mr. Sees. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor please say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion carries. Our next item is the title one look alike program. Madam President Mr. proceeds. I move to designate supplemental funds in the amount of $122,845.71 be set aside by the school district for atrisisk students at Jefferson Elementary and 102,778.80 be set aside by the school district for at risk students at Liicket Elementary for the 2025 2026 school year to provide supplemental services to support these students attainment towards meeting the state student academic achievement standards. Thank you, Mr. C.
065So, we have a second. I'll second that. Second by vice president words. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppos say nay. Motion carries. Our next one is designate official newspaper. Do we have a motion? Madam President, vice president. I move to designate the Dickinson Press as the official newspaper of the Dickinson Public School District. Thank you. Do we have a second? I will second. Second by Mr. Wilkey. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion carries. Our next one is our bank depository designation. Madam President, Mr. Wilkey, I move to designate Rivera Bank as the official depository for the school district checking account and other investments and further move that Wells Fargo Bank, Bank of the West
066Dakota Bank, Dakota Community Bank, and Cornerstone Bank be designated as depositories for investments for the fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Wilkey. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Mr. Seeks. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion carries. Our next one is our 202526 school board meeting dates and times. Do we have a motion? Madam President, Mr. proceedings. I move the regular 2025 2026 school board meetings of the Dickinson Public School District be scheduled at 5:00 p.m. on the second Monday of each month with the exception of Thursday, August 7th, 2025, Monday, September 22nd, 2025, Tuesday, October 7th, 2025, and Monday, June 22nd, 2025 as presented. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second that. Second by Vice President Schwarz. Any discussion?
067Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those opposing nay. Motion carries. Our next item is committee assignments. Do we have a motion? Madam President, Mr. Wilkey, I move to designate for 2526 Kim Schwarz and Michelle Orton as primary board representatives for the teacher negotiations. Further move to designate Brent CE and Jason Rodicowski as board representatives on the administrative negotiations with Dave Wilkkey assigned as a secondary representative. I move to designate Brett SKS as primary school board representative on the Ruff Rider Area Career and Technical Center and Kim Schwarz as a secondary representative. I move to designate Dave Wilkey as the primary school board representative on the Stark County Jobs Development Authority Committee and Jason Rodicowski as the secondary representative. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second that. Second by
068Vice President Schwarz. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion carries. Our next item is board self-evaluation progress tracker. Madam President, Vice President Schwarz, I move to approve the North Dakota B Legendary Dickinson Public School Board Leadership Framework Quarterly Progress Tracker for the fourth quarter 2024 in the first and second quarter 2025 is presented. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Mr. Seas. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppos say. Motion carries. Next item is open enrollment application. Madam President, Mr. I move to approve the open enrollment application for a child at Crestston Couns from New England public schools to Dickson Public School District as per the open enrollment policy. Thank you.
069Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Vice President Schwarz. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. All those oppose say nay. Motion carries. Our next item is board policy revisions. First reading. Madam President, Mr. proceedings. I move to approve revisions to board policy ABA AAD, education of students through the Ruff Rider virtualmies, revisions to board policy BBA, school board elections and terms of office, revisions to board policy BCBA, public participation at board meetings, and revisions to policy FFK, suspension and expulsion for first reading as presented. Thank you, Mr. C. Do we have a second? Second by Vice President Schwarz. Any discussion? Hearing none, this calls for a roll call vote. We will start with Mr. Wilkkey. Hi, Vice President Schwarz. Hi, Mr. Seats. I and the chair votes
070I. Motion carries. Our next item is board regulation revision first reading and final adoption. Madam President, Mr. Wood, I move to approve the revision to regulation FFKBR suspension and expulsion regulations for first reading and final adoption as Thank you, Mr. Wil. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Vice President Schwarz. Any discussion? Hearing none, we will start with Vice President Schwarz. Hi, Mr. Sigs. Hi, Mr. Wilkkey. Hi, and the chair both. Motion carries. Our last item is the adoption of board policy JCA, memorials on school property and board policy DEBH, employee use of social media. Second reading and final adoption. Do we have a motion? President Vice Presidents. I move to adopt board policy JCA memorials on school property and board policy deb employee use of social media for second reading and final
071adoption as presented. Thank you. Do we have a second? I will second. Second by Mr. Wilkey. Any discussion hearing? None. We will start with Mr. Seks. I Mr. Wilkey. Vice President Schwarz. The chair votes. Motion carries. And lastly, do we have any requests for public participation today? Thank you. Hearing none, we will adjourn tonight's meeting. [Music]