Cascade School District Board Meeting—June 9, 2025

001meeting for the public to observe. Others may participate only with the approval of the board. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Has anyone not signed the guest list everybody has. All right, good job. Next is the approval. Hang on. We need to approve the budget committee of what is that? May 1225 and the regular board meeting of May 12th 25. I move to approve the budget meeting of May 12th, 2025. Second. Yep. and the regular and I move to approve the regular meeting on May 12th, 2025. Second. Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the budget meeting and the regular meeting of

002May 12, 2025. Any discussion? No discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Prioritize the agenda. Mr. Drill. Yeah, I think we should be able to go right down the line short of our food services director if we could have her go right behind me. She has a trip to drive home and she has to be back here before 6 o'clock to make sure all the food service runs. I'd like to have her go so she can head out. Wonderful. Okay, then food service it is. You can do them first or you can have her go or do you want to do No, you let's go ahead and do the food service then. Done. We'll get you right out of there. Good evening. I am Kendall Harris for

003met you guys one more time this year but thank you for having me again. I in addition to the board report that I provided for you guys. This is really tall. I'm really short. Okay. In addition to the board report I provided, I just wanted to make a couple additional notes that were some really cool things that I found and then open it up for some questions. So, one thing I wanted to note is that in January 1st, our meal debt was 17,000 and it is now today 13,300. So we are diminishing it. Big thanks to my department but as well as principles. They have been working with their families as well to help bring this down. In addition, I also wanted to point out in the BOR report that one of the biggest impacts

004that we had was that our junior and senior high meal increase as you can see and a big part of that was from the C this year, the first year for free meals. And that made a huge impact and a huge increase in the students that we were able to reach. And lastly, I just want to say that thank you to my amazing employees. They've done a lot this year. They've changed procedures. They've learned new processes. They've gotten a new laws. They've gotten new programs and they have rocked and rolled with it all year long. And it's been amazing to see. And so just thank you to them. Any questions? I'm going to ask you a question. So we have a debt. You said it's of 13,000. So who's paying for meals right now? Nobody.

005So these are pasting debt. These are past balances. Okay. These are their past balances. There is no debt accured from this year. They are all from past balances that have rolled into this year. So what hap Okay. So let's say that the kids that just graduated last night had accured debt. Actually, u Mr. Rasmmanson and and every time we get to a senior class or an eighth grade class or a fifth grade class, we ask, hey, if they've got debt, can we get that cleared out? And sometimes even the PTO's or PTAs help with that. But um again, at graduation, right? Remember, by law, we need to hand out a diploma to somebody. It doesn't mean you get to walk across the stage. You want to walk across the stage, you got to take care

006of all the details. If you owe money, we take care of it. In some instances where we have families that there's just no way that's going to happen, we work out something with them. So Kendall had put together all the stuff that that debt if you go back five or six years we know before co we talked about $25,000 I was thinking yeah we're down to 13 13 right and so it's just trending as these kids graduate that is getting taken care of yes did did we have anybody that had a problem so everybody walked no one had a debt going into the other night okay so is that when when that number goes from 17 to 13 is it always because of kids that have moved on and we cleared it up somehow yep

007we those debts are just being paid as they're moving along. And so as the years just go on and we continue to be under the community el eligibility provision, th that debt is just going to continue to decrease because the debt is not growing at all right now. Right. So how how old is the is the oldest child is carrying a debt right now? Um I believe it was cleared in 2020, right? It was cleared in 2020 and so it's anywhere from 2020 and on. So we could have a kindergartener that well is now in the fourth grade that has from last year. Yeah. and and so it could take us another eight years to clear that out. Good. Potentially theory. If it's a kindergarter, we continue with the free and assume that the kindergarten

008will be hit in fifth grade and hopefully that debt would then be cleared then. And so that's kind of the track that we're that we're on. But last year some students were paying. So there could be debt from last year as early. Okay. Okay. I have one more silly question. Yeah. So at the end of the day, you make so many meals for each each the junior high school has 346 meals. What happens to the if you if you make 400 meals, what happens to the other 54 meals that you have at the end of the day? That's a good question. Where do they go? Sometimes we're able to cool them properly, save them. Depends on the product and reserve if it's done in a food safety wise and it's a product that the quality

009is not going to change on. Otherwise, we unfortunately lose out on those meals because I cannot gift them or give them away for free because it would be considered gifting of federal funds. And so, but in addition to that, my staff are so amazing at their numbers and elementaryaries get counts from their schools, so they know how much to make. And they go past like based off previous year's patterns. They go based off, it's all numbers. They go based off the last weeks. They go based off trends. They go based off if we have field trips. They go based off if there's just so many things out anything that's not eaten that day. No, there's other than if you can save it and sell it again. There's no exception. There's no you can't you can't

010have a free take-home no stack at the end of the day out there. It's considered gifting of federal funds. Oh my. And throwing away funds is okay. Apparently that's what the protocol is. Some of the items can't be reserved due to food safety reasons. like if they're out on a salad bar that can't be reserved or anything like that. So, do we have a guess on how much waste we have? I mean, pound-wise poundage wise, I do not. That's something I want to look at next year and see a food waste study, but I will say I do see what they prepare and what they serve on a daily basis and their waste is very minimal. And and because we can't donate it anywhere, it's not like can you compost it and sell it to

011somebody that would feed it to livestock or anything? I mean, is there You can't do anything with it that you're giving away federal. I really can't. Wow. Our hands are really tight in that. It's heartbreaking and it's not something I like to see in my kitchens, but and they don't like to see it either. It's kind of like that. It's that perfect balance because we don't want to run out of any food or any options because we want all students to have the same option, but at the same time, we Yeah. don't want to be wasting the food either. So, so the feds pay for it even if we throw it out. Well, yeah. Essentially, it is. Okay. All right. That's interesting. It's interesting to me, too. Any other questions? Little curious about blueberry blast

012bread, but blueberry blast bread. Got it. It's um a homemade bread that we make and it's made in like a sheet pan and it's completely homemade from scratch and they put local blueberries in it and then they slice it up and they serve it. It's kind of like a square kind of like a coffee cake is what it was called before, but I had some push back at my last dish with coffee on the menu. So, it's blueberry blast bread now. And like good name. It's served with like a lemon glaze on top. Nice. So, yeah. Wonderful. Awesome. Thank you guys so much for coming in. Appreciate Thanks, Kendall. All right, Mr. Drill, you're up. Good evening. Uh, welcome uh to June. Can't believe we're here already. I'd like to thank take a few minutes

013on my report and thank all the administrators in the room. Uh, we have been talking about finance for the last six or seven months and um these guys have done an amazing job of of dealing with a much more uh tight and difficult budget going forward. So the last three or four years with the growth and the money coming in, we've been able to be fairly um resilient and being be able to take a look at what some new ideas, new concepts and say, "Yeah, we've got money for that." Unfortunately, uh, with regard to the budget for this upcoming year, right, with the state holding the the the line and we don't know exactly what's happening at the federal level with all the changes, uh, we are at a place where the budget next year

014and Scott can talk a little bit more about that that we're going to be tighter. Uh, but these administrators uh, understood that um, we we sat down and talked about that uh, their budgets are going to be tighter not only the end of this year but going into next year. just want to say thank you for that so that we can uh go forward like we talked about and not cut any uh person, not cut any days, make sure that our students have everything that we've talked about. So that's that's been a good thing. Uh also wanted to give you once a year I kind of give you an update like you know what is it that you do for professional development, Mr. Drill. Um I've been working with uh um KOSA which is the

015administrator group uh that we do that right at the coalition of Oregon school administrators. Um they have I'm still on the executive committee for superintendents. I guess the upside to being having done this job for so long is like hm you've somehow survived. You must know something. Uh so I'm no longer a part of the executive team. I went through that process but they uh for two of us who have been as superintendent 17 years for me and 18 years for the other person. They they named us to the exec team as quote historians. Um I don't know how exactly how I feel about that. Um um yeah. Yeah. So um we are we are a non- voting uh group but they expect us to come to their meetings. And so basically what happens is

016when a group of superintendents somewhere between five and eight years in are like hey this we think this is really good idea. Uh the other person's named Heidi. Heidi and I are both like well you know actually 12 years ago we tried that and this is kind of what happened or that's an interesting new idea. We haven't talked about it. So they feel like having the two of us there u can talk about that. So somebody said you know um why is it that the governor is actually the the you know the superintendent of public instruction by law she actually is right. We have a deputy superintendent who runs public instruction at the department of ed but officially the governor is that. Well, 17 years ago, 18 years ago, there was a person that was

017in charge of education, but they were elected and they were elected and really didn't know one thing about education. They happened to have been a former reporter in a newsroom, so they really didn't know what was going on. KOSA, uh, Oregon Education Association, a number of different groups said, "We ought to have somebody that actually understands education." And so, they we put out a bill. The bill went through the process. The state of Oregon said, "This is a good idea." other states were doing that. So, we've changed that. And so, our superintendents were like, I don't know why that's to happen. So, Heidi and I were like, well, actually, that's what happened. So, um that's where I'm at right now, kind of doing that kind of help. I also mentor other new superintendents, uh get

018a chance for them to call and ask questions. Uh there were a lot of questions this year about budget. Uh there were a lot of questions this year about PERS, the retirement system where the the price just went up, right? And we had nothing to control that just happened. So, that's the plan to be able to do some mentoring and and help out. That's kind of where professional development for me is kind of where that's at right now. And then finally, just we're wrapping up another school year and uh you know, it seems we blinked and we were in the fall, we were going through a process and here we are in June and another uh reasonably successful school year. We are not perfect. Uh there is no way to be perfect. I've had a

019couple people say to me, you know, how come this is not fixed? How come? And I said, you know, in reality, the answer is there's 2780 kids, there's 355 employees every day. Something's probably not going to go right at least once in the middle of the day. Um, with that many humans running around doing stuff. That said, um, I feel like this district does a pretty good job of listening to issues that come up, try to respond to them, see if we can make it better. In the meantime, that relationship piece that we've talked about so many times, the people out in this audience do a great job of that. I thanked them today in our meeting and just appreciate how hard they work and they are just a few weeks away. Um teachers get

020to be done here on Friday, but these guys are going to work, many of them all the way up to July 1st and a number of them come back three weeks later uh to start over again. And so I'm hoping in those three weeks they get a break. They don't think about any of us and they get a chance to recharge and come back and start all over again. So that's what they do. So I really appreciate that and wanted you guys to know that. Any questions? So, I'll make a comment first. Thank you to you, Mr. Rasen, Miss Thompson. Graduation was awesome. I would say it was close to perfect the other night. So, thank you for that. Anything else? That's it. Anything else? No. No. Moving on. All right. Finance director's report. Mr.

021Filler. Boy, she is short. And she's not here. Sorry. I didn't realize you must uh thank you very much. You have my financial report in front of you. The numbers report that you see uh there you can see that we're shooting and remember we're shooting for 4.0 as a ending fund balance. It looks like we're going to at least get very close to that if not go over that a little bit. So that's some good news. I also want to thank all the administrators. They really slowed down and cut back all the procurement. They do a lot of end of the year procurement and we asked them not to do that this year and they responded very well. So hopefully we still have one more large PECARD cycle to transfer through. So um you know

022I I think my successor will probably give you a report in July or perhaps early August. But that's the number to look for. We want to get that final number down to 4.0 and it's where it is now. Uh also um we have a number of resolutions in front of you. I got some questions uh earlier on those resolutions. I just wanted to explain those a little bit. Uh they're all tied um to the budget, either the current year budget or the budget that I put in front of you. Um if you look at your resolution list, the first resolution is a traditional one, 10A, and that's for staffing traditional resolution. You guys know how to deal with those. Resolution 10B is a resolution adjusting the current year budget. We do this every year and

023one of the reasons why we do this every year is because our budgets are not perfect. We don't have a lot of information. Sometimes we don't have all the information that we need when we create the budget. And so as the year goes on, we have to make adjustments to the budget. We as a district have traditionally made those adjustments at this meeting at the last meeting of the year uh simply because it it's easier for us to make those adjustments to the budget knowing how much we're expending. The biggest part of that resolution is appropriating, which is giving the legal authority to the district to spend. That's what appropriating is. Um the unexpected revenues that we have coming in oftentimes from grants. We had a couple of state grants that we didn't know that

024we were going to get or we didn't know how much we were going to get. None of that is uncommon. And so when we get those those funds, we have to appropriate those. So this is a process that we've done, I believe, every year with maybe save one year that we didn't do that since I've been here. in the last 10 years. It's a little bit of a large resolution um only because this year it impacted a lot of large funds and our our auditors look at that to make sure that we adjust the budget accordingly. Um 10 C is adopting the current year budget. Okay. And then uh 10 D is appropriating that budget which gives us the authority to spend that budget. 10E imposes the tax. We have two large tax related revenue

025sources. One tax related revenue source is the um amount of money that we charge for the go bonds and that pays our debt service on the general obligation bonds and then the other is our permanent rate and um and so that's the amount of money we get for property taxes and then um 10F finally categorizes the tax. Now uh historically when we've read those and I know the process that you know you go through when you read those if you have a long body in that resolution you can just say the budget or the resolution title and as presented and that files for all the all the legal stuff and then you can vote on it. So is there any questions on that? Okay. And finally, um it's it's I'm kind of sad to say

026that this is my final uh presentation to the board. I wanted to thank you personally uh for all the work that you've done. I've been uh very blessed to be in this career for almost 20 years and I've worked with a lot of boards and I am not exaggerating when I say that you are the highest functioning board I've ever seen. You guys do a great job and um it's really an honor and a pleasure to work with you guys. So, thank you very much. Do we have any questions for Mr. Pillar? Oh yeah, I think you're okay, Mr. Pillow. You're okay. I will say thank you for everything you've done for the past 10 years. Very much appreciated and and have enjoyed working with you and and getting your reports and having the numbers

027available. Much appreciated. You bet. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you very much. Good good luck to you in your next chapter. Thank you. Nice. All right, moving on. We've got the special education director's report. That would be Miss Johnson. Good evening. For you guys to share. So, what I'm passing around um that is one of our students at Cloverdale. And when I get up here and I talk about special ed and classes and and case loads and getting kids what they need, um I wish Kendall was sitting here because I I really wanted to honor her in her kitchen tonight along with my feeding team. So, I have an SLP, a speech language pathologist and our occupational therapist work with um our kitchen and we do what's called a feeding eval for students who cannot eat

028um certain, you know, um types of food or need it to be cut in certain sizes. And um this little boy, that was his first day ever having school lunch. And he needs to have it portioned and in different textures in order to keep him from choking. And uh if you see his little face, it the whole picture tells the whole story. And true inclusion is not just um sitting in a general education classroom. It's not just um being out on the playground. It's truly being able to do and have the opportunity to access so much more in our schools. Um Jordy is an amazing kid and his mom gave me permission to use his name and his picture and to even tell his story. um she was so nervous about school for him being

029a kindergarten student and if he was going to be able to access it. And not only has he been able to access it, he's done it in a way that's made him thrive. Um Cloverdale teachers and staff and kitchen has truly made this little boy's kindergarten year an experience that is unforgettable, not only for Jordy, but for his mom. And also in my report, um, I highlighted some of my other teachers, and that's what I really wanted to talk about tonight. Cascade's a little bit different, um, across the state. We have specialized programs. We have um, amazing classroom teachers, amazing specialists. We are very, very blessed in our district to even have WESD um, employees that request to be in Cascade. Our occupational therapist is one of them, our SLPAs, their our physical therapists, they

030ask to be in our district. Um because of our teachers, our administrators, our staff. Um and truly those individuals that I listed in my report, um that's just a drop in the bucket. I could have just kept going, but I didn't think you wanted to read my novel. And um the the biggest thing for me is that um across our district, again, as you can see, our numbers are growing. And there's lots of things, and I've talked to you about that before about, you know, with the growing um numbers means a growing need. And um every time we have a new student or a new challenge or something else that we might need to to do to make sure a kid gets what they need, um our schools are rising to the challenge and our

031teachers are are doing whatever they can to make sure that every kid is like Jordy. That's it. Do you have any questions for me? How many kids that are in the special needs uh realm fall into the food need special food part of their off top of my head and I could be wrong off by a couple numbers but in every single school we have at least one um however that's at this point in time I believe we have eight students who need a specifically cut up portion sized meal plan for them but across the entire district Kendall's and her team are currently serving four additional menus based upon students who might have different allergies, maybe they're gluten intolerant, maybe they're celiac, etc. Um, maybe they have different allergens that preclude them from accessing the

032the regular general education uh lunch menu and required by law. We're required to meet those when there's a doctor's note and a and a and a plan is in place. I just want to say thank you for sharing Jord's story. uh we have uh the Cloberdale connection. So I've had a chance to follow him and his family and this is tremendous and that is one of my favorite pictures. That is truly amazing that you and and everybody else is able to do that. So thank you for sharing that. Thank you. So I want to ask a question real quick. We've got 484 [Music] students that are in special ed right now and I realize those are in all levels of the schools. Do does the district deal with children in our district that are outside

033of the school age? Like below or above 18 to 21? Yes, we have an adult transition program. 18 to 21. Are they part of that 484 kids that are being counted? Yes, sir. And what's the lowest number we take? What's the youngest? Uh well, kindergarten. So that's the youngest kindergarter. So pre kindergarten. We don't we don't offer services of any kind other than maybe if Cheryl's doing something with them. Well, so we partner with the WESD. We don't directly Cascade doesn't provide direct services to preschool students. However, we were we are kind of a conc consortium with the WSD. I'm still required by law to to help them identify students who may need to be evaluated that are preschool uh birth to to four um or to five school age. But yes. And and is

034it fair to say because this number we've talked about it, it keeps getting bigger and bigger. Yes, sir. Is is part of the reason I know there's people that come here because of the district, etc. Do the do the the definition of kids that fall into that camp is that continuing to expand also? No. So there's um there's a lot of different components that are going into the why these numbers are increasing for sure. Um a a good example is on a typical school year. In the last 5 years, we might have 10 to 12 students come in from preschool onto on an IEP when they start day one of kindergarten. This school year we're at 25 students already identified and there's always about I don't know would you guys say at least 6 to

03510 additional students that walk through our door that were never identified that should have been identified um right off the bat. Um so there's that contributing factor. Kids are being identified earlier which is good. That early intervention is key. So they're being identified earlier as well as there are so many different factors that have come into play. So across the state of Oregon, you're seeing an increase in foster care. You're seeing an increase in um you know different components from COVID that have happened. There's additional mental health diagnoses that have come into play. Um and you're seeing um doctors now starting to diagnose at a much earlier age when they weren't before. you combine all all of that into also Cascade um is we're one of few school districts that have specialized programs and because

036we have specialized self-contained programs, we do have a lot of families that are wanting to move here for that. So, you're going to start to see that number start to increase as other surrounding districts begin to dismantle those specialized programs. So, how often do we see students get the tools they need and and educated to a point where I don't know if this is the right term, but they graduate out of special ed so that they're no longer on these IEPs. Is that is that a thing? It is a thing. Um, depending on the disability, depending on the kid, every student is different. Ideally, that's the that's the that's the plan is to move students into what we would call the least restrictive environment andor not needing services. Um today I I had a meeting

037where the student is pro we're evaluating because in the fall there's a high likelihood they're no longer going to need special education services. Um and as far as graduating, you know, uh as off of an IEP, it doesn't happen um as frequently in a school year. However, we have a lot of kids that do exit, including our kids that are on on for speech communication. We have kids exit. Usually fifth grade and eighth grade are our two biggest times when kids are exiting off of those. And and that's kind of the goal. So you kind of set up to to for those benchmarks. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Yes. I'm done. No more question. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much and thank you for bringing that in. Appreciate it. All right. Going

038on. Hang on. Next we're on to junior high principal report. That's going to be Miss Leidday. Good morning or good evening. Good evening. I normally say good morning too. I walk up here and that's the first thing that pops into my brain. Um, one of the things that is not on the board report is um, our ELPA test scores um, that which came in on Friday. ELPA means that our English language u proficiency assessment. These are our students who are English language learners. And every year until they pass the test, they are required to take this extremely hard test that works on reading, writing, speaking, and listening. And quite honestly, I'm not sure many of our general education kids who've been in America their whole entire life would pass it. I don't know that I

039would pass it and I taught English. So, but I want to brag about our English language department. Jackie Everett was our teacher. Mackenzie, Nola, and Alandre Valera Mora um teamed up and this year um in eighth grade for the state, 7% of the kids made it over that hurdle. We had 20%. Seven Oh, wait, it gets better. Seventh grade statewide, 6%. We had 20%. Sixth grade statewide, 10%. Our sixth grade, 60%. So, um, these people need a huge round of applause. They work hard to get these kids to be able to communicate well. Um, we noticed a couple years ago one of their deficiencies was speaking because if they don't know a language, well, I can't imagine that I would want to go to a foreign language and speak fluently or even attempt it. So,

040trying to get these kids so that they feel comfortable talking more became something that we really focused on the last couple years. But Jackie has done a great job and I just look forward to seeing what more can she bring to the table and you know now that these kids will have her more than one year where are we going to go and realistically many of the kids who don't pass are also special ed on top of it. So if a general edit to kid a general ed kiddo can't jump over the hurdle somebody with a learning disability it's going to be that much harder to get them up and over. So, um, they've done fabulous. Every kid has made gains and they have done a phenomenal amount of, you know, work in one year.

041So, it's just going to keep getting better. Um, any other questions? We finished up um our science or our dance and party on Friday. So, you guys missed out. You could have come and had the glow party and sweated in the gym like all the other junior hires with their little glow and flashy things. Um, definitely quite warm. We had two fans going and kids were running around having a great time, eating lots of pizza and Italian sodas and ice cream and nachos and it was a party to be had, but they had a good time. So, next year you would be more than welcome to come for our whatever the festivity will be. Promotion is on Wednesday, so we're getting there and um we keep them going busy till the end. So, yeah. Any

042questions? So, talk a little about your district of distinction award. Yeah. um we have um implemented a new science curriculum. It's called TWIG. And because our staff literally jumped right in and were willing to take on this new curriculum and go for it, which really meant them having to look at here's the curriculum that I've always done and maybe that means somebody else has to take this on. And they really dove in and um figured out what's best for kids, not what's best for me and my comfort zone. Um yeah, we became a district of distinction. They got their lunch on Friday and so it's huge. Yeah. And um they have moved the dial significantly. Also, state test scores. I do have two football coaches who are definitely competitive to get our test scores up

043and they definitely um brought out the you know the big incentives, you know, what can we do to get you guys to do well to prove that? Um I think eighth graders frequently could be a apathetic. You know, why bother doing this test? it doesn't mean anything to me and it's you know two days of testing and so they found incentives in the form of pizza parties that seem to work for these kids and it just shows that our kids have the abilities when they want to you know and even if it's an incentive or a carrot out there I would work for a good bonus too so you know that was an option you know it takes but our kids have done really well and I look forward in the fall to showing you

044how Well, the junior highest. Well, good job on that. Thank you, Betty. Any other questions? Any other questions? Nope. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Moving on. We've got Cascade Opportunity Center, Miss Thompson. Good evening. Good evening, everybody. Um, you have my report in front of you. Um, just want to shout out a couple of different things. Um, one, um, this year we have the privilege of having Kathleen Rasmmanson who is our college and career coach for part-time at our school and just highlighting a little bit of the results from having her there and having her focus on post high school goals. And so you can see the numbers there. Um, we've had just more students apply for scholarships for different grants. Um, we had a student that got the Shemecka honors and

045compared to before when we didn't really have the resources, students are not just worried about graduating and finishing, but they're also looking now towards host high school. And so one of the great things that we've been able to experience with our students is, you know, students that never thought they'd even graduate are now really thinking about post high school and what they want to do and accomplishing their hopes and dreams and just opening up, you know, their borders to look at other things besides entry level jobs and just surviving. And so, um, I just want to shout out to Kathleen and all the work that she's done. students um in our building. Um attendance isn't that that much of a priority for them sometimes, but when they knew that she was in the building, they

046made a point to be there just so that they could talk to her. And so she focused a lot on seniors this year. And now we're working on seniors, juniors, and then building that on and u moving forward with that. And then also just a really fun time with our graduation dinner. We had um we changed the venue this year. We used to squeeze into the um to the turnaround cafe and the owner there, Nancy, has just really open the doors for our students. Um but we got so crowded in there that we moved to a new venue kind of across the street, the Urban Greenery, which is a fabulous venue. Um and so we just had a really great time. So appreciate Mr. Rasmuson and Mr. being there and giving some words of wisdom

047to our graduates and um just closing out the year in a really positive way. So, any questions? Questions? No questions. All right. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Moving on. We've got elementary principles report and I think we're doing Palmsville. Yes. All right. Good evening. you have my report in front of you. Um, summer springtime is always the season of benchmarking. So, I've provided some reading data for you and some math data. Some of the highlights I wanted to point out for you was uh that last little bullet point in reading. 12% of students schoolwide made above typical progress this year. That I think is is one of the pieces of data that sometimes we overlook because it's really hard to find. So, I spent some time with my team uh last week

048looking at that data and found some individual kids who made just amazing growth and I shared some of this this afternoon with our admin group, but there was one student who started in the 8th percentile this year at the beginning of the year and he finished the year in the 76th. So, just the amount of growth these kids are making is is amazing. Uh, moving on to reading or I'm sorry, math. I wanted to highlight kindergarten and first grade. 62% both of students in both grades moved from below grade level to ongrade level finishing at 73% gradewide. And that's just amazing. The growth that we've seen in I Ready district-wide. Mr. Dyer and I were looking at that earlier this week. Nope, it's Monday. last week. Um, just the amount amount of growth that we've

049seen district-wide just in our math the last three years that we've had it has been phenomenal. Um, it's a great system, great curriculum, and kids are making the gains that they need to be ready in junior high when they get there. Now, any questions about reading or math before I talk about some fun because reading math is fun. Okay. If you look at the back, you'll see all of the different activities that we have done at Ensville over the spring. a long list, a lot of fun. It takes a lot of energy and effort on our teachers part, but it's so worth it getting kids all of these opportunities to go and do great things. Is you see the smile on faces of kids catching their first fish in fourth grade at the ODFW field

050trip. Um, kids going to the coast for the first time, kids going to the zoo. We've got bingo carnivals, TPT finals, that's the tournament of page turners. We ran an ind district reading tournament this year where all three elementary schools participated in reading books and then doing some quiz bowl type things with that was fantastic. I watched the finals a couple weeks ago. It got heated but don't worry everyone's okay. So the other thing that I'm super proud of and Jody mentioned this in her last book board report was the Panther paper and I brought copies for you. It's very well done and it's excellent reporting. I'm not joking. That's real. That's a real statement. I got lots of last. Of course, I talked about recess. That's right. Special thanks to two teachers, two staff

051members who help with this after school club. Miss Carrie Cornnegie who started this club last year and then she with the help of our new math coach Margaret Hill have really um progressed this club into this professional journalistic publication that you see in front of you. Uh Miss Hill has has in her former life she was a reporter and worked for newspapers in formatting and editing. So, um, she's really brought this this new, um, and fresh way to kind of format things and edit and all of those great pieces of journalism that that we used to see with those hand delivered papers of years past, not things that we have to log on the internet for. So, any questions about anything? This is so So, I'm gonna ask you a question. I knew it. This

052is awesome. Yeah. and and you asked if there's questions on on your report, but now and and I didn't speak up. I'm going to go back now. That's okay. Here in the report, you said um grades K through two indicating that our early literacy intervention systems, plans, and supports have been successful successfully implemented. Is that a boilerplate? What is an early literacy intervention system? What is that? Great question. And you know what's funny? Do tell. Every time I write my report, I pick out areas that I know you're going to ask questions in and I I I get ready for those. So, so you knew I was going I knew you were sometimes I even write parts that I I think I'm going to bait Brett and see most of the time. Yes. Yeah. So,

053that's a great question. Yes, we are. Yeah. This is for the common good. Unfortunately, you've let everybody see behind the curtain, but that's I should have said that. Can we take that off the record? Exactly. We'll go like this. Okay. I'm good. No, but that's a great question. Um, and a couple of years ago, my team and I sat down and we we really were trying to think of ways to intervene and best use our money most effectively. And it goes back to I think Desmond Tutu made this quote something about if you get tired of pulling people out of the river, go upstream and see why they're falling in, right? And so it's it's with that mentality that we've really started to hone in on that primary grades, the first, you know, K1 and

054two. And with the help of Mr. Dyer and some early literacy money, we were able to hire two IAS who help out in kindergarten. And they're doing smaller intervention groups to kids who would in a normal year with less staff fall behind quicker. So we're either we're able to keep kids at grade level um along with us. We're able to identify that sooner and get those kids on grade level. Once they're on grade level, it's much easier for them because next year it gets harder. year after it gets harder and the gap just gets bigger. So, as many kinders as we can have on grade level when we send them to first grade, the better they're going to be as fifth graders when they leave us. So, it's that mentality. Special thanks to Mr. Dyer

055to um to understanding that and giving us some money that we could hire some some interventionists to just serve those grade levels. I think that's been all the difference for sure. Y Thank you. Any other questions? That's it. All right. Thank you very much. Enjoy your reading. Appreciate it. Okay, moving on. We've got Family Resource Center Director's Report. Hello, Cheryl. Hi, everyone. It's good to see you all. Uh, so I gave you my report. Um, but I have a few things I want to add to it. Um we kind of did a little data um on our McKenna Vento kids which are houseless students and um 41% of the McKenna Vento students from last year transferred out of the district. So that kind of shows families are moving. Um 8% graduated out of Cascade and

0569% continue to be McKinto this year. So, our numbers just even though we have fewer this year, uh I went to a conference and I got a really good explanation of what McKenna Vento is and how to address the needs of those students and what is what are the regulations and guidances for that. And so, um I honed it in a lot this year. And so that's why our numbers are a little bit lower, but um we're still serving those kids and um getting them all the needs that they have. Just this at the end of this year, we've had several um couch surfing kiddos that were we're helping out. So um that continues to just keep going for for Cascade. Um but I wanted to talk about some of the things that we've done

057this year. So we've um set up doctor's appointments for kids and made sure that they got there. And we loaned out Chromebooks. We provided gas vouchers so that kids could participate in sports because as a McKenney Vento student, you have the same rights as every other student and it's our responsibility to make sure that they get to participate in those um after school activities. Um we've done emergency clothing. We've um given out several basic needs like toilet paper and laundry soap and diapers and just different um necessities that families need. Um, but the one of the biggest ones I think is that we utilized our SIT team, um, which is our service integration team. And we were able to get a $3,100 deposit for a family so that they could get stable housing. So, that

058was and the district helps uh fund that sit team. And so, it's great that we're getting those funds back and helping families. And so, when there's an emergency need, we can reach out to them. And it's amazing how they can come through. And it only costs the district $50. It only costs the Cascade sit team $50 because we were able to get those funds from other places. So, it's an amazing group that we belong to and they do so many great things for for our families. Um, one of the things I also noticed this year is we do a lot of intakes. I sit down with the families. I find out what their needs are, what supports that we can give. And when I do that, I create a task list for them and for

059myself. And I give them a copy of that list. And then I ask them to complete those tasks so that we can continue working and helping them with the supports that they need. Sometimes families do that, sometimes they don't. This year we've had an outstanding number of people who have not done those tasks. So, I'm not able to assist them and continue helping them because they haven't um done things themselves like reaching out to energy assistance so we can help get their power bill paid. I mean, things like that. If the families don't reach out, I can't do it for them. And so, um that's I've noticed that our connections this year are lower because a lot of families haven't followed through with the tasks that we've talked about and tried to get them to

060do so that we can continue to support them. So, um, but we're planning for next year. Um, our current tenant, Family Building Blocks, is going to be moving out, and they told me today they wouldn't be leaving until November because they built a new building and ran into some issues, and they were supposed to be moving out in June. Now, they're not going till November. So, um, we'll have them for a little while longer and then I'd like to try and find some kind of a preschool program to be part of our our building. Um, and also I have a new assistant this year. She's part-time and she's been amazing and now she gets to do all those little things that take up so much time and I am going to work on next year

061trying to find some funding sources so that when we have a request for a kid who needs a size 14 pair of shoes, we'll be able to help them with that. Um, so I'm hoping that we can reach out and get some grant money or get some other funding sources and get us out in the community more. um the making the families resource center more um prominent and people knowing more about it so that we can get some more assistance for things like that. So do you have any questions? Yes. Okay. So no surprise. Yeah. Thank you. Um how big of a of a area does the family resource center service? Is it just the Cascade School District? It is any family who has a child enrolled in Cascade. Okay. So, I'm going to ask

062a question, and I'm not trying to make light of this or be I don't know how else to ask it. So, I'm just going to say this. In the very beginning, you said um we deal with homeless families. If we have a family that's homeless, how do we determine they're part of our district? Well, they attend school here. So, students who are houseless, is to word, pardon. um they can enroll in any school that they not any school that they want to but they have their school of origin which would be if you were going to Cascade and you move to Salem Kaiser um your school of origin is Cascade so it's up to Cascade to provide the services that you need um and to get you back to Cascade so that you have that

063stability in going to school. Okay. and and so um kids who are houseless are usually enrolled here or they're staying with a family. They've got some connection here physically connection in the district is what it gets down to and because of that we're able to help them. Yes. Okay. And and those include transfer students. So we have several students who are transfer students, but the transfer student isn't dedicated. If they transfer here, they're ours. So, okay. We provide them with all the same services that every other student does. Right. Okay. Okay. Well, okay. I think you answered my question. Okay. Anything else? That was all I had. Any other questions? Nope. That's it. Well, I invite you to come and participate in one of our events and volunteer at our center whenever you'd like to.

064And our last event is June 17th. We're having a big pool party um at the Turner pool for all fans in Cascade. Nice. Wonderful. Thanks for coming in. All right, moving on. We've got the food service. We're done. Yeah. Okay. So, we're now moving on to the budget hearing. We're going to open Hang on a minute. Getting ahead of myself here. Mr. Pillar, we're going to the presentation of the 2526 Cascade School District budget. Actually, you were correct, Mr. Chair. You do open the budget hearing first and then uh we present the uh budget. You discuss it. All right. Open up for public comment and then close it. All right. Well, then let's go down in that order. We will open up the budget hearing at this time. Great. All right. So, uh I presented

065to you earlier tonight uh the adopted budget document. If you recall, the process in Oregon is the same for every school district in the state and actually every municipality. You start with a proposed budget which is created by staff and that budget was presented to you last month at your budget committee meeting. That budget committee deliberated on that proposed budget and voted on it and approved it and it became the approved budget. That approved budget then uh gets transformed into the adopted budget and it's not an adopted budget but it is acting like it is now and it only gets adopted after you approve it through the resolution process at the end of your meeting. So just to let you know this is you know we haven't changed a number in there. It is the

066proposed budget that we deliberated fairly extensively last month. All right. Okay. Any discussion from the board on said budget? No. Okay. Then we need to open it up for any public hearing on the budget. Does anyone care to comment on the budget? Okay. Budget hearing closed. Budget hearing is closed. That's Thank you. Okay. We're going on to number seven is the discussion and communication. 7 A is personnel. Mr. Drill. Yep. So, in front of me, you have uh personnel of new administrative and managerial staff to be approved tonight. Uh our new district nurse, our our uh uh nurse before decided to do something else. And Kathleen uh is in charge of the nurse and so we went through a process and hired a new nurse that'll be here ready to go. And then also uh

067we did indeed after um a lot of lot of uh email and interviews we hired a new director of finance uh William Wang will be coming uh uh courtesy of Arkansas by way of Hong Kong. So this will be different. Um that's that's different, but we're obviously starting to see Scott go. So we we'll have those two there. And then the certified staff is below. um has noticed that in probably the first time in all the years I've been here that many Cloverdale. We're actually still have one more that hasn't quite signed off and ready to go. So um not anything that our that Julia is here in the crowd. Not anything she did. We had two people retire. We had one person decide to work overseas and somebody decided not to come back from

068from a uh having a new child. So, uh, they went through entire process and they hired, uh, four, they'll hire four teachers and we have a Spanish teacher in the high school and we have a teacher at Armsville. So, questions on those questions? Nope. Okie do. All right, moving on. We've got eight information items, Cascade Long Range Facilities Plan. Yes. So, I'm going to turn that over to um Mr. Costcella and he's going to walk you through that process. Sounds good. Good evening. Good evening board members. Uh just want to give you a little context. We're presenting to you tonight a long range planning document that gives uh an assessment of our facilities and some plans about the highest priorities of the needs that we have facilities wise. Last fall, we put out a request

069for proposals for professionals to come in and help us do that facility assessment and lead us through the longrange plan. And the bid that we chose was a combination of three companies, WRK Engineering, BBL Architects, and RNC Management. Uh, each of those people involved with those organizations had worked with Cascade in some way in the past, and that made it easier for them to come in and look at our facilities. Um, tonight we've got uh Matt Atkins is with us from BBL, and he's going to be here primarily for uh any questions that we have at the end about facility assessments because they're the main firm that work that. And then I'm going to turn it over to Scott Rose who's from RNC management. They are a company that's called an owner's representative which means

070we hire them to represent us and to help manage our way through that whole thing. So Scott's going to give you an idea of this whole process and then at the end uh between the three of us we can answer any questions that you have. All right. Well, good evening. Thank you. And uh as as Greg said uh uh both BBL WRK and RNC management group have been through your buildings a number of times through the years. In fact memory of Cascade was sometime in the late '9s and I was doing phone polling for a bond and Mr. McBride was there kind of you know helping us get through that process if you will. So I've uh I've I've been involved with Cascade for a number of years. So, what we're going to go through

071here, and I'll try and be very brief in this, is really what we did for the assessment process and the planning process. And your district went out for a technical assistance planning grant, two of them, one for the physical building assessment. So, one for the long range facility planning that is to be community-based. And so, uh, as was mentioned, so Matt and BBL, they went through, they led the facility assessment process and then I led the long-range facility committee community-based planning process and uh, then we overlapped on some of the issues as we went through the process. So, with that, I have a report here. Let's see if I can get this right. So uh because you receive state funding for this, there are state criteria that we had to follow uh and and and

072components that had to be met throughout the process. The facility assessment piece uh had to fill out the state required spreadsheets. There were about 12 pages long and about 18 different buildings. So lots and lots of different assessments that needed to be done. What's important to note is that with the assessments is they were identifying deficiencies in the existing buildings. They were not identifying solutions. So they're identifying deficiencies in systems, deficiencies in finishes and going through and taking a look at that. In some cases, it might be obsolescence for a specific facility. For instance, home might have become obsolete based on the programs to adopt now. But we did not identify solutions and those solutions came in the planning process as we went through and that's why you'll see differences in the budgets. So uh

073again going through very briefly we'll go through the uh the folks that participate in this the synopsis and then you'll see items one through five there. Those are criteria that the state has opposed. I'll spend more time actually on the synopsis and I'll just gloss over the other components because there are criteria for what's being turned in but not necessarily where the focus of that planning group was. And then appendix materials required to be turned into the state of the committee packets. We did meet four different times. uh the population report and the uh general obligation bonds levy rate analysis. So contributors uh likely you recognize a lot of names here. These this is uh uh several community members, parents uh we had a lot of staff involved but the intention of these process is

074always to do wide cross-section make sure that every community is represented uh every age level is represented. um every sort of constituent and and and interest group in Cascade is represented. So you can see a variety of folks that were engaged throughout that process. So we did uh as as was mentioned so the assessments started late November, they were in December and they went through much of January. So the physical building assessments were done at that time frame. Then we went through and we compiled the data and the data was compiled in the February time frame and early March. And you can see that we actually had uh four different meetings. Uh and my apologies on the type of graphical error on the first one. That was March 20th, not May 20th. So March 20th

075and uh that was just before spring break. And then we met on April's 3rd, 10th, and 17th to go through the process. And we start out in bigger groups where we go through touring the facility. And then as we discuss what the needs are, we get into smaller work groups, smaller discussion groups, if you will. And those priorities then are ranked between each of the small groups and then are presented to the larger group and then we overall go through that as as a as a large group and then we work to prioritize. I mentioned that because we have three different steps that we went through. So the first is uh again what the assessments were done by BBL architects where they went through and they actually assessed all of your buildings. I did not

076give you the all the assessments. Again they were 12 pages each 18 buildings. So you can do the math. That's a lot of spreadsheets to go through. Um, so what I did is I summarized those based on the state assigned systems for substructure, shell, interior, services, equipment, furnishings, building, site work, and other and other categories cover variety of things. And we incorp uh we've got budgets for each of those that were signed by the state. And then a development budget. Development budget is all the things beyond the construction. that might be for the design, the surveying, furnishings, contingencies, permits, and all the other things that come come about on top of a construction project beyond just the construction itself. And so the group received in in meeting one, they received this information, all the needs,

077and they toured the buildings. In meeting two, they received the budgets. We talked about what goes into a budget so they understand why this is costing more than what it took to renovate their home. And so we went through that and we started to break down in meeting two into small discussion groups. Step two was then each of these small discussion groups went through all of the needs and they prioritized what they thought the district should really be focusing on. And we dispersed staff to make sure that they had staff sprinkled through all the different small groups so they could ask questions. Uh I roved, Matt roved uh around each of the tables to make sure that we answered questions. But we wanted each of them to say if you four people were in charge

078of creating what the needs were for the Cascade School District based on these needs lists, what would those be? And they each create created each of their table groups. And then what I've done here in this step two is I've combined all of the priorities from all the groups rather than singling out table one or table three, but I combined them and said this is what all of the groups identified as the highest priorities in their mind for Cascade School District. And you can see a uh you know a recommended budget of $150 million in needs. They said these are the highest priorities. It doesn't mean that the other things that were noted were not also a priority, but they said these were the highest. And by highest we mean those things that we think

079are important to do in within the next 3 to 5 years or 3 to seven years depending on you know when you go out for funding. But they identified these as the highest priority. But we knew that we had to pair this uh this list down more. So that this came at the end of meeting three. At the end of meeting four, we paired it down even further. We took a look and we saw what are the common elements between all the different tables and said what are what would be a combined plan that takes the highest priorities of each of the tables and pulled it into a single plan. So what we've got here is that 150 million got whittleled down to 100 million. But you'll note at the end I've got staff added

080recommendations after they went through that process. We uh I uh that we we put that back out to the district, put out to the administration and the staff. And there were four additional projects that had not been identified as a priority that because of operational needs really were um in in the district's mind a priority to not in lie of but in addition to and wanted to have those revisit or re-examined. And once this plan was come about uh this was uh late April uh then uh uh some polling was done. And I think the polling results will be uh covered at another meeting, but it was identified that uh one, your community in in general is not yet ready for a bond issue. They need more time to kind of digest everything that's going

081on, not just in Cascade, but just across the globe. And and two is their sort of uh their pulled sweet spot is a bit lower than the $und00 million. So I would say that we probably need to target somewhere in the 40some to 60some million range depending on a variety of factors. What we're looking at beyond the bond though is also the other grant opportunities. So when I say 40 some to 60 some I also want to take into account not just the bond but also what we call the awesome grant that is the Oregon school capital improvement matching grant. So they had to come up with something so they could just use the acronym awesome. So, uh, what that is is, um, uh, Cascade would qualify for a $6 million grant. Um, it is

082a competitive grant. Um, but, uh, they started that program in 2015. And I can say since 2015 that every district that has applied for the grant and has passed a bond because it's a matching grant. So, you've applied and you've passed has received some funding if not their the total max that they were eligible for. So there's a good likelihood you would get something. Would you get the 6 million? It depends on how many others are are participating or submitting at the same time. Uh but the the 6 million is potential there. There's a $2.5 million seismic rehab grant. I know this district has pursued those in the past and received those. There are also some Energy Trust of Oregon grants and there's a few other smaller like CTE based grants. So I think to

083get where you want to get to, it's going to require you to look at multiple funding streams. general obligation bonds certainly at some point. Uh but it's it sounds like the polling is indicating probably not this November. So that's why we would like to take this list and reconvene the committee in late August, early September and say, "Okay, we've got to whittle this list down more. What does that look like based on polling information?" So they want to get more polling results. They want to share that polling data because that polling data is something this dis this group didn't have the committee didn't have is they they were looking at this in terms of all these needs identified and they prioritize and they had a lot of great discussion but they didn't have any polling

084data. Now what does our community at large think of this and so getting that data I think will allow them to take another look at this and prioritize. Um certainly as I mentioned the early assessments were about deficiencies in existing buildings existing systems. You'll see in this here it's actually more solutionsoriented. Yes, you have things like roofing, mechanical systems, uh finishes and such, but you also have constructing a new 56 school. You have uh building new cafeterias, new gymnasiums. Those are other parts that are part of that that solution, if you will, because you do have overcrowding. You have overcrowding right now and you're projected to even have more overcrowding. So, how do we accommodate for that? The assessments incorporate what's called a facility condition index or an FCI. And general industry standards are that

085if you have an FCI greater than 40%. What does that mean? The cost of repairing everything in your building divided by the cost of just replacing the building. Okay? And that's your facility condition index. So that could get, you know, that could even exceed one if it costs more to repair your building than replace it. So if you get a FCI greater than 40% you need to look at long-term what you would do to eventually sunset that facility and that it becomes less cost effective to continue to invest in that facility. Ideally you're investing when FCIS are at 10 and 20%. And so that you keep that percentage down low continuing to make investments but sometimes buildings just simply age out. So, all of your buildings had a low FCI except one. One, uh, which

086was Almsville 35 school had an FCI of 59%. Okay. So, what does that mean? That doesn't mean they won. It just means um what that means is that Almsville 35, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone here, um, is has has a lot of system concerns, systemic concerns throughout the throughout the facility. um such that again just looking at it through the lens of a facility assessment it looks like one that you should try to sunset in the in the near future find a different way to accommodate those students which I realize that's a struggle when you're also growing at the same time you can't just shutter a school if you're growing so you need to look at replacements so uh what was come up with by your committee was a grades five six school

087and preparation for a fourth grade wing what would that look like um so what would be the cost for that and where would that sit? You have property behind this facility behind this facility here. So that was placed that was measured out that was we looked at the sanitary sewer systems, water systems, power systems, etc. Say could we support that? So instead of this being uh a a 612 campus, maybe it's a 512 campus, maybe it becomes a 412 campus uh long term, still keeping your neighborhood or your community elementary schools. So just some of the things that are being looked at and then you can see uh you you added a net gain of 10 classrooms around your district with the uh federal funding with the co money. Um that was fantastic but when

088you add classrooms you then start to strain your infrastructure. You have more needs then at your cafeterias at your gymnasiums at your restrooms at your your other facilities. And so that is starting to be realized too. Yes, we've got more seats for kids. That's fantastic. But you're starting to see a real impact on lunchtime where lunches are starting kids are at school for about an hour and 20 minutes and now they're at breaking for lunch because you have to have that many lunches to serve all the kids. So starting to look at some of those issues. So this is really a snapshot in time where we're done to meet the state criteria. But again based on the recent polling information and more polling that's going to be done um we really think that we want

089to revisit with that committee in late August, early September and try and get this list whittleled down a little bit more. Um that's the last uh slide that I wanted to go over in a lot of detail. Um you can see where we were talking about you know maybe where might go in the future uh highlighted there in the blue. Uh just again a very conceptual diagram just to say does it fit. It was more of a feasibility study. Then we did do uh and again this is more for the state criteria. We did take a look at population uh projections enrollment projections versus capacity. When you have red numbers there in the far right column, that's not a good thing. That means you're exceeding your capacity in those buildings. Uh collaboration with local uh

090entities uh governmental agencies. We asked them about their availability to uh uh uh offset some of our growth uh concerns. Um the evidence community involvement was our planning process. Went through that. We also took a look at what the funding requirements were. Educational delivery systems. Is the district delivering education in a way that they want to long term or not? And by and large, the answer was yes, we do want to continue to deliver education in the manner that we are. We also want to have more hands-on, more CT opportunities as well. Continue to grow that. Mhm. Uh we did have to confirm that nothing was on the national historic register. That does impact some of the cost structures that we incorporate. And then also just the district's uh current facilities, their ability to um

091uh meet educational adequacy standards. um that can get to air quality, lighting, acoustics, materials, et materiality, etc. And as I stated a couple minutes ago is that yes, all your facilities can meet these standards with the exception of Almsville 35. I think there would be a lot of money that would not necessarily be well spent to try and get that building up to the standard of the other schools just because of the systemic problems there. So, not to say that it's unsafe, not to say that kids can't be there, but when you look at educational adequacy in that building versus educational adequacy in other buildings, that one's a far cry from meeting those uh those standards, if you will. So, and that takes us to the end of the questions. Sorry, I kind of ran

092through that quickly or maybe I did. I don't know how much time. Let me do one thing for the questions as well. Uh, I just want to give a big thank you to um BBL and to RNC and to RWRK and just to to be really clear like they did their work extremely well and we are exactly where we hope to be. We've all the way along known that um with the bond coming up, we were looking at either the November or the May election. And we planned everything so that if we needed to go out in November, if that was the best place to go, we'd be ready to go. And what the polling is showing us is we can because of who they expect to come out in the different elections, uh, we

093could gain a percentage point or two by going in May. And that additionally gives us the time, as Scott said, to do this really difficult work. I mean, the the reality is we have a lot of needs and not not enough resources to do that. And so I'm really glad that we have the time to do do those decisions well and to to make those recommendations with staff and community input before we bring that to you as a board. Uh I just wanted to say that that we are not late. We are right on time and making a decision that helps us helps us have the best chance of passing on. So any questions for Yeah. That's and that that's a good point that the timing of this the reason that we're presenting it to

094you tonight is if you all said, "Oh, forget the polls. Let's just go go." We wanted to make sure that we gave you the flexibility because if you said you wanted to go out in November, then you need that $6 million Austin grant. You need to file for that on July 15th. That's the reason we did what we did, so that you have that flexibility if you want to. If you decide you want to go out next May, well, you have till December 15th to make that file for that $6 million grant. So, we want to make sure that you had the flexibility to make a decision that you didn't say, "Oh, I'd really like to go out for November, but we've missed the Austin grant." No, you you you made it. So, we we

095accelerated our services BBL and RNC to make sure that you had the flexibility to make an informed decision. There is no reason to go out in November. there's no reason, you know, I mean, you can have those conversations, but we wanted to make sure that if you made that decision that you're poised to apply for that grant July 15th, because there's only two dates in the whole year you can apply for the Austin grant, July 15th and December 15th. Those are the only dates and those are for the subsequent, you know, November or May election. So, do we have to have all of the plans that we want in stone when we go out for this bond? If we decided to do it in November, would we have to have a hard and fast plan

096of dollars and exactly what we wanted to be done to go out for that grant, the bond in November to the level that I gave you here? Yes. And probably backed up a little bit in the detail. So I gave a lot more detail so that we knew what we were proposing with a new elementary school for instance, right? But if you went out for a bond or when you go out for a bond, then you have to file with the county about 60 days in advance. So in you know early November so by early September you have to file with the county and you have to say this is the dollar amount we're asking for. This is the estimated tax rate. It's always an estimated and this is the scope. Now you don't have

097to break it out that the new elementary gets 30 million of that or whatever but you have to say this is the scope. this is the total amount 60 million whatever and this is the estimated tax rate and legal council would help you actually draft that but that scope is flexible for us issue um it it is and it isn't um in that you have to say what you intend to do so you don't list roofs anywhere and you don't really talk about other capital improvement in the language then if you went and spent bond money on roofs at the beginning people would question that and it could be challenged I would say that if you didn't put on there that you were building a new elementary school and then you went and built a

098new elementary school, you would get challenged on that. So, normally what I see I people tend to vote more positively if they know what they're voting on. If you keep it pretty cryptic and say, "Well, the new elementary and other improvements as needed, right?" You're less likely to have a positive result. They like to know that we're going to be focusing on our mechanical systems, our roofs. we're going to be focusing on uh uh restrooms and ADA and safety and security uh CTE. They want to know those things. They don't need to know that you're buying equipment XYZ. They need to know that you're investing this way. You know, um it can be mechanical systems at most or all our schools. That's okay. You don't have to say mechanical systems at Cloverdale, Turner, and Almsville.

099You can just say this is this is what we're going to do districtwide. So, we bring ourselves up to a certain standard. Okay. That makes sense. Yep. So yeah, I would I would take with you know what we come up with a plan that I would sort of distill it down to kind of simple talking points again because you'll be limited on words. So you don't want to talk about well you know the east wing versus the south wing or anything like that. I think you can keep it kind of higher level. Okay. All right. Perfect. You said the polling came back at 40 to 50. Is that what I heard? Well, we probably need to do some more polling on price sensitivity because given the committee um asked for the assumption of some of

100the members of the committee was we could probably go higher that the committee that the community would support that and we found that that really wasn't true. So, we tested a number that was um at what the current rate is. So, we had a bond that passed in 2005 at about 199 198 per 100,000 assessed. We're currently at 110. Uh because of a variety of things that's lowered over time. So, we tested the 110, we tested 199, and we tested 229. Um the the surprise to us was that the lower number was not as much of a bump up as we anticipated. the highest number was actually in kind of that middle range, but definitely not at the higher range. Okay. Um, and so what we probably need to look at is is pull a

101little more between the$110 and the $1.99 to see where those sweet spots might still try to dial it in a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have a good sense of the of the sweet spot yet, but we know that but over two seemed a little Yeah, it's a little high. Yeah, it is. It it was just again it's those reactions from folks. So, you're looking at the percentage of Yes. to know and it's like, oh, okay, that did drop us down three points. And likely whatever you do, whatever bond you allow for is not going to be some landslide vapor. It's always going to be close. And so, you have to really pay attention to some of those nudges that happen with that poll. Now, this is also the initial polling. As you start

102to roll more information out to community and you start to do more polls, you're going to see people sort of let settle or land on a range, you know, that gives you a better indicator. So, right now it's a little early to tell, but certainly we wouldn't go out. We wouldn't recommend you go out for $100 million. Um, 67 million I think, you know, might might be doable with our $1.99. Take a look at that. But, but we need to we think we need to do another pairing down to just be a little bit more flexible. And then if we get this the awesome grant, we also do X. If we don't get the awesome grant, we don't do that. We we do that a lot when we bid out construction. We say, "What's our

103base bid and what's our alternates?" Our base bid we know will hit the budget. Our alternates are if we had a really good day and we could buy some more in. And I think that's kind of going to be where you're at is what has to be funded by the bond and what are other things that could be funded by grants if we get and those become sort of the swing projects if you will. Do you include that language in when you're trying to sell the bond to the community? Like, hey, we're also going to get the $6 million grant potentially get this. Yes. Yes. you you definitely want to put the language in there, but um it's obviously much more compelling if you apply for the grant, you get the grant. It's much more

104compelling to say, "We have a $6 million grant that's sitting there. The state's going to give it to us if we pass the bond. It's sitting right there. Help us pass the bond. If we don't pass the bond, that goes to some other district." That's more compelling than, well, we're on a waiting list for a grant. We're hoping we're going to get the grant. If you pass the bond, we might get that grant. And and again, it's it's more compelling. And you always have to follow the line of of informational versus promotional. So that that becomes a a factor, too. But until you decide to go out for a bond, you can be promotional. It's only when you actually uh vote as a board yes going out for a bond, then you have to go

105to board a connection. So at this point, you'd be very promotional. Okay. Any other questions? I guess we don't have any more questions. Thank you. All right. Thank you. The last thing I wanted to say both for the board and for the admin folks in the in the room is that I'm really grateful in working with Scott. This last report has I'm confident every sort of idea and need collected at some point in that process. And so we've got that all in our long range plan. We will always have that no matter what we decide on the bond so that we know what needs to need to be addressed in all our buildings. and we will be filing both the assessment and the planning document with the state by the end of this month. That

106doesn't mean you're locked into a bond. It doesn't mean that you have to even follow that planning. Go to a different direction, but the state requires that within a certain time frame of actually getting those grants. And I've been working with Scott. We're actually a little bit extended on that. But we we have to turn that in. Once you turn that in, you start a four-year clock. So that four-year clock means that in that four years dead, so by the end of 29, they round up, you must either go out for a bond or you must redo the assessment blank. So it's four-year cloth from the time we start. Really doesn't matter when this year I turn it in because they round up to the end of the year. But but we will be turning

107that in here before the end of your fiscal year at the end of Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay. So, next is 8B staff retirement from PERS. Mr. Drill. Yep. So, you have my letter in there as a retirement for PERS. I'll be back July 1st as per your guys's agreement with me to work back uh year to year. All right. I like it. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Next is 8C staff resignation. So, you got a staff resignation letter. So, we'll begin that process to find a replacement. I think we're already working on that as as we speak. So that's just in there for you uh as we always do. Okay. And last is employee recognition. Third trimester. Third trimester. So we always want to announce these first

108and then we go out and say thank you to our staff that get th get those. Every school has folks that are listed. Uh the administrators select these folks uh based on what they do. There's a little synopsis there of what they did. will take their picture, put it up uh here in the district office and say something great does a great job of going out and get their picture. Lots of people love that, by the way. They love getting their picture taken. They're always like, "When is he coming so I can make sure I look right?" So, at Cloverdale, Tina Gilbert uh was selected uh at Turner Elementary, Jean Marie Bon Broncourse and Leon Utterback. And then at Almsville, Ashley Fren and Zoe Thompson. And they've done a great job. At the high school,

109Lily Roth and Bob Thompson. At the junior high, Wendy Kibet and Jessica Nolan. Just wanted to let you guys know. Dynamite. Yeah. Any questions on that from the board? Nope. Okay. Next, we've got public comment. We had nobody send in public comment. We'll move on to resolutions. And hang on a minute. I'm almost there. Okay. Resolution 10A, resolution regarding new staff recommendations. Be resolved. The Cascade Board of Education moves to approve the hiring of new administrative and certified staff members for the 2024-25 school year as recommended by the administration. Second. Resol 10. A resolution regarding new staff recommendations has been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Oops. No discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppos? Same sign. Motion carries. Uh 10B, resolution approving amended appropriations of expenditures not requiring a supplemental budget

110in 2425 budget. Do we have to read all the wherees? No. Read the title again and then say as present. Presented. Uh yeah. Resolution 10B as presented. That'll do. Second. Oh, yeah. Second. Sorry. 10B. Resolution approving amended appropriations of expenditures not requiring a supplemental budget in 2425 budget has been moved and seconded. Any discussion? No discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. 10 C. Resolution regarding the adoption of the 2526 budget of the Cascade School District. Be resolved. The Cascade School District hereby adopts the budget for fiscal year in the aggregate amount of 64331-983. This budget is now on file at Cascade School District's fiscal office at 10266 Marian Road, Southeast Turner, Oregon 973922. Second 10C resolution regarding the adoption of the 2526 budget of Cascades

111District has been moved and seconded. Any discussion? No discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. 10 D resolution regarding the appropriation of 2526 budget of the Cascade School District be resolved that the Cascade School District hereby appropriates the budget for fiscal year 2526 beginning July 1, 2025 for the purposes stated below. Second 10D resolution regarding the appropriation of the 2526 budget of the Cascade School District has been moved and seconded. Any discussion? No discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I I oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Tiny. Resolution regarding the imposing of the property tax levy for the 2526 budget of the Cascade School District. Be it resolved. The Cascade Board of Education moves to impose the following adorum property taxes for tax year 2020

11226 upon the assessed value of all taxable property within the district. Second. 10. Resolution regarding imposing the property tax levy for the 2526 budget of the Cascade School District has been moved and seconded. Any discussion? No discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. 10F. Resolution regarding the categorizing of tax. Be it resolved. The Cascade Board of Education moves to categorize imposed uh C moves to categorizes imposed for purposes of article 11 section 11B below. Second 10F resolution regarding the categorizing of taxes has been moved and seconded. Any discussion? No discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I post same sign. Motion carries. And that is the end of our resolutions, future agenda items, Mr. Drill. So, um, we are, um, we're we're taking into account

113the conversation you had last month about checking in with our entire budget committee. Uh, as you saw this evening, right, we're a little over 4 million, which is a good sign for us, but we'll check in as we go along here monthto month and we'll go from there. Uh, traditionally July will start over and you will um reseelect a board chair or pick the same one. That's totally up to you guys. And we will not have reports from the administrators. Uh, you'll get a report from myself and the new business manager in the summer uh for the summer months of July and August. We'll get back to having everybody back in the room in September, which is what we've traditionally done. So, we'll do that. And it appears that I'll need to have Mr. Costcella

114come back to talk more about the polling uh with regard to what we've heard and what we've seen. We put some more polls out on the ground so you have some more conversation. The opportunity for us to wait till May is that we're going to, as Mr. Costello said, we're going to get make sure we we get it right. And I think we're going to have one really good shot at this. We want to make sure we have uh have it done the right way. So, any questions on any of those things? Am I missing something from you guys that you need to add in with regard to a budget or to a board meeting? Sorry. Not right at the moment. No. Okay. Good. Okay. Anything else from the board? I just wanted to say

115thank you to Scott also. He's made our job as board members so much easier and I think you're irreplaceable. I we're sad to see you go. Very sweet. Thank you. All right. We're good. All right. Thanks everybody. Meeting adjourned. Thank you.