GFPS Regular School Board Meeting (March 9th, 2026)

001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> We'll call to order the regular meeting of the school board for Monday, March 9th, 2026. The first item on our agenda is the pledge of allegiance. I invite you to stand as you're able. Uh before we get into the school board norms, just a couple of quick announcements. Board member Flynn is joining us by telephone and uh Dr. Brenner doesn't mind me sharing that he's in recovery and feels more comfortable standing than sitting. So, I think that's that's all on that. 1A, the reading of our school board meeting norms, Dr. Lund. Number one, be prepared. Number two, be on time. Number three, value and respect each other. Number four, exercise thoughtful deliberation and conversation. Number five, be professional at the board table and when visiting with the general public. Number six,

002speak up when the norms are not being followed. And number seven, advocate on behalf of students and keep the community in mind. Thank you. Item two, the approval of agenda. And I'd seek a motion to approve tonight's agenda as outlined in your board packet. It's been moved by Mr. Palmisano and a second by Mr. Larson. Any additions, corrections, or changes? Ms. Flynn, I'll make it a point to check in with you as often as I remember anything from you before we take a roll call vote. No. Okay, we'll take a roll call vote. Manley. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Hodek. Yes. Klevin. Yes. Larson. Yes. Palmisano. Flynn. Yes. Lunn. Yes. Enberger. Yes. Nine yes, zero no, zero absent. Motion passes. Item three, our public comment period. I do not have any public comment forms turned in. Is

003there any member of the assembly who wishes to speak during our public comment period? Moving on then to item four, superintendent's recommendations for discussion. 4A, guaranteed energy savings program presentation, Mr. Brandon Bombak. Thank you, President Burger, members of the board. I'm going to quickly just do an introduction and a handoff to Connor Daley, who's with CMTA. Just a quick history here. Back in 2022, the school board approved a investment of just under 18 million dollars to improve energy efficiency across the district, replacing boilers, replacing light bulbs, going through door sweeps, and securing the envelope, a number of other things. This marks the first full year of data we have after that project's completion. And so, Connor's going to walk us through just how that's performing. Thank you, Brandon. Uh and thanks to everyone again. Um

004I know I've been up here a few months ago given the interim 6 months. Very excited to be back and present the uh the full first year of of data. It's a very exciting project for us and for the district. Uh really good first year of performance that we'll talk through. Give a little bit more background as well as we go through and then have some time for questions at the end. So, as Brandon said, it's been a long time to get here. I believe we actually responded to this project in winter of 2021 and got started on that work in 2022. So, kind of the where we started is a really important part of this. So, this is kind of the breakdown of the utilities uh portion of the buildings um at that time.

005So, spending about uh 1.8 million dollars a year across all of the the 26 or so facilities or all of the schools and buildings here that we touched. Um most of that, as you can see, about a little under 2/3 of that is electric um all through Excel Energy and that last little portion through a separate company called Nodak. The la- the bigger portion of what's left after that is your natural gas used for heating both for domestic hot water purposes. You have nice hot water coming out of the sinks or showers, but also for heating the buildings as well through boilers, as Brandon mentioned. And then a little um section there too for water. Um on top of that 1.8 million dollars, there's also the operations and maintenance. This is kind of the internal

006staff that's taking care of the building. Things are going to break down even if they're brand new, especially if they're very old. Um you're going to need to replace filters every year as a minimum. As things break, they need to be replaced. So, um looking through the records as well, we saw just under 400,000 dollars a year for that maintenance portion of this. So, total all-in cost to operate and maintain these facilities from what we were seeing was about $2.2 million. So then, where does this project come in? So kind of the benefits of what an energy savings project is is that green section right there. So we looked at we audited all of the buildings, what was there, how they were working, and more importantly how they were not working um so that we

007could see where improvements were available, whether that was simple things of just scheduling buildings better, um putting some of the that envelope improvements of better door sweeps and seals that you're not getting air moving in or out in the winters and the summers, all the way up to whole um holistic renovations of your buildings, tearing out the old inefficient, non-working, non-functional HVAC systems and giving you brand new state-of-the-art systems in their place. So what that all entitles is that that green section there, we guaranteed an energy savings that equated to about $347,000 a year. Operations and maintenance by giving you those new systems, there's less that needs to be maintained, there's less that needs to be replaced and upgraded constantly. So that was about $32,000 a year. So that green chunk totaled $380,000 a year

008out of that uh $2.2 million prior. So that blue chunk and the red chunk get physically smaller. That chunk of money then gets financed and the energy savings actually pay for most of the renovations themselves. There were portions of the the funding that did come out of other buckets from the district, but a large portion of this project was funded exclusively from the energy that we were saved by doing the project. This table here just kind of shows you a comprehensive list of all of the different things that we did. Um so you can see LED lighting kind of across the board, pretty much everywhere except Discovery. That was a pretty new building when we started, so it had LED um already, but everywhere else comprehensive LED renovations across the board. Um as we mentioned

009that door sweeps and seals making that um envelope of the buildings better almost everywhere as well other than the building we're standing in and Discovery. Full HVAC renovations is where we really wanted to focus this project to get all of the oldest highest need facilities up to the these high modern standards similar to a Discovery. So that happened at three of the schools, Jane Nelson Kelly for the the older half of the school, Lewis and Clark, that was the entire school, and Viking Elementary School also got the entire school a whole new HVAC renovation. The big other mechanical improvement that was made was at Lake Agassiz. That was previously being served steam for its heating purposes from the University of North Dakota. We removed that, put new boiler plant in there. Not only was it

010significantly more efficient, but the cost savings were really really substantial. The steam they were charging was about three to four times as expensive as the natural gas to get the exact same amount of heat. So it was just kind of it paid for itself in two to three years, whereas like a normal HVAC renovation, it's going to pay for itself in more like 60 plus years. So it just it made sense and you also were more efficient by switching that over. The last two columns are what's called building automation controls. It's the programming side of things so to speak of the decisions we're making in the background, how we're telling the HVAC systems to operate as efficiently as possible. The one keep everyone comfortable still, that's our number one priority, but to do that in

011a way that's as efficient as possible and use the less least amount of energy that we can. So four buildings got full new control systems and the rest got where we kind of went back in, looked at the way that they were programmed and upgraded them so that they could we could utilize and operate the existing systems at their peak efficiency. So that's the high level. So this is the more detailed money side of things of how it went in. Um 5.4 million of those million dollars of this project was funded through that energy savings as we talked about. So, no capital out of the pocket of the school district. Um 12.4 of that was through capital improvements of a bond sale um prior to the project that were um allocated to this. Um zero

012dollars over two full years of construction um came out of change orders. We covered everything, made sure that what we promised is what we delivered at the end of the day. We were on site every day to make sure that our contractors were delivering exactly what we promised. And we promised zero change orders and that's what we delivered at the end of the day. Um as I mentioned, three new buildings with full control system, 11 upgraded control systems, over 325 brand new pieces of HVAC equipment across those four buildings that we talked about. 18,000 light fixtures converted, whether that was just taking out the innards and putting in brand new LEDs in the bodies or completely removing those fixtures and giving you whole new LED fixtures in spaces. So, 18,000 over 18,000 fixtures converted to

013LED across those buildings that we talked about. And then again, those savings. 347,000 of annual guaranteed energy savings. 32,000 of um stipulated, that's just agreed to um maintenance savings of the reduction of the maintenance requirement for these new systems. And on the energy side, what that equates to um is about 2.7 million um guaranteed reduction in electrical consumption. That's called kWh, kilowatt hours. Um which is equivalent to about 1,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide or 217 gas-powered cars every single year for the 15 years that are guaranteed for the project. So, I'll break these next couple graphs down into before this first year, so our construction phase which started back in 2023 finished in late 2024 due to just the complexity and size of the the work that we were doing. And then there'll be

014three more graphs that are the same for the first full year of performance after that construction was completed. So, these first graphs as I mentioned were during that construction time frame. All of this is not guaranteed because work isn't done yet. The first day that boots hit the ground and we started doing construction, really nothing has changed. So, over the course of time as more and more of that work is completed, we still want to track and show you the amount of energy that is being saved as things are slowly being upgraded. Um and also how much money you are saving on top of that that isn't going towards paying back any of this debt or anything like that. It's just straight savings for the district. So, I said there'll be three graphs for each.

015This first one is that kilowatt hours, that consumption. Um this is the biggest part really of your electric bill. Um so, that red line, um all of the graphs will look like this. The red line is the cumulative of what it was before the project started. So, we average that out over 3 years to have a good baseline of expecting what the district is doing. So, that's what the red line is. The start you see at the end of a year that 15-ish months, we expected about 14.4 million kWh to be used. Blue line is what actually happened. And black line is what our guarantee said. So, obviously the guarantee doesn't really matter for the construction period, but we still wanted to show you the comparison. During the construction period, we actually got pretty close

016still, an 18% total reduction on your electric consumption usage over that 15-month period. Demand is the other part of your electrical bill. You can think of this more as the instantaneous electrical draw that a building will be pulling from the grid at any individual time. Um so, this is more than charging you because this is how much they need to generate on a grid at any point in time. So, again, red, blue, and black lines here. A little bit less of an impact on this one. This is a lot harder to impact especially during the construction phase, but still a decent chunk of 11% reduction on that kilowatt portion of the bill for the 15-month period of the construction. And then gas was actually the first one to go below the guarantee even during the

017construction period. It was a little bit of a warmer winter that year of 2023 into 2024 which helped us out, but can't complain there. But you can see a almost 30% reduction in gas usage over that 15-month period for all of the buildings within the district. So again, those three graphs just show our construction period. None of this is guaranteed. All of that is just straight savings for the district. So then getting into the next three, and again this is just the energy side. This does not equate to dollars quite yet. We'll get to that in a few slides. So this These next three are the first year of actual performance after construction was completed. And there are a few caveats to throw in here at the end as well, but this is the data

018that we have and the way that we like to show it because we're still very proud of it and you guys should be too of how these things performed. So, consumption again that KWH over those first 12 months ended up few percentage points higher than what our guarantee was, but kept everybody comfortable. Performance was still very good trending in the right direction. You can see that just one one poor month back in maybe February March put us a little bit higher and then we went right at the right trajectory the whole time. We don't want to hide that from anybody. That's what we're here to do is to make sure that we're optimizing these buildings. We're still sticking with this and watching them every single month to make sure if anything starts to go awry,

019we're constantly checking with Eric and with the district to make sure, "Hey, is everything okay? Can we make this better, or is there a reason for this?" But still very, very impressive reductions for that first year on that consumption side. Demand very close as well, still 22% reduction, a few percentage points high. Again, waiting to about summer, we had a bit of an early heat wave this last summer, kicked that up a little bit higher and then stayed on the right trajectory the rest of the time. And then last winter, we also had a really cold start to the winter, a few weeks there where we were hitting the -40s. I'm sure everyone remembers how fun that was, threw the gas usage kind of high up at the very beginning. We balanced that back out

020towards the end of the year and ended up almost right at the guarantee at the end of the year. Um 25% total reduction of the gas usage over that first year of operation once construction was completed. Now, the big important part is the dollar savings. Now, although all three of those graphs were slightly a few percentage points higher than what the guarantee was for the energy units, on the dollar side of things, it looks a lot better. Um there are a few things to explain there, but I'll go over the tables first. So, that construction cost summary table at the top breaks down those three utilities into the dollar savings portions rather than the utility units. Um so, for that first 14 months, 15 months with no guarantee, about $412,000 of savings off of the

021bottom line for the district. So, absolutely fantastic there, really happy with that. Year one cost savings, same thing we're looking at here, about $408,000 of savings for that first year. That's three to four months shorter period, and it's only $4,000 less. So, it actually shows you how good that first year of performance was even if the graphs didn't quite drop below the black line at the end of the year for all the graphs like we would ideally want them to. Then when you look at the total, we'll add those two together for this first year. So, total savings to date of $820,000. Our guarantee for year one was only 347,000. Even without construction savings, the dollar savings are well beyond what that year one guarantee is. So, everyone should be very happy and proud about

022that. I know we are. And again, something to add in there as well, you can see in the one of the things in the blue bubble, you have to add in that maintenance savings of $32,000. So, that happens every year as well by reducing the maintenance burden on the district. Um But also, there's a number of savings items that we did in this project that don't impact the energy usage at all. A big part of these projects is also just to save money for the district to lessen that burden and eventually open that up for that money to go to other projects and needs for the district. So, various items of just changing rate structures for some of the buildings to a more beneficial rate so that the same amount of energy just costs less.

023Um like I said, um the Lake Agassiz boiler, even using the exact same amount of heat is saving about three to four times as much a third to a fourth of the amount of money you were paying before for the exact same amount of heat. So, some of those other items add up to help these dollar savings still go beyond what the guarantee was even though those the unit of savings for the energy doesn't quite get there yet. Um And again, some of the caveats like I like I wanted to point out, we've been working with Excel. Excel has been going through and making a lot of updates throughout the city in the past year or two. They've been changing out a lot of meters, they've been catching a lot of mistakes. Part of that

024process is also making some that they have to fix. Um so, we've been working with them for the past few months. A few of these buildings, they do have what we believe to be very erroneous bills. Some like Viking Elementary School, three to four times higher than what we expect them to be. Um we are working with them to fix that, but we don't want to hide that in our data. The data we have right now is the data that we've put in front of you, and it still meets our guarantee for the dollar savings. And once we get that fixed, we'll issue um updates to the reports so that you can see what that actually ends up being. But we're still really proud of the results, even if the data was exactly the same

025as it was that we've shown you today. Um the last thing I'll I'll kind of show of a few more ways to look at the impacts that the project had to the district overall. This is just kind of really quickly to explain the next graph of how we kind of compare buildings apples to apples is this thing called um energy usage per square foot or EUI. Kind of takes all of your different energy units in a building, whether that's things plugged into the wall, your lights, um gas being burned, water, all of that. Boils them all down to the exact same units, divides them by square foot over the year so that you just get a unitless number, whether that's 10, whether that's 100, so that we understand how efficient a building is using its

026energy to do with the needs for that building. So, this is showing the orange lines are what that building was operating at for all the buildings we touched prior to the project. The gray bar is during construction, and the green bar is that first year. So, you can see I've put a few numbers here. Some of the big standout numbers. Um the newer portion of Central, the gym portion of the building, see um almost a a 40% reduction of energy usage for that facility. Discovery Elementary School, even being brand new, just making some lighting uh not even lighting upgrades, just like making better decisions on how we are controlling that HVAC system, a 40% reduction in energy there. Um Eloise Strader Middle School, 23% reduction. South, obviously a very very large reduction. Again, kind of

027just on that lighting and on that control the decisions that we're making, 43% reduction there. And for the total district, just between these buildings, uh almost a 30% reduction of energy um from where we started to where we are today. And the last way that I really like to show this, it's very visual and kind of gives a good idea of the impact that we've had with what we've upgraded uh is this equipment level chart of all the different buildings as well. So, anything that's green means it's good to go before the project started. Yellow means we should probably start looking at this. Red means that thing's failed, we should have changed this already. There's probably reasons that we haven't, but these are the the highest priorities. So, not actually too much red, but the

028red that's there is some pretty important red. All of your main air distribution equipment that's giving you the healthy ventilation air, that's also the equipment that's heating and cooling a lot of your spaces here in the district. The terminal equipment is just other stuff downstream from that that helps move the air more efficiently, whether that's or water more efficiently, so pumps and fans, different things like that. A lot of that was the stuff in the red. Afterwards, come back through and give you at least three or four of those lines that have now switched to completely green. That's reset the clock for those buildings for another 15, 20, 25 years, so that focus can start going to these other areas and hopefully all of this money that's being saved can start being pushed to some

029other projects to help address some of that other red that's still on these charts. But that is pretty much everything I had, so I will pass it back for questions. Thank you. Questions from board members for Mr. Daley? Mr. Palmisano? Yeah, my only question, you said the central new area [snorts] was really high on that. Have you seen how the pool operation of the swimming pool is going to affect any of those numbers? Cuz we just turned it on. Yeah, so we we were made aware of that and that is one of the few things that will go back to our like I said, we have a baseline that we set of where we expect the building to start so that we can then compare after the fact when we're looking at bills of did

030we meet that reduction? Um when we have big changes like that, our baseline did not have a pool. Um so Brandon let us know that that pool would be turned back on. We were shared all those documents. Um we were told when the construction was happening, when it'd be turned back on. We did a a full analysis and calculation, added that to the guarantee um so that we could still say, well, we know the effect that we are having is still going to be there, but the numbers we'll see are going to be 10,000 higher because of this pool is going to be operating. We've seen that since the pool's turned on. That's already factored into the numbers that I've shown you so that the pool is not negatively impacting the good things that we

031did. There are still a few more things that we need to go through and do that. I know a lot of other projects are constantly going on in the district. Some small additions are being made to buildings or equipment's being changed. We want to make sure we're capturing all of that, and even in the data I showed you, I know some of that is not in there. But again, this ended back in November, December. Some of that is a delay because Excel bills two months late. So, but we didn't want to keep pushing this and pushing it so that it becomes summer and I'm like talking about how good things went back in November. Um we're still happy like I said with how things have went and we are as we may are made aware

032of it adding things like that into our calculations. Other questions from board members? Ms. Flynn, do you have anything for Mr. Daley? Um not for Mr. Daley, but just to highlight from the board perspective that this is a decision this board made years ago that is now having a positive impact on the board of today and the school district of today. And I just I don't want that point to get lost on um you know, the the great work that that board did to project out um with our partners uh a good idea and a good system and a good um arrangement of some of these projects to not only be new, but then to save us money in addition to um and to have a partner who's looking out for savings for the district

033over any other priority. So, um I just think this is uh a great example to continue to highlight that um a decision a couple years ago is really having a positive impact today. Thank you. Other questions from board members? Just a reminder this is under discussion for tonight, so no action is required, but do want to make sure that board members get uh anything clarified that they wish. Once more, Mr. Clevin. And what was the capital outlay from the school district for all this? Mr. Bombach, do you have that number? Yeah, I think all told it's about 17.8. As Mr. Daley said that it was kind of a combination of some of what was financed through the guaranteed energy savings component and then there was a building fund bond sale for the remaining just under

03414 million. So, do we have a sense when when that initial capital investment will be paid back in annuity savings? If that's the right word. Uh yes, Mr. Clavin. Um we have the bond schedules for when that all be paid back. Um I guess [clears throat] I'd have to look at the details here to probably answer your your question more specifically, but I recall those bond sales to be a 20-year um payment plan. Thanks. And I can at least say that the energy portion is designed to pay for itself around what North Dakota statute allows us to, which is 15 years. So, all of our services and fees and the financing portion that is financed from the energy savings, the energy savings has to cover all of that um and that is a 15-year period.

035So, I believe that was just under $6 million portion of the total roughly 17, that should pay itself off in as long as 15. Hopefully, as long as we continue to be higher than the savings guarantee, that should pay itself off faster. Other questions, thoughts from board members? Anything final from you, Mr. Bombach, before we move on? Feel like we've adequately uh delivered a report. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Daley. Thank you. Move on to 4B, budget realignment administrative update, Dr. Brenner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh you have a memo from me in your packet. Um and this just a reminder that um every opportunity that we have, we're going to update the board on our budget realignment work um as it relates to the 4.4 million. Uh since you approved uh the 4.4

036million, we've um continued to work almost each and every day, and And just highlight uh some of the work um that has been done since uh the last board meeting. On February 26th, we had a joint administrative meeting. Just a refresher, that's our pre-K through 12 administrative group uh across the district. And we had a conversation uh we we did a a board review from the uh the previous board meeting on February 23rd. Uh we talked about the reduction in Forest Rubric. And uh and we had some Cognia school improvement um pieces in there as well. And then at February on February 27th, our elementary principals got together and they were talking about the uh the leveling process that we're uh planning for next fall. That is if we have new students move in to

037a certain neighborhood after the school year starts. And let's just take Century Elementary for example. And that fourth grade already has 24 25 students. We'll ask that parent to consider uh transporting that fourth grader to Wilder. Wilder only has 17 students. So, that's um part of our leveling concept um that's being discussed at the elementary level. On the next page um during our administrative cabinet, and we invited some principals to this meeting, we reviewed uh Dr. Galatzer's and Mr. Bakke's job descriptions as both associate and assistant superintendents. Um and we had a number of people around the table totaling almost 20. And the purpose of that conversation was to see who could do what if some of those deliverables uh between Dr. Galatzer and Mr. Bakke uh could be shifted to other other people in

038the district, whether it was me, chief academic officer, any of our directors, any of our principals. And you know, we blocked off a large amount of time for that meeting, but what became very clear probably an hour into the meeting um was it's not really doable uh given given the size of our district, the shape of our district, uh and the number of um strategic initiatives that we have going on. And I think you heard during the school board administrative retreats um that there was a real desire from our principal and associate principal group um to maintain both of those uh positions. I think what really highlighted it for me was when one of our principals spoke up and said, you know, are we being requested to move from 50, 60, 70-hour work weeks to

039something beyond that? And I think that was a that was a fair question. And so um just wanted you know that we did work through that process um and it became clear it was clear for everybody in the group, consensus clear, um that it's really important to maintain both of those positions moving forward. Now, Mr. Baki hasn't um tendered his resignation yet, but it certainly is public that um he's going to be leaving education. Um so, with Dr. Galat leaving, Mr. Baki leaving, we know for certain we need to fill one. Um and so, you will likely see that posted as early as tomorrow. Um one of the assistant superintendent positions, not both, but but one. Uh on March 3rd and 4th elementary music teachers got together in their PLC and Mr. Baki and I

040believe Mr. Seabloom was um part of that conversation. And they really talked about the logistics of um you know, what it would look like with elementary music teachers, some who have specialized I mean, that their professional educators license says that they can teach band, they can teach orchestra, but the reality is um many of them probably would not want to do that or they haven't experienced that. But there are a few uh talented folks in that group who could assist with this 2.5 FTE middle school um music reduction where there might be some help there. Uh and also there could be some help uh coming from the secondary level with some if there's some rolling low enrollment courses where uh some of our high school folks could be shifted to the middle school to pick

041up either band or orchestra. Um then today uh we had our K-12 music master schedule planning committee get together. And again, we just we had updates from the elementary PLC, middle and high school PLC conversations. And what that led to was there's going to be some more subcommittee work that's done in between. And we will come back together again the latter part of April as there are at least three meetings scheduled in between where that group will report back. Um you can see on March 3rd, elementary principals met. I think I talked about that already. March 5th, um elementary music teachers got together to talk to talk about CODA and what their schedules would look like. And we actually talked about that a bit today. If we can start the master scheduling by taking care

042of all of the other schedules and then seeing what is uh remaining for our elementary music teachers to preserve some of that time so they can plan for those performances. Um rather than have those be CODA paid contracts. So, more work uh to be done there. We're continuing to monitor attrition, uh whether it's resignation, retirements, or anything other than that. Um as you recall, we started with 25 certified FTEs uh to be considered uh uh that we that would go through our reduction in force process. And about 29 and a half on the classified side. Um I can say that that 25 number has been knocked down um considerably. And we still have a little bit more time before uh a week from Thursday uh is when the board packet would go Um and and

043we'll be doing some work early on next week immediately after spring break uh to visit with teachers who would um who would fall on that reduction in force uh list. So, that is a high-level view. Lots of conversations, lots of people involved. And um eventually uh what I what I probably didn't highlight enough was the amount of time we've spent on the rubric uh with Rachel Brunner um providing legal uh and making sure that that is is tight and clean as possible as we're looking at adaptability of each of the teachers who fall into either PE, music, world language, or multi-language. We just want to make sure it's a very fair and equitable process. And it's been a grueling process and I want to thank Griffin Gillespie in HR. Amy Bartsch has also taken a

044lead role side-by-side with Griffin. And then there's been a committee that has continued to look at that. And just to highlight one more piece a little bit further, the policy review committee will get together on Thursday of this week and that will be an exhibit that you look at and you'll see the the subtle changes that were made to that exhibit. Be happy to stand for any questions as it relates to all the work that's been done since our last school board meeting. Questions from board members? Ms. Flynn, do you have a question? Oh, I'll go to Dr. Hudak first and then Ms. Flynn you'll be on deck. Dr. Hudak. With all due respect to you, Dr. Brunner and Catherine and Matt and such, the March 3rd administrative cabinet meeting and principals meeting, I have

045to tongue in cheek say I kind of laughed a little bit about this one because I want to point out that when we're saying that um we cannot do anything more, those are the very people that are saying it. So, I would imagine that when we have we're going to be expect our nurses to do more, we're going to be expecting custodians to do more, we're going to be expecting and for them to pick up. And so, and I know walk I've walked in these shoes, so I know what time commitment is and everything else. But, I'm not in agreement that we have done a good enough deep dive into looking at who is responsible for what. Um I'm This is again just um I think that we are um We we are too There

046are too many administrators and that things are um not being delegated or not being held responsible for some of the things. And like I truly believe that we can do something instead of replacing both of those positions. Even if it's at one time one year that we take a look at it. Because of the budget and where we're at, I think that somebody um we need to you know, pull up our bootstraps and we need to say, "Okay, I will tackle this and I will take this on." Because otherwise, um I would be saying, "Let's have our school administrators um with technology." It's very easy to do. And um I've done it. I've requested it. I've taught it. Let's have all of our district leaders, um especially our district leaders and our principals log exactly

047what they do daily. All right? So, they start at 7:00 a.m. and from 7:00 to 9:00, I'm you know, visible with students or I'm working on things like that. We have to, in order to get um all of these positions under control, we need to recognize um that the job descriptions have to be reviewed against their evaluations. I would expect that they are totally aligned. And I'm not I because I hear every the voices of everyone in my ears, but when I hear from public and when I hear from teachers comments and when I hear from personal own administrators saying "We don't need that person. We don't understand why we have that person. We could be doing it this way and such." And I'm going, "Why am I hearing that?" It's I'm not, you know,

048looking for it. I'm not asking for it, but I just think that that one just kind of set me off a little bit. And like I said, with utmost respect, I just think that we can do something about that. And so I'll stop there. We're good. If I could If I could just respond to that. Appreciate your your feedback, Dr. Hodak, on that. All I'm suggesting tonight is we're posting one of the positions. I'm not suggesting that we're posting both. But we need to post one. We need to post one. So, um And I need to hear that we have had our our directors [clears throat] and our principals and our deans of students and our associate principals, all of them to sincerely take a look and step up to the plate and say, "I

049can do that." I'm not asking for it to be placed on you, Dr. Brenner, in no shape or form, but I just think it's time that we say that they might have to dig in like we're asking all other employees to do. And that they should be doing the same thing. Thank you. Ms. Flynn, do you have comments under this administrative update regarding the budget realignment? No, I don't. Other questions, clarifying comments, or remarks from board members? Dr. Lund? Dr. Hodac, I suspect you may get your wish because I suspect it'll be difficult to fill two of those positions. And and several years ago, we were down to one assistant superintendent and and and it didn't go well from from talking about the people above that position and below that position. There were things that

050got left undone during that time and and and I don't I don't walk in their shoes because we're we're not an operational board, but I listened to the feedback back then and I know it was a difficult time when we were down to one. So, but but just practical experience from a few years ago. Other comments from board members? Once more around the room. All right, a reminder this was a recommendation for discussion this evening, no action required. Move on to 4C, Government Affairs Committee report. Uh board member Anderson, did you chair that committee meeting? I did. Uh I can provide a brief update, high-level comments. Government Affairs Committee met on Thursday, uh February 26th. Um as you can see in minutes, there was a lot of discussion, very well-attended meeting, uh really good meeting,

051um uh productive to hear from our legislators on challenges that currently are being faced and and items that will be faced when the legislature convenes in early 2027. Uh heard about budget challenges, uh continued property tax discussion, uh and then pressures with special education funding and the current committee work taking place on that. Alyssa DeTrick, Dr. DeTrick and Brandon sit on a current committee or Brandon sits on the committee. Alyssa I believe was invited to participate in that in the past week and they spoke to that work and provided some additional information to our legislative team that had some questions around that. A really good conversation. Legislators also gave some additional insight into what we may continue to see and and see in the future as challenges and and budget discussions. I would ask that

052other committee members if anyone has anything to add, other committee members would be Jay or Amber and then follow up with possibly Dr. Brenner and Brandon. Mr. Kleven? I have nothing to comment cuz I was a bit of a voyeur listening in while I was traveling. So I was I was an observer more so than a participant. So I got nothing else to add. Ms. Flynn, anything to add from your point of view? No, I think it is well covered. And again to board member Anderson's invitation, Dr. Brenner or Mr. Bombach, anything to add from that committee meeting? Um and chair Brenner, [clears throat] Ms. Anderson, thanks for the synopsis. You got most of it so there's not a lot to add there. I just think that there was a kind of a sobering outlook

053a little bit of where the state's productions coming from and what it looks like going forward. And so I think a lot of the conversation we did hear from our elected leaders is about priority of education within that budget. If the revenues don't grow, where does the priority of public education fall? And so that'll be a big part of the conversation I think into the next legislative session. Thank you. Dr. Brenner. I during the meeting I had put up a screenshot but I didn't have a chance to talk about it and I I think it it's worth highlighting because Brandon just talked about the state of the budget. Although I would suspect our barrels of oil are at 120 today so maybe we'll have somebody re-enter the state and start drilling again. But in 1996

054teacher salaries lag behind comps across the country comparable jobs nursing etc. by 6% and presently teacher salaries lag 27% behind comparable jobs. I think that's worth highlighting. I think that's why we're seeing people not either going into the profession or not staying very long. I just didn't have an opportunity to share the screenshot or the slide that I had put up in front of the group. That's all I have. Thank you. Questions from board members regarding the committee meeting. Yes, Dr. Lund. Was there any discussion about the proposed constitutional amendment about school lunches and where the actual money of that may come from? Anyone have that recollection? Mr. Anderson. There was discussion on the item. I do not recall exactly if there was a pointed topic on where that money might come from. Uh the

055point I I hear through the rumor mill is that that's going to come out of foundation aid eventually which would bite us doubly. So I don't know if any of that conversation was held at that meeting or not thinking that's just rumor mill stuff. Anyone else who attended the meeting care to comment on that specific point? Dr. Brenner. I would say outside of the meeting I've heard from two legislators who have said if if free school meals are baked into the constitution it will come out of foundation aid. Other comments, questions from board members. I know this has come up a number of times at our special meeting and our regular meetings through citizen comment and board member responses. Um this advocacy for public education at the state level is very evident to me must

056continue. Uh all of these things that matter, all of these programs we care about, all of these students we serve, all of these staff members uh certified and classified we want to recruit and retain. Um we need, and this is some speaking more broadly here, uh we need to continue and increase the level of advocacy for public education. Uh it's it's a critical time and I think this meeting and this conversation characterizes that. Anything else on this particular agenda item? Okay, once again, this was a report for discussion, no action is required. We'll move on to five, these are now recommendations for action. Five A is our consent agenda, I would seek a motion to approve the consent agenda as outlined in your packet. So moved. It's been moved by Mr. Clevin, is there a

057second? Mr. Manley. We'll take a roll call vote. Hodak? >> Yes. Clevin? Yes. Manley? Yes. Larson? Yes. Flynn? Yes. Lunn? Yes. Anderson? Yes. Pomasino? >> Yes. Burger? >> Yes. Nine yes, zero no, zero absent. Motion passes. Five B, superintendent evaluation committee report. Mr. Anderson, you chaired this meeting also. I did. Um superintendent evaluation committee did meet uh last Monday, March 2nd uh to review the data for the superintendent evaluation. Nine of nine Grand Forks board uh city board members completed the evaluation and four of five base members completed it. The committee noted that changes with the new survey tool were made any positives or challenges that that that provided reviewed those. Scoring rubric was noted to be helpful for review in the committee. It was also noted the amount of commentary that was collected was

058large equaling up to 17 pages worth which certainly provides valuable insight. It was the view of the committee that the strategic plan was well represented in the evaluation. And prior to any motion I would open it for other committee members comment and I would also ask that if we can provide Dr. Brenner a brief time to give his reflection. Sure. First we'll go to other board members who serve on the committee and were present at that meeting. So Mr. Larson anything to add from your point of view? No, nothing to add. I would just say generally speaking when when we met and I would have been interested in other board member comments as well. This is the first time I remember being able to save and come back and save and come back and reflect

059and do the work over a stretch of hours or days. We in that room found that to be helpful but would be curious what others comments would be before we get more more specifically into the motion. I'll pause there and invite Dr. Brenner to share his reflections from last Monday's meeting. Thank you Mr. Chair. I broke this down into a couple of different areas. First looking at the job description and the feedback in the job description. Looked at the at the highs and the lows as far as the the ranking on the the one through four scale. Again three being effective four being highly effective. HR graded out the lowest at 3.38 and highest was communication at 3.69. In the strategic plan area, uh the the lowest area 3.46 was shared understanding, which is uh

060something that's we're working on and that is part of the strategic plan. Uh fiscal management and clarity, uh all three of those were tied to 3.46. And then um at the high end 3.69, reciprocal communication, uh positive attendance, and I want to, you know, credit our high school principals for leading that piece. Uh the positive attendance practices, so um I do want to thank all of you for providing feedback um from from both boards. And it it's worth acknowledging, it's more than worth acknowledging that this isn't just an evaluation of of me as superintendent, but it's it's an evaluation of how well our team is doing. And so a lot of different people, you know, are part of the strategic plan, uh the three big buckets, and even my job description, um you know, some

061of those pieces are handed off to Dr. Glatt, Matt Bakke, um and some of the directors as well, so it really uh it it's a reflection of of the team, and I want to thank them for uh for their input because they do provide a lot of input as it relates to the strategic plan and the narrative that all of you get to read and while you're doing your scoring. Um so other than that, there were a couple of other takeaways. Uh it was it was suggested that maybe some of the work that I do external of the school district, some of the other boards that I serve on, um that either provide uh meeting minutes or agendas or uh I can provide hot links to Friday Focus, uh so people can see what the

062conversations are either at the RVC, the local EDC, um some of them do have, well, many of many of them that receive Foundation Aid or or city sales tax or are funded somehow through taxpayers, uh will have an agenda and will have meeting minutes. There are some what I would call more ad hoc committees that have agendas but don't have meeting minutes, like Team Grand Forks has an agenda, not necessarily a meeting minutes. Um the chamber business government education alliance or agency. We have sometimes we don't even have agendas, but we know who the speaker is going to be. Um and that's that's more community related as well. So, there are ways that I can provide some of that information as well in in Friday Focus. Um other than that there was uh lots of

063good narrative in there for for me to digest and for me to think about and for me to actually in some cases implement. So, thank you for all participating. I appreciate it very much. Thank you. Before we open this up to other board members, I do want to recognize uh that um Grand Forks Air Force Base Board President Michelle Sheppard was also in attendance at that meeting under the current uh joint powers agreement, a non-voting member, but certainly gives voice to her comments and such. I know we're we're looking at changing that as we move forward with with the GPA, but Ms. Sheppard, do you have anything to add from your perspective related to that meeting or or this evaluation? Uh no, you hit it quite nicely, right on the head. Um we all agreed

064that this was probably one of the best um surveys that the evaluations that we have completed, being able to save, come back, take the time if we came across anything of any questioned be to be able to reach out. So, from our end and from our base board, it was well received as well. Thank you. I will open it up to other board members, questions or comments, uh items for clarification related to the Superintendent Evaluation Committee report or the recommendation that came from that committee. Mr. Manley. Just a comment to uh Dr. Brenner um and others here. Lots of great comments here. Um but if there's any scores here that you question or any comments you have questions on, please do follow up with us and we'll we'll reply. Yeah. Others? Ms. Flynn, do you

065have anything to add uh relative to the committee report or the committee's recommendation? Um, yeah, just a couple of things. Um, I thought this was uh easier to follow along with than previous evaluations um just in terms of the tool. I do a lot of stuff from my phone, however, so it was difficult to not have it be a um a survey tool that I could really download appropriately and do from my phone. Um, and so that was hard, but on the same token, I struggled in the past with um going through the evaluation and not being able to see what or wanting to come back to it. So, I certainly appreciate um the committee trying to find different ways to utilize a survey function. Um, I My comments are out there. My readings are

066out there. Um, one of the things that I would continue um to provide feedback from for and this is not new, but um I felt like there was less questions this survey uh period where I I wasn't uh wanting to put like N/A or I didn't know. I felt like there was a lot of areas that information was provided for. Um, it's just really hard when you have a large organization um all the way down to teachers to know what happened in between. And so we only have one perspective of um specifically HR or supervision areas from Dr. Brenner. Um, and it would be, um, more helpful for me. I don't know how others feel. I know we've talked about this before, um, in terms of a 360, whatever that looks like, but, um, it

067would be more helpful for me to understand, um, perspectives of others as it relates to how things do trickle down. Thank you. Other comments from board members? Dr. Hodek. Again, with to the the committee as well as to Dr. Brenner, all due respect. To put it in simplistic terms, I still disagree with 34 pages, 17, um, and such. Dr. Brenner, what would you say? We all know that in order for, um, an individual or a program or an organization organization to improve, there has to be growth. And otherwise, we're going to remain stagnant, all right? In simplistic terms, what would you say are your three professional, um, growth areas that you see for yourself? Well, one is, um, improving overall school district culture. And that starts with the superintendent. And I'm working through that, and

068uh, when I say through that, through the teacher advisory council committee, uh, that's something that has come back through survey results, that's something we should pay attention to. Um, uh, secondarily, uh, student achievement performance, student achievement performance growth, which is why we went through the be legendary training. Um, and so we've highlighted those, and those are measurable. Uh, some might think those are aspirational goals, but those are achievable goals based on the work that um Lori Elliott and Marcia, our two be legendary trainers, did with us. Uh those would be two of my highest level. And then um you know, just just reflecting on the budget realignment process, I uh again, I'm more than pleased with the engagement level of the the people who are involved, the five school board retreats, all the meetings in

069between, the interfacing between principals and associate principals, directors, district leadership, and all the board members. So, you heard it straight from the buildings relative to what their needs were. Um but they're still in in reflection of that, are there areas to improve that? Yes. Uh could have we had teachers more engaged in that process? To a degree, yes. Uh would there been some opportunities for parents to be involved through the right structure? Yes. Um so, should we ever have to go through that again? I don't think we want to, but I think we're going to have to go through portions of that budget realignment because we as we just talked about, you know, what the state is uh not promising us, probably going to have to have some form of semblance to the process that

070we just went through. It may not be as laborious and five retreats, but it's going to be certainly need to be an engagement process along the way. I have a follow-up, Dr. Hodak. I yes. Dr. Brenner, you've seen all of our comments and our scores and such. What do you believe are your strengths as superintendent and as an educational leader for this district? I didn't know this was going to be an interview. >> I know. Um I I would say that uh communication is a strength, even though, you know, people certainly like to toss around the word transparency loosely. Uh I think we've worked very hard in the last 8 years to provide multiple venues of where people can find information, receive information, and how they can contact me directly to have those conversations. So,

071I would say that communication is a strength. Um I think uh collaboration. I I go back to um 8 years ago when the previous board selected me in February of 2018 and there were seven interviews over the course of 16 hours in one day. Three were on YouTube. And um and and I knew that the the school board was receiving lots of information from lots of different people across the community, people who knew me, people who didn't know me. Um and so I met with each board member uh following following this election and I asked them to tell me which pain in that Johari window that I didn't see myself through. And three board members said, um all people said you are a collaborator, but you picked the people who you wanted to collaborate with.

072That was an aha moment for me. Um so I've been very strategic and deliberate in how the teacher advisory council is pulled together. It's not a selection process by me. It's people who say, I want to be on it. It goes through our comms department and then people are randomly selected to represent the buildings to serve on on the teacher advisory council. Um so I think that's collaboration. These are the things that I don't believe that um we complete the forms and we turn in what we feel and see. Um Dr. Brenner gives us his lists or what he believes is is the data and the evidence. I do believe that we need to support him by finding a way for Dr. Brenner, not us, to do, but to get feedback from his peers. And

073by peers, I mean those other superintendents that are out there. I also believe that there needs to be feedback from parents, feedback from the subordinates. And I'm not asking for names or anything else, but Dr. Brenner knows when I talk about the 360 evaluation, that I believe that that would be information that he could put down in this document and say, "Here's the data. Here's what parents are saying. I don't want to go through their surveys or anything else because I believe in you, but it still needs to be asked so you hear that. And then you can say to us, "This is what my peers are saying, how we're doing as a district, how I'm doing when I'm testifying, when I'm participating in the NDCA. When I'm with the government affairs and things like

074that. How are you doing?" Because I think often times it's easy to pick on the superintendent because it's lonely at the top with that. And I just think that we are missing a clear part that would help you to solidify that, "Okay, I'm doing an okay job. I'm doing a good job. This is where I need." I just believe in that 360 evaluation from peers, from parents, from students, from teachers, from your administrators, the subordinates, and such to give you that look. Not necessarily, I don't want to know the ins and outs. I just want you to be able to say, "This is what our community is saying about me and the job that I'm doing because I think truthfully, I think I think you would be surprised on the good side. Thank you. You

075want to respond, Dr. Brenner? Sure. I I I think before the train gets too far down the tracks, uh the the superintendent uh evaluation tool is agreed upon between the superintendent and uh uh and the committee. Um so I I would just offer that as um that needs to be part of the conversation. And you know, there's there advantages and disadvantages to doing something that you're that you're proposing. Um and and the advantages the advantage would be the people who know the work that I'm doing would likely give me meaningful feedback. Uh the people who don't understand the work, you can well imagine what that feedback might be like. Um it's just the this it's the same conversation as trying to replace both assistant superintendents. Hey, you're heavy at the top. Let's get rid of

076the bloat. People have no idea the amount of work that Dr. Galatz does, the amount of work that Mr. Bakke does. Um so I will reflect on that. Other comments from board members? Dr. Lunney. Good conversation. I don't think it's appropriate for here and there's two sides of a story to 360 evaluations. It's more than just a simple yes or no kind of thing. Thank you. Comments from board members? This is an item for action tonight. Uh as you can see, the superintendent evaluation committee passed along a recommendation uh to find the superintendent's performance to be satisfactory. Um this time I would seek a motion that upon review of board member input and an overall weighted average ranging from 3.38 to 3.69 in all domains, the Superintendent Evaluation Committee and Grand Forks School Board find

077the Superintendent's performance to be satisfactory. It's been moved by Mr. Manley. Is there a second? Second by Mr. Klevin. Discussion on the motion on the floor? Ms. Flynn, there's a motion on the floor related to finding Dr. Brenner's performance to be satisfactory. Do you have any comments or questions about the motion? No. Any other comments or discussion from board members? We'll take a roll call vote. Pomosina? Yes. Lunn? Yes. Larson? Yes. Flynn? Yes. Anderson? Yes. Hodak? Yes. Manley? Yes. Klevin? Yes. Burger? Yes. Nine yes, zero no, zero absent. Motion passes. 5C Virtual High School consideration of continuation or discontinuation. Dr. Brenner. Upon your approval, I can make this memo really skinny and just get to the heart of the matter because you had the conversation at the last meeting. So, really this is an actionable

078item this evening to either continue or discontinue with the the virtual high school. Just the CliffNotes version, we've operated for a year. The the data that we have is we have 25 26 students. Dr. Galatsh has mentioned as recently as today that there are four students who would open enroll from outside our district should we continue. That would make up a portion of the cost, but it wouldn't make up all of it. But, we still don't know if we'd grow even further beyond that. So, I will leave it in the board's hands for that conversation. First of all, questions from board members for Dr. Brenner. Mr. Palmisano. Yeah, if if we voted against this in in council, what do we do with those students? What happens to the students that have to take the online

079that can't come to school? Does it cost us then we have to educate those kids. How does that work? Dr. Brenner, Dr. Glattch. So, you you must be speaking to students who are on medical um leave of absence so to speak from the classroom. Uh we would have to compensate teachers to um tutor them uh in accordance with their needs um and probably enroll them as well in the North Dakota Center for Distance Ed classes um as much as possible. Those classes are different in the sense that they are um out of our control. There is an online um teacher who works with them asynchronously. But for some of our students uh who don't know the duration of their absence, that would perhaps create some funkiness, but we've we've managed that before. Other questions or

080comments from board members? Ms. Flynn, do you have any questions and want to contribute to this conversation about the virtual high school? I don't, but I think from previous conversations it was pretty clear that uh letting something move past 1 year just to see how things are working would be good and there is more consensus than not to uh keeping things as is. Thank you. Other comments? Uh Dr. Lund and then Mr. Cleven. Well, I'm sorry I missed the last meeting because I'm in a distinct minority here. I I >> [laughter] >> I realize. I I I think this it should be closed. I think we're we're in a budget crisis. This is actual dollars and cents. The reason it's only been open for a year is because we delayed opening it because of the

081cost in the first place. I don't know who was on the board at the time, but that there was concerns about the cost, so we delayed that. >> [gasps] >> I realize it's only been open a year. When I look at at those 52 different items, there were there were very few that didn't cause pain. There There were a couple that it's like, well, these are no-brainers, but most of them were were great programs or great parts of programs that were difficult. This is no different than any of those other ones, so I'm actually in in favor of of of closing the academy after this year. Mr. Clevin. Thank you. Uh probably a question for uh Superintendent Galatz. I forget Sorry if I'm fuzzy with titles. I'd call you Catherine, but that doesn't seem professional

082enough. Um is this a better program that can be found elsewhere? Particularly the the option that's run through Department of Public Instruction. First of all, you can call me Catherine anytime. Um secondly, I'm biased towards the model that we have in place. Uh the reason that I think it works better than the ND CDE model is because we provide some um uh we require students to meet with a mentor teacher kind of quote-unquote face-to-face. They can do that either in person or they can do it virtually. There are required weekly touch points, and that results in a true mentoring relationship. When students have to take assessments, they come in to take those assessments underneath our guise, so there's some validity to the learning there. And when they get stuck, they can either schedule a um

083meeting with that mentor teacher, or they can come in and meet with that person. Uh they also are able to engage in some of our district-wide activities. For example, um there was a career fair hosted at Community High School and our virtual high school students, the majority of them attended that. So, they reached some of those choice ready metrics that they may not reach, um, I think as authentically in just taking North Dakota Center for Distance Ed courses. So, I I'm biased towards it, but I think the credits that have been accrued has a much better return on investment. You've heard before the NDCS DE return on investment is like 30% of kids actually pass those classes and we put some new practices in place to preclude them from re-enrolling on our dime now, um,

084and that's part of our budget reduction savings as well, predictably. So, um, so how that all fleshes out in the end is to be determined. So, I think it's a better model because it's a little bit more of a hybrid, um, and I think it's allowed us some of our kids who were had lost momentum in their learning to gain momentum back. Thank you for the detailed answer. Other comments, questions? Dr. Hodak? Um, from the comments that had been written down on the recommended motion for board action, it says recognizing that continuation removes the identified 0.5 FTE staffing savings from the overall reduction plan. Would we then be looking at that 70,000 if we say no? Okay. But, if we say to continue, um, where would we be getting that $70,000 and have we discussed

085it with our associate deans, our dean of students, our principals that could possibly pick it up for 1 year again so that we could keep the program going, but there would be no cost to the district? I can answer the first part of that question. Maybe Dr. Glatt the second part, um, she's had some conversations with others. Um, if if we move forward and keep it open, we'll find another place to realize those savings. We've got to hit the 4.4. In all due respect, I think it would be hard-pressed to think that a dean of students or an AP or a principal could mentor 27 students and all their coursework on top of their full-time job. I think we need a dedicated teacher to do that who understands the content um specifically and is able

086to be there as a resource to those individuals. Yes, Mr. Palmisano. Yeah, when you mentioned that we had roughly four people interested in open enrollment, we would receive their their per pupil payment, which would roughly be in 40,000 plus that we would get. Am I close, Brandon, or Yep. Thank you, Chairwoman uh member Palmisano. I ran those numbers, too. We get paid a per pupil, per student, if they're here all year long, 11,349. So, times four gets you about 45,000. So, then what we would be looking for is 30,000 to replace that. And if we can go out and recruit three more, we have the program paid for, but would that ever if we get too many kids enrolling, would it add to the cost of the program? Or can one person do it for

087a certain amount of numbers? I appreciate all the questions. So, just to clarify, we already have two students who are non-Grand Forks Public Schools students who are enrolled currently, and there are two more who explicitly requested um transfer in. And And whether or not any more come in after that, we're we're unsure. Um so, that that totals the four. The reason that we have only a half-time instructor there right now and a cap of 27 kids is because of capacity, because of the model that we have built. Um we certainly I down the road uh in all uh transparency, there are um, uh uh, online teachers who case manage 50, 70, 80, 90 kids, but it's kind of a plug-and-play. And their return on investment is not what I described for ours. That's why I'm

088biased towards our model. I think that personal touch is what allows the success to come through. And so, I wouldn't advocate that we just fill up um, the virtual academy uh, with extra students who can't be supported because I think it would do those students a disservice in the long run. And that's contrary to what our goal is. So, if if more students are we had at the start of this year um, a waitlist or consideration list that was in the high teens of students that we had to decline cuz we didn't have capacity. I don't know, I guess that would be for the board to decide that if more students are interested in enrolling, if we would increase the the FTE amount to serve them well. That would be something for you to describe.

089Um, it is a more efficient way to serve students. Um, kind of cost per pupil. And and Brandy keeps reminding me when you look at the when we have students uh, served face-to-face, we're also paying for the physical plant and things of that nature. So, it's not necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison. Um, but in the end, if you look at the revenue generated by 27 students times that dollar amount that he said and you look at the money that we're expending on the staff and the um, online platform itself, we're we're doing pretty well there as far as a return on that investment. And again, I'm biased. You know that already. Do I need to say that again? Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Glatch. Other comments, questions? Oh, yes, Ms. Flynn. I um, just hearing that

090again, I think I could probably pick 20 different things that we could cut at the same dollar value and it still would not have as as an efficient um, budget process as the the virtual high school. I don't know how else to say that. Um but I mean, I could say, "Well, let's cut something in athletics of the same value." But it's not going to be as efficient. It's not going to serve our students academically. So, I just I think the reasoning behind this one being on the the list for a recently opened program, it would not show favor to how the board makes decisions in terms of us knowing about something and letting that process happen, a new program. Part of why we waited was because we wanted to get it right as well.

091Um and so, and and there were some survey stuff, too. But, you know, to Dr. Lund's point, yes, you know, we're [clears throat] trying to get it cost neutral. Um but if the way that we make decisions is to allow a new program to come on board and give it the fidelity for time, and then a decision when we come to budget is just because that's a recently developed program, I feel like that's a dangerous way to make decisions when we could think of 20 other items who who we could say, "It's the same value in terms of monetary amount, but does not provide the same value for students." If this is an efficient program, which we said a part of the process that we will continue as we make budgetary decisions down the road

092is how efficient are we being, how efficient are buildings, how efficient are we educating students. And if there is a need, to me, closing this is just a dangerous road to go down. Thank you. Other comments, clarifying remarks, questions from board members? As you can see, there is not one course of action laid out for us this evening. Uh so I'm going to say the second part first just to clarify uh and then I'll seek a motion for either one of these options. Um so that the board recognizes that continuation of the Grand Forks Public Schools Virtual High School would remove the identified 0.5 FTE staffing savings from the overall reduction plan. Just so you all understand that part. I would seek a motion to either continue or discontinue the Grand Forks Public Schools Virtual

093High School. I'll make a motion to continue >> You want to turn your microphone on, please, Mr. Larson. I'll make a motion to continue the Grand Forks Public Schools Virtual High School. So there's a motion on the floor to continue the Grand Forks Public Schools Virtual High School recognizing that continuation removes the identified 0.5 FTE staffing savings from the overall reduction plan. Is there a second to that motion? It's been uh seconded by Mr. Kleven. >> Second. With the microphone. >> With the microphone. So before we move into discussion on the motion, just to restate there's a motion on the floor and a second to continue the Grand Forks Public Schools Virtual High School recognizing that continuation removes the identified 0.5 FTE staffing savings from the overall reduction plan. Any discussion on the motion? Dr.

094Lun. Well, I'm still concerned about about the amount of money that we've we've changed cuz 2 weeks ago we added two two FTEs back into to the budget. Now we're talking about adding another 0.5. The numbers I've heard from before was was you know, that's $200,000 roughly. Um you know, and that's money that's difficult to come in. So I would I would actually move to amend the motion by adding the statement compensation for all school board members for July 1, 2025 through July through June 30, 2026 will be $0. It'll save the school district $47,000. So, it won't save 200, but it'll save a chunk of it. So, now >> Point of order. Yeah, go ahead, Ms. Flynn. I believe an amendment can't be made if it's irrelevant to the actual motion. I I understand

095where Dr. Lund is trying to go to, but these are two completely different things um in terms of the motion really is about continuation of a program rather than a full budgetary conversation for itself. I just don't think it's appropriate for an amendment to be made. I respectfully disagree. I think it's totally pertinent to the dollar savings amount. So, Ms. Flynn, I I understand your point. I I I I am going to um to allow the proposed amendment to stand. Uh as I understand it though, that would need a uh Is there a second? It would need a second, and then we would vote on the amendment to the motion. So, is there a second to the motion to add that for this upcoming school year, board member compensation would be $0. Do I have

096a second to that proposed amendment to the motion? Just a correction, it's not the upcoming school year, it's the current school year. So, Dr. Lund, you're proposing that the 2025-2026 school year. So, the proposed amendment to the motion is that board compensation for the 2025-2026 school year be changed to $0. Do I have a second to that proposed amendment? >> Check It's been seconded by Mr. Manley. Now we are voting on the amendment to the motion. And the amendment is to change board compensation for the 2025-2026 school year to zero dollars. Is there any discussion about the amendment? We'll take a roll call vote on the amendment. Klevin No. Larson No. Pomonisino No. Len Yes. Manley No. Flynn No. Hodak No. Henderson No. Burger No. One yes, eight no, zero absent. The amendment to the

097motion fails. We're back to the motion on the floor, which was Mr. Larson's motion seconded by Mr. Klevin to continue the Grand Forks Public Schools Virtual High School recognizing that continuation removes the identified 0.5 FTE staffing savings from the overall reduction plan. Any discussion on the motion on the floor? Ms. Flynn, do you have anything to add? There's a motion on the floor to continue the virtual high school. No, I said what I needed to. Thank you. Any other comments or questions from board members related to the motion on the floor? One more time before we take a roll call vote, the motion is to continue the Grand Forks Public Schools Virtual High School. Recognizing the continuation removes the identified 0.5 FTE staffing savings from the overall reduction plan. We'll take a roll call vote.

098Flynn. Yes. Hodak. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Manley. Yes. Flynn. No. Kleven. Yes. Palmisano. Yes. Larson. Yes. Burger. Yes. Eight yes, one no, zero absent. Motion passes. 5D Finance Committee Report. Mr. Palmisano, do you want to kick this off? Once I find it here. Yes, we did have our meeting with the finance on the receiving bids for two projects. This is safety and security. And I'd like to inform the public that this is part of the bond issue that was sold, not out of the general fund money. And the bids came in for Century Elementary. And the committee's approved committee's recommendation is to approve the guaranteed maximum bid for 406,000 and $74 for a total project of 479,167. And this is roughly 20,000 23,000 under the estimate. So, our recommendation is to accept that bid for Century

099Elementary. Yeah. Chad is here in the back if there's any deeper questions I can answer. Uh just a question for Mr. Palmisano or Mr. Bambenek. Would it be your preference that we look at these at two bid considerations separately? Is that why you stopped after Century? Okay. >> done. Yes. Well, make a motion to accept the committee recommendation for the guaranteed maximum price of $406,074 for the Century Elementary School security and safety enhancement. There's a motion on the floor by Mr. Klevin and second by Dr. Hudak to approve the guaranteed maximum price of 406074, total project of 479167 for Century Elementary School safety and security enhancement. Any discussion on this motion? Ms. Flynn, do you have anything related to the safety and security at Century Elementary? No. Any other questions, discussion from board members? We'll

100take a roll call vote. Lunn Yes. Palmisano >> Yes. Flynn Yes. Anderson Yes. Klevin Yes. Manly Yes. Larson Yes. Hudak Yes. Burger Yes. Nine yes, zero no, zero absent. Motion passes. Five 5D2, Mr. Palmisano. Okay. This is a the bid for Ben Franklin and this guaranteed price went over the estimate and but we did accept we recommend our committee recommendation is to accept it. It was for 535409 for a total project of 637137. One of the reasons why it went over is they have an allowance in there for $11,000 because they ran into some footings footing problems at Kelly and this is almost the same identical project. So if they don't need the 11,000, that would come back to the district. So our committee has accept the price that was received for 535409. >> [snorts]

101>> Thank you. Any questions from board members for Mr. Palmisano? >> Yes, Mr. Clevin. I'll just point out that it might have went over, but it was over by $12,575, which really is a blip. I mean, that's a very good neck or good bid result. Thank you. Other questions or comments from board members? There's a motion on the floor to approve the guaranteed maximum price of 535409, total project of 637137, safety and security enhancement at at Ben Franklin. That motion was by Mr. Palmisano. Is there a second? Second. Second by Mr. Anderson. Any discussion related to the motion on the floor? Ms. Flynn, anything about safety and security at Ben Franklin? No. Any other questions, comments, clarifying remarks from board members? We'll take a roll call vote. Anderson. Yes. Flynn. Yes. Clevin. Yes. Hodak. >>

102Yes. Palmisano. Yes. Larson. Yes. Lunn. Yes. Manley. Yes. Burger. Yes. Nine yes, zero no, zero absent. Motion passes. We're on to 5E, agreement between districts committee report. We met um on February 17th, uh excuse me, on February 9th, uh approving the joint powers agreement for this upcoming uh school year. And then on February 17th, the base board approved the same. And then the OLDCC, which for those of you maybe hearing that for the first time, is the office of local defense community cooperation. They are overseeing the pre-K through eight school on the Air Force base. They requested some changes, uh, which will clarify site ownership, excuse me, site control and ownership details. And so, we met again. Um, and I'm going to turn this over to Brandon in a moment because he has all of

103the official legal language. Uh, but we discussed, uh, those changes and had no specific substantive disagreement with with moving forward with those changes so that, um, we're set up for a successful build on the Air Force base. Mr. Bombach. Yes, thank you, Chair Burger. Members of the board, it's exactly it. OLDCC is that funding partner for 80% of this project. And so, they have a lot to say just as we get things ready. I've been working with them closely for the better part of two years, a little bit longer now. And as we get approach our construction season here, this May is expected to kick off. They just wanted some clear articulation about the relationship between District 1, District 140 as it relates to the construction. The joint powers agreement is what articulates that, so

104that's in your board packet here. You'll notice on this, anything that's recommended for change will be underlined and colored in blue, so you will be sure not to miss it. Section 5 is the crux of the relationship articulating which school district is responsible for what. And you'll notice that for board district number 140, that's the Air Force base board, construction projects in District number 140 and maintenance for buildings in District 140 was already clearly articulated as a responsibility of District 140. The additional information on that line just adds the phrase as provided in Section 8 of the agreement. So, most of these changes then fall to Section 8, which just further clarify that relationship. It also starts out by saying neither parties rights according to the state law or otherwise are infringed upon. This is

105a relationship. Um so [clears throat] all told, if you read through that language, you'll find that nothing really has changed in the between the current relationship. It just articulates it into this agreement, so that way the WALDCC um can be very confident that uh the relationship is as we describe it. Uh happy to answer any questions to the specifics, but that's certainly that's the high-level nature of the changes. Thank you, Mr. Bombach. Uh before we open this up to board members, uh I'd be interested to hear uh Ms. Shepherd's opinion, uh Mr. Anderson's as well, as they were part of that conversation. So, would you like to go first? Um other than we've been operating this way for all of these years, nothing is changing. It is just now like Mr. Bombach said, articulated in

106writing how we have been operating. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Okay. Any questions from board members related to how we got here, what necessitated an extra meeting, particularly that uh blue section uh highlighted, I believe it's uh eight uh in this new uh addition to the JPA, anything? Ms. Flynn, do you have any questions related to this uh amended 2026-2027 Joint Powers Agreement? No. Any final thoughts? Seeing none, as outlined in your memo, um the recommendation is to uh to approve uh these proposed amendments to the 2026-2027 Joint Powers Agreement uh between Grand Forks Air Force Base 140 and Grand Forks Public School District 1. So, I would seek a motion to approve these proposed amendments. It's been moved by Mr. Kleven. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Larson. Any further discussion? Ms. Flynn, at

107the risk of repeating myself, just checking in to see if you have anything related to this motion. No, thank you. Okay. We'll take a roll call vote. Larson. Yes. Manley. Yes. Lunn. Yes. Ponosino. >> Yes. Hodak. Yes. Anderson. >> Yes. Kleven. Yes. Flynn. Yes. Burger. Yes. Nine yes, zero no, zero absent. Motion passes. That concludes the recommendations for action. We'll move on to item six on the agenda, 6A, announcements. Any announcements for the good of the whole? Yeah, I got it. Yes, Mr. Kleven. The state DECA conference was held last weekend, and it's my understanding Grand Forks schools and Grand Forks students excelled. And in fact, the the poorly phrased intel from a certain 17-year-old young man who lives in my house is that Century might have won the thing. So. [laughter] Thank you, Mr.

108Kleven. Uh Ms. Flynn, I'll come to you one time for either announcements or board request for future consideration. Do you have anything for either of those? Right now, no, thank you. Okay. Anything else under announcements? And now to board request for future consideration. Yes, Dr. Lunn. If it If it doesn't take much work, and I don't think it will, I'm wondering if we could I could get a report on the absentee reports for the first 3 weeks of March for students and staff this year and last year to compare the two. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Other board requests for future consideration? Dr. Hodek? I don't know if this has happened in the past or if I've missed it, but um we've had many schools um principals and administration present their success stories and such.

109Will we be hearing from um Mr. Bohan on the community high school? And if it's not planned, I would like to hear um about the community high school um particularly to enrollment and staffing. Dr. Brenner, do you have a specific schedule there? Yeah, we've uh we've had to modify the schedule because of the budget realignment process, but since uh community is on the docket, yes. So, we'll It's forthcoming. Yes. Yeah, we'll come back with uh with a date, yes. Thank you. Other board requests for future consideration? 6C, our school board meeting norms. Dr. Lund, how did we do? Excellent. Thank you. We are adjourned.