001e e e call this February 24th meeting of the aing school board order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance plge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all call please right Mr Brad olon present Mr Brian Sharp present Dr Gale bam here Mr Mark Murphy here Mr Dwayne Al here Mr Kevin burkard here Mr Aaron Schultz I think we do have some good news tonight do well it is my pleasure to announce that we have a state champion in the Esports division our unified team which took first place over yeah congratulations right February 14th and 15th we had the first Esports tournament in the state hosted here and I have to thank all of our
002tech department our director Josh Jensen for a fabulous turnout this is an event that was new to everyone across the state and definitely posed some challenges so we jumped right in and joshh and his team just said we're going to take this on and it was a lot of requirements for um just making sure that we had the event ready and just the amount of Technology needed for this event so I want to extend our thank you to the technology department and Josh for their work on that but at this time I would like to introduce our unified team Joey Pierce and Connor Austin and then also coach Aon is here to give a little introduction and tell us a little bit about the event yeah um so over the weekend uh we had obviously
003we got our state champs here we took third overall out of 54 schools in total so wow that's a huge accomplishment for us for being a young team um our rocket League team took second and our Minecraft team took second place so again just all a bunch of young uh first year teams did a really good job um funny thing is our our Mario Kart team this was Lally put together last minute probably like a few days before the tournament um they asked if we wanted to participate in the Special Olympics event and we jumped on that and I'm super glad Conor City eyes uh these guys took first and we had another team with the Wyatt serson and Zack B who's on the basketball the Special Olympics basketball team as well and they took
004second place so we uh everything cleaned up um yeah that's pretty much the run on the whole thing I'm super proud of these guys um not about me it's about them so on to them you guys guys want Conor you go ahead Austin Conor what was your favorite part of the the event um meeting PE meeting on people that game as well all this H stuff yeah and Joey you've been with the Esports since it started yeah I've been here since a little bit about that so I mean originally we started out with like maybe 10 people and we started out as a club then that second year kicked in and that was like the pre-sanction year that was we still had a state competition and whatnot but we were trying to figure it out
005you know how would a sanctioned year work then we came to this year and even though there's been a lot of Road bumps it definitely turned out in a way that you know I'm satisfied with and I'm glad I can leave knowing that you know we had a pretty good first year and we've got recognition on the board now question for you during the competition is this head-to-head or are you just amassing the most points that you can possibly get and you'll compare that with whoever else finishes later do you are you against another team P that in a way it's both so with the way Mario Kart works it's 2v2 and to win you get the most points in a set of four races but if you tie then it goes based off of
006how many points you had total so let's say we tie 22 to 22 but overall you know we had more wins than they did or we had an extra point that would give us the win over them do you know where you're at all the way through the tournament I mean do you know you're in this place second thir I mean so you it isn't a surprise at the end where you're at no no so the the company that actually hosted the tournament or ran ran a tournament was penworks and they do a pretty decent job of keeping an updated bracket throughout the whole event um and it was online too so as the rounds Ended upd as we go kind where we're at who we're coming to play against um as Jo saying on
007is it is um head-to-head you get points for winning but then you get points overall for the team so let's say they got first place they get 10 points and if our legue of Legend teams got first place or second place 10 five points and that goes for the overall score for us so that's how we got third place which in reality we actually tied for second with Roosevelt do Falls but they had couple more wins than we did took it but again are you seated coming in uh competition wise to other seed wise yeah uh so our rocket League team was seated number one in the state going into the tournament um Minecraft was I believe six plays League of Legends was six as well six seed um was Mario Kart you guys were
008we were the third seed there fourth seed fourth seed fourth seed so overall these guys finish pretty well during the season the tournament last question are there classifications school-wise like big school small school like we do everybody's just together here yeah I think that's going to be in the future though we're they're going to divide it up but that's still in talks though so I'm not too entirely sure where that's at yet once more schools get involved at they'll have to do it once I believe su falls is going to get more teams involved Harrisburg next year as well so how many kids are involved from Aberdine Aberdine we had about 20 I want to say 25 25 26 kids overall for the event I think we had somewhere around 255 wow yeah and we
009actually had um every kid that was every kid or student was on that on the team that was eligible to play in the state qualified for state so no one sat out that's great now I have a history of of Technology failing me at the worst time did that happen during the tournament or did it go off without a hitch well it was like 10 and then there was a major update we got to go was proba only a 45 minute [Laughter] delay we' definitely set the tone High a question I you know you probably don't know who we are we're School Board member and we kind of set the budget for the school district and talk about what we're going to offer and programs and stuff and we decided to support eorts I think
010a couple years ago for the students are are we providing you as a school board with your resources that you need as best we can as a school board are you satisfied with what you have I mean I would say honestly without a doubt anytime we've needed something I've talked to Aon about it like hey we need keyboards we need headsets we need this and he's been able to go through you know every support that we need and we've been able to get the items that we require we've had a couple years where we've been down keyboards I've talked to Erin about it he goes in he gets us of those keyboards and so having that funding that we needed to get a little bit of training in a little bit of you know budgeting
011for keyboards support for the team and whatnot it's gone a long way and I'm satisfied with what we've been dealt good you know and I know that we hosted the state event this year and I'm every year it goes out for a bit or whatever I was on the Activities Association years ago on the board um I would certainly hope it sounds like from I watched the eagle Zone were one of the top districts I guess that offer Esports in the state of South Dakota from what I've heard or listen to so I would hope that we can continue to host this event into the future I think it's good for Aberdine probably good for our students want to thank you guys for what you do and participating our coaches are outstanding across the board
012so um again I just wanted to ask as a board are we doing what you need of us to provide you with support for for what you need to do to accomplish what you're doing without it doubt are you guys happy I'm up for election in two years are you register thanks yes you know we we sit here and we we don't hear a lot of feedback so it's nice to hear from the students that yeah I think we're getting what we need so appreciate that super supportive going forward um The Next Step though would be trying to get the the middle schools involved that early recruitment going on so we're not coming every season trying to grab any K we kind of play sports that interest at e level I want you to be
013like to debate a team mean state championship Championship championship and I I I'm going to bet that we're going to get there Josh Jensen the coaches I've already told these guys and I've told my family to the next few years I really do think Aberdine could be Esports Powerhouse absolutely especially as soon as you get that middle that middle school recruting going right you can get early get them excited for high school and as soon as they get into high school they can start playing start learning as a team by the time they get to their senior year they're preparing the next generation of Esports do you guys go down into the middle school to recruit do you go down and put on any presentations to this will be my first year as coach so
014I'm actually gonna talk to the the principles they did come last year and talk to the eighth graders okay that's no I think that's good I that's where it all starts starts you know abely build a program so thank you very much appreciate it thank you guys congratulations thank you again approval of the agenda I would entertain a motion for approving tonight's agenda by Mr Alon by Mr Murphy any questions discussion see none all in favor say I iose no motion cares person's wishing to address the school board I have none all right board remarks I know Mr Al has a couple yeah okay thank you uh just some comments from asbsd that's happened this last week um um at the board of directors meeting last uh Sunday evening and into Monday late Monday uh
015we had the meeting and uh one of the things we did renew the two-year contract of Mr Wade pogan and he's on a two-year contract and he works with the board development program and uh programs such as uh strategic planning uh School Board self evaluation and uh different things of that particular nature understanding budgets would be another one I think there's 12 different areas that Wade prepares for and uh since uh school started up through December 31st uh we have had uh Wade present 35 different presentations to school boards across the state that's pretty good out of 148 school districts and by the way during January and February um they've also had about 12 more in the last two months so U out of 148 school districts that's pretty good and uh we usually do
016about a hundred a year so uh Schoolboard training is paying off the contract is good and as you know Dr poy is a a great presenter and very knowledgeable our former executive director uh we did have uh lengthy discussions on public school U efforts with our board of directors and uh we spent about 30 minutes on the topic of um uh promoting public education and uh this is getting to be a very significant uh thing and uh I can think we kind of round up again with there was 18 Board of director members there two of them by Zoom call but um we know that it has to start at the local level and uh I did present some things that we're doing here in Aberdine uh to promote public education and uh the rest
017of the group hasn't probably done that much I'm not tting our own horn but uh it's what we're doing and it's paying off I think um by the way we I know you know this but we're facing a lot of headwinds in public education ation and you'll see more headwinds in next year's legislature also so we need to start you know at the Grassroots level uh we look at our Communications Department uh Alyssa with her uh presentations and what she puts on videos and uh good example tonight with the Esports people coming here and we need to promote that and of course now we have a special recognition week for uh School recognition week this week which is another great way um and we know uh we talked ourselves asbsd needs to continually promote public
018education in various ways and that can happen uh and we suggested way uh to our staff that uh this could be uh could be done and enhanced from what we're doing now and I think there's pretty good effort right now I think our Board of director is pretty well satisfied with where SB ISD is at but we need to continue to uh to really promote this well tomorrow is crossover day at the U State Legislature all bills have to be out of the house of origin and uh for any further considerations that's bills and uh House and Senate resolutions have to be out for further consideration um I think a bill to watch carefully uh is Senate Bill uh 216 that's a bill being promoted by our governor uh rhen and it's a much of
019much concern for school districts because it impacts our Capital outlay fund and uh this bill um what it does is basically and it's quite detailed but it produces uh reduces U you can't have more than 3% tax on the assessed valuation of homeowners occupied so it how much 3% is the maximum that it can be on the assessed valuation and that's basically what it is there's calculations for the county you know the total but it all comes back to 3% the assessed valuation is the way your home is going to be uh taken care of in that fashion so yes it'll probably be maybe if it passes a reduction but uh uh it has has its roots and uh this de would take place at the start of 2027 that's when it would take place
020uh it does not affect uh U commercial property or land owners effect this just is homeowners occupied property um are we land owners this would be just for the dwelling got it for your dwelling I the sense of the word that's part of our homeowners uh dwelling which you're referring to um I think uh you know this this bill 216 was passed by the State House Affair or the state senate Affairs committee by a decent margin I don't recall the vote it'll it's a waiting a vote on the senate floor which could happen uh at the end of this week or the beginning of next week it has not been scheduled uh on the senate floor at this particular point but I would imagine next day or two you would see it uh on schedule
021um and also um last Friday um the state did set the joint Appropriations Committee did set um the state budget the final projected budget at uh about I think it was around 26 two or excuse me .6 billion and by the way that includes our state aid factor of 1.25 that's not to say that another area could be decreased and state aid could be increased but at this time that's the projected B budget and also they revised the one that they set last March that was a revision they put that lower for different reasons to compare with the audits before so um I don't know if you have any questions but that's my message from Associated school boards and the state legislature the time is marching on and uh we really need to be uh
022with it so when you see an alert please do uh send a message and uh 1093 uh the last one we had uh yesterday or day before um that has not been scheduled but I think that may be happen on Thursday yeah on Wednesday or Thursday so that's it any questions by anyone questions okay well thank you stay tuned it's interesting thank you thank you Mr any other board remarks um I'll be brief and um I know the session isn't over yet but watching what's happening I don't think it's going to favor public education and funding the way things are looking as far as what I see with the bills out there um terribly disappointed in our district Representatives I would tell you that um I'm speaking for myself not for this board but um
023I just have been very disappointed in them as I have for years in the past too but um you know we look at funding and we've talked briefly about that and it's too early to talk about all that but I'm going to throw at you something that I I hate to talk about but um I think an opt out um which I hate to talk about um something we at least at a board need to consider at sometime it's not a positive thing in this this area this County but when I look at our funding issues coming up um I'm just saying I'm one that says we maybe need to go down that path again I don't think a lot of Voters out there are are paying attention to what's going on in Pier um
024with education and maybe at least that brings it to the Forefront the about what we're dealing with as a board because I'm running out of ideas and solutions of how to take care of this district and provide education for our kids so um unless you all have better ideas than I do I'm saying I don't know what else to do here in the future but now they're they're looking at changing that so um I guess stay tuned but um I'm just speaking my mind as as far as what um I need to do for the kids of this District as much as possible and I present that to my other board members as one person on this board but um you know I I think we're facing some really difficult challenges and frankly when they
025make these decisions and I don't know what the answers are for us here locally they they I think they want to take away local control all the time and I'm going like fine then figure it out tell us what to do for our kids so with that I'm done uh just a comment along with that Brad that at our board of directors meeting I did hear two or three uh people did mention in private and at the meeting that uh this is a dilemma for them as the the funding process and what they're going to do as they look forward so um these things are being thought of very carefully um You probably hear more about this kind of thing and as we know last year there were I believe three or four districts that
026didn't opt out on last year's uh budget or this current Year's budget so anyway if nothing more I think it's it brings it to the attention of the people out there as far as our district and what we're facing the backs out there I mean we did that 20 years ago when we built new Central which is now 22 years old but um I'm serious I mean I just think people need to understand what's going on and how our hands are Ted as the board because we're just told what we can do basically thank you any other board remarks see none we'll move on to the consent agenda can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda Please Mr wson seconded by Dr Borton any questions or anything any remove not all in favor
027say I I motion carries reports to the superintend all right yes thank you very much so this evening we have Mr bobc here to give an update with hul gate well good evening everybody evening good evening here to give the uh annual holdgate Middle School update um excited to say if I think you have a PowerPoint in front of you right I'm excited to start with uh I usually start with our new staff members and it depends what time of the year that uh I give this so it's February now sometimes I'm in in October so it's it's a kind of a year synopsis here so we'll start with our new staff members for the year we did start with five this year uh Mr Hansen Mr Kent Hansen is our new assistant principal and
028I will tell you he is doing a wonderful job so he has he has been a great addition to Holgate Middle School um he is a lot more techy than I am so he takes care of a lot of the tech stuff that I I did not do so I I'm really happy and he's done a wonderful job so uh like to comment on how how great a job he's done this year so far uh Brook vits uh new eighth grade science teacher uh Michaela jerky would be the six through eight resource uh educational assistant resource room educational assistant Gina melow is the ESL educational assistant and Barb Barb wles is the opportunities room educational assistant so those are our five new uh staff members we welcomed back in August and uh August does not
029seem that far back I mean the school year has flown by so minus the weather last year last week I mean but other than that we've been we've been pretty good uh proud to say we had two Golden Apple winners uh this year uh for the January uh inservice uh Carolyn guy our seventh grade language arts teacher and I'll have more about her in a little bit here on our report and then DEA sers our eighth grade math and algebra teacher so we're really proud that we had two of the three Golden Apple winners this year and uh uh we we bought them a cake we celebrated at Holgate so they uh uh they weren't no they were not excited probably to take their picture again but they were they were happy that and we're
030proud of them they do a wonderful job and they represent our school well uh student achievement let's start with one of the first goals of U aine School District student achievement uh every year for the last four years we've done the comprehensive needs assessment or the CNA and every time you type that in there it comes up can so you always got to make sure you correct that one when you when you do a PowerPoint so uh comes up again so uh that what we do every year in that we evaluate our data we identify our strengths and needs um in four different areas so curriculum and instruction leadership uh family culture and then and talent development which is uh professional development of our our staff so those are the needs our areas our teachers
031meet on uh see where we need help and see what we're doing well and then uh for four years we've done that and that helps with our school Improvement final uh when we fill that out every year so that uh is we've continued to do that South coota assessment dates you have them in front of you uh we schedule those a week at a time at Holgate uh we'll start with language arts this year March 31st to April 4th uh we do those do those the testing in the classrooms so the teachers themselves give the tests uh teachers also give the makeup tests so we try to keep that self-contained with their teacher that they're used to uh for the testing uh math again 7th through 12th of April and the science uh the two
032days will allot for science for the 14th and 15th of April and then pretty much the next week will be makeup tests with Easter in the middle of that so so that's our our testing assessment dates for the year uh student of the month we continue to do student of the month in all elective areas uh PE health music uh Fine Arts uh we we we award a lot many students of the month every year their pictures are on our website they go in the um on our our video boards in our school so there a lot of lot of press for the students of the month and and we're proud of them uh every every single month our home room attendance challenge we've continued that now for about four or five years uh if
033you go ahead a couple one slide in your there go that's our home room attendance yeah good job Josh uh Home Room attendance Champion award that goes to the home room that has the best attendance at the start of school every day uh normally 96 97% wins that every month they get that illustrious uh trophy that sits outside their door for the entire month and uh uh uh rolls or Donuts so I think they like the rolls of donuts but uh uh this year this year it's been bouncing around the school sometimes we've had where home rooms won it three four times but it hasn't happened this year so it's really been getting dispersed we have 32 home rooms so they all have a chance to win Home Room Champion attendance Champion award and then
034uh the HMS Golden Eagle Awards Alyssa was just there the other day for our golden eagle Awards and if you go two slides ahead uh kind of shows our picture of golden what that is is in our Lang seventh grade language arts class it's a 24th annual Golden Eagle awards for Holgate uh the we had just rounded off 80 about 80 just round it off 80 80 students and each teacher has for or excuse me we have for the uh yeah sorry for the language arts so that's Mrs Guyer and Mrs Freeze and they pick nine total students to present the golden eagle awards every year the list of students that uh uh gave their presentations are on the left side uh we did have some MC's so it's hosted by a few students so
035so we get quite a few students involved and then all the rest of the students are in the in the in the audience in our theater uh our judges are see those nine people on that picture that will be our judges next year so the the nine people that were seven graders last year who are now eighth graders are our judges for The Golden Eagle Awards they do a wonderful job so each one of those students gave a presentation um it takes what do you think Liss way over an hour for all nine hour you had to get going but yeah so they uh give their presentations they have videos they they and what they give a presentation on someone or something that means a lot to them someone or something that means a lot
036to them uh the winner this year is right in the middle in the front there uh Cameron Stoddard and and her presentation uh was on believe it or not the judges picked Adam Sandler that's that was a did a great job of presenting what Adam Sandler means to her and uh uh that was the uh that was the winner this year so she gets a trophy and golden eagle heads and the kids like it the kids are well behaved big event for seventh grade big event in the theater for seventh grade and the teachers do a lot of hard work getting it ready and and they they they give wonderful presentations so that's the uh Golden Eagle Award uh for this year uh next uh School goal will be health and wellness uh We've continued
037our social emotional learning classes um at Holgate uh we do those every Wednesday from 8:00 to 8:22 there's 35 scripted lessons for the teachers uh we get through as many as we can uh throughout the year and uh like I said every Wednesday our we have our Bells set to a different schedule and they uh they have a 22-minute Home Room instead of a 13-minute home room and then they can get through their their social emotional learning so like some of the last ones we've had teamwork uh responsibility uh social awareness those are all items that we cover uh weekly with our social emotional learning for for all three grades uh class offerings just a couple things for health and wellness PE health of course uh we offer but one one thing I'm really proud
038of is our weightlifting and lifetime activities class that we started a couple years AG last year actually we started last year and uh we split that we split that AB days so uh the weight they have weightlifting one Monday and lifetime activities the second day so so if they have weightlifting Monday they have lifetime activities on Tuesday uh weightlifting self-explanatory lifetime activities we do everything now we have a big Snow Hill by by H gate so once in a while we go over to the Snow Hill uh they do snow snow skiing they go out and do some golfing out in the back uh they just kind of frisbee golf uh just things you can do kind of for the rest of your life and and you know a chance to and uh they really
039do a lot of different things uh they do some some skating they'll go they do some ice skating uh just spends in obviously time in the season but uh uh so that's a popular class we actually had it uh semester the first year and then this year we split it to quarters because we have so many kids that want to take it so so it's a it's a quarter class with our electives uh the HMS golden eagle feather kindness pro project if you just click ahead one slide on there that's our cards somewhat like the school's fish program uh we started this this uh last year uh we a a feather for every kid that puts one of those cards in or teacher that's uh puts one of those cards in and you can see
040kind of what some of the categories are look for the best in others found passions dream Cho chose positive influence uh speak kindly uh you know done something nice for someone we we go through over a thousand feathers a year minimum I think I think actually about 1,400 was our projecting is so far for this year we'll end up with but they they go on the kids' lockers they can take them off at the end of the year they come off and they take them home and then the golden eagle that is on top of that box uh right there that's where the kids uh the teachers put the um cards in that we give two of those a week by random drawing we pick two of those out then they of course go on
041our video boards go on our website uh and and we read uh what they said about so not the names but we you know we like to read that and everybody gets to see what what kindness they they they did or or what what was done for them but excuse me it's been really popular it's been really popular at our school and um something to kids and teachers all all like so it's it's uh we're going to keep that going for as many years as we can continue to buy golden eagles like that in and then staff Wellness challenge that is districtwide that started this year um I did not do very well last week it was what was last week the healthy eating you couldn't e processed I don't I some basketball games and
042it's just I got a one out of seven this last week but there they have uh uh drinking water they had you had to drink your weight and water wasn't it it was happy weight and water when you weigh 230 that's tough so I did pretty decent on that uh sleep sleep you had to get seven or eight hours of sleep that was all right uh good eating was last this week is gratitude and kindness so the first person I saw this morning at school I told have a great day and I would kind to them and I got one point so tomorrow tomorrow I'm going to hand out some coffee cuz that's one you can do I told the ladies in the office I'm going to send them a nice email on Wednesday or
043Thursday so I'm getting all set of seven of my points this week and uh that what they're doing is you add up your points and you compete against a different school like we competed against the DSC last week I won't say who won but uh uh maybe us maybe us we had Esports last week oh yeah that's why sleep so much yeah he didn't sleep as much we competed against uh and this like we so every week we competed different school there's 14 weeks of it two rounds of each uh uh session essentially and at the end we have a big event at what 2 o'clock the last day of school isn't it at the at Central High School so with a a walk I think 3K might have to start working on that one
044it's good now so we can that so that's that's fun the staff's having fun they've all bought into that uh fact today we were dealing with a few things I had a teacher call me and say I hadn't entered my thing yet and it was 11:58 so so we got it in we I said I got to one it we so that's staff Wellness challenge so everybody's everybody's doing a good job and then uh staff staff he Health Wellness uh we had a very very good presentation by Holly Hoffman the former Survivor contestant if you remember no who Holly is uh she came uh got her got her to the high school we did uh grade 6 through 12 all the staff members about 160 staff were there Holly talked about her Survivor show tied
045it into leadership she called it lead simply and how everyone can be a leader no matter what position you hold in the school so uh excellent uh excellent presentation uh Holly told me it's the first time she's talked in Aberdine so it's kind of nice to have her and U she was uh she's from Eureka originally so you did not know that so yeah she's a she's on the speaking circuit she is good everywhere so it's kind of nice to get a get a chance to uh she was home to watch your grand grandkids play football in Eureka so that's why we got her that day so it worked out worked out really well so I think the staff for the most part everybody really enjoyed her presentation so that's kind of where we're at
046in health and wellness uh go past feather school and community relations uh the Holgate Middle School PTA uh does a does a good job we meet monthly this for the most part the second Tuesday of every month at 6:30 uh some of the things they kind of concentrate on supp supplying reimbursements for teachers so things that teachers pay out of their pocket our PTA uh will reimburse teachers up to a certain point of course not for everything but but uh uh they do a good job of uh say a teacher buys uh what's one thing we have we have cookies with the second graders from uh omt say the teachers buy the cookies they can put in for the PTA to reimburse their their cookies uh uh or cookies and juice for the this uh
047the event uh staff meals for conferences both conferences of the year that we have a in Holgate Middle School the the PTA does have a uh meal for us um we had a taco bar this past year and I'm pretty sure I think it sub Subs this this one coming up here next month so so it's always something different so the staff really appreciated that and then something new we have coming up on March 27th uh we're going to we have we got the PTA got a grant but we're gonna have a family night and we're going to have a family bingo night we really talked about what we wanted to have you know do you want to have a presenter and and I said let's try to get something where people come in and
048I've attended every May overb Bingo night my daughter is finally not in elementary she's in sixth grad but I every year since I've been here I've enjoyed going to May overb Bingo night so we're going to integrate uh internet social awareness or excuse me internet awareness presentation into our bingo so we're going to play some Bingo have a little talk about internet social awareness social media and just do that and we are making baskets for prizes we're going to assign our home rooms to help out donate things for baskets and then the PTA is going to have a very nice night of family night and on March 27th so we'll have more information on that to come uh collaboration between us uh Holgate middle school and NSU we are at 20 plus uh student teachers
049uh uh junior field experiences the three levels that they come uh we're we're way over 20 this year in fact two two new student teachers just started to today so in art and special ed so so we had two new ones uh uh begin their Journey uh from now until April student teach at a Holgate Middle School uh it's good collaboration I it works well and uh we get we get a help help I think it helps teachers and students both so they they got to work together uh and again uh we've got increased homeschool communication uh Josh has done a wonderful job of helping us out and we've uh our thrillshare uh communication device for the parents with multiple social media platform forms I love it I will say I think I said this
050last year I said I remember when I saw oh he's switching it again and but I love thrill share it's it's the best one we've had and uh you can hit Everything at Once from from I mean emails texts uh Facebook everything goes out at once and it's really quick I enjoy it I like I like it it's really handy uh so we use that as much as possible uh the HMS website uh Mr Hansen's done a wonderful job our website is really improveed this year and and you can tell I think a lot of people are are are actively on that uh Parent Portal accounts I think we've get we Stars this year oh yeah yeah we're we're we're up there pretty good percent of our parents have portal accounts uh parent teacher conferences
051in I've talked about that uh in October and March and then digital signage we have outside digital signage uh we have brand new 85 in monitors in our hallways uh we have uh one to three in our lunchroom right Josh three new ones in our lunchroom where we do now play trivia every Wednesday with the stud students and they love it so I got them all five right this week so so or last week so uh uh so no it's it's good it's good the kids the kids get to see themselves on TV a lot and I think that really they enjoy that they they they get some ownership in the in the school and and it's a good deal uh Holgate Middle School youth power our youth power uh meets two to three times
052a month per month uh community service orientated so some of the things that they do they made Valentine for for uh the nursing home uh residents uh they went and rang bells for the Salvation Army at Christmas time they froze but they rang Bells it was cold that day they rang Bells uh but those are things they do they've had a Christmas tree at the capital and pier and uh so they they do a lot of nice things then they do have some social nights where they come and have pizza and pizza and movie night which is uh the end of the month here uh so they it's a good good group we we've got about 40 kids in youth power so it U it's an active group and and they're doing a good job
053and then the last thing I'm really proud of this year if you did anybody get a chance to come up for whole gate holidays at Holgate I had a I had someone suggest that to me and we took a chance and it's it's something I think I I it really helped our students it helped our staff uh in December at that time of the year when it's just kind of getting the old drums and everybody took ownership we divided our school into six different hallway sections everyone had a different theme they did let the office picked the theme I picked it the Grinch so we the office was decorated in the Grinch and if you got I was going to attached the video on here but I thought it would be too big it's 12
054minutes long so if you ever want me to send it to you I'll send it but but what we did is we decorated the hallways um I will say the Fire Marshall didn't come so but uh every hallway was completely completely holegate was you wouldn't even recognize it when you were up there and the kids didn't they left it alone they were proud of it and everyone had their theme from Candy Land to Winter Wonderland and uh so as you walk through everyone is different we had the the night if you see here December December 10th from 6:30 to 7:30 which went fast it was incredibly fast uh we had we had one was a movie theme uh so they had like home alone and all those those Christmas movies and they were popping popcorn
055for people and and it was it was a wonderful we did hot cocoa we went through four of the hundred hundred things of hot cocoa uh we gave candy canes out we had cookies we only had 200 they were gone in 15 minutes and uh um but uh we had had people vote on the hallways and we had 500 vot 500 500 plus votes in our coffee cans for for so and the kids didn't vote when they most of them didn't so I think conservatively 7 800 people walked through in that hour H Gates it was pack it was it was a good time and and of course then I hear well we should do it for Easter we should do it for this no we're not doing it once a year once a year
056I I heard I had a staff member tell me that they thought that was the highest St morale she's been around since she's been there and she's been there a long time so but everybody bought in it was it was it was competition seventh grade Commons area one they got rolls that's kind of our go-to for no didn't I'm sorry they got breakfast pizza they got breakfast so again sometime in December next year if we get a chance and we didn't charge for anything the they we did have Santa and the Grinch up there for photos with kids um so I won't tell you who Santa was and I won't tell you who the Grinch was but I know might be standing here right now but uh we took a lot of pictures of K
057so it it was a fun time it went fast I I almost think probably should add a half hour to it next year just to make it get all the people through so again proud event for the school and Community uh on on the goal of safety uh online training for all the staff members uh we didn't do all the students this year but some you know some of them have have uh safety online training uh Alice training for the uh students and staff members we do two drills a year one in the fall one in the spring and uh officer olssen comes up and and spearheads that for us and and we do uh we do one where we do an actual alert and then the other one we just lock down and go
058into our rooms so to vary it up a little bit so again Alice is alert lock down inform form counter and evacuate so you have to pick which one you want to do uh safety drills fire drills we have four per year severe weather tornado drill that's in April and again Alice drill those are the safety drills we do uh Mental Health Training uh first aid excuse me Mental Health First Aid training for educational support staff has continued I think all of our people have at Holgate have had that now and then one thing that was new this year uh Dr guffin had us do a uh uh admin safety audit check which I enjoyed because I found out where all our emergency shut offs were at school uh I didn't know where they all
059were I will be honest we so we went into the all the areas of the school and found out where to shut off the gas where to shut off the water um and things like that and then we had where all the fire safety was uh medical resources like the AED stop the bleed kits uh we we went through Communications with how to call out on phones and and and Mr Hansen and I went through all this um uh thrill share security systems we make sure you know I made sure everybody like Mr an and I both know how to open the doors shut the doors lock the doors uh set them set the doors uh so we went through all that and then we have a nice digital map of our school it's the
060neatest thing I I maybe you've seen it as a board that is a neat map that digital map is is is cool so those are things we did with our safety audit check and uh it was good it was a it was a good experience as principles to go go through our buildings like that and then the hall pass is new for us this year um what it is is it's installed on every in every teacher's room and for student to leave they have to punch out on the hall pass on their computer uh it's really help help our Hall traffic cuz we can control who's in the hall we see who's in the hall we limit it per class you know how many people can be out in the hall if we have some
061issues where a student cannot be out in a hall at the same time as another student it block it blocks that so that that it helps that so that's you know it only one of them can be out in the hallway at so it uh it's gone well teachers like it students have adapted well to it they just they check in and out every time for the most part when they walk in other rooms and and it is definitely controlled the traffic and we I think it's it's safe because we know who's in the hallway at all times and uh so it's good thank you Josh that's a good good addition this year uh getting towards the end here registration process for next year I try to Encompass the whole year high school kids believe
062it or not we're registered uh excuse me eighth graders for high school were registered November 21st and then the parent meeting was up at the high school on November 25th so that's been a few months ago uh they do that obviously for Staffing and and who you know what classes are available and how to fill them up um Middle School registration starts next week I will go and Miss uh Dr merly will go to the elementaries we go to Every Elementary and we talk to the fifth graders so March 4th Fifth and 6th we will do that uh that's due on the 24th and then the sixth and seventh grade registration uh for next year we'll same time doe March 24th we'll get that out next week and then uh the fifth graders come to
063visit Holgate on April 30th so that's always a fun time they come to our theater they get a school tour um and kind of get to see where they are going to go to school next year hard hard to believe that is coming up that is that is here all right congratulations and I did mess up here if you see seventh grade science don't look at that that's supposed to stay language arts I noticed it when I was driving up here and um uh Caroline Guy is retiring I said earlier she got the golden apple and 22 years of service uh to the abine school district and uh she is uh retiring this year we also have one other person retiring that's Anne Locker uh 27 years service to the aberin school district and opport
064and right now she's in our opportunities uh room as an educational assistant I think she's been in a couple different schools and our our district so i' like to congratulate those two ladies for their their retirement and then also thank you for all you do uh last week it was Schoolboard recognition week I had it up on board if you drove by I had new we we appreciate you uh all the work you do for staff and students you probably don't hear it enough but I want to tell you thank you for everything you do and with that any questions strong you certainly have a lot of uh activities for students that really do impact our four districtwide goals I think that's uh commendable that's a a great thing I think and um um makes
065an impact on the scores and everything so thank you for promoting that Bo other questions thank you m Mr be apprciate it thank you much all right next on our agenda we have Mr schel that will present the first reading a policy KF and kfr Community use and building news good evening everybody good evening I do have to say I went up to Holgate the holiday light show was men's eyes got this big I will also thank you for only doing that one time and I kids did love it and I know they wanted to keep it up after Christmas but I had my hip down I said when I get back that needs to be down holding B off so no that was that was great that was great um I've got a real
066easy task in front of me uh the policy review for uh KF and kf- um if you had a few moments this week to go through those um you notice in the KF policy there's just kind of uh some minor wordage updates um you know I think the first one that comes to mind is is uh but are not limited to you know it's it's those things that have come up over the last couple of years that I've been doing this um you know every once in a while you get a a comment what but it's not listed in there so it's kind of an open-ended thing um but like I say just um addressing the The Vaping and the prohibition of drugs and alcohol and tobacco that's been kind of a new thing since
067the last time this was reviewed um so with that really that's wordage on KF kfr again some wordage updates there and then also we did uh this is the policy that takes care of the community use of buildings and grounds um rental of the facility should anybody want to do that uh we go through again try to address items that have become or been an issue in the past or a concern um just kind of cleaning up some of that wordage the second page you see where we've updated the wage rate for setup coverage and cleaning that's just kind of following the The increased wages that we've had over the last three years again since this has been been reviewed um there was another one on the second page and that was having to do
068with uh the portable portable toilets at uh some of the events out at uh brale activities complex the third page we have actually eliminated a few of the things that were available for rent uh we no longer really have a computer lab um each classroom is a computer lab so to speak uh video conference room I think that went the way of the dinosaur job a while back but again every classroom can be a video conference room so it's absorbed with something else uh kitchen uh we do have uh 4 group that uses uh one of the fax rooms but again that's about the only time that we've ever been asked to to rent those spaces um H and Jean Brownell activities complex those uh rates have been increased I think they went up by
06915% uh since it hasn't been uh reviewed in the last three years and that's again to reflect the the setup and the costs involved there so any questions two questions one how do our rates that were proposing compare to the city I know the city rents their facilities too to different entities like the arena those types things did you do any comparisons to say are we lower higher same ballpark you know depending on who you look at you mentioned the city um I believe their their contract was 27 pages long uh because you as you can imagine you know okay okay I want to pickle or I want to rent the this call it the marshmallow Dome up near fairgrounds um but as far as like the arena or the old arena we were pretty
070comparable there uh I also did gather some information for sou Falls Rapid City uh Watertown and we we in that ballpark um some of the other schools do it differently they will do it by blocks of hours um depending on who you are what you renting one might be I I I I hesitate to say fairer because you know they're all they're all comparable I guess okay so second question I have is I we have a I think a good relationship with the city as far as use of facilities back and forth and those types of things but do they pay any rent for these our facilities and do we pay them no um with us the city and also with NSU there's kind of a reciprocatory uh uh agreement through there so when the
071city uh they have City wreck uh events at three of our locations throughout the uh the week uh there's no charge for there if they there's a cleanup or any damage then they would would be charged for that but likewise if we use one of their facilities and damage incurs then do that so um no it's kind of a give and take back and forth any other questions any know other questions I would entertain approval first reading change vision KF and kf- R Mr Olsson second by Mr Al any other discussion questions any none all in favor say I I motion carries all right so the last item that we have is a good news item I would consider it as well the public school week which is February 24th through February 28th this week
072and you're probably wondering why I'm here and Dr guffin is there so actually I'm going to turn it over to Dr guffin sure uh thank you as Camille said we are very uh excited to celebrate its Public Schools week this week uh I did stop over at the city commission meeting they started at 5:30 as well uh at the city commission meeting this evening uh mayor shanan presented a very nice Proclamation designating this as public schools week so that's what I have been doing uh as you were getting the meeting started but uh also on the table tonight there are a couple of brochures for you that just highlight some of the really great achievements that have happened in the public schools in the last year I would ask that you read through through those
073but then share them with somebody outside of your family uh in our community that that would you think you could share some good news about the public schools so I just wanted to highlight what we're doing uh Alyssa has things ready to post every day this week celebrating the great things happening in our schools we'll be doing that as well so just wanted to make a mention this is our week to celebrate awesome thank you very nice uh Dr guffin certainly want to thank you for your work in promoting public schools and I just think that's that's a great thing our district I think shines in promoting public school education thank you you're welcome easy to do great place to be all right seeing no other business I would entertain a motion to ad joury
074second Mr Murphy any discussion or questions see that on paper say hi hi