School Board Meeting - 5/6/25

001I am going to call to order the curriculum and extracurricular committee meeting. Um we did have an executive session um on a personnel matter. Um also I believe um that our folks here for public comment know you are going to be speaking during the full board meeting. Correct. Okay. Okay. So, we are going to move right into um athletics and there is a um document GeForce extracurricular contract. Um Shelley, do you want to add anything about that please? Yes, this is our annual contract with GeForce just for um contracted services for athletic events. And you will note there is a reduced rate per hour since we do have the SSO with GeForce and that's noted on the contract which is attached. Anyone have anything for Shellyley? Okay, we will move on to um the establishment

002of the math honor society and this is also going to be Shalley please. Yes. So what is attached to your in agenda manager is the request to have a student activities account for math honor society and what's attached is the justification for that and that it has been approved by the high school student council. So at that point then it does come to the board for approval or disapproval questions on that and there is no funds right or they will be raising funds and giving it to Okay. Um, moving on to um the Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and I'm really excited to hear about this one. And this one is Joe. Yeah. Uh, good evening everyone. Uh, this item is actually very good news. We were able to meet with the representative from Big Brothers

003and Big Sisters. Uh, what they are doing is reorganizing in this particular area. So, if anyone is familiar with Big Brothers and Big Sisters, they had, for lack of a better word, uh, small chapters here and there. They might have had one in Adams County, maybe one in Hannover, uh, perhaps one in in York. And what they've done is regionalize. So, now they're covering a larger area and trying to expand their footprint. So, they're reaching out. They were covering York, Adams, and I believe Cumberland County, this particular region, and they're going to they wanted to know if they could come in train some of our uh rising uh juniors and seniors to be big brothers or they call them bigs uh to uh younger students. So, we want to pilot this and we're going to

004do that the middle school next year and see how that works out. Ideally, we'd like to push it down further into the to intermediate and perhaps even the elementary grades. Have to work out some transportation issues and scheduling. You know, they're on two different schedules, but I think there's some obstacles there that we can overcome with that. So, uh thisou is simply laying out what we can expect from them and what they expect from us and to give us permission to move forward with that for next year. This will be completely studentbased. Okay. So the the mentors would not be community members necessarily. It would all be students. Students. Yes. Yep. And Big Brothers and Big Sisters actually come in. They train. They provide the resources. So they're going to help us help our students.

005Okay. Thank you. Anyone else have anything on that? Um moving on then to theou of the police departments and this is Shellyley. This is an annualou that we bring forward to the board um that is required through PBE. So it's ourus with vendors, bigville, and the state police. Any questions on that for Shellyley? Yeah, I noticed the state police was at the elementary school. That's because it's outside of the burrow. Is that right? That is correct. Yes. If there if there's an issue at this elementary school, state police come because it's outside the burrow. Same as Orangeville. Correct. Yes. Does the Fabville police offer assistance? Probably if called in. If they're called. Anything else? Okay, moving on to the U Luou. And this is also going to be Shellyley. So, this is a new item

006with um the IU. We sometimes contract with the IU for different services throughout the school year, and we might receive like a contract for training in this area, another contract for another training. This is just one master agreement that will cover us for the whole year, but as those trainings come forward and there's funds that need to be paid, those will still come to the board for approval. So this is just like a general overarching contract that the new executive director is putting in place. Mr. Alvin, do you want to add? Yeah, that's exactly right. So we don't have to uh peacemeal it throughout the year. Uh if you want to think of it as almost of anou, it's lays out expectations of what we can expect in general from the IU when we contract

007with them and what they expect from us as a district. Many of the IUs around the Commonwealth do this. We just didn't do it in the past. and the new executive director is following what's been already out there as a best practice. Any questions on that? All right, that's the end of my agenda. Um, is there anything else additionally that anyone would like to add to this? Would anyone like to adjourn? Great job. I need your That was easy. That was easy. Next time. Okay. You stay. You stay. Jerry and I are moving. Okay. All right. All good, Josh. All right. So, we'll bring the business and operations committee meeting uh up here. Uh public comment. Do we want to do that? It's the next meeting. It's at the next meeting. Okay. Okay. Good. You

008don't have any. Okay. Uh nothing for Heather, nothing for Jim. So, it's on me. So, we'll start out with the uh Caner funds. And this is an opportunity discuss to discuss the Caner funds becoming a nonprofit 501c3 educational organization. And um I think Mr. Wilson's going to give us a presentation on that. So, yes, Tom, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is u it's must be getting gotten a lot rougher in here because I don't ever remember people like Shelley having to carry around in a chair. Um there's some exciting things that Well, first of all, I'm I'm now the the president of the Caner Funds board and uh I want to to tell you what we're planning to do and also to refresh you on just

009what the Caner funds are. Slide, please. Uh the Caner funds has a mission statement to enhance the quality of the educational experience provided to the students of upperam school districts in ways not covered by the district's annual budget. So there is a symbiotic relationship between what counter funds can do and what the school board can provide. We we should be working hand in hand in hand. Caner funds have been in existence for about 15 years and it it's starting to get lost in history but the seed money to start Caner funds was provided by the administrators one year took their annual salary increase and uh donated that to the counter funds and that's what that's what started it. Uh the Canon board per uh currently includes a cross-section of stakeholders in the community. Uh the

010superintendent, the director of business operations, a school board member, two teachers, and uh several members of the community, and two students. That structure may change in the future. Uh but we would certainly have the superintendent, the director of business operations, and school board member on there. Um, we deal with funds that are donated principally through the giving spree and that's why I'm here tonight to talk to you because we need to do better than that. We can do better than that. I'm not here to say things were bad are bad and I am I stand in awe of the people who came came before me and what has been accomplished by the uh Tanner funds but I think it's time that we could step into the future and do do better things for the district.

011Slide please. So first there is a misconception that Caner funds is the giving spree. In fact, the giving spree is only a part of the Caner funds. The Caner funds have endowed funds and they have a non-endowed fund and the non-endowed fund is the giving spree. You can see there the endowed funds uh they're they come they're managed by two separate people. One is groups and people. One is the counter fund board which is the ones listed on the left hand side of that slide. Uh and the ones in the middle are managed by the superintendent. U each of those are endowed funds. The the ones in the box on the left and the one in the box the ones in the box in the middle. By endowed, I mean those funds are uh through

012gifts given to the Adams County Community Foundation on an irrevocable basis. What I mean by that is you give uh whatever you give to the Caner to the one of these funds which we collectively call the Caner funds, but you give it to the Adams County Community Foundation. You can't come back next week and say, "You know what? I need the money back. It doesn't work that way. Um, so each of those funds, by the way, because they've been in existence as long as they have been and they have reached a threshold, throw off a distribution each year. Um, the distribution is based on 4.5% of the trailing 20 quarters of performance. That's just what Adams County Community Foundation has worked out over the years. The non-endowed fund on the right is the giving spree

013and that's funds that people give and they can when you go to the giving spree you can do one of two things. You can and they'll talk to you about today money and forever money. The today money goes directly into the giving spree and it is distributed to the Caner fund board and that's the the a lot of the money that we use for the the things that we do for the the school district. You can also make a forever gift and a forever gift actually goes into the 818 fund and that money is you know invested. Uh the distributions for those three that you see on the right that are managed by the uh counter fund board, the distributions are this past year was $18,000 and the giving spree was about $17.1,000. However, if

014you inflation adjust the last five years of giving spree money that the people have given, it's no better than steady and in fact it's it's slightly less. What do I mean by that? Well, the number of dollars is more but the buying power is steady. So when I started looking at that, I started saying, you know, we we could do more, but you know that we can't keep going back to the same group of people and say, "Hey, you did great last year. We need you to do better this year." That's that's not the way you treat people. Um, and we'll talk about what what we're going to what we're looking at the future. Uh but um some of these endowed funds come with a donor intent statement and by that I mean the donor

015says I am going to start this endowed fund which would then throw money off and it's to be used for XYZ. In fact, the settle fund there, the donor intent, uh I I don't have the exact words in front of me, but we use that to support color day and it meets the the donor's intent. But if we were to decide uh you know, I'm going to use the settle fund this year to uh you know, do something else, paint a room or buy coats or help a scholarship, whatever. We We're in trouble. We can't do that because the donor has made specific what their intent is for that. So that's kind of a refresher on the Caner funds. It's I want to emphasize we think of Caner funds as the giving spree but the

016giving spree is really a part of not the totality of Caner funds. So could we go on to the next slide please? So what what does the Caner Fund board do with this money? What what is it that we support here in the school district? Keeping in mind the mission statement that I read earlier. Um the biggest thing that we do is classroom grants. We provide the money. Um the uh I'm not sure who in the district. I know Beth Graham's involved with it, but maybe the other principles too, uh, actually view the the inputs, the grants, the principles do that and and we supply the money, but, you know, that's in the neighborhood of of 15 to 17,000 a year. We support the color day events. Uh, we have an annual teachers breakfast to

017to show the teachers that we support them at the beginning of the school year and and and you know we're on their side. Uh refreshments for graduates. I I put refreshments in there because donuts seem so it just didn't seem to cover it correctly. Uh and in and in the last few years we've also uh started doing a school building grant where we provide some money to a rotating basis to the school to the various buildings for projects that the that the uh principal wants to work on. Um we do some small transportation expenses and we also uh work on a small a small scholarship and uh it's the solicitor provides your solicitor provides I think it's $500 a year and we uh we give the money to the awardee. the awardee is determined by

018um Beth Graham has some kind of a process where where she sorts through the people with the counselors I guess. I I don't really get into that. We just provide the money but it's not a lot of money but you know if you're sending a kid through college and he can he can collect 500 here a thousand there something like that it sure helps a lot. Um, these are the current uses of the funds that the Canboard Fund manages. Uh, and this list really hasn't changed much over the last few years. And when I was starting to get involved with the Caner funds, I started to be thinking that I think based on what I see at other uh, educational foundations, we could do a lot more for the district. anything that we can do

019for the district that doesn't require a tax increase, there's there's real goodness involved with that. So, could I go on to the next slide, please? All these are worthy uses of the donated funds and we remain grateful, very grateful to the members of the community who continue to provide money to help the school district through mainly through the giving spree um but also in the various endowed funds. But we see the potential to do much much more for the Upper Adams School District. Everything that we've been able to do to date, I want to emphasize, is due to the generosity of the community. And we are very lucky to live in a community where the schools and the students and the teachers and the whole corporation is supported as well as it is here in

020Upper Adams. So uh this this slide is a little bit out of order but ultimately what I am going to be discussing in about the next four or five slides is changing from the Caner funds to a Caner fund foundation. We want to become a foundation and it opens up doors that uh you know giving credit where it's due when when Dr. Bell gave me this piece of paper here um said here you need to read this and I I read through it and it was like I couldn't where did this come from? This is great stuff. It's really that what what we can do as a foundation to help the school district is so much more than classroom grants and buying donuts for for the graduates and the other things that I mentioned. It

021has that potential, but we're going to have to change somewhat. Uh we're going to have to review our bylaws. Uh we're going to have to review our structure. Our board's going to have to change in terms of membership because we we have to get, you know, I don't want to go all cvy on you here, but we got to get the right people on the bus and then those people in the right seats on the bus so we have the expertise that we need to make this happen. Um, my colleague here, Amanda Markle, and I just met yesterday with the lady that did this for Little Town, the Thunderbolt Foundation. And, uh, you know, she made it sound like it was easy. But it was interesting to me that she said the reason she went

022through all this to begin with is because she looked at what the Caner funds was doing and said, "We can do that, too." and they ended up with a foundation. And so now we're going to go after a foundation like they do, like they have done. And they're not the only one in the county that that has them. I know Gettysburg has one and a couple of the other count schools issues, but not all of them. So there's going to be some structural changes internal to counterfund board which is going to be mostly transparent to you but it but the outcome will benefit you. So could I have the next slide please? There's there's three steps that we have to look at to get to where we want to be. And those steps are becoming

023designated a nonprofit organization, getting 501c3 status, which is a um IRS designation, and finally uh becoming a designated education improvement tax credit program organization. Don't confuse this EITC with the federal earned income tax credit because they're not the same thing. They just happen to have the same acronym. So, let's look at uh the nonprofit uh is the first step. So, why are we going to go through all this? Well, this is a process that's controlled by the state. Uh it makes Caner funds eligible for a wide range of grants. Um, it offers some legal protection to the counter fund officers. Um, you start dealing with other people's money, especially large sums of money. Um, and things go south. Uh, the board members need to have protection so that their personal assets are not at jeopardy

024if something were to go wrong. Uh, but most importantly, it boosts the Caner funds credibility. All of a sudden, they're looking like something more than a club that disperses giving spree money once a year to the various things that we do. Um, we would no longer be simply a clearing house. We would be a nonprofit, a charitable nonprofit. Next, please. The 501c3 status uh opens the doors to larger donors allowing counter funds to support larger projects. There are organizations around around everywhere u that provide money to nonprofit organizations. And uh my limited experience at this is the first question they'll ask is are you a 501c3? Um, and the answer right now is no, but uh, we're gonna we're going to get that done. Um, this gets us into even wider availability of grants o

025over and above what the nonprofit designation did for us. So, um, this is this is just a process. You know, you have to apply for it through the federal government. Um we'll see how how difficult it is. You know, a lot of this is is very new to all of us, but the meeting yesterday with um the Thunderbolt Foundation executive director, uh she she was clear that you don't need to be a CPA to get this done. You can do this was what she said. Next slide, please. The final one is this EITC program. Um, this is sometimes you you hear these programs and you think this can't be true. But but in fact it is true. The general assembly each year designates a certain pool of money which they are intended to receive in

026tax returns from businesses as money that can be offset as a charitable deduction, a charitable uh donation. So if a business qualifies and the charitable foundation qualifies, then a business can make a donation from their tax return, the same money to the charitable organization. In other words, for the company, it it's no, it doesn't change their cash flow. They're going to pay this money anyway. And so the ticket is if we can work this through first of all us getting qualified and then if they're not qualified uh getting encouraging them to get qualified then some of their tax return money can go directly to Caner Fund Foundation. Um sounds easy. I have a feeling there's a lot of steps in there that have to be that have to be hoops, I should say, had to

027be run through. But this is win-win. This is this is a win for us and it's a win for the businesses because they were going to spend that money anyway. Um there's I I want to emphasize these slides are not telling us telling you or anybody this is a done deal. There's a lot that has to be done to get to this point, but if we don't start, we'll never get there. So, why are we doing this? I want to have my colleague Amanda Markle, who has a professional experience with fundraising and development, to talk to this slide, please. Tom, good evening, everyone. I'm Amanda Markle. Um I am currently the head of the distribution committee for the Caners Fund. Um I'm a parent in the district and I've been a development and fundraising professional

028for the last um 15 years. Um in my own experience, I have worked with organizations at various points of all three of these steps. Um so I have a little bit of background knowledge of how the whole process works and what it takes to get there. Um and I just want to speak for a moment on why we've decided to do this right now. Um why is this the right time to make the next step for the Caner funds? Um so the first point is that if we look at philanthropy um both across the nation and in our community um while philanthropy in general continues to go up which is fantastic um we're seeing participation numbers go down. The vast majority of philanthropic dollars are coming from organizations, from larger companies, and from major gift

029donors. Right now, for the most part, all three of those are not available to the Caner Funds board. Um, we don't really have the capacity as we are now as an organization to go after those dollars and those dollars are there. Um, so by doing this, by even taking the first step of just becoming a 501c3, um, we are opening ourselves up to grant money to money from organizations. And as we move down that line a little bit further, we're opening ourselves up to the opportunity to do some really strategic major gift don um fundraising to look to some people in our community or even outside of our community who have the capacity and the inclination to make a gift that will make a difference rather than relying on either the community foundation or the

030school itself to do that for us. We'll be able to step up and take a lot more of that responsibility on so that everybody else can do their jobs as well. Um the next um part is that we get asked for more and more money every year. Um as the head of the distribution committee, I have the absolute privilege of being the first one to read through all these grants. And to tell you that I get emotional when I read through them. It is our teachers are asking for things that are just going to have such an impact on our students. Um we just closed um the grant applications for this year. We had 39 grant applications and they are phenomenal. I wish I had the capacity to fund every single one of these myself.

031Um we will be able to fund about half of those this year. Um and that is just for teacher grants. So there are worthy projects that people are ready to move forward with that if we had more money, if we had the capacity to do a little bit more fundraising to go out and get some of those dollars that are there, um we could make a lot more happen and it's going to have an immediate impact on our students. Um and then the importance of diversifying our fundraising efforts. Um we rely very heavily right now on the giving spree and that's not necessarily guaranteed. Um, we don't know for sure yeartoear what the giving spree is going to look like, how it's going to happen, and that is the only time of year that we

032can go out and ask for people to give money that we will have immediate access to. If someone decides in May that they would like to give a gift to the Caner funds, they can do that, but that immediately goes into our endowment. It's not money that's um accessible to us right away. So, by being able to have more ways to fund raise, um things like events, um we talked about um yesterday, uh golf tournaments, things like that. Um really fun ways to engage the community and bring in some more funds for our students and teachers. Um and also to be able to be there for other community organizations if they have points where they're faltering. Um we have a lot of organizations, nonprofits that work with the school district that are very very reliant

033on um grants, federal grants, state grants. Those are not always guaranteed and they do not always know yeartoear if they're going to get that money. Um I know from personal experience some of those organizations don't know if the next month that money is going to come in. So um to be able to work with them and fill those gaps should they arise would be an incredibly powerful tool for the Caner funds. Um and last but not at all least is we are ready. We have the people that we need. We still need to do a little bit more recruiting. Um but we are incredibly fortunate that Caner funds has been very well taken care of. We have had excellent leadership in the Caner funds. Um we are in very good place both in terms of

034leadership and in terms of um our current finances. We have some very very dedicated board members who are ready to go to do this. Um, so I for one am just thrilled to be here now when all of this is happening. Um, I think that to put this off any further would be an absolute mistake. Um, and there's really no reason why we can't move forward and do this now and open ourselves up to a lot more opportunity for the district. Great. Thank you. So, let me uh wrap this up with the with the final slide. And uh I didn't I didn't come here tonight, nor did Amanda, to ask for anything. We're just here to inform and uh get your support, your help us out if kind of support uh as we go forward.

035Um the the the Caner board funds I'm sorry, the Caner Funds board has two distinct goals. The first is to continue the support efforts that have benefited the district to date. We're very proud of the fact that we can help where we can help. We want to expand on that, but we're we're very happy that uh we're able to manage the funds to date to make that happen. The second goal is to expand, perhaps greatly expand support so that students are better prepared to learn and teachers have what they need to enhance classroom experiences and successes and all the while doing that without coming back to or having the board have to decide on a tax increase. We we don't control we don't control any near what you control. But if we can provide some

036of the things that are needed, we think that helps take some of the pressure off the annual budget that you all have to wrestle with. Um the Caner Fund board wants to deepen our relationship with the school board. I think that in the last few years, certainly the last few years that that I was privileged to sit in your chairs, um, the Caner Fund briefings to the board sort of waned and except for the the board member who reported, you know, at the normal normal times, but in years gone by, somebody from the Caner Fund board would come in and speak and tell tell the board what was going on. Um the Caner funds don't operate independent of the school board. They operate in conjunction with in they have a there's a symbiotic relationship between

037those two organizations. So we want to enhance that as time goes forward and uh hopefully once we pull all this off we can come to you with the ability to help in different ways. Some of those ways are are I mean, there are things that perhaps I know I had never thought of. When when we were speaking with this executive director yesterday, she was saying that they have a she had a name for it, but basically it was a closet with coats and shoes. And when a teacher says, you know, little Johnny here, his his shoes are falling apart, you know, or he's he comes to school without a coat. Well, you can't a kid can't learn if he's, you know, cold or his feet are hanging out. You know, perhaps those are small examples,

038but um taking care of the students, taking care of the teachers needs uh that the that the school district for whatever reason can't provide. That's what we would like to do. And when we can, as Amanda said, if we can approach foundations that donate money for specific purposes, but money that far exceeds what we deal with with the giving spree, that's our goal. So, I've taken enough of your time. Um, if you have any questions, I'll try to answer them. If they're hard questions, I'll have Amanda come back to the podium. I'd like to say thanks Dr. Bill for getting this seed planted and this idea going and thanks for running with it. Tom, my question would be, and this might be for Amanda, what is going to happen with the endowed funds that are

039currently held at Adams County Community Foundation? Does all that go into the new No. No. Okay. It remains there. We're a charity charitable. We want to be a charitable foundation. Okay. So money that we would get uh from grants and whatnot, we would we would have to have a bank account which we do not currently have and they would go there. We are not trying to compete with the Adams County Community Foundation. In fact, I think the Adams County Community Foundation would applaud our efforts to raise money in other ways because, you know, they're the giving spree for them is only a very small part of what they do. So, these endowed funds that that I had on a previous slide, they're still going to generate a lot of money that we will we will

040want to use on a yearly basis. will they will stay exactly where they are managed by the Adams County Community Foundation. Um they are the ones that are already there as their own endowed funds. Um those will be still financially managed by the Adams County Community Foundation. Um our larger endowed fund is part of a pool of money that's managed by the community foundation. So while we will still receive the distributions from that to spend as we see fit that what's there now is going to stay with them and will be managed just as always has been. Okay. The difference the the big difference is I I go back to when you donate money to the count community foundation it's there to be invested and grown. So, if we had this, an example might be

041this. The school board says, you know, we really need to do this at whatever this is, and it's going to cost $50,000. Figure out what that is. So, school board comes to the counterund board, foundation board, and says, "We would like to do this, but we're having a a hard time coming up with the money." Well, I can't go to the community foundation say I need $50,000 because their money is be given on an irrevocable basis. But if I got a grant from somebody, I could put that in my Caner Foundation checking account and it sits there and it's ready for immediate use. If if they made a donation of the same amount of money to the community foundation, I can't touch that. So that's why, like you said, if someone donates in May, it

042would go to the Adams County Community Foundation and then it gets put in one of those funds so it can't be touched. Yes. Yes. Essentially. So when except for the giving spree money like that would be yes one of the funds that was listed there was called the uh agency fund and the agency fund if if I were to make if I were to sit down and write a check right now to Dr. bell say here here's a check I want to I want to help support the the whatever in all likelihood he's going to take that check and send it to Adams County Community Foundation and it will go into what's called the agency fund the only person that can contribute to the agency fund is the school district but if you know let

043if I could write a $50,000 check I wouldn't be standing here the first of all. Yeah. But if the school board said, um, I I got this thing and I need $50,000. Um, if I wrote the check out to the to the Upper Adam school district, they might have some difficulty just cashing that check, legal difficulties. But if I had a foundation that gave that money and I could put it in the foundation checking account as opposed to the Adams County Community Foundation, it's it's not it's very accessible. It's not going to gain anything. You know, whatever I'm sure you have a checking account and you know that each month you get, you know, a dime. Yeah. That that'll be the same process. Whereas if you put that into a money market or invested it,

044you would get more, but you wouldn't have access to the principal necessarily. So there's going to be two entities, entities. There's Caner funds is still going to exist and then the Caner Foundation is going to exist both completely separate. Yes, the names the names may change. Okay. But nothing that we've talked about tonight will affect what the community foundation does, nor will it affect the money that we get from the community foundation. And this is pretty standard for most organizations that do hold endowments with the community foundation. Our 501c3s are doing their own fundraising. This is not at all abnormal. We're probably one of the outliers not being a 501c3. Um, I work for a foundation locally that we participate very heavily in the giving spree. We have an endowment with the giving spree. Uh,

045with Adams County Community Foundation, we participate in the giving spree. Um, we do our own fundraising. We have our own bank accounts. It works with each other. So, that endowment will not go away. We will not stop putting money into the endowment at the community foundation. That will continue to serve the purpose that it does. You won't get hate mail from Ralph Certain, but it will open us up to a lot more opportunity for bigger gifts and an opportunity for us to be a little bit more proactive in the fundraising that we do. Great. All right. Well, thank you. Is there any more questions before we move on? Thanks for the information, Jerry. Before you move on, thank you guys. Greatly appreciate it. Our ask and you may want to basically what the ask is,

046and I'll make it as the superintendent. In order to do this, there's a series of fees that uh need to be paid to submit for a nonprofit 501c3. And what I would be looking for the board to support number one is the the caner funds as they are now would be looking to pay those fees uh for that. But in addition to that you need would need to have um additional solicitor support. Uh most of this could be run through a parillegal which is the lowest fee uh from the legal perspective and in conjunction and in combining with caner funds in the school district. Uh, one of the, uh, asks that I would look at for the board is for us to pick up those, uh, legal fees in those documents that need to be

047completed for any one of those three series, uh, the nonprofit, the 501c3, and the educational improvement organization. um something that they had discussed before. I wanted to make sure that uh you guys heard that and kind of get anything from you tonight if you're opposed to any of that. We do not believe the fees from the district legal perspective would be very high at all. Uh wouldn't require us to go uh obviously well outside any sort of budgetary focus. It certainly could be provided, but I think that really ties together the end result where you're going to see I believe just like these two do a lot more money donated, a lot more money given to the kids and that's what we are all about. Uh so really that's the ask and my question would

048be does anybody see any problem with moving in that direction because as was expressed earlier I don't think you want to if you want to move in this direction I don't think you want to wait so we know what those costs could be estimates or on the fees and the the legal there's actually uh what we what I learned yesterday is there is an organization who will do this turnkey. They will help you the whole thing and they have a pricing scheme and you know of course I haven't talked to him yet but the looking at the website it looked like the topline number would be somewhere south of $2500 for the whole thing. It's not a it's not a any sort of financial burden. well smaller than what you will support for our kids.

049Thank you. We'll we'll get back to you with well I I want to come back just to talk about counter funds but if we have a need for cost sharing in the future I'll come back and we can have that discussion. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on. Anybody who came in, could you please sign in? And I think the clipboard is right behind Dr. Bell. So, if you wouldn't mind passing that around. Thank you, Katie. Thanks. Thanks for starting. Okay, we've got a long list tonight, but uh I think we can I think we can uh get through pretty quickly. We'll start out with item 4.2 and 4.3. Um these are just uh two items to um send uh delinquent taxes both real estate and per capita to York Adams uh to uh York Adams.

050Help me. York Adams Tax Bureau. Tax Bureau. Okay. And you can see the totals there in in your um in your agenda. We'll go to item for 4.4. transportation for the summer enrichment program. We talked about that a few weeks ago. This is the transportation aspect of that. Uh 4.5 is more transportation for the extended school year. Uh we used to call this summer school. It's the same thing. No, it's extended. Extended school year. Okay. We're dating you. I am dating myself. Two different things. Oh, they are. Sure. So, those are pretty straightforward. So, now we'll go to uh Mrs. Hobbs for a budget update. Sure. So, tonight on the agenda, there's a lot of items related to the budget. Um 4.6 and 4.7 basically go together along with 4.8. Um so, 4.7 is going

051to take a lot of what I'm going to talk about here in 4.6. And then 4.8 8 is just so we can advertise and put the the bid or not the bid document the budget document out for public viewing for 30 days. Um that is one of the requirements for PTE. So once again as in all of our budget presentations there's lots of numbers. Um it is attached in agenda manager for anyone that is following along or up on the screen. But tonight I just want to highlight some updates for our current budget where I think we may end up with revenues and expenditures. talk about the fiscal year 26 and once again the preliminary budget which is the same numbers that we're going to talk about as well and then just the timeline that

052this will the budget will need to be approved uh by the board in in June. So, as we look at revenues for fiscal year 25, um once again, you know, you've been hearing me saying over the last couple weeks, our revenue is strong on the local, state, and federal side. Local, um I had some concern with some of our local numbers about a month ago, but I'm happy to report our real estate numbers came into almost what was budgeted. It was just shy by like $20,000. So, I take that as a win. Um and the details behind all this is on the next couple slides. the state once again the board approved the budget last year and then we realized from the state that we were getting more money because of the state budget being

053passed late so that has helped on the state side and once again federal as Mr. Alvin always presents with his title funds. Um that has remained steady and our adjustments for this year were very small. As we look on to expenditures once again they're coming in right about where we thought they're actually a little bit um what was budgeted and what is projected. You can see that on the far right hand side we're almost about dead even. You know we're it's only a couple thousand dollars off. So I take that as a win as well. Once again, that's a lot of kudos to our administrative staff that watches what they're spending. We're looking at all the bills as they're coming in as well. So, once again, this will continue. And keep in mind, this is

054only a projection as of right now. Things can change. We will get bills into August and September that will actually be contributed to this current fiscal year. Um, and we won't wrap that up till the audit time in September. But once again, I think everything looks good on the revenue side and the expenditure side. So when we're looking at that, you can see in the middle column when the board approved the budget, we thought we were going to have a deficit of about 2.2 million. Right now, I'm projecting that we're going to add to the fund balance about $180,000. So that is good news going into fiscal year 26. Historically, we had been adding to the fund balance. So this is following that same trend that we have, you know, been seeing for the last

055couple years. Once again, a lot of that is due to the state budgets being passed late and, you know, you as the board has taken a risk, you know, not increasing taxes and then um the state side does come through at a later time. Do we think that may happen for this current year? We don't know. Everything's been quiet once again on the state side. No one has been really having any conversations. So, what has changed with fiscal year 26? There's just a little bit of um revenue that has been updated and expenditures. We're seeing some of those placement contracts come in. We have several of those on the agenda this evening. We have some of those are still outstanding. So, we're still monitoring those as they're coming through. We also are still waiting for

056our district liability insurance increases. Um, once again, that's a process that we have to go through each year for our district liability any workman's comp. Reached out to the carrier today. They are still working on those numbers. So hopefully by early June, I will have those for you. As I mentioned, we're waiting for some placement costs for River Rock, New Don. So what has changed in the revenue? You're going to see the local revenue has decreased 1.4 million, but the state increased 1.4 million. That is because the homestead farmstead numbers came out. They were released on Friday. Once again, we talked about the homestead farmstead um last month and how that trend has been increasing over the years. So, it increased about $180,000 from last year to this year, which is about 14%. And to

057the average taxpayer, you're going to probably see an increase of a reduction. You know, when that homestead farmstead amount gets applied to your tax bill, you're going to probably see an additional $40 reduction on your bill this year compared to what you had this this past year. Once again, those are, you know, all estimates at this time. Um, in June, you'll also be approving the Homestead Farmstead resolution that actually details all that out. and we send that to the county and that information then is put on those tax bills for those individuals that qualify for the homestead farmstead reduction. Any questions on that? That is the one piece of information we are waiting on um from the state side that does have to be released by a certain date. So the next couple slides once

058again is just the details supporting what I have just said. Um, and I included projections for where I think we're going to end up for, you know, this year, which all ties back. Once again, we have the real estate. You're going to see the reduction because of that homestead farmstead. The interimm real estate, you know, where I think we may end up, you know, looking pretty good where you may have an additional 15,000 this year. Um, once again, interms are, you know, anyone that does improvements to their properties, they receive an additional tax bill. What does that look like next year? I kept it about the same amount. Earned income, as Mr. Wilson mentioned, this is different than what he was just speaking about. We've been seeing um historically growth in this area. So, I

059did increase that for this year. Transfer taxes, folks buy and sell property within the district, and delinquent taxes. for an example for what you just uh looked at, you know, what we turn over to the tax collection and how that goes through the collection process. We get that back through um in the district and that gets applied to this account investments. Um I kept this a little bit on the low side as projections because we all know interest rates are starting to come down. Not sure how low they may go. Um, so we might have as we're looking at this next year at this time, we may see that we actually underbudgeted. Once again, it's a risk, you know, I'd rather take and be conservative than be higher on the revenue. IDA funds, this is

060the pass through that is received from the IU. And this was just a proposed number looking at our past averages that we've been seeing. And once again, this is a lot of detail in this slide. Nothing has changed since the last conversation we had, but I wanted to put that information here so it all ties back for you. Now, as we flip to the state side, I will note you're going to see some things highlighted in like this orang-ish color, and there's a reason for that as we walk through the presentation. But right now as we look at the state budget and what's proposed in the far right hand side, everything is flat for what we are currently receiving this year. So in fiscal year 25 and basic education, we are projected to get 8.1

061or 8.7 million. That's what I started out with for next year. However, if you go out and look at the state website and their spreadsheets that they have, you're going to see that we are slated to get an additional $87,000. Do we know if that's going to happen? We don't know. But this is a best case scenario. Anything highlighted in the in this p or orangish color is like best case scenario, but not factored in to this budget or the preliminary budget. Once again, for special ed, we're looking at at 1.4 million. We're slated to get an additional 48,000. Once again, those numbers were very small compared to where they've been historically where we would add in a little bit of risk. I did not in any add in any risk because those numbers are

062not large numbers or increases that we are anticipating. In the end, yes, we'll help, but right now, I did not want to factor it in because it would be a bigger risk for the district to include that at this time. Proposed vocational education, you're seeing that we would actually get a decrease compared to what we're receiving this year. So, that is included because I'm I'd rather once again factor that in as a decrease and not overbudget in that area. Um, so once again, if we end up with more, everyone wins. Transportation, I just carried over from what we're receiving this year. The learning grants, there's two of them. We always receive the $268,000 one, so that remains constant. The one below, this is where it could be a significant impact to the district. According to

063the the budget sheets that are released, we could receive an additional $842,000. Once again, I did not factor that in because honestly, I have not heard any conversations on the budget side and I think recommending that to the board would put a very big risk to the district. Dr. Bell, have you heard any conversations on on your side as well? Very quiet. You know, we're about six weeks away from June 30th. Once again, everything else lines up here. You're going to see about halfway down, you're going to see the 1.4 million for the Homestead Farmstead here at this 6340 that was added in here. And then as we look at the federal side, I included this slide just because it had some ESSER money from historically, but once again, ESSER funding is completed. Um, and

064we use those for items that were already in our budget. They were not additional programs or things that were reoccurring throughout the years. And title funds I just kept flat because we don't have the estimates yet. Mr. Alban's going to his conference in a few weeks. We might know something in a few weeks. We might not. Who knows? So, any questions on any pieces of the local, state, or federal? Hopefully, this is sort of routine. You've heard me. And I hope you don't dream about these numbers in bed or, you know, say what is going on. So, this just gives a summary of the revenue as 30 what I'm projecting for fiscal year 26, a little bit over 36 million. And as we look at the expenditure side, um I do have Mr. Graham here

065as well this evening if you have any questions re regarding athletics or um anything in that way. These are some of the things that were included in the budget that we talked about early on in the calendar year. The summer enrichment program at Bigville Elementary. That's one thing that we talked about this evening with the transportation. Um, this piece here is one of the items that can be paid for with the ready tolearn funds that we are currently re receiving. District translators, that's um for individuals to go in and help with conferences for any of our bilingual students and parents. Speech pathologists that was changing from a contracted position to an employee, which we have already approved those employees last month. additional assistant coaches that was for like cross country, baseball, and softball. Girls wrestling

066was a a topic, security items throughout the district. So, these were things in talking with the SSO and things that we can do across the district to en enhance our security uh measures. And also some of this was being used to pay for our new rafter system, which is our new check-in system that is being used across the district along with our emergency management system. So, we're combining two systems. Crossing guards, we've actually worked that out with Aramark that hopefully they will be able to cover that with our contract that we did with the renewal of Chartwell. So, we are still finalizing that piece. So, I feel like this has been a manageable list. Um, any questions of things to keep in the budget as we start moving forward to the the June budget? Once

067again, these are factored into the preliminary budget. The preliminary budget can be higher than the final budget, but anything that we want to have any conversation on. Would you just speak to the security piece again? I'm not clear on what that is. Yes. So, we have the board approved to purchase the raptor system for the check-in and the emergency management piece. So, we used some title 4 funding for that and there's some funds that we would need to cover that bill. And then also there were some other security items and we can talk more about the security piece in p in executive session but these were things that as the SSO was looking across the district some of the things that we could do to enhance the security. Okay. So is the raptor is that

068like when I go into the elementary school to do something and I have to give my driver's license and all that is that the raptor that is correct. Yes. All right. Got it. Thank you. Is there any more discussion on any of these items? Um, summer enrichment that might be grant funded, correct? Yes. District translators. This is for um and and you mentioned it's help with conferences, elementary, intermediate school, uh, speech language pathologist. That could probably come off the list. Additional coaches, you mentioned what that was. Girls wrestling. Do we want to have a discussion about girls wrestling? This is an on this will be an ongoing cost to the the district. And maybe Mr. Graham, you can fill us in about interest in the program, so forth. Uh couple months ago, I guess it

069presented at a committee meeting, I think it was, and I just kind of went over some details about girls wrestling. girls wrestling. Now, mind you, when I say it's the fastest growing sport in the States, because obviously there wasn't girls wrestling prior to that. That being said, there's always been girls wrestling involved within the program and they've been rostered on our boys team. Um, so I'm just going to go over some bullet points here that I went over a few months ago uh at a previous committee meeting. Adding uh girls wrestling increases winter sports option for girls. Uh currently the only options for girls in the winter are cheerleading and girls basketball. Uh adding girls wrestling also assists in complying with Title 9. School's compliance cannot be negatively impacted uh by adding girls wrestling. Um,

070this past year for winter signups, we had nine girls at from grades 9 to 12 sign up for girls wrestling and we had 13 girls uh, seventh seventh and eighth graders sign up for for girls wrestling. Now, that's not how many came out, but we can attribute that to the fact that they would have had to wrestle boys, which determined uh, their reasoning for not coming out. What we did end up with was four at the high school level and three at the junior high level. Some of those ninth graders, too, are rostered on our junior high teams just because of weight classes and where they fit in within those two programs. Currently in the state, there's 243 schools that sponsor girls wrestling. 61 of them are right here in district three. And as of

071yesterday, we had an AD meeting within our league. And if we were to approve girls wrestling, we would be the 16th team in the York Adams League that would have approved uh girls wrestling. uh PAAA and YA our league currently provide opportunities for postseason and girls wrestling. This is in the forms of tournaments, districts, regionals, states. Um adding girls wrestling is somewhat cost effective in a sense that we do have the facilities already. We do have some of the equipment as far as the wrestling mats and things like that. the budget item or the amount that you see up there is you can look at that as financially as a worst case scenario or a perfect situation in the sense that we have 40 girls come out. We're running a full slate 22 point schedule.

072We're going to tournaments. We're hosting tournaments and then we're entering the postseason which could all be which could very well be a season in itself depending on how far those kids advance. Uh, but those additional expenses are coaches, tournament registrations, travel supplies, uniforms, game help officials. And when I say a worst case scenario or perfect situation, I'm talking about probably in the beginning. It's we're not going to come really anywhere near that money, but we have to be prepared to be at that number in the event that we don't know who's going to come out or what that's going to look like. Um over 120 varsity college women wrestling programs uh currently exist. So there's a post-secary opportunity. This is a big one for me. Forming a girls wrestling team allows girls to wrestle. Girls

073instead of being forced to compete with boys. One of the problems, we ran into this this year. One of the problems with girls wrestling, if you don't sponsor a girls wrestling team, they are provided an opportunity, but they have to be rostered on our boys team. So, our boys team has a maximum of 22 competitions that they can wrestle. What I can't do is schedule a girls competition and not affect the boys competition points. So meaning like if I have four girls and I schedule a girls competition and I have 22 points, I have to add those points to the 22 which is over the maximum amount of work we're allowed. So it really restricts the ability for us to give girls opportunities because being rostered on the boys team, they're more than likely not

074going to be the ones wrestling during those uh opportunities or those events. So adding a girls team would create a their own schedule, their own tournaments to be able to wrestle uh girls in those events and not be not be uh lose opportunities over things. Um, yeah, just according to sanctioned PA, this is the a big resource in in obviously wrestling in the state of Pennsylvania, data across the country supports the idea that when girls have the opportunity to wrestle girls that it grows the score and increases the number of girls that we wrestle. I think I just went over that. Uh, when and if you look at the signups or when I talk about the signups from this past winter, we did have 22 girls signed up to which only seven came out. But

075you can contribute that based on that information that girls just won't come out if they have to rest. There's a safety issue with that as well. So recognize the girls would increase the strength of the wrestling program, athletics department, school community by engaging more student athletes, providing them with valuable social, physical, and academic opportunities. Uh, one I'll also say to end if you add girls wrestling, wrestling is a sport that's unique that's not going to pull from other more than likely will not pull from other sports. Uh, meaning that if you're a basketball player, you're probably going to continue to play basketball, not wrestle. So, if anybody's interested in wrestling, basically what you're pulling is is new participation from other areas of the school that otherwise wouldn't do anything if you if you didn't offer.

076One more thing I did recently did do a survey um for grades seven, eight, nine, 10 and 11. Uh basically the survey was a list of all sports with numbers one to six uh left to right and that was given to all those all student athletes in those grades. And they had to choose from one to six the sports that they would more than likely compete in. one being most likely to six being least likely. So then what I had to do with that data is so if a girl picked field hockey and then her second choice was volleyball, let's say, well I'd have to cross out volleyball because field hockeyy's in the same season and field hockey was the first choice to narrow down the data to get a more of a precise number

077of or data of interest. So when I when I did all that and went through um obviously our popular sport is is well track and field track and field was the highest and then soccer volleyball was a high number but right beside volleyball is girls wrestling and that goes back to my point with girls wrestling being in the winter pulling a unique uh unique demographic into that sport. I don't think it's necessarily going to affect uh what your basketball program would otherwise have uh or your cheerleading program. Whereas if you're adding a sport in the fall, one of the things that's a challenge for us being a small school is just for girls in the fall. We have field hockey, soccer, uh girls tennis, cross country, and cheerleading. That's five sports for in the old

078ways a double A school I guess AAA. So adding adding uh something in the fall or even a spring for that matter would would uh definitely impact what you're currently offering and sustainability has to be uh one of the things that we look at whenever we decide whether or not we're going to add something. Right. So, it's interesting that you say volleyball is popular because I've had a lot of questions about that myself. Um because most of the other schools in the area have volleyball and I know there's a club here as well. Yeah, there's a once a week I think Yeah. No, there's definitely interest and and you know, if the board wants to move in that direction, I'm not opposed. All I'm saying is is we want to be careful when we do

079that because if we if we like or with the programs we do offer, what's going to end up happening is and I I know you you can see this in surrounding districts, whenever you have too much, other programs start to suffer. And when our programs start to suffer, we are members of a league which we have obviously joined and are committed to being built into schedules and having those competitions. And as such, those are two years. Those are two-year cycles that we're building in. And to to from one year to the next, I think everybody's heard about Fairfield, our neighbor. They're struggling obviously, and they offer all that. They offer golf, volleyball, field hockey, cheering, you know, they off they offer it all. And what I don't want is, as I would hope you wouldn't

080want, is to thin ourselves out to a point where uh we're struggling to to to promote or provide the opportunity for program. And the the issue is that volleyball is a fall sport and not winter and girls wrestling would be a winter sport. So, as a unique draw, an individual draw, what happens uh if we budget for 35,000 and you don't use all of those funds, what happens to the balance? Does that roll over to the following year? It would hit into the fund balance. It would just be an expense that we wouldn't have all okay, you know, so that would go into our year-end savings into our fund balance. Again, it's those unknown costs. We have 30 girls that come out. We're gonna have to order at least 40 right there,000. Yeah. Okay. So,

081you're just preparing for that knowing that you're probably not use it. You want to use it, right? It's one of those things. You'd rather overprepare than underprepare. So, would you For the girls, Russell, would you need a head coach and assistant coach right away or just a head coach until we build up the I guess build up the numbers? Yeah, we've talked about that. Depending on the numbers, if they're um we got to be careful with this, too. So, boys, we offer boys varsity, we offer head and assistance. So, if we sponsor girls, we have to offer assistance. Same thing with the junior high to get started until we find people. Yes, we we can move. We have to show that we are obviously efforting that. But uh we could start with maybe two coaches

082to get it started, but eventually we are going to have to mirror what we're So you said 16 teams in New York Adams. How many of those are in Adams County? burnt alone has its notes though anymore. Uh I Gettysburg, Burm Del. They're talking about it and I think they were one of the teams that raised their hand. I think there's four or five schools that are doing what I'm doing right now to try it. and New Oxford, I do not believe. No, but they're talking about two. But from the league standpoint with 16 teams, that's two divisions. Depending on numbers, we're talking two divisions having a league schedule, two-year cycle within those divisions. So, that's the direction obviously the league is going to go with that many teams. So, it has grown and taken

083off within the league, not just in the state district. We have plenty of opportunity even even nearby without like county camping springs go to Dolphin County northern it would they wrestle like same nights like different times or would it be opposite nights right now but here again there's a shortage of officials so that's another thing that they're working through but right now the way I know people have done it they wrestle the same nights So they'll do they'll do uh junior high and then if there's two junior high they'll do them beside each other and then they may do two varsities beside each other. If there's no junior high they may do they'll do one before the other but they are doing the same right now. I think if it grows and gets too big

084it probably will be like basketball one's away towards that. Okay, thanks for the information, Mr. Graham. I appreciate it. So, we have a list of items here. Summer enrichment program, and I kind of went through this, but I'll just go down them briefly again. Summer enrichment program probably grant funded. Uh, speech language pathologist taken care of, and then crossing guards probably taken care of. So, that leaves just under $85,000 of new asks on this list. Is there any interest from the board to pull or revise any of these asks or adjust them? If not, we'll go to the next item. Next of your items. Okay. Okay. So, as Mr. Wber mentioned, all of this is already factored into the expenditures. And so as a summary for expenditures for fiscal year 26, we're looking at a

085little bit over $38 million. And you're saying, okay, well, we talked about the 36 million in revenue, the 38 million in expenses. So yes, there is a deficit of about $2 million. So on this slide, I have like the orang-ish color showing the fund balance that we're thinking about adding as a projection for fiscal year 25, what we're currently looking at. And that's going to carry through one of these next two proposals. The yellowish color, the column on the um second from the right is the worst case scenario. If we're not receiving any other additional state funding, those orange colors that I mentioned about the $2 million is our variance. The best state case, which I have the gold star, you know, so we always want the gold star, would be a variance of just

086about 1.1 million. That is the best case scenario with where we are currently. So once again, how do we cover those variances and I know this is very tiny. So once again, if you look at the worst case and we talked about, you know, how we would use a combination of some of the funds in assigned fund balances and then using some from the unassigned in both scenarios. So for an example in the worst case and the board can decide and you need to let me know how you want you know to use or where to pull the variance from say that we used about 522,000 from the debt assigned fund. Um we're using aboutund I mean let me back up 691,000 from the debt fund 125,000 from medical technology. When we purchased the iPads,

087we said that we were going to pull those funds from the technology assigned funds. So just shy of $800,000. The unassigned, we would be using about $461,000. So in the end, where does that leave us with the fund balances? So I have those highlighted for you once again in the yellow worst case scenario. and why I have the error drawn there and the number six behind that we according to our board policy our unassigned fund balance kind of needs to be lower than 8%. So once again I'm just verifying that once again we are within that range according to our board policy. If we go to the best case scenario once again using some combination um from those assigned funds and unassigned funds if you choose to you know where do we end up? we

088could be looking at 8% so we're right on the fringe. So at that point I would recommend to the board moving some of those unassigned funds into one of the assigned funds. So in summary for fiscal year 25 we're in really good condition and fiscal year 26 I believe we are in really good condition as well especially if all those the state funding comes through if we have that um golden star in the end. So once again, I'll continue to monitor this. You'll hear at least one more budget presentation from me at the beginning of June before you have to accept the and adopt the final budget. But once again, we do have some of those special uh program costings that we're looking at the cyber and charter enrollments. You know, Mr. Walmart did ask

089me earlier when he was looking through the state portion in the revenue this year we're receiving u some reimbursement for charter schools of about $73,000 that is not a proposal for next year you know so that's revenue that we're losing as a district for any cyber charter enrollment what the conversations have been was about having a flat tuition rate but once again that has been silent and we'll continue to monitor from any of the state developments. Um, from Dr. Bell's perspective, my perspective, and Mr. Alb's perspective, and we all work together in trying to figure out what we're hearing in all our groups that we belong to. And then once again, June 3rd, we'll I'll do another presentation and then by the June 17th, we'll be asking for the final adoption. Does anyone have any

090other questions from this evening? Okay, thank you Mrs. Ops. We'll move on to item 144.7 and this is just the preliminary budget that you'll send off to the state. 4.8 is tenative adoption uh of the preliminary budget which would be advertised. 4.9 is the dental contract with for the dental hygienist for next fiscal year. Doesn't look like there's any price increases on that. Any comments? I'm going to ask the same thing I asked last time. Sure. Um, I had mentioned before that I was aware that there were two other contractors and based on the contracts that I saw, we could potentially be paying significantly less and $750 based on the numbers that I saw of the kids that are having the mandated screening. So, I was just wondering if if we looked at that, did

091we do anything related to that? I mean, I see we have this contract again, so I'm guessing no, but I guess I'm just curious why. I think we got some information last year. Or was it smiles was one and the other one was I don't recall. Family first was one of those family first had recommended. That rings a bell. Um can do you want to provide some information about them? We can look at it again if this is too high. The contracts not to exceed $7500 and again that's what it was in fiscal 25. I mean I'm happy um to provide it. I think I have provided it before. I have some copies of contracts from other districts and again I don't have the recent numbers from I think 2324 of the number of students

092that required the mandated but based on what we had previously and the contract that I reviewed it looked like we could potentially pay between 750 and $1,500 instead of 7500. Correct. Can you give that information to Mrs. tops and can we look that over and kind of compare it and then we can table it. Is it on the consent agenda tonight? Not for tonight. Tonight. Okay. So, we don't need to table that. We'll just uh put it on standby for FMI for more information. Okay. And may I ask a clarification? Do we know what we have paid? This is not to exceed like what those numbers typically are. Um I can pull those but it's usually right it's the max number of whatever Mrs. Brewer has in her contract because of the number of students

093that she has seen but I can pull that as well. Now um Mrs. plank just regarding your your request um you'll send me information about the smiles and the first family first correct um so I know we have the contract piece but have you had or have you heard of what the response or what the feedback has been to those other districts that you're aware of? No, I haven't done okay any of that. So, I will research that as well, but I know that they've been in place for a while. And again, I know this contract has been in place for a while. So, it's possible that they weren't around when we originally established the contract, but now I'm aware that it's something all the other districts used. I recall some of the conversation, am

094I allowed to talk? No. Under this new policy. Oh, yeah. I'm confused by this whole new Have at it. Have at it. Have at it. As long as you want. I recall when we discussed this last year, there was a lot of um positive feedback about Mrs. Brewer and her relationship that she had with the students and that was a concern that we had with another agency coming in. Is it the same people all the time? Is it random people coming in? I don't know the answer to that. I'm just throwing it out that she Mrs. Burrow was very wellliked and respected. I don't know. Just throwing it out there. Yeah, I recall there was some there was a downside to smiles and family first. I don't recall what it was. This is a year

095year ago conversation. Um maybe it had to do with the mobile van or something. Um but we can report back and see what those numbers look like. Okay, we'll keep moving here. Uh item 4.10 is the PSBA membership renewal and it looks like that's increasing slightly uh just under $100 for next year. and just jump in if if you want to make a comment. Uh we'll go to the next item, IU13. Uh this is sort of a a joint purchase with the IU. Is that right? So the there's a slight increase on this from last year. What what this is is the licensing that allows us to run our infrastructure here at the school districts and uh assigned license for our students and faculty for Microsoft services. Um there's a I think it's like a

096$2,500 or $2,800 char or extra fee on this for a consortium support agreement between all the districts that are part of the IU13 buying this these services and they're kind of forcing it on the districts. So, it's a benefit for us if we ever run into anything that we can't resolve from global data consultants or the district. So, there's not much we can do about it to get out of that small. That was going to be the next question. Yeah. When Microsoft gets you, they got you. Okay. Uh the independent auditor is 4.12 and this item is to uh do another year with Coconau Erns Myers and Berg and uh the cost of the audits to be $13,350 a slight increase of $150 and still I don't know how Mrs. Hobs secured this wonderful contract

097at that price but I am impressed. Okay, we'll move on to some some other items here. 14.13 is the yellow breaches contract. Uh there's going to be a decrease due to fewer seats anticipated for next fiscal year. Marie is the next item. Uh looks like a tuition increase for them. This is for autism and emotional emotionally disturbed students. Next item is four 4.15 and this is the uh transitional consultant contract with Dr. Bell. Uh it's attached in the agenda. Is there any uh discussion that that we want to have about this or maybe Dr. Bell, you want to give a a brief overview of of what this could entail? Sure, no problem. Um I was asked to put together this uh contract. So what I did is uh very similar to what I've done before

098if asked to uh be involved with the transition of coming a new superintendent coming in uh leaving what we've put in play uh so far at least for me since January and um knowing that uh my approach is I'm willing to uh commit to you for six months uh on a unlimited basis uh primarily would be uh remote but the board and or the superintendent could request uh that I would attend a meeting to provide whatever. I think the first and most important key is uh come July 1st uh the district uh obviously remains yours and becomes Todd and is no longer mine. Uh that's kind of how I look at it. I uh mean it in in that way. Uh so as that transition continues, I would work directly uh uh with uh Dr.

099Deson have done so already. We've put a lot of things together uh for him to prepare, but as he comes in, you as a district also have a lot of other things um that you're looking at. for instance, what we're looking at tonight with the uh Caner funds and I will be able to help out uh based on the experiences that I've had with nonprofits, 501c3s. You got a lot of great people. Uh it's just keeping that transition together. Capital projects that you want to be looking at, uh possible negotiations that you're looking at and heading into. There's a heavy lift that's uh coming down the road. You have a lot of I mean, I just can't say enough. You hear me all the time. We got a lot of excellent staff in that transition.

100In addition to that, while I'm willing to give you six months, uh there's also a clause in there that, you know, if there's within a 30-day time period or less, you know, all know me well. Uh if we decide that uh something's not needed further down the road, we'll certainly leave uh that. And uh thank you very much for my time that you permitted me to be here. That's a brief update. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bill. Um, you know, I I would look at this as, you know, I've started jobs where the previous individual had left and I kind of get gotten helicoptered into these positions and it's like, you know, it's night time and you're trying to feel around and figure this out. I think we want uh Dr. Dong to have the

101best. We want him to have a springboard that he jumps off of and really gets going in in his position. He's gonna do great. Uh so Dr. Bell has offered to uh act as a consultant to him as this transition takes place. Mr. Alban will help in this too in his role as assistant superintendent. Um so I think it's a great I think it's a great thing that that could happen here and make the transition smoother and better for the kids and the district as a whole. So that's my two cents. If there's any other comments around the table. Okay, let's move on then. You can talk. Anybody can talk except for Kim. Okay. Okay. I'll move on to item 4.17. This is a letter of agreement. Did I miss I missed something. Four 4.16

102is a letter of agreement. Um, okay. It's a letter of agreement for student assistance is the SAP program for uh drug and alcohol services with True North and the agreement's attached. The next is an additional agreement with True North. Um it's for the SAP liaison services and the amount is 18,234.80 and this is an increase of about 4% over the current fiscal year. Okay, I'll keep going. PIMS people looking to renew that contract. Um it's going to be for for Should this be 26 here for fiscal year 26? Yeah. For 2526. Oh yeah, it should be ending 63026. Okay. Yes. So for next fiscal year, there's going to be a decrease there of $750. No transition fees there. And we've heard just great feedback about PIM's people. Mr. Alban is is that been the case?

103He's doing a great job. Very responsive. I remember making the switch or adopting that or approving that. 14.19 is the appointment of a board treasurer. Looks like I'm there. So, we'll go to 4.20. Uh, board secretary. Looks like you're there, Mrs. Hobbs. And then we'll go to the capital projects report. And this is a tag team, I believe, between Mrs. Hobbs and Mr. Graham maybe. Correct. So these are going to we're going to cover items 4.21 basically through 4.25 um in combination talking. One thing that I don't have on this chart which is the 2526 capital list. Just an update on one of the items that's still remaining from the 2425 list was the electronic components on the NA tower. That still is not complete. We are still waiting on the components to come in.

104So we check in each a couple of weeks. Um but they are on order. They just have not arrived. So that project is still outstanding. But as we look at 2526, we uh Mr. Grant's been working on some of these items and bringing those to the board and we have some approvals on the agenda to talk about. But then we also have an update as well. So the first item was the update or the roof restoration over at the intermediate school that is being paid for through a grant and that work has been progressing. We are on schedule so all is good there and then we need to file the paperwork to get that 75% back from the state. Um the next two items uh the wheelchair lift and the duckless system for the IT

105room. Mr. still working on trying to get some quotes, getting enough quotes um because of the the what's required by the bid process and the same with the athletic field line painter. Um the next item that we have one there about the dust collector system. Um we thought we would have good news to share tonight. We do not. Um so we actually have received bids last Wednesday and Mr. was here for the bid opening and through that process we actually need and there is a recommendation for to talk about this evening another item here but also for the voting meeting is that we are recommending to the board to reject all those bid documents because the bids that we did receive were not completed and the second lowest bid was the price was very out

106of range of what we thought would be recommended and we did have uh Sax and Stump review that as will and their recommendation was to ask the board to reject all those bids. We would then release a new bid so we have everything ready to release um new documents with RLPS, you know, taking the teaming up that event, but we have the ads and everything ready to go to start running for next week. Mr. Graham, anything to add on any of those items? The downside on that is, and we knew this going in, there's a 20week lead time on the the dust collector itself. So, the idea was is that once this is approved this summer, we get everything done on the inside of the shop and then once the dust collector arrives, we set

107it on the platform and hook it up. So, I don't think anything's going to change over the summer with pushing obviously readvertising and bidding. And the the only downside to this is the 20 weeks just starts probably a month later till we get the bids back because it's a three-week process with the bid process and then we're back at a board meeting and just the way schools school finance works like that whenever something like this doesn't follow through or work out. We get push back. Yeah. Was the one bid way too high or way too low? I don't know that we can say because it's a public meeting if it's a so we could talk about that in executive session. Okay. All right. Um so then we do have the turf field permits that is

108moving through. That's uh the progress is moving through. Uh they've been doing their work in establishing those doing all the permitting. We do have two items on for board approval this evening. Uh that would be the parapit wall and a replacement with the courtyard the and but they did come in over budget. So we wanted to to list that not drastically over budget but you know once again that does require board approval and we just wanted to bring that to your attention. The items that are priority three we have not moved on researching or moving forward at this time. and the um the high school grease trap that's also in progress at this time. Mr. Brim, anything to add with any of those items? A lot of the ones are in progress except for the

109wheelchair lift. That one u we're going through a cooperative purchasing with the boarding group and trying to get those quotes. Uh but a lot of those other ones there's there's a rush, but there's no rush. It's summer project. So, it's not like we have to wait on any of that stuff. It's just a matter of I'm getting updated pricing and then once I get that back, I'll present it to you and then hopefully upon approval, we move forward with that as a project. What's the material we're talking about for the fascia replacement? That's metal, stucco, brick. Yeah, it's metal. It's aluminum. It's if you were to look out in the courtyard, you see some of it is actually gone. It's blown off. It's basically to replace from the cafeteria to the high school that fasia

110on the side of that upper of the middle school building. Well, when it blew away, at least it was contained. It couldn't blow down to the neighbor's house. All right. Anything else on that on that? Unless anyone has any other questions on the capital list. Yeah. Yes. Oh, yeah. Any questions or comments on the list? Okay. Uh and then we'll flow right into 4.22 dust collection bids. Uh you spoke about that. This is a motion to reject to reject all the bids. And then the next item is to rebid dust collection rebids and metal fascia replacements. Item 4.2. 24. Uh, okay. We discussed that metal wall panels. This this is the same basically the metal wall panels. The 4.2 pi is for the carropit wall. Correct. Okay. Okay. If there's no questions on those two

111items, we'll go to the last item 4.26. And this is a notice of adoption of policies and procedures. It's required component of annual IDEIDA grant application process. Okay. And it's attached in your agenda there. It's a one pager. Okay. If there's no comments on that, then uh then I'll conclude my report and we'll move on to personnel. Mr. Lustig is out tonight and he asked if I would uh go through his list of items here and and you know, we'll make this brief. any if anybody wants to jump in with a comment uh just go ahead and uh jump in. First item is uh is related to the superintendent vacancy uh which will come about July 1st 2025. That's the start of next fiscal year and that's related to Dr. Bell's contract concluding. Um this

112this this item uh acknowledges that Dr. Todd Desong is to submit his application for commission and this will begin on the 1st of July 2025 and at that point he'll be officially be the superintendent of UpperM School District. Okay. Uh resignations. Erica Long uh has resigned. Um we have some new hires. uh Summer Slusser for an English teacher, Anna Jant Jawanovich. She's going to be an ESL teacher. And uh related related to that, uh we're going to post an advertise or it's a motion to post an advertise for a school counselor for next fiscal year. Um Mrs. Hobbs probably excited about item 5.3.1 for Jack Catron, uh, assistant business administrator, and he's he's going to start after he graduates at the beginning of the fiscal year. Going to need some paperwork. He's going through that

113process. So, he'll be starting uh in a couple months. Supplemental contracts. U Mr. How Tracy Herbert all are going to be Mr. How is going to be a volunteer coach. Tracy uh Heert will be game help. Um I won't read all these names, but you can see them in your agenda. Uh these are for all all for educational contracts, supplemental educational contracts. Okay, summer interns. Mr. Canrell has a list of three individuals who he's vetted and are ready to go to work this summer on IT projects. Volunteer services, there's a list there as well. uh Kelly Education uh has some staff changes there and those individuals are listed in item 5.8.5. Kelly Educational uh has some substitutes that they're going to add to their roster and also uh one support staff individual Also, I believe

114this is the last item, second to last item here is the translator and um they're on the on the list for approval. Okay. And the final item, this is something that we've that I know we've done for the last four years, probably has been done before that. Uh this is item 5.10, and this is to grant permission to the acting superintendent, Dr. Bell uh to post and advertise and hire as well as accept resignations and retirements for administrative, professional, and support staff during the month of June, July, and August. Now, he's only going to do it for June. Dr. Duchong is going to take over for take over in July and August that role. So, and if anything happens in relationship to that, you as a board will get anformational update right away. be waiting.

115I'm assuming that be your normal protocol. Okay. And that's all I had for my committee report for committee reports. Good job. Yeah, yours was I think you switched with Neil. You just you guys just switched. I'm not moving Shelly. Thank you. All right. 8:26. Uh we will call the uh board meeting to order. Um, would you please stand for the pledge of allegiance and a moment of [Music] silence to the flag of the United States of Rise and it stands for God for God and justice for all. May be seated. Can we have a roll call, please? Miss John Cover here. Miss Jal here. Mrs. Krauss here. Mrs. Hollow here. Mr. Walmer here. Mrs. Plank here. Mr. Lustik excused. Mr. Lady here. Mr. Wiggle here. Thank you. All right. We did have an executive session

116uh this evening regarding uh personnel. Um, can we have an approval or recommendation for approval of the agenda? So moved. Second. Roll call. Mrs. Krauss. Yes. Miss Jalal? Yes. Mrs. Hollow? Yes. Mr. Lady? Hi. Mrs. Plank. Here. Mr. Mr. Wmer. Yes. Miss Young here. Mr. Wy. Yes. Thank you. All right. Moving on to uh to public comment. Uh, the board of school directors encourages comments from community members during the citizen comment section of the agenda. Upon being recognized by the board president, an individual should state his her name, confirm that they are either a parent, guardian, resident, taxpayer, district employee, district student, or anyone representing a group or firm in the community, and may speak to the board for a period no longer than 5 minutes. No participant may speak more than once on the

117same topic unless all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard. Questions posed or incitizen comment will not be addressed during the meeting. If the question requires followup, the board president or superintendent will follow up individually. The board requests that neither complaints concerning job performance nor allegations of misconduct relating to to specific employees or students be raised at a public meeting. Such concern should be referred directly to the superintendent. The board will conduct this meeting civily and respectfully. All citizen comments deserve that same respect from both the board and other meeting attendees at the discretion of the board. President verbal disruptions, commotion or other disrespectful comments behaviors may result in verbal warning, termination of the comment, board recess or termination of all citizen comments. Um so tonight our first uh public comment

118will be Miss Angela Lustik. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the board, and thank you for the opportunity to address you this evening. My name is Anna West. I'm a 15-year-old freshman. My parents have lived in Alpado School District almost their entire life. My older sister was born here and was homeschooled until the end of sixth grade, at which point she went to Biggerville Middle School and high schools, graduating third in her class. I was homeschooled kindergarten through fourth grade, went to Adams Intermediate School in fifth and sixth grades, and I've done a mix of homeschooling and online classes in seventh, 8th, and 9th grades. I think I'm getting a great well-rounded education. Over the past year, a small group of public, apparently almost all of them from a more liberal perspective, have made decisive

119statements that imply that people don't people who don't personally have a child or grandchild in schools should have less of a voice. Speakers like Mrs. Callahan have belittled the opinions of individuals who don't currently have a child or grandchild in the school. During a February board meeting, Mr. Ley went out of his way to point out that I'm currently a homeschooled student, as if to imply imply that my those input somehow matters less. How divisive. This is America where many of us consider it our civic duty to care about the well-being of our society as a whole. I am also a Christian and the Bible teaches us to quote love your neighbor as yourself. And we we should care about society even the parts of society that don't directly impact our immediate family. My parents

120cared about this community before my sister and I went to public school, and they still care now that my sister has graduated, and now that I am taking classes online. Board members, you were elected to represent a broad range of citizens. Those who have children in the public school, those who pay to send their children to private school, those who homeschool or use online classes, those who haven't had children, and those who children have already graduated. The reality is that the public school educates a majority of the children who will Lord willing become the adults of tomorrow and we should all have an interest in that. In a nutshell, the entire community should care about the students within the school system whether they have an immediate family member in school or not. You were elected

121to represent the entire community. For those who have made divisive statements in the past, please think about the message your words send. Our district is largely conservative and my family is too. If you aren't, then I respect your right to your own opinion. But if you've been trying to sideline, shame, or belittle the opinions of other pe of others to score political points, please stop. Around us, we hear stories about school districts pushing a woke agenda and teaching students contrary to the students families beliefs. You may think that's appropriate, but please also respect those of us who are on the more conservative side as we care about the good of society as a whole and care about parents rights to guide their own children. I want this school to be successful and so does my

122family. And a successful school does not have to push political agenda. It can do what it is supposed to do which is teach. It does not need to push a view that leans towards one way or the other. It should be teaching its students grammar, science, math, etc. without pushing a political agenda. A public school should not indoctrinate a political agenda. Rather, it should encourage the parents to parent their own children. Board members, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you all this evening. I hope you all have a blessed night. Thank you. Next uh comment, uh Mr. Matthew Lustik. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the board. My name is Matthew Lustig. I'm a longtime resident of Upper School District, a father of two children. I appreciate the opportunity to address

123you here this evening. Former board member Chris Fee and in an excellent commentary recently noted that quote many school districts are trying hard to put the best interest of their students first and to try to be good stewards of local tax dollars. He went on in his commentary to urge members of the public to quote keep this in mind when you rebuke board directors even if you feel you must. I have almost 21 years of experience working in public education as well as a master's degree in educational leadership the same degree that many school principles have. I understand well the challenges and decisions that school systems face. But tonight, I won't primarily be discussing those challenges or decisions. Instead, I'll primarily be asking those listening to consider this fundamental question. What kind of community do

124we want to live in? I know many of the board members as individuals outside of this setting, and I know them to be fine men and women who honestly care about our schools and the students they serve. Yet, over the past year, I've heard a small but very vocal faction a group uh engage in aggressive, petty argue uh comments. I've heard a small group of individuals engage in wild exaggerations and some statements that I presume were just plain lies. Board members have been personally slandered. In at least one case, this appears to have brought the spouse of a board member into the situation. And in another case, neighbors of a board member, for goodness sakes, were anonymously anonymously written to during board members during board meetings, excuse me. There have been truly ridiculous statements made.

125Statements about chastity belts and banning dictionaries. Statements that are so silly that they only deserve our derision. This is petty, divisive behavior. So, I want to repeat my question. What sort of community do we want to live in? Recently, a twothirds majority of this board voted that students shouldn't be given access to materials with runchy explicit content without their parents' permission. Let's be honest, that's what that issue fundamentally came down to. Now, if you disagree, I respect that. A local resident, a liberal who is campaigning to join you on this board, wrote that she was quote fighting so hard to let kids/ teenagers read quote explicit material. It's her right to have that opinion, but let's also respect those residents and board members who don't want children, some as young as 13, to access these

126materials without their parents' permission or even knowledge. Whether you agree with the be with the choice of this board or not, do we really want to live in a community where individuals who simply want to protect families rights to guide their own children are publicly slandered? Before I close, let me reference two specific examples, both from members of this board. Recently before a board of before a vote, one of you, and I'm choosing not to identify this man by name, twice accused his own colleagues on the board of acting quote in total disregard to our community. That comment was particularly interesting to me. I don't know every single board member personally, but I certainly know many of them. The ones I know and probably the ones who I don't care about our schools, our district,

127and the parents and children who they serve. I'll take just two examples here. Mrs. Heather Young has repeatedly taken her personal time to meet with and listen to many members of the public. Is that quote total disregard? Mr. Lauren Lustig, who I obviously know, has met at length with multiple individuals of the public who requested his time, including individuals who had questions about the direction of this board. Is that quote total disregard? I could continue with other examples from other board members as well, but that's not really the point. We should be able to discuss difficult issues without slandering one another. Let's contrast that comment that was made with with the behavior of a second board member. Before a different vote on which the board was divided, Mr. Walmer took the time to praise Mrs.

128Hollow. Even though, and this is important, they were on opposite sides of the particular issue that was under discussion. Mr. Wilmer took time to time to praise her saying quote her heart is in the right place. My talk this evening is primarily about what sort of community we want to live in. I can tell you my answer. I want to live in that sort of community. I want to live in the sort of community where a man can look at someone who is voting on the other side of an issue and still publicly state his own appreciation to her. What dignified gentlemanly behavior. I do not want to live in the sort of community where opponents are lied about, slandered, and harassed. It's fine to have strong, principled opinions. I do. I've been a conservative

129Republican my entire voting life, which at this point is almost 30 years. But let's express those opinions in charitable ways. Let's not lie about or belittle one another in an effort to score cheap political points. Ladies and gentlemen, the board, I appreciate your service and your time. Thank you. All right, thank you uh both for your comments. Um moving on to uh nothing under correspondence, consent agenda items. Um I believe we because it is consent agenda items, we only need one vote for all the items uh listed. Yeah, recommendation. Do we have a recommendation on the consent agenda items? Some move. Second. Any comments? Any questions, discussions on these items? Roll call. Miss John Cover. Yes. Mr. Walmer. Yes. Mrs. Plank. Yes. Mr. Lady. Hi. Mrs. Hollow. Yes. Miss Jal, yes. Mrs. Krauss, yes. Mr.

130Wel, yes. Thank you. All right. Items for uh general information. Um the next school board meetings. Um the curriculum and extracurricular committee meeting will be on 63, 2025 at 6:30. Um the business and operations committee meeting will be on 63 2025 at 7:00. Um and the policy committee meeting there is no June meeting uh for the policy committee meeting. And then the regular schoolboard meeting is coming up in two weeks on 520 2025 at 7 p.m. And we have no old business, no new business. I do have a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Thank you all.