GFPS School Board Meeting (June 9, 2025)

001It is 6 pm. We will go ahead and call the school board meeting to order this Monday, June 9th. Uh, first item on the agenda is our pledge of allegiance. Flags are at my right. Thank you. We have uh President Burgerer joining us by phone this evening for the everyone's knowledge. Um next item on our agenda is the approval of the agenda. Oop back one reading of the school board meeting norms. Amber, be prepared. Be on time. Value and respect each other. Ex exercise thoughtful deliberation and conversation. Be professional at the board table when visiting with the general public. Speak up when the norms are not being followed. And advocate on behalf of students and keep the community in mind. Thank you. Now on to item number two, approval of the agenda. We have a

002motion by Mr. Palmino, second by Mr. Manley for approval of the agenda. We'll take a roll call vote. Yes. Flynn, yes. Pomino, yes. Larson is absent. Cleven, yes. Hodak, yes. Anderson, yes. Manley, yes. Burger, yes. H yes zero no one absent. Motion passes. Item three on the agenda is public comments. I do not at this time have any uh blue public comment cards. Um anyone in the audience uh here for public comment? I don't think so. So, okay. We will move on to item number four, superintendent's recommendations for discussion. Item 4 A is update on child nutrition. I will turn this over to Brandon. Um, thank you members of the board. I'm here just to introduce Wendy Mankey, director of child nutrition. She's here to give a an update on the child nutrition program. You've

003heard some of these statistics and updates before, but this year we get to layer in that exciting um update or um relocation of the central kitchen. So, she'll be talking a little bit about that as well. So, Wendy, take it away. I did not feel uh I did not follow instructions very well. Cindy, good evening guys. Um President Burgerer, I know he's on the phone and board members and any guests. Um my name is Wendy Mankey and I am the director of child nutrition and I have to say it's been a quick four years. Um so I was asked to speak about child nutrition today. Um wasn't quite sure what. So, I'm going to have a few slides on numbers, a few on um just what child nutrition is and kind of about and then

004some goals that I have for the future. Okay, let's see if I can do this. Okay, child nutrition 2425 flew right by. Um every single school year I think flies by. Um I constantly learn something all the time. I am a dietitian and so coming from hospital work and um nursing home work to nutrition here a whole different world. So I learn constantly and a challenge. It's always good to have challenge. So I just threw out some information for you guys today. So based on about 7,600 students is what I saw. So, school breakfast this year was up from last year and then I compared it to 1718 as well. I don't really know why it's up. It I just want to say it's our better breakfast and our stunning personalities, but um it goes

005with the national average that shows that breakfast participation is up. So, um I I really don't have a good explanation, but I really would like to check on trends and see, you know, in my next years to see how that does go. So, you know, it could be parents need to get to work, could be social aspects, could be something fun happening in that school. So, it'd be fun to kind of keep a trend on, but I I appreciate the increased participation. School lunch is up from last year, but it is down from 1718. Again, I don't have really a good explanation. I was not here in 1718. The menu seemed to be still the same for school lunch cuz we just started changing it um a little bit the year before, a little more

006this year, and it'll be a lot more next year. So, I think it gets harder because we have open campuses and so to get the kids um to stay. So, I just had a central graduate this last weekend and um I always scroll and ask him through his TikTok so I can keep track of what kids like nowadays and see if I can make it school appropriate. So, hopefully we can keep that trend going and try to keep them on campus to eat. Free reduced price meals. So eligible for free and reduced price meals this year was 38%. Um I want to say it's increased this year because we had a lot of hands on deck from Grand Forks Public Schools that I totally appreciate helping fill out um free reduce apps, getting people on

007the computer to help out um getting in many different languages as well. So it really was a village this year to um help and fill out those free or reduced apps. So, I appreciate everybody's um work on that. I had to throw in the negative balance. Um when I first started in 2122, it was $114.65 and this year we ended at $84,000. Um and we did pay off quite a few balances as well throughout the year with um donations. So, that's what it was um as of May 27th. Uh this is my slides of just kind of how child nutrition programs work. So we are part of federal government program. There is Congress, the USDA, and the Department of Health and Human Services. And so we've all heard about that in the news lately because

008of Kennedy. Um and so a lot of those things that come from Department of um Health and Human Services, USDA, it goes to the state, your state to be administered. Then they tell us how we're going to do it. Um gives us the tools and we operate them. And then hopefully at the school levels, then you get to feel the benefits of um what's coming down the pipe. Congress sets our funding le levels um and those usually come out in January. The USDA distributes those federal funds to the state and the state will deposit them into our accounts. Sometimes they have extra money as well and so it's based on our uh student participation a lot of times. So if they say they get $16 million to purchase white milk, then they can say Wendy

009can get $5,000. May not gets $10,000. That kind of things. So that's how we get some of our money as well. We are reimbursed some of our funds um by reimbursement rates that also come out every January. It's around January 1st. And so if we serve a reimburseable meal and let's just say a for a free participating child, we would get a $4.52 back on that reimburseable meal. And again for reduced paid. Um the state uh 200 and state reduced is our free meals that they did the 100 200% poverty line two years ago. And so if they meet that then they can get a they get free meals. What did I do? Oh, I'm just missing a picture. It's not a big deal. I think it was beautiful fruit. So now a little bit.

010So we talked about the reimbursement and our money. Well, that money then goes to our foods for f fueling our young minds. I said so school foods um must meet certain meal patterns and nutritional standards based off the dietary guidelines. Those are up for renewal right now and they're always goes for about five years. And so the current meal pattern increases our use of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. That's our salad bar on the right, one of them. So the USDA requires that we have five components that you see up there on the My Plate chart. um they just want an overall balanced nutrition, but kids students only have to take three of those five components. So, no, they don't have to take milk, but they have to have the three other components or they

011do not actually have to take the main course, but they have we have to make sure that they have the three other components for us to get that reimburseable meal and so that they actually get some also a good nutrition. This is what's required just an overview K through 5, 6 through 8, 9 through through 12 for us. Um the noticeable difference is the high schoolers. So cup of veg and fruit and the 2 oz equivalents of grain and meat. Um which could be 10 chickens instead of six or something like that. So, so currently right now I have to make sure myself and my team we have to make sure that our week one week meets 80% whole grains that our saturated fat is less than 10%. We have sodium guidelines for each grade

012level and then minimum to maximum calories. And so I have to go through each menu item and make sure that if somebody's going to have a slice of pizza, a salad, and their fruits and vegetables that it meets the minimum at least 550 calories, the 11 10 milligram sodium and so forth. So the newest guidelines that you guys might have heard in the news now is as child nutrition programs, we do have a biamerican provision already. So I do monitor mo mostly it's fruits and vegetables that we have to buy um as domestically as possible to help support our farmers. Um so now starting July 1, we have to watch our non-domemestic at 10% of our purchases and then by 2030 that has to go down to 5%. So again it's mostly our fresh fruits

013and vegetables, some of our canned. If something absolutely does not get grown here and I really want kiwi. Wow, the magic. Um, oh, there goes Amber. Then, um, I can write a little statement stating this gives us a green fruit and we can't get it here in USA. So, but I still have to monitor that percent. We currently watch our sugars and sodium, but now there will be a final rule. So, our cereals, yogurt, and flavored milk um starting in July have to meet um a certain percentage of sugar. So, I'm happy to say that most of our cereals already meet that. Our yogurt brand does meet that and our Prairie Farms chocolate milk actually meets that now, too. So, um, we're we're ahead of the game. Then by 2027, the total weekly added sugars

014will have to be less than 10% of the total calories. Then we already monitor sodium. And so by July 1 of 2027, they want that 15% less than what we have now for those three a uh three age groups. Uh additional changes are the food colorings and the food additives which really have no business in our foods anyways. So it's kind of good. Um I have personally tried to monitor this even before this bill. So um a lot of foods I have not gotten just because they have had dyes in them. Uh I watch quite a bit of things um on that end. And then there are funding cuts that they're still deliberating over um especially the farm-toschool one that can impact the school meals and farmers and you know even the students of where

015their foods actually that education of where the fruit comes from. So that's our some of our fruit and vegetable offerings here at our schools. I swear we serve more than carrots and cucumbers, but it was towards the end of the year. Um, so usually we have great um my staff does a great job at providing a variety of fruits and vegetables. Here's some more. That's some of our new kitchen. Now, um the one on the left is our um our skillets and stuff where we can cook our hamburger and our pasta. And the right side is where mostly baking occurs. And that's our freezer and cooler. Freezer is on the left. Um, it is a great new space. I thank everyone. It has a nice layout. I think our crew is getting used to it

016and um, moving around fine. Again, end of the year um, empty so we don't store and have food waste. So, some goals for the future that I would like to implement is still increase meal participation at breakfast and lunch. Again, trying to stay on task of what kids like, what they will eat. Um, you know, maybe try out more marketing. You if we want healthier foods, we got to market, you know, a little more fun and maybe find more ways out of the box to keep them there, too. uh incorporate more farm to school items. I'm actually working on with somebody at a cattle farm right now to see if we can get some fresh beef. Um I always try to look for some fresh fruits and vegetables. I like to do corn on the

017cob, maybe some apples in the fall time. Um I'm always out there trying to connect and research and the state does have a farm to school person that um helps. It's hard being on this side of the state. It'd be a lot easier if I was Bismar and I'm very competitive and so I want that. Um I like to increase our scratch percent of scratch cooking as well. It's difficult to get that far, but I think if we do it little by little um and try, you know, if we're at 20% now, I want to be up 40% and 50%. Our kitchens right now aren't really set up for 100% scratch cooking, but I bet you we can get higher up there if we um work together as a team and um you know it

018needs to be we need to train and train the staff and show them that it can be done too. And then when Chip and Wilder, we are going to collaborate with a meal repack program that was started by the state. And so we are going to package our leftover menu items and then a food pantry coordinator, which is probably the social worker, will distribute meals um if needed to students. Um so we'll get the packaging, we're going to get a freezer cooler for them to store their meals in, and it's just going to be like a school food pantry that we're going to try this next school year. So just it takes an amazing team and continued training and constant willingness to change and grow and learn and adapt. So we do have the chap

019uh power to make change good and we actually are the biggest restaurant that you'll ever come to. Thank you. Questions for Director Mankey at this time. Amber. Hello. Hi Amber. Um I have a few questions and then a comment. Um uh curious about the balances and if there is a a lunch balance, how the district has evolved in what we do now for collection. So, starting at the kitchen level, if it's over 30 negative dollars, $30, then my kitchen manager will just send out an email or um not mostly an email, just saying negative this, please deposit your funds into however it says, my school bucks and that. Then overgative $50, then they get a letter. And then we also get in touch with the social workers at the school. Um, and then most of

020the time they, the social worker, will look into that student and just see if they have filled out a free reduced application, maybe speak with them, um, kind of go from there. It gets to be a fine line sometimes because then you feel like you're the food police sometimes and that kind of thing. So, is it possible for someone to fill out an application like any time during the school year? They can. Yep. starting after July 1 now. Okay. For the next year. Yep. And we do they work like I said it took the village and that helped a lot in doing that. I also um know that the legislature increased like the poverty level percentage. So I'm curious how that might impact next year. Hopefully. Yeah. I'm curious myself because I think it's 205.

021Don't quote me. Um but maybe that will families that might have been on that verge of that state 200 um of free or reduced meal. Maybe that will push them over and more more students will get to benefit sure from that. So that'll be something to keep an eye on for sure. Sure. Um my other comment I have two comments. Um so a parent two a middle schooler and a elementary school and a preschooler. um our preschooler has a severe nut allergy and I know that there's other districts in the state who maybe don't follow a strict uh peanut allergy. So I hope that we never change that. Um speaking from a parent of someone with an allergy. Um uh I also have enjoyed um going to eat with my daughter at elementary school lunch

022and uh very much a turkey tidbits lover. Um but have very much enjoyed the lunch. Um, one of my comments that maybe from a parent perspective I would make and and you kind of alluded to it is I don't know if it's consistent at every school or if every school is responsible for like posting their own menu, but at my child's school there's stock images of like white bread and a meat like every day. And so one of the suggestions that maybe I would echo with kind of the marketing piece is the images are not reflective of what is actually there. And in fact there is a lot of choice and there's a lot of healthy options. Um and so when I see as a parent like oh just white bread and cheese you know

023I kind of like oh what's this coming from? And so maybe um the nutrition can work with like even like a media class or something to take reflective images of what actually is there because I think the kids would enjoy seeing those options too. Well, I'm glad you said that because those we have nothing to do with those. Yeah. Yeah. So, so who knows the consistency throughout the district and yes, it actually has been a a topic for a very very long time on those. Um, and so yes, it would be nice if we actually I want to get rid of them all together, but that's not gonna happen. So, yes, very much. I just read that a school district actually did get their some class um of students and they actually did that for

024them. So, yes, good idea. You're right on trend. Thank you so much. Thank you. Other questions? Dr. L, I was just wondering what what is your department's programs that churches are doing. Dr. L, we don't really have anything. I I volunteer myself, but um we don't really have any any say in any of those departments. Um, yeah, it'll be fun to see the uh the culinary act, the CIA. Other questions? Yeah, this may be a question for uh Mr. Bombach. Uh, but there's a a negative there's an amount owed on the school lunches. How does that get handled? So, as already mentioned, sometimes um there'll be a number of ways that sometimes donations will come in to offset those. Some of those will be just one parent leaving a little extra at the till, so

025to speak, to contribute or at the secretar's desk, usually smaller amounts and kind of halfhazard. the associated school foundation has raised money or through uh the effort of the get to wear jeans on Friday type of staff effort has contributed towards that negative lunch balance but anything that doesn't come all the way down to zero ends up landing in the general ledger. So it was an appropriate conversation at the state level and and will continue to be one. Other questions? Yes. Okay. Okay. So, I don't know if this is exactly a question that you can answer, but I was wondering if there was any talk about Central Salad Bar reopening in the new near future just cuz I know so many people that would benefit from that. That's me. And I mean, it's just sitting

026there. So, I was just curious if it's planning on coming back anytime soon. That is my goal for today. Don't hold it to me. Um, we have just this last year we had enough staff. So, I'm hoping that that continues with um our hiring practices. Um the hard part about Central is that it's on two different floors. So, it's hard when you're short staff to have both of those floors helped. Um so, my goal is to put something a salad bar, but like have a hot sandwich or a cold sandwich or something that students can go up there and just go. So, because I think that will help too. Thank you. Yeah, you bet. Jay, I mean that's an interesting segue because I was going to ask about facilities and the goal for scratch cooking

027is the new I mean I hope the new kitchen in Central Foods area is going to help on that goal and and maybe the followup on that is whether the facility issues are kind of in the way of meeting your goals here for the for the dietary program. Oh, good one, Mr. Cleven. Um, you know, really we just have to start somewhere. So, if I want more scratch cooking, then we're going to have to decide which foods are we going to do that or which meals and then see what we need to bring in. cuz our new central kitchen, our new main kitchen, it it does have ovens and it has a proofer and it has great things, but like we can't make our own hamburger patties right now. So, it's it's things like that

028that we would have to look at um to see which foods we would and then to purchase those items. So really it's it's our own department maybe that is just needs to move forward. Follow up on that. If if you do see something like and Amber I'm going to take your question. Uh and I'll get it wrong and I'll paraphrase it. But when there are things that we can help with or policy administration can help with I hope you're not bashful about challenging us and asking. No, no promise something could happen, but knowing the issues you have because I think this is a very important part of the kids' school day and just when you have things that are of issue, bring them to us and, you know, present them through the administration, see what

029we can do. Well, I appreciate that. I am not bashful. Um, especially when nutrition is dear to my heart. Um, and our job is feeding the students, but it's not just finding things that we know everybody likes pizza or chicken nuggets, but it's finding ways to incorporate some of the newer foods that maybe they don't get a chance to to try even at home. So, you already know that they might get apples and oranges, but bringing in I brought in watermelon radishes this year to try and normally try those, right? So, I just tried to introduce some different things and so if that's some main dishes. Sorry, Amber, but we're getting rid of turkey tibbits. But I am bringing in like some orange chicken and some things too. So, it'll be nice to have some

030different changes and see how the kids react a little bit. And so, but I will definitely I'll keep that in mind. Other questions? Eric, I just thought um and if you can't answer, maybe Katherine or someone can. Do we know what percent of kids in middle school and high school don't eat lunch on campus? Oh, or what vice versa. What What percent do? Cuz because I've got grandkids in that era and it seems like none of them or their friends or anybody eats in the school. So, I'm just curious how many do we know? I wonder if I could find that out for you, Dr. L. with our new food service program. I wonder if we could at least finagle something, you know, with the amount of students that go to those, you know, schools

031and then, you know, kind of guesstimate to that. It's hard because you central you have Hugo's right down the street and you have M&H and you have Red Pepper and all that stuff. So, you try to keep them even though we are the cheapest meal you'll get. But um you know so it's hard and that's why I think I always try to look what can draw them in what and a lot of times it's time. You might see that line at central and go well I can run to M&H gas station faster than I can get through that line. So it's also looking at some of those things too and separating up and some of the lines. But anidonally I I hear about it with through my patients and and relatives at the middle school

032and they're they're they're landlocked in those buildings. They're not going to M&H or they're not going to Hardies or anything. So I I was just curious if we had an idea. Middle school doesn't have open campus, so if kids are leaving Oh, okay. I thought I thought that's what you're saying. I'm like we're missing something. Okay. Oh, sure. Thank you. curious if we do a percentage. Yeah. Well, and typically if we see students not eating in general, there are staff that will check in with them just to see if there is a barrier with um a lunch balance or if there is an emotional underlying issue there that's precluding them from wanting to eat publicly or whatever it is. So, um we do have lunch staff scan for them um throughout the year. That's concerning

033for us because we know how important it is as you said, Mr. Cleven said to make sure that we're eating during the course of the day. Its learning. It helps with all the things. Well, just to give you some negative feedback, the thing I hear from most of the kids is they don't like the food. It's not it's not a money thing. It's not a that they don't they don't like the food and they'd rather just wait and they go home and eat at 3:30. So, and and I was that's why I was wondering, do we know what what percent that is? Is you know, maybe it's just maybe I'm just talking to all the wrong people. It might be something to pay attention to though next in this next school year. to see any

034further questions in the room. Otherwise, Dave, anything um question or comment on the phone? Uh just a couple things. First of all, I'm with Amber. If I can weigh in on Turkey Tidbits. I I still have recorded voicemails from my my 8-year-old daughter who's now 21 asking me to come and eat Turkey Tidbits with her at West Elementary School. So, I know we're only two votes, but um in all seriousness, thank you so much for feeding kids. Uh just one clarifying question. Could you talk to the general public listening about if a student has a negative balance? Are they still eating lunch that day? Can you just talk through that? I just don't think everybody knows how that part works. Uh sure. Um, so even if a student has a negative balance, nobody even really

035knows except for maybe my secretary Lois and um the social worker. And so yes, they still get paid. Our systems are you cannot read if anybody there is no negative balance on there, but you can't read names. You can't really see anything on there. So it is very confidential in in my book. They get the same meals. They the only thing that we say in high school and middle school if they have a negative balance they can't buy all of cart which is extra and optional anyways any follow-ups Dave hearing nothing I will move on thank you anything else in the room other questions okay as a reminder this was an item for discussion so if nothing further thank you very much for presentation Item 4B is a U schoolboard self- assessment committee report. Um,

036for that I will turn to President Burgerer on the phone. I don't think so. He's there. He's there. Dave, are you available to to report on the self assessment committee report? We lost them. Oh. Hello. My apologies. Thank you. We we have moved on now to item 4B. Um and I would just turn it over to you for the report of the schoolboard selfassessment uh committee. Yes. So as you can see the schoolboard self assessment committee met on Wednesday, May 28th and reviewed the feedback the tool we've used uh to discern where we have got some growth areas. Um, I'm going to lean heavily on Dr. Hodc after my initial remarks because she was there too and and she's in the room. I know Joel's absent this evening. But what stood out to me was

037how important it is for us to have gone through the be legendary training and have that be at the forefront of our meetings. the focus on student achievement, celebrating success. And much of our conversation centered around as we move forward with a new strategic plan, how important it will be not just to indicate those pieces of our plan in the agenda, but perhaps to have uh a one-page of the strategic plan uh for each board member tableside uh to to keep the focus on on the goals and vision of the district. Um the full report is there. We we spent uh quite a bit of time not only pouring over the comments and taking them to heart uh but also uh leaning into how else we might improve uh our our connection and communication with

038our various constituencies. Um so just know that we we're working in earnest to listen and respond to the feedback through that tool. Um I'm happy to stand for questions but Dr. Dr. Hodc, would you like to share your thoughts from that meeting? Yes, thank you very much, Dave. Um, as you read through the comments, that triggered a lot of our discussion regarding more so how to improve, what could we do differently? So I think that um we try to compare and contrast comments as well. But um the one on page two of course is the talking about the citizen comment area and we discussed how could we improve that. Um, in other words, citizens make their comments, they put them on the blue card, and they say, and then we give no response to them.

039That that's in policy, and that's the way that we've done it. And so, um, and I'll just say it, it's coming from me. I think that we could do some things differently to make the public feel like we are responding to them instead of just giving no response that night. So I talked about maybe we quarterly report on that we had um four blue cards in the last quarter and these were the themes that arose um whether it was public or whether it was internal um something that lets the public know that we're um doing this. And then we could say that from those four comments we heard back the from the school administration that three were handled and in a very efficient way or there is one still being worked on something to that

040um part and the other was um if we could possibly have the administration team um respond not us responding I don't want us to get into any discussion I think that's very valuable the way the practices has been. But if there is um from Matt or Katherine or Terry and they have knowledge of something that is going on that they could simply say to us and the public um that is currently being worked on. I think Katherine last time when you were speaking about the new virtual school and that kind of went hand in went hand inand with the gentleman that had spoken earlier. So, and you did take a little bit of time, but if that time had happened while he was here because of course they talk and then they generally just leave.

041So, those were um some of the comments that were coming from me. Um otherwise, we just simply talked about improvement on the self assessment, what we could do differently. um did we want to get something from the public's both internal and external not just um from within the administrative team and ourselves. So Dave I think that kind of wraps it up. Yeah, that's that's very well summarized. Happy to stand for questions from other board members about the process that went into this review. Any question from other board members? Dr. one I like trying to look at what we can do public comments but I think we better have our legal people get it because part of that most of that comes from legal thing about not having stuff on the agenda and then speaking whether

042it's an administrator or so I just want to make sure that we don't don't get ourselves in legal difficulties if we change things so understood other questions or comments from board members Amber I think um often times we get caught up in discussing as a board some things and maybe one area of improvement is we have some great perspectives at the end of the table and even though they're not voting members um uh as well as our uh associate and assistant superintendent. I think sometimes being more proactive as a board just to say, "Do you have anything to add?" or "Do you have a perspective to share?" Because certainly um they might and sometimes it's might be hard to know when to interject. Um our students certainly aren't shy to do that, which is great.

043Um we want students who are engaged and active and wanting us to give consideration, but sometimes that perspective is helpful. And I think if they're here, it's nice to know on time feedback about kind of what's going on. So maybe just our board can be more proactive about reaching out and saying, "Hey teacher, do you have a perspective?" Or, "Hey student, do you have a perspective?" Other board member questions or comments. Seeing none, anything further? Uh uh Dave? No, I I appreciate the conversation and and we're always seeking improvement. So, uh, looking forward to continuing to have these conversations. Thank you. And thank you all. As a reminder, this is another item for discussion. So, no action to be taken. Um, but thank you for that. Uh, moving on then to item number five, superintendent

044recommendations for action. Uh, 5A is the consent agenda. I would seek a motion for approval. Amber motion makes a motion for approval. Second by Jay. We'll take a roll call vote. Bodak. Yes. Larson is absent. Manley. Yes. Cleven? Yes. Flynn? Yes. Yes. Lun? Yes. Burger? Yes. Anderson? Yes. H. Yes. Zero. No. One. Absent. Motion passes. 5B is the appointment of the Valley Middle School uh associate principal, I believe. Yes. uh turn this over to Katherine. Thank you, uh, Vice Chair Anderson. So, I'm excited tonight to, um, recommend for your approval. Miss Amber Basing is the new associate principal at Valley Middle School. We went through a really comprehensive interview process. Um, there was a team of Valley staff and some district personnel as well that um, kind of uh, crossed the spectrum of academic and

045behavioral and um, SEAL and and all the things. And um, we had a very competitive uh, group of applicants as well. And so we spent the day talking to six different individuals with different backgrounds. And Miss Bastings was cho chosen um as the top candidate based on a wide variety of things. First of all, she carries a really strong background and portfolio in interventions and the associate um principal at Valley Middle School carries the behavioral intervention side of things, but we also know how that ties into academics. And so with her special education background, she also has that gamut covered um from an angle of knowing how to scaffold and and help students achieve. Um she has been known to be approachable. She's been known to be a problem solver. She is great listening and

046communication skills. Um as you can tell, I'm a fan of Amber Basing. She most recently has been working as a special education coordinator at both of our main campuses, high school campuses, as well as the sale program coordinator. And you've heard about that program before. It um serves some of our most atrisisk youth. and she has taken that and ratcheted up the expectations there and helped us serve kids. So, um it is my uh extreme honor to recommend Miss Amber Basing as Valley Middle School's associate principal for the 2526 school year um at the experience base level salary. You can see it all listed out here. Uh but the total salary of $100,568 and Amber is here today. Um so either of us could entertain questions if you're so inclined. Any questions from board members

047for Dr. Glatch or Amber? Jay, I'm sure it's in the literature, but that this is the recommendation of the committee coming out of the committee. It is. And the committee prior to going into um the interview process solicited a bunch of feedback and input from the broader staff about the qualities and dispositions and skill sets they're seeking in their new associate principal. So there was a a broader reach of input on the type of candidate we were looking for. Thank you. Other questions, Dr. I I would move approval. I'd also like to say I'm I'm very encouraged the quality of the candidates we're getting in this era. You know, it's it's just great to see that we're seeing lots of good candidates for these positions. But I move approval of the recommendation. Okay. We have

048a motion for approval uh by Dr. London and a second by Jay. Any further discussion on the item hearing? None. We'll take a roll call. Roll call vote. Palino, yes. Lun, yes. Flynn, yes. Larson is absent. Manley, yes. Cleven, yes. Hodak, yes. Burger, yes. Anderson, yes. HS0, no. One absent. Motion passes. Thank you very much. Item 5C on our agenda is the SRO agreement for 2526. Back to Dr. Glatch. Thank you, Chair Anderson. So, as you can see in the memo, we are seeking approval for another memorandum of agreement with our Grand Forks Police Department to stand up our team of school resource officers. I don't think I need to reexlain to this group how valuable those individuals are to maintaining the order and safety and really being proactive in those measures across our organization.

049Um I was reminiscing with the new chief about when I first became a principal in this district and how we shared one SRO across our middle schools and it was really an impossible task. I don't know how he did it. I think it was a lot of coffee. Um but our current system where we have a full-time individual at each of our secondary level campuses who also then serve and support the elementary levels has been outstanding and it's truly helped us um serve our students and their families well in a proactive manner. So in the memorandum you can see that there is an increase of this year's over last year's contract of $3,64168 and that's just kind of with the annual anticipated increases in salary. I do need to note however this bottom number will

050likely change. Um it was based on our current cadre of SRO's and there is going to be um one changeover in one of the positions and so that number will be modified um accordingly. So we can update you that uh when that time comes. But I'm seeking approval um of the memorandum of agreement which gives Dr. Brener um permission to sign the agreement once it is also signed by the mayor's office and for us to engage in that contract with our PD. questions from board members. Jay, uh, summary of changes from previous agreement. Is this no change? A little change, a lot of change. What's the summary? Uh, the summary is just the salary this time. And do we have any sense of that? And mind you, I'm going to ask the question, but I'm

051not too worried about $3,600. Uh, do we think that number will likely go up, go down? Do we have any sense of that? Um, according to my point of contact, they're most likely down, but we don't know for sure. But safe to say it won't be like some large increase. Okay. Thank you. Other questions from board members. Okay, we have a motion from Amber for approval, second from Dr. Hodc uh to approve the question for Dr. Lon. I I just want to make sure. So, we're approving it so that you don't have to come back to us to decrease it by 2,000 or increase. So, I I just want to make sure we've got the motion and everything correct so that that it gives administration leeway to to to handle the the unknown. Yes. The

052request is for you to um approve the memorandum of um understanding itself and then Dr. Brener will sign off in accordance with the mayor's office on the final details and number. Okay. So, motion on the floor. Amber has made that motion. Dr. Hodc has seconded. Any further discussion? Okay. Hearing none. Roll call vote. Larson is absent. Pomoscino. Yes. Cleven? Yes. Lun? Yes. Manley? Yes. Bodak? Yes. Flynn? Yes. Burger. Yes. Anderson. Yes. HS0. No. One absent. Motion passes. 5D is designation of author authorized representatives for title program and grants for 25 and 26. Turn it over to Matt. All right. Thank you, Vice President Anderson, members of the board. It's my honor to present to you our authorized representatives for our title and other federal funds. Um, as you can tell, it's that time of the

053year where we are um going after our federal funds and um putting those grants together, as well as uh making sure we have all of our authorized representatives uh prepared and ready for the next steps in this process. Um listed below, you'll see all of our title and federal programs that are either competitive and or um we need representatives for. Um and so you'll see that listed out um there below. Um that includes our title one all the way through our title nine um as well as our Johnson Ali, our Indian education formula, Head Start 21st century. We do have two slight changes um in our um memo as you've seen from years past. Um previously on number 13 and number 14, district homeless liaison and district foster care leaison has been Miss Sarah Berg

054um who had is still with the district just serving in a different capacity. And so we have actually um had that um at the building level now where there'll be a person who serves for a building for 50% of the time and then takes us on as a role for the district the other 50%. And so you'll see that um with the district homeless liaison as Deborah Nagel and then the district foster care le liaison which is Christina Abraham. Um and that um so they serve 50% within the building as a social worker and then they'll be serving that district level position uh this year. Um and then we have our school food service um which you just heard from uh Wendy Mankey. So the administrative recommendation is to approve the authorized uh their authorization

055of the designated individuals as the authorized reps for the titles above. Make a motion to accept the recommendation. Okay. A motion from Jay, second from Bill to approve the authorization of designated individuals as authorized representatives for the above title and other federal programs and competitive grants for 2526 as presented. Any other questions or discussion? Seeing none, we will take a roll call vote. Cleven, yes. Manley, yes. Hodak, yes. Flynn, yes. Larson is absent. L yes. Yes. Anders, excuse me. Burger, yes. Anderson, yes. HS0, no. One, absent. Motion passes. 5E is the consolidated grant application for 2025 and 2026 for federal title funding. Back to Mr. Baky. All right, Vice President Anderson Anderson, members of the board, again, my opportunity here to present to you the consolidated grant application for the federal title funding. Um, again,

056we're going through that process. Uh, typically we present this to you in July. Um, but this has been moved up. Our narrative for our grant is actually due at the end of June. Um and so you're going to see today that even though our narrative is due to uh in June at the end of June and there's a part in the application in which we need to we need to note when the application was approved by the board and we also need to note when the board approved the authorized representatives and so if you're asking well typically we do this in July why are we doing this in June that is why is because our narrative is due at the end of June and we need to have all those eyes dotted and tees crossed

057before we can submit that application. And so today I'm going to go through um just some of the general information related to the consolidated grant application and what it encompasses with title federal funding. Um however, as you'll see in some of the slides, there's still yet to be determined amounts and allocations as we have not received that from the federal government or I should say the state hasn't received that from the federal government which means in turn we have not received it from the state yet. Um we did just get um some notification on title 4 which I'll share here in a little bit. Um, but I just want to dive right into it. And this probably looks very familiar for a lot of you who have already served on the board for many years.

058Um, it's very similar to what uh has come across in years past. And so what you'll see um for the first item is the 2526 federal grant funding in white on the lefth hand column and then in the yellow you'll see the 24 25 funding levels. As you'll see in our title one funding, um that was a decrease um from this year or what we will get in the 2526 school year in comparison to what we received in 24 or 2425 which is about 220,000 decrease. Um overall across the state we received an 8% reduction. Um and then in Grand Forks um we received a reduction as well in comparison to that 8%. Um as we move into next year, they are uh changing the the funding system across the state. Um previously it was

059solely um based on um basically a formula that they took into account the free and reduced lunch. Um and it was really a lot driven by those free and reduced lunch numbers, but it was also driven by poverty numbers, some of the census data, um a combination of of a lot of different things. A lot of states across the state simply take the census data. Um North Dakota is moving in that route. And so as we move forward, you will see that there's going to be a bigger impact based on the census data and a greater impact um being put on that um making sure that we're um correctly counting that. Um it will still impact us with the free and reduced lunch as you'll see later on when we talk about the free and

060reduced lunch. that really comes into effect when we talk about the rank and serve process which is where it determines where our school individual schools rank and serve and what they will get as far as the serving of the allocation later on. Um earlier on Friday or later on Friday afternoon we received our title 4 allocation and I want to emphasize these are estimated amounts. Uh we have not received final allocation amounts yet, but our estimated amount is 389,740. Um as you'll see in comparison to the 2425 school year, um that's uh that was 444,782. So again, that's a decrease of $55,000. Um so altogether right now, we're looking at a decrease of $275,000 in funds that we're looking into the 2526 school year when looking at federal funds. Just so you're aware, as we

061get title two and title three, um I will once we get our final allocations, I will report back to the board final allocation amounts um when we do receive those. So, I'm going to share a little bit about each one of these these categories. Uh title one really the purpose of title one is to provide really significant opportunities to receive a fair and equitable education for all students across the board. um and really looking at the high quality education um and really trying to close those achievement gaps for our students um that are um at disadvantage in comparison to others. Um on the right hand side you'll see what our uh Grand Forks Public Schools um receiving schools are receiving as far as title one funding. Um, one thing you'll see that, um, Grand Forks

062Public Schools, um, the black is what the 2425, uh, free and reduced lunch count was. Um, so you'll see the 35.88 in comparison to the red, which is the school year or 23 24 school year, I'm sorry, excuse me. Um, and so you'll see just either the slight dips or the increases across the board. And and you'll see that from all of the schools that are currently being served within our title funds. So the schools that are not listed on there are not being served with our title funding. Um, you qualify for title funding by uh one of two ways. You can either be above the district average or you can be above the grades span. And so what I mean by grades span is elementary level. If you're above the average of that gradespan,

063you would qualify for um title funding. If you're above the middle school grades span of grades six through eight, you could be above that grade average or you could be above the district average in order to qualify. Typically at the high school level, we don't see too many um actually take title funds um even if they qualify or not because of the general idea that if we can provide those services at a younger age um that's where they're most impactful and beneficial. So you'll see our estimated and again I will I will put again a big emphasis on estimated allocations for each one of those schools that are currently being served. And you'll see two two different schools that also pop on here, which is the Holy Family and St. Mike's. Um the the funds

064flow through Grand Forks Public Schools, but um they do get services provided to them through our non-public um as long as they intend to they they provide to us that they do plan on participating in that and they do receive the services accordingly um through our district. And so you'll see allocations for them as well. on the right hand side you'll see um and just to clarify so we're all on the same page the white column is what the 25 26 school estimated allocation is and the one in the blue is the 24 25 um school year allocation. So you'll see again some schools went down drastically. Um and some schools actually did go up and that was based on again their free and reduced lunch count going up or in comparison to the district

065it went it went up. Um and so it does just show a little bit of the the moving that occurs across our district. Not every year do just because our district goes down does every school go down. As you'll see in this case, you'll see Phoenix and Viking actually received a higher allocation amount than what they received last year. Um on the right hand side, you'll see the district reservations. Um these are various items that we um that are built into the consolidated grant application. Um you'll see administrative fees, you'll see indirect costs which is based on a percentage of the grant. Um neglected and delinquent um homeless and then family engagement dollars which again is a percentage based that we have to um put aside to um reach those goals. Um and then you'll

066see funded activities um for our administrative and our neglected and delinquent um funds. Um we have a grant manager who is uh remote remote Dr. Damika Norwood who helps and basically manages a majority of this and works very collaboratively with myself and uh the administration across the district. Um we also have our PAR certification process that is run through this supplies, professional development, travel and then we also serve our MAC with facility support. Oh, also at the building level um we do have various services that we provide. Um, so when you see the allocations on the lefth hand column here in white, you're you may be wondering, well, what what does that look like at each one of our buildings? Well, here's some of the funded activities that you'll see at those individual buildings. You'll

067see reading specialists, you'll see title one coordinators, behavior interventionists, um, social workers, counselors. So, they receive an allocation from the district, but they may make the determination that due to the needs of their building, they may buy up additional social work services or they may buy up additional counseling services. Um, we also have math interventionists, parent involvement, uh, strategies that are utilized, professional development training, supplies, equipment. So, there's really a plethora of different options or opportunities uh, to serve and provide those options for those schools. And then like I stated before, we also have a family engagement in which our district receives uh a certain percentage that we set aside for family engagement activities. Um each year it's based on a 1% of our grant total um we have to put aside for those family

068engagement activities at the elementary and middle school level. Typically that looks as family events or activities that happen in the evening um or even during the school day like RED events or um various things like that which we've become very creative on getting families into our buildings and taking advantage of the opportunities to educate them on some of the things that these title funds do bring to our buildings. uh funding set aside for homeless. As you saw previously in our administrative aspect, we have funds that really go to support our educational related services to children's in shelter or in transition. Um and as you'll see there, we have set aside um our estimated amount of $98,000 um to help support not only those students but those families in this process. Um really the funded activities

069really go to funding our homeless liaison which again you approved the authorized representative in that position and then really transportation and basic need supplies uh for those students in transition. Part two part or title two part a really the purpose of title two is that we're looking at professional development. How do we provide professional development for our staff um and um increase the number of teachers and principles in our schools who are effective in their teaching practices and leadership. Um and so really it's about the professional development. As you'll see, our allocation amount is yet to be determined on that, but last year was $632,000. That actually went down from the previous year um last year that is. Um and so um I don't know if any indications with title one and title four indicate

070that it's going to be going down as well too but we'll wait to see. Um all of the funded activities or p primarily a lot of the funded activities go to our instructional coaches at the secondary level. Um that takes up a majority of that funding. Um however we do have some op opportunity to provide uh staff professional development. We do a lot of our AVID training um through title 2. We also provide this last year has been a lot for our ML teacher training um because we've had such an influx of ML students come into our district and then providing those staff those opportunities become more highly quality or qualified and trained in that area. Um and so we've had an influx of ML teachers come into our district as well and so getting

071them up to speed and trained um has been a focus uh this last year. We also have our social worker and counselor training and then our new admin mentoring which you heard me speak about um at our previous um board meeting. And one thing I do want to note is that FTEES are spread across multiple different um funding streams. And so when I say when I say that they may be partially funded in uh title two, they may be partially funded in title one, title four, general fund. It may uh you know be funded in multiple different uh funding streams as we move through the the system. Just so you're aware, title three, the purpose of this is really to meet um you know our ML students um and the needs of our English proficient

072students. um really this is dedicated towards uh providing services and high quality professional development for our ML students. However, you'll see that when you look at that allocation amount, it is significantly less than others. Um as our ML population rises, we do see an increase in that uh typically um in comparison across um across the nation. though when we look at our the population of ML students here in other parts of the country it may not be to the level that they have and so just because we see an increase in our ML population does not necessarily mean we're going to see an increase in our allocation amount last year we did see an increase this upcoming year we're hoping we're hopeful that we'll see another increase uh due to the increase in ML population

073that we've seen in our district but that does not mean that it necessarily will come to fruition uh funded activities ities. With the amount of money we have here, we primarily uh focus on professional development. We also do provide some ML summer school tutoring for our high school students. And then a big expenditure that occurred this last year was instructional supplies for some curriculum bought by our ML um staff. And just a reminder, we do we are now in our second year of having a full-time ML coordinator um that serves our district in Avona Torovich. We haven't had that previously. And then the last item that I'll that I'll speak on and then I'll open it up for questions is title four. Um really title four is really looking at three different goals. Um and

074again the allocation amount this year is down about 55,000. Um and and each one of those goals has a specific area that we have to meet as well as it has what I would call a different bucket percentage that we have to meet. And so when we're looking at Title 4, there are three buckets that that we look at. We look at well-rounded education. We look at uh safe and safe and healthy students and supporting those. Um and then we look at effective use of technology. And so there's some rules that go with that. When we talk about well-rounded, we have to spend at least 20% of our allocation on well-rounded and we have to spend at least 20% on our safe and healthy. Um whereas in the technology world we cannot spend there's a

07515% cap of what we can spend on devices, equipment and technology related expenditures. And so we got to balance that. And so sometimes we have the the conversation or sometimes administratively we talk about well why don't we put you know all of these funds towards the well-rounded education. Well we can't because we have to meet that 20% we can't go below that 20% threshold. um we have to be at least 20% in both the well-rounded and the safe and healthy. So when we talk about that a lot of our well-rounded education is met through our AVID work that we do with our staffing and supplies, our director and our coordinator. Um and then also we do have again non-public funds that we have to provide and that primarily is where the afterchool clubs come into

076play. Um these are where our non-public schools uh participate is through the their afterchool clubs and their afterchool robotics which is basically the only thing that technology funds is in the non-public schools. Um and then we for our safe and healthy um we use primarily for our MTSS coordinators at both our secondary and elementary level. So as you'll see as we go through this there was quite a bit of staffing that we utilize these funds for. And so as we see um maybe decreases across our system, that's going to be really important to have conversations about how do we prioritize our staffing and make sure that we're providing that support um across our district um to provide the level of care and education we can at our district level. So I just went through a

077lot of information in a very quick manner. Um but are there any questions that you may have for me? Questions for Mr. Baky from board members. Jay, are the are all of these allocations formulaic like X number of students time Y equals a dollar figure? Correct. Yes. So um and that primarily that's done at the state level. Um except for when we talk about title one that's through the title rank and serve process and that's basically send us a spreadsheet. We input all the enrollment free and reduced lunch numbers and it spits out a a number allocation based on the schools. And so these generally they're decreases but there are it's it's a mixed bag there. Is it based on the per capita funding is lower or we have fewer students? Um it typically is

078based on so it's based on the state allocation which then disperses down into the district and that's based on our ranking across the state level when it comes to the free and reduced lunch or in this case now moving forward will be the census data that we look at. Um and so that's based on where we rank within the the state as it relates to what our needs are um in comparison to other districts across our state. Okay. Thanks. Other board member questions. Amber, not that we would want to tie too many positions to like title or grant funding, but if we had more um title three funds, could we use those funds to pay for like the ML coordinator, more staff, teachers? Ideally, yes. The simple answer is yes. But um as far as

079the funding goes um typically we don't see again when we compare North Dakota with the amount of ML families and students we have in our district or in our in our state. Um in comparison to other places across the country, we don't see the amount of Title 3 funds that others across the country do. Yeah. I also just wanted to publicly state that I think that amount that we get is completely neg negligible. And um I think that however we potentially structure like a legislative committee in the interim, I think that is one of the things that we can help nail down with our state legislators and maybe however they take it up. I just think those we have a duty to educate those students and we see an influx for workforce and I just

080think that that is just a crazy low amount and I'm always disappointed when I see that amount. So, and I know that that that has nothing to do with our district. I just am trying to think about ways that we can continue to like over advocate for um more dollars for those programs. And I know um especially in Grand Forks and we've we've heard it from other uh districts across the state, there was a big push for additional funding when it came to ML um students and we saw an influx in other districts as well where they saw an increase of ML families coming into their district. And so really there was a push across the state for um really increasing that waiting factor on the foundation aid formula. So a reminder, this is one

081portion of what we receive from the federal government with title 3, but there's also a portion that we receive within our foundation aid formula where there are weighted ADMs that come through our uh ML waiting formula. So there there's additional funds that come to the level that it is needed to support the work that be is being done. No, but um we can continue to advocate for that at the state level. We appreciate your support in that too. Other questions? Dr. Dr. Hodk. No question, just a couple comments. First of all, Matt, I sincerely appreciate how you put this together. I think it's very important. Um, we've all worked with federal title funding and the ups and downs and I think it's a very scary time right now. But I would encourage you kind of

082to piggy back off of Amber's that this PowerPoint alone would be very bene would be beneficial to parents to the public to know that this is I think the Grand Fork School District does such an excellent job of balancing programs with personnel to meet all of the um specifications for these grants so that people would understand that we're going to do everything we can to maintain what we have and to offer the students. But at the same time, if these dollars go down, the state doesn't match what's happening and everything else, then eventually we're going to get into that hard decision making of what we're going to have to cut um whether it's personnel or programs. But my intention for commenting is I think the Grand Forks administration does a tremendous outstanding job with what

083I've seen. So Thank you. Any further comments or questions from board members? Can I just mention respond to Dr. Hodex? So one thing we do inform we go through when we go through our process with our title funding we do provide the option or the opportunity to in the fall where we hold our annual meeting where I do present this data as well to families that attend that meeting. Um we present or we provide two options. One during the day typically around the noon time and then one in the evening uh later on in that week um where we provide options for families to attend and then we go through this data. um our attendance isn't always the best that we'd like, but we do provide that as an option in the fall. So, thank

084you. Yeah. So, each one of those happens at their individual buildings where they go through their allocation amount and and go through this process and they use this sometimes as a template for that. I understand. Yep. Correct. Thank you. Thank you for that, Dave. Anything on the phone from you? None for me. Thank you. Thank you. Anything further from board members in the room? questions or comments? If none, the administrative recommendation is to approve the 25 2025 2026 consolidated grant grant application for the Grand Forks Public School District and to authorize Mr. Matt Baky to submit the final application as the authorized representative bill with motion. Jeff second. Any further discussion? We'll take a roll call vote. Manley, yes. Lun, yes. Larson is absent. Homosino, yes. Bodak, yes. Cleven, yes. Flynn, yes. Burger, yes. Anderson,

085yes. HS0, no. One absent. Motion passes. Item 5F is the consideration of property insurance bids. Mr. Bombach. Yeah. President Burger, Vice President Anderson, and members of the board. Each year we work with baller insurance to see who's out there and help us cover on our property insurance. Uh in particular um just as noted here, North Dakota law if we were to pay for service um within board powers paid for a service north of $50,000 a year is where there needs to go through a public bid process and that we followed unless of course it's ender for North Dakota insurance reserve funds. So on the sheet, it's actually uh within your board packet, the attachment is a bid comparison document. It includes a number of different coverages. Um the property insurance leads off with equipment breakdown

086insurance which is included. Everything below that falls outside of what needs to go to the board for approval. But of course when we renew this, it kind of all goes together here. So we want to pres provide all that information to you. As noted in the uh memo, we did get a renewal quote from Liberty Mutual um who we have today. Um largely happy with that. We did have conversation with a number of others including affiliated FM Zurich Travelers National um as well as the Chub Corporation. and the Chub Corporation we've been working closely with and and a big thank you to um Jonathan Elwine, buildings and grounds director for working getting a lot of information over to the Chub Corporation to see if we could get a quote. We have not yet received a

087quote from CHUB um which is unfortunate although um you know there's still a chance we need to have our insurance in place by June 30. So a little bit optimistic but as of right now we're still very satisfied with our renewal quote. just to kind of run through the highlights of that. Um the top line it does within these columns here you can see at the header on the left it's coverages and then it's a a rem reminder of what the current uh premium is for the coverages. The next column the second of those would be the renewal coverage. The third one was kind of a placeholder for the chub um corporation we had not received yet. Um, what I would say here is first and foremost, thanks to Valler and they're were acquired by

088Marsh McClennon Agency. So that's the branding you see on this and Tim Sculp Scarper who works with us on this. Um, he's been working on this since April 1st and sometimes these insurance companies take their time and don't get back to us, but it's no blame to Valler and the team over there. Um what they were able to do here is ultimately get us a 9% increase in in uh value coverage statement of values increased that much. That would include things like uh increased coverages at each of the buildings. It would include the increased coverage associated with the career impact academy. It would also include increased coverage from the child nutrition or the central kitchen being added on. It's 9% in valuation from 522 million of coverage to 569 at a cost of just over

0895%. So those numbers are are where we'd like to see them. So ultimately that's an increase from year-over-year of $27,000 on a policy of more than a half a million dollars. Um I'd say that's that's really good. It it is a reminder and that we need to keep working hard on some of our roofing, especially at Red River and and Central. And so that has worked its way um through that conversation. There's a lot of information here. Um, happy to answer any questions, but largely um, that's kind of the quick update here with 9% of that valuation increase at a cost of only 5 and a.5%. Um, the motion here or request from administration would be to get the school board to move approval of the Liberty Mutual quote for renewal this coming year July

0901, 2025 through June 30, 2026. questions or comments from board members. Amber Brandon, can you share what the like total cost is per year and then maybe what the total cost was the previous year? Yeah, exact. So for if we're talking just about the Liberty Mutual and the property, that's going to be at the top of the sheet here where last year we would have paid $498,864 and this year would be $526,32. When you put in context of all the other insuranceances that come together, that'll be at the the bottom of that table. Um, so that's this year 592,232 increased to 630,774. Okay. And then um did we receive any discounts or could we retroactively for updated security entrances, fire systems, new buildings? Um, no discounts, but certainly those considerations will come into play. I

091don't I'm not an underwriter. I couldn't tell you how that all comes into play. But um in the roofing example, every roof and every leak improved, not just by replace um not just by fixing a roof, but full replacement certainly helps. So, one big change that we're expecting to affect these numbers is, you know, Valley Middle School being renewed completely. That'll have an impact. Um it comes throughout a quote format. Okay. Thank you. Those are questions about winding and stuff. Other questions from board members? Jay, so was there a deadline established for respondents to submit? I I don't know for sure. And our our um broker Verer handled those conversations directly. So I don't know if it was set early on, but maybe that's something worth keeping in mind. Yeah. And I that kind of

092explains how the process. So thanks. Other questions from board members comments. Okay. If not, the administrative recommendation is to approve the Liberty quote for beginning July 1st of 2025 through Yeah, apologies. It's a weird one. It starts on June 30 to ensure coverage overlap. Okay. Okay. I'll just make a motion to approve the recommendation for the renewal with Liberty Mutual. Okay. We have a motion and a second by Sher. Any further discussion? We'll take a roll call vote. Kodak, yes. Flynn, yes. Manley, yes. L, yes. Larson is absent. Cleven, yes. Burger, yes. Anderson, yes. HS0, no one absent. Motion passes. Item 5G is the renewal of the community high school lease. Back to Mr. Bombach. Yeah, members of the board, um, exactly as it says here, this is renewal of the lease. If you put

093the, um, the lease for community high next to the last year or this current year's to the new renewal, you'd find no differences except in a couple of numbers. Outside of one thing, um, as noted in the cover memo, um, our Encore program has been housed out of a relocatable situated over there. it's um been slowly deteriorating and and we were on the same page as our landlord and it might be time to retire that. And so you'll find a paragraph that had articulated an additional lease payment of just under $4,000 that has been removed. Um so what we will do with the encore program is that um Kayla and um supplies and her team will now be housed out of the Mark Stanford Education Center as we have space for that and we'll have

094the modest savings on the lease itself. The lease renewal increased I think a quarter on the square foot. Uh I misplaced my overall number but it was I believe just over 2% increase. working with the state is um been a a great partnership and that it's really just a modesty increase each year to year. So these are normally renewed every five years. The lease will articulate an initial term with an auto renewal. I misspoke. It's not an auto renewal. It'll come back to the board for approval, but it lays out the terms of those futures so the rates are set so we know what to budget for. Um but it's still a yearbyear. So what you'll find here is that kind of language within the document. Although um the administrative recommendation is to approve the

095renewed lease just for the first year the initial term which is July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026 for a total annual cost of 173 um,700. And one other note there is that you'll recall we've moved these leases to an eligible payment from the the building fund. the building fund can pay for leases and so we've moved it from the general fund to the building fund to to free up those resources for other priorities. Questions for Mr. Bombach? Dave, any questions on the phone? No, thank you. Jay, I I can't imagine there are any, but there are there any problems with the with our relationship with the building owner that would kind of get in the way of this good decision to renew? No. No. I appreciate you highlighting that because it's just an opportunity

096for me to say how good the partnership has been. And I think um Terry Bohan, principal of Community High School, could say a lot more. But I know in times of seeking space if they had it available. Um they're more than willing to let us come in even with the removal of the relocatable. Um they're giving us the grace period of this summer to get that out of there so we could um they're just a great partner to work with. Thank you. Further questions from board members. Seeing none, the administrative re recommendation is to approve the renewed lease with the state of North Dakota for space used by community high school in the North Dakota Vision Services School for the Blind Building located at 500 Stanford Road for the period of July 1, 2025 to

097July 30th, 2026. Jeff has made a motion for approval. Second by Jay. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll take a roll call vote. Flynn, yes. Cleven, yes. Kodak, yes. Thomas, yes. Manley, yes. Larson is absent. Burger, yes. Anderson, yes. H, yes. Zero, no. One absent. Motion passes. Item 5H is the finance committee report. Uh, we'll go back again to Mr. Bombach. Yeah, thank you. um finance committee met here on June 2nd, covered three different topics. Two of those for what was requested action and now was in front of the board for action and one of those is more a discussion and topical. Um the first would actually was led by Dr. Glatch. Um so I'll hand it over to her just to run through the consideration of mental and behavioral health director component of the

098finance committee meeting. Thank you Brandon. You'll see in the memo that there is a positional request. It's actually more of a positional change form. I think you've been uh pretty familiar with our past strategic plan which is being has been rewritten is ready uh I think to bring to your attention at our upcoming retreat. Um but in both of those plans there is a significant amount of time and attention spent on um mental health and wellness and a broader umbrella being behavior behavioral health and wellness. um as we do when we lose staff, we evaluate the position um from which they vacated to see if it's still relevant, to see if we need it, to see if there's a different way we could absorb it. In this instance, there was a loud cry from a

099variety of people to actually elevate the position. Um we uh could spend a lot of time and I'd be posed uh poised to take questions on um the status of the continued uh mental and behavioral health and well-being of our youth on the heels of the pandemic. But this portfolio is one that really in our our opinion requires director level status. It would allow for um supervision to occur of our counselors, our social workers. It would allow for some merging of programs um in tandem with our special education department. You've heard um over the course of the years some of the cries from our classroom teachers and even our special education staff themselves for help when the needs of the students might exceed what our capacity is. So really we're looking to put this um

100this whole portfolio underneath the umbrella umbrella of somebody who has a high level of expertise. Uh we'd be able to make uh directions and directives and that sort of thing. Um in the end when you look at the cost differential um it's a prediction of approximately a $13,000 and change um increase over the current salary of the um mental health coordinator position. Um, so that is the request that's in front of you right now. That was the cliffnotes version. I'd be happy to um take questions. Uh, Matt Baky was also part of the the effort. Anything else to add from finance committee members? Dr. L. I think the only thing I would add is that that position will then go on to the director's uh uh salary schedule because they become a director. So, okay.

101Any questions from other board members? Amber, um, because of the timing of this position, how does the how does it fall into the negotiations time frame? Yeah. So, in essence, this is and it states that in the memo, this is based on kind of current numbers. So, I imagine the percentage of increase would align accordingly with this position. whatever that negotiation uh however pans out in the end for the directors at large. Um this was based on uh comparisons with other districts uh who have similar positions also on the number of days that would be required to carry out the deliverables of the portfolio and so that's where the placement was made on the current director's schedule in general. So um there was some thought put into that placement. I think I answered your question.

102Mhm. I'm just um I'm wrestling I'm 150% supportive of this. I'm just wrestling uh because of the timing of it. You know, if it's if if this if we're at current market value and that's the salary that's being proposed and then someone could potentially a month later have an increase. I just wonder about if we're if we're if if we should have an adjustment and I I just am thinking out loud. Um again, fully supportive of that. But if we're already at current market value and someone could potentially have a whatever increase a month later, I don't know that I I understand what you're saying. The other the other way to look at that is that we compare market value to other districts that are also typically give annual increases of pay. So I think

103it would probably align accordingly that way. I would say normally too there's common practice within our administrative processes that if someone is hired in the last three months of the fiscal year, they will not be allowed the step then because they weren't there for the year of experience to to deserve the step. So, we kind of have a bar there. And I would think with the timing of this hire, we'd be really starting new on July 1 with whatever raise is negotiated through the director's unit. Further questions, Amber or Okay. Any other questions from other board members? Dave, anything on the phone? No, thank you. Thank you. Okay, you answered one of my kind of longunning internal questions. What makes a director a director? And I just heard the answer to that. So, thanks for

104the further education of a new board member. Dr. Lyn, I move approval of the the position as outlined. Okay, we have a motion second floor and a second by Jay. Any further discussion? We will take a roll call vote. Flynn, yes. Hodak, yes. Clemen, yes. Larson is absent. L yes. Manley, yes. Yes. Burger, yes. Anderson, yes. HS0 no one absent. Motion passes. Back to Mr. Bombach for part two. Yes. Thank you. I'll consider with the next topic that was discussed in the finance committee was a consideration of recommendation or recommended building fund ending fund balance for fiscal year 26. Um this body has not yet heard this but every person maybe minus Terry has heard this at the table given the facilities committee uh and then finance committee went through it one more time. You'll

105find included in the in the board material is the the presentation packet that Jonathan Elwine provided at the facilities committee. But largely the premise of this request, it came from board members um embraced by administration has come back now for a final and formal approval is to provide guidelines to a building fund minimum carryover balance. How much should we keep in there uh just in case that rainy day fund? And so through Jonathan's good work in a annual survey of buildings, a computation of that leading into an recommended building fund carryover balance for fiscal year 26. It's recommended to be 1.62 million. Happy to stand for questions on this. I know Jonathan's here to stand for any questions on that, but I didn't I think we've heard it, so I would stop there unless you

106want us to make the presentation. No, I I'm very confident in this and thought about it over the week. Uh I'd make a motion to approve the recommendation. Okay, we have a motion and a second for uh the approval of the recommendation. Um any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll take a roll call vote. Thomas, yes. Manley, yes. L yes. Larson is absent. Leven, yes. Kodak, yes. Flynn, yes. Burger, yes. Anderson, yes. HS0, no. One absent. Motion passes. On to item number three, Mr. Bombach. Yes. Thank you. This um was not an action item here. It was more of a discussion. It was brought up at finance committee by administration. Just to reaffirm a commitment. That commitment being that the school district would provide um student transportation services to and from the career Impact Academy. The

107conversation then largely entailed the nuances of such a decision. We have busing services provided to our district through Valley Bus. Um but when quoted a shuttle rate for a regular shuttle or two regular shuttles cycling to meet the level of service required by it, it really got to be u possibly an unsustainable number on the budget. So then went to work the administration on on different creative possibilities. The committee discussed those which would include a blended model of where Grand Forks Public Schools would purchase a bus and operate a bus alongside Valley Middle School or Valley, sorry that came out too naturally. Valley bus um providing a shuttle for uh the second block because there would be a tight turnaround to provide all services. And then we even considered um the of two buses being

108run by Grand Forks Public Schools. Ultimately, the committee found the sweet spot in that mix, which is that the Grand Forks Public School System would lease for three years with an option to buy a 77 passenger school bus to test out this theory that we would run one full route or shuttle that would go all day long between the two high schools in the Career Path Academy providing service alongside a single um short route or shuttle just for the second block of three to provide level of service at the schedule. So, there's a lot more context I could explain about how that building schedule goes, but what I'm trying to conote is a blended model um where we would actually lease a bus, hire a driver, and operate a regular bus route, which is something

109Grand Forks Public Schools hasn't done in a while. Um, but it might be smart too just given that would provide us with a little more flexibility that could then perhaps do some co-curricular busing after school hours or even over the weekend um types of travel in in not too far away cities but but near cities. So that was ultimately the conversation. U members of the committee could certainly fill in the gaps or I'd be happy to stand for any questions around that. Any further comments from other finance committee members? I think the biggest point is this gives us most flexibility to look in the future because we don't know what the busing need is going to be at Career Academy until we get through it a year or two. So, this gives us that ability.

110Plus, it gives us the ability to have our own bus if we can use it for extracurricular activities. Any questions? Amber? Um, do we know yet what the recommendations will be to students? Like would the recommendation be that they go on the bus as opposed to driving their own vehicle or is it sort of any way you choose to get there is when you get there? Great question. It'll be any way that you choose. We anticipate that especially with our winter weather there will be a a large degree of ridership. the the thing that will be butdding up against that are kids that end their day there or u maybe are involved in activities or some of our seniors days end school days end earlier than others because they've already completed credits throughout the course

111of their um other years in school. So it'll it'll be a wide variety. Um but parking spots are always a premium as well. And again, you add in the winter weather and we anticipate the shuttle will be widely used. Questions from other board members in the room. Brendan, do you have something to add? If I may just highlight one more thing. As we try to figure this out, there's a lot of unknowns when you stand up a new building and new curriculum and or additional curriculum. And so, we're waiting on we know the enrollment numbers. We're looking for the wrership numbers. We're trying to figure all that out. What's really nice is for the Career Impact Academy project, we were able to leverage the new market tax credits, which brought in about $1.9 million into

112that project that wouldn't have been there otherwise. A smaller component that we haven't talked about was the new market tax credit program is all about community benefit driving investment into underinvested census tracks across the country. And associated with that is a small grant amount, $240,000, not a small number, but compared to the rest of it for community benefit. We're able to use that grant to offset this cost while we figure out the best mix of student transportation. So, as we look to lease, that gives us the flexibility to choose not to if something changes, but it'll all be um helped along because of the new market tax credit program. Thank you, Dave. Any questions on the phone or comments? No. No, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Any further? Just one more. And I apologize. It's

113already got mentioned with driver cost and everything and a grant that's offsetting offsetting some portion of it. Do we have an idea what an annual cost is? Yes. Just got to find my number on that. Um but I mean you got the right mix here. We we we looked at uh uh the cost rate of the driver. We we've found a number that we felt positive about that we can get a driver. Um it's a little bit more than what Valley bus is paying currently. So we feel confident be able to get that. Um it's the the lease of the bus and then even the purchase option. We ran all scenarios through. Um if I recall it's, you know, it's it's like $170,000 a year when you take both the bus, the driver, and in

114the valley shuttle into the mix. Dr. Lyn, I was just going to say it was probably the cheaper of most of the options we talked about, including the the valley only. Running the whole thing was a lot more expensive than Yeah. And then of course what'll come into this is you do have the new market tax credit grant, but then you can seek mileage reimbursement for routes run just a year in a rears. So, it'll be nice to have them through the the grant cover the first year because then we can go to the state reimbursement formula to help offset that. Furthermore, if we have a bus in our possession, we could use it for such things as like the central football team getting the ride over to Purple Arena instead of paying $228 just

115for that ride down the street. Uh, and then summer school um routes as well. So, we'll look for all opportunities to to to leverage that asset once we get in our possession, too. Anything further? Any other questions from board members? Okay, seeing none, this was uh no formal action requested on this item at the time. So, we'll move on. Thank you, Brandon. Uh item five, I uh consideration of real estate agency for building trades project house. One more time to Brandon. Yeah. Um, thank you members of the board and actually I'm going to call on Mr. Eric Ripley who might be back in the tech booth here. This is his program as you know with the career in tech ed. But each and every year um it's not always well known because our students build

116houses on a site that's not always the most prominent but every single year we have a class of students who will build a home under the instruction of Ben uh and then eventually we'll sell this home. We've when we've sold the home, we've done it in a couple of different ways in the past, but last year we settled on a process that I think worked really well. We put out a bid, a request for realators um to let us know um respond to the bid in a number of different ways, the quality of service, the uh the actual um costs that we would incur. And so we replicated that process here again for the the home that was built this year. We got two responses. One from Curry Real Estate, that's Tim Burnernhard, and then

117another from Oxford Reality, Amy Canudig. Um, we go through those proposals and we rate according to the RFP evaluation criteria. That's the table we've provided you in the memo here with a little bit of waiting and you can see how the numbers came in. Um, Tim had also put in a bid last year. Um, didn't get the opportunity, but came back again. We were happy to see that. And uh Amy is um Oh yeah, there's probably a delay on that video, but Amy uh is the first year, so we're excited for getting a participation. At this point, I've said everything, but if you'd like to have you have I'm just trying to figure out how to run four cameras at once when I'm not in the back room. But um no, uh Mr. Bombach has

118has overviewed the memo quite well, but happy to be here and happy to be running the cameras tonight, but I'm standing for questions that you have about this concept or proposal. And to be clear that based on those results and and the matrix within the memo is that it's our recommendation that the board take action to accept the bid from Curry Real Estate or Tim Burnernhard to help us market the CTO CTE home this year. Any questions or comments from board members? What is the commission that that the approval would carry? Uh the proposal is 5% um in the in the recommendated one and and the approval does that is the lowest commission that was submitted of the two proposals received. Yes, it was. Thanks. Is that the total commission that would also include paying

119out a buyer rep? Correct. 2.5 on each side. Okay, perfect. Yep. Thank you. Any other questions? Dr. Lyn, move approval. Have a motion for approval this item. Second from Dr. Hodc. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll take a roll call vote. Yes. Cleven. Yes. is absent. Thomas, yes. Yes. Yes. Anderson, yes. Burger, yes. H. Yes. Zero. No. One. Motion passes. Item 5J. I said one more time. I meant two more. We're going to go back to Mr. Bombach for one more item. Consideration of requests for proposals selection for athletic apparel. Yeah. Thank you. I get to hand it off right away to one of the two most patient people in the audience this evening. Thank you. Um, director um Beer Meyer here has led a fantastic process with a with a great result. So, I'll

120let him tell you all about it. Great. Well, thank you, Vice President Anderson and the board. Thanks for having me. Appreciate this. Um, I can say I'm um extremely happy to the point of being ecstatic with the process that we had. Um, I I told you a couple weeks ago that we had, you know, we had a lot of local vendors that are going to still be able to supply us, but we had two big hitters around the around the area and they came back with some phenomenal proposals. So, you know, as the memo states there, um, I'm not going to read all that, but I do have some comments. Um, you know, back on May 12th, the regular board meeting, the school board was notified that the administration will be soliciting proposals for the

121supply of athletic apparel for the district-wide athletic programs. The purpose of the RP was to determine an exclusive supplier for all competition related apparel, including the possibility of brand exclusivity along with purchasing equipment. The two companies were extremely competitive. Um, I can answer questions on on the nuances of it. Um the the customer service that we've dealt with with both companies is phenomenal. We knew that it came down to the incentives, the packages that they put together. I can also say that it was very difficult to compare apples to apples as the packages were very different. The terminology is very different. So Tony Beina, Tyler Nelson, and myself, we put the better part of two days going through this and just trying to analyze it, working with Brandon here to try and determine, you know,

122how do we figure this all out? And it really kind of came down to really project out for 5 years what this contract is going to be. And in the end, hands down, it came down to BSN with the brand of Nike. So, our goals were to provide with this contract, we were trying to streamline everything that we do, get one representative to cover most of our our products that we do, provide us with some unwavering and compet committed support to our coaches. I think we nailed it. We've we already have that. We're just going to enhance that. We wanted to provide highly competitive pricing for all of our aspects of apparel and equipment. again, they nailed it with with the pricing and the incentives that we have coming up here. In other words, we

123found that contractor, we found that brand in in BSN and Nike. And it's not to take anything away from anybody else, but they were head and shoulders and and our our coaches, our district, and even the way that we're going to be able to promote some of our team stores for our parents and our players with the incentives that they're going to get and the branding and the pricing. It's it's really phenomenal. So, I am super excited, you know, to recommend BSN and Nike as our new exclusive 5-year contract for our parallel product. But I'll take questions. Questions for Mr. Beer Meyer or Brandon? Amber, a quip. Uh, is it a coincidence that you're decked out in Nike today or I am really um um partly no. Yes. Dr. Does that company have a presence

124in North Dakota already? I mean, do they do serve other schools in the same capacity? They do. Uh they have a large presence in uh Midwest um of the United States. And I'll just introduce him right now. So, uh Tom Pashet is our local representative from BSN. He lives right here in the greater Grand Forks area. He's been working with our schools for, can I say, decades? Not to put him on the spot, but for a lot of years um and served us well and and so did the other company. It really it was really difficult. The customer service, as you can see on the point system, they both they they're both extremely extremely well and they focus on customer service is what we what we wanted. It really came down to again uh what

125were those incentive packages? What were the Yeah. all the details of all those little all those little apparel pieces and uniform pricing. Other questions? Amber, just a point of reference. I um have been a part of a lot of these where we've had a variety of different vendors and I always think it goes above and beyond an extra mile when the vendor actually comes to the meeting and like obviously you know we're probably going to take the recommendation but I think it just shows value in that partnership and there's been times where like we haven't heard from some people and we're giving them a contract and certainly schedules matter but I do just I think it's important when those partners come and they show up um to board meetings. So, just kudos to to that

126partnership. So, yeah, I appreciate that with with Tom being here. And again, it just it just shows Tom is here. I mean, we see Tom in our buildings, you know, weekly. And that's one of the things that I talked about both vendors is I want you in our buildings building a relationship with every one of our coaches with Central and Red River. And another piece that I have to point out is you heard me say middle school is a priority. Middle school has we have some neglected resources with middle school and BSN came through and put money directly related to middle school equipment and middle school uniforms. So that really hit me as like thank you very much. But for Tom being here and everything that BSN put forward, I I can't tell you enough

127how satisfied I am. Any further questions from board members? Sure. Um, congratulations for getting this done, but of course, new board member here, I'm going to ask some questions and I appreciate um, the vendor being here as well. First of all, in those incentives, what are professional services? Um, that it's listed as and professional services as one of the incentives. If I could have that explained. So part part of professional services is customer service, but also one of the things that BSN package put together for us with professional services that the other company didn't do was um we we have our logos pretty well set, but I can also tell you that our Nightrider logo is a little bit out there. So they have a company that helps with logos and determining what what do

128you really want and let's coordinate that. So, we're getting to, you know, you don't have to have just one logo. Like, UND has a couple, but let's get to a systematic way of deciding what our logo is. So, that's one of the pieces of a customer service and professional service that they're going to put together for us. Thank you. Another question that I have is um one that I asked last time when we were discussing this also. What if there is something that's not available through the company or what if the coaches or parents complain about the quality of an item equipment etc. What happens then? Well, first of all, if on the on the question of what if something's not available? So, what BSN and what Nike want is they want the first shot

129to give the to give us the best pricing. If we find something that they don't have, which we talked about in an example of hockey, Bower equipment, hockey uniforms, those are something that Nike doesn't provide. So, those are the things that we're still going to go local. We have that great relationship with Derell's. We're going to continue with them. When it comes to things that they the the quality, I'm not so sure I'm necessarily worried about the quality because when we look at the products that they priced out with Nike and Under Armour and Adidas, these are the three best out there. And when we pick Nike, it is by far the best quality out there. So, I think we're going to be we're going to be um we've covered our bases there. when it

130But I also want to say when it comes to subvarsity, we're going to get more bang for our buck because BSN has their own sublimated uniforms and equipment where we're going to get more for our value that way, which which is part of the package. So, we're not going to spend, if you can believe it, I mean, football uniforms are $200 a uniform, but we're going to get middle school uniforms a lot less at a a really good quality. So, I'm not concerned about that quality piece. And this is considered an annual 5-year contract. Is that what I'm hearing? And and is it an actual contract? I believe it's a contract and it's a 5-year contract, but I'm going to kind of pass the baton over to Brandon Bombach. Yeah. I mean, we we specified

131a request to that extent. I haven't seen the contract yet. that would be the next step in that. But yeah, you'd be So that'll go through our legal to make sure that we're covered both ways and that we have that everything that's understanding about the things that we're saying so that if we didn't for hockey needed to go, the vendor understands that as well. I would expect that that's all spelled out. Yeah, I would believe so too. Yes, we'll make sure of that. And that the five-year contract seems like, well, it's just an easy five-year number. That's we are on a about a five sixyear rotation of our uniforms. So it's kind of intentional with with this piece. So everyone will get through their uniforms and we'll see where we're at and and do this

132process again. Okay. The last one is just more or less a comment that I would expect hopefully Mike from your department that you would track and then the the savings that this is doing for us, the conveniences that's happening, the efficiencies and then would report that back to us 100%. I will do that. We have the projected what I think might happen, but we will come back and tell you from where we started and what we were spending and what we're getting to what we did at the end of the five years. Yes, 100%. So, appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Any other Amber? I'm deciding to put my words into action because I know we have a coach sitting at the table here and he's been nodding his head like he usually does on

133a lot of different things, but curious Joe about your perspective with uniforms and consistency and logos or anything you have to add? Uh, no, just going off of what Mr. Bermire was saying. Um, overall from my experience, Nike has been a very good brand overall. Um, I haven't had any problems. Uh, Central just went through our um, re-upping for all of our jerseys, uh, which was a very expensive process overall. Um, but having a preferred vendor like this, um, is going to help in a lot of ways for coaches, I think. And, you know, just from a costsaving perspective, I know most individual coaches are going to appreciate um, having this direction, having this directive, especially if it saves uh, on the bottom line at that point. But, uh, agree with everything that Mr. Bemire

134has been saying. Anything else in the room? It's been implied, but we are expecting a reduction of cost. Thank you. So, I did ask, you know, generally on our uniforms, let's just say uniforms. We're getting about a 30% reduction off the MSRP right now. So, we need to get more. We're going to get 40% off of that. And on our equipment, we get 0% right now. We'll get a 10% what we'll call a rebate that'll go towards future expenses. So those two right there are going to make some considerable savings. Okay. Thank you, Dave. Anything on the phone questions or comments? None for me. Thank you. Thank you. Anything further in the room hearing? None. The administrative recommendation is for selecting BSN Sports as the district's exclusive supplier for athletic apparel and Nike as the

135exclusive brand representative by district athletic programs. Bill has made the motion. Is there a second? Second. Amber seconds. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll take a roll call vote. Yes. Yes. Clemen. Yes. Manley, yes. Larson is absent. Yes. Burger, yes. Anderson, yes. H, yes. Zero, no. Thank you. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you for being here tonight. Item 5K is the GF principles association request to extend completion of contract negotiations. I'll turn to Mr. Baky for this. Yeah, Vice President Anderson, members of the board, thank you. Um so before you in the memo, you have um explained for you as far as the process and where we're at. Um, as most of you are aware, under Century Code, um, we need to go through this process and this should be completed no later than July

1361st, unless, uh, both parties agree, um, to extend that beyond that deadline. And, um, the board recognized GFPA Association as the representative organization on March 17th, and we have before you uh, submitted requests from GFPA, a request to extend the completion of that contract negotiations until after the July deadline. Um and you'll see that request attached. The administrative recommendation is for the board to agree to extend that contract negotiations um beyond the July 1st, 2025 uh if needed. Thank you. Questions from board members. Jay, is there an expected deadline or is it just open-ended whenever we get it done? At this point, the it would be open until completed. And is the ne negotiating committee and the group comfortable with that open-endedness? Like I'm a little uneasy with not having a deadline somewhere. I'm I

137guess I'm not sure that we can have a deadline, but I can tell you for 22 years we didn't have deadlines and then the law changed and all of a sudden we have deadlines. So and we we I think the deadline is people want to get get their contracts done. I mean, I'm sure the teachers association, Joe, would would agree that we we so so I don't think there's a problem not having a deadline. I would I would further even offer that. I think that that's exactly it. All intent is to get it done. It was just in recognition that there's only one scheduled board meeting in June. And so what happens if if schedules continue to be a challenge, you'll notice there that uh haven't been able to get together with principles just yet,

138but it's on the books. And um there's optimism to the whole conversation. Any further questions from board members, Dave? Anything on the phone? No, thank you. Jay, and we don't think this gets in the way of the ongoing discussions with the GFA. Like I don't know if we can ask that question of them explicitly, but what is the sense of the committee on that or is it a non-issue and I'm just, you know, making up stuff for the teacher negotiating committee? We're following the timeline appropriately. So I don't think there's anything that this proposal has to do with that one. Dr. oftenimes I can't say always but almost always there's three different negotiation groups going on at at the same time and then there's a meet and confer with the classified so it's not unusual

139to to for for that to happen because the purse strings are run by the state and we have to wait for the state to be done before we even get a lot done. So, further questions. Okay, seeing none, the uh administrative recommendation is for the board to agree to extend contract negotiations with the Grand Forks Principles Association beyond July 1st, 2025 if needed. I would seek a motion. Sherry moves approval, second by Jeff. Any further discussion? With the if needed clause, it kind of puts a little bit of brackets around it. So, I'll I'll vote in favor of the motion when it comes out. Thank you. Further discussion. Seeing none, we'll take a roll call vote. Kodak, yes. Cleven, yes. Manley, yes. Larson is absent. Flynn, yes. Yes. Yes. Anderson, yes. HS01. Motion passes. 5

140L is the Grand Forks Director Association request to complete or to extend completion of contract negotiations. Back to Mr. Baky. So again, the same exact recommendation um but for the GFDA um Grand Forks Director's Association. Again, the administrative recommendation is to agree to extend the contract negotiations with the GFDA uh beyond July 1st, 2025 if needed. Dr. L has made a motion for approval. Is there a second? I'll second. Jay seconds. Any discussion? I'll just kind of reiterate previous questions which reach the exact same resolution we're going to get at. So, I'm going to vote in favor of the motion. Any further discussion, Dave? Anything on the phone? No questions. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no further discussion, we'll take a roll call vote. Flynn, yes. Kodak, yes. Manley, yes. L, yes. Levin, yes. Larson

141is absent. Burger, yes. Anderson, yes. H, yes. Zero, no. One, absent. Motion passes. Moving on to item six on the agenda. 6A is announcements. We do have one announcement underneath uh A and that is that we will hold our annual meeting of the Grand Fork School Board on July 14th, 2025. So that is for uh everyone's awareness. Um any further announcements from anyone? Sure. I would just like to take a moment to commend um Terry Bohan, principal director um for the adult ed graduation and for the community high school Chargers graduation and the open house. I think um they were the open house was very well attended. Um I appreciate all of the things that Terry and his team put together for the graduations as well as the open house. And I'd also like to

142commend um the principles um Strandell and Erison and their teams for the graduations. Um again, I think that they were done very very well and I've been through enough to know what I can compare them to. And I also just wanted to make the comment that I've made suggestions to um Dr. Brener and the administrative team about other things for improvement with the graduations but very well done. Thank you. Thank you. Any further announcements? Uh just one of community note the Altru sports complex formal groundbreaking ceremony is June 27 and I think most of us got some kind of invitation to that. So that's kind of a big deal for the community and hopefully you can go there and celebrate something pretty grand. Okay. Thank you. Anything further, Mr. Baky or Dr. Okay, seeing nothing

143further, we'll move on to item 6B for uh board requests for future consideration. I I would just like to see us have a have a discussion on the pilot programs that are coming forward because they're they're really changing. You know, prior to that they were all for housing for low incomes. they were all for bringing in many more and you know and uh people to work employment and that now they're changing to high-end apartments and that and I think we need to have that discussion especially when we watch the screen every Monday that we are here and we're reducing money from what we're receiving from the federal government. So it would be maybe a just for discussion of how people are sitting so that next committee that goes forward with that whoever is going to

144be on it uh know which way we're leading. Okay. Thank you. Any further items? Jay, just to follow up from last month on process of commissioning the central pool. I believe there may have been something in Friday focus regarding that, but um yeah, we could follow up on that. Also, Amber, I have one point to make on bills. Um perhaps our legal council could be present for that presentation too in understanding like if one entity votes no and the others vote yes, what happens to the money and who pays it and stuff like that. Um, I also had a question about uh if we've settled on a doodle for the strategic planning retreat. Okay, sounds good. Thank you. Any other items under 6B, board request for future consideration? Dave, anything from you on the phone

145one last time? Uh, no. Just taking good notes about uh the board members requests. Thank you. Thank you. All right. 6C. Schoolboard meeting norms. How did we do, Amber? Um, I think we did really well. I think even though we exceeded the time, we asked really good questions and had very thoughtful discussion. Thank you. With that, we are adjourned. Have a good evening.