Vermillion School Board

001hi steve how you doing sean good olson here d peterson jay peterson here boss ward all present of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god let me get a little closer to the mic there we go okay at this time we have visitors to be heard ordinarily we begin with tanger happenings there is no tanger happening at this meeting so if there's any member of the general public that wishes to address the board on any issue you may do so now you will have five minutes we ask that you refrain from mentioning specific personnel or students by name and there will be no action unless it is already on the agenda is there anyone who wishes to address the board okay i don't read pantomime

002so i'm going to assume no we'll move on to the approval of the agenda there are two agenda changes an addition to the consent agenda is the addition of and i'll mention this we get there again uh a employee recommendation for amelia howard for the high school english position so that would be part of the consent agenda and then on the new business item n the approval of network upgrades under the e-rate grant this is something we've done but it now requires board approval which is probably going to increase over the next year or two so please make those changes are there any other changes to the agenda no no board members no okay do i have a motion to approve the agenda as amended motion to approve the agenda rachel and carol all in

003favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed nay abstentions amended agenda is approved next we have the indication of conflicts of interest i have no conflicts in this agenda rachel i have none jim i have none carol i have none shane i have none very good so that brings us to our consent agenda items which includes the minutes uh the resignations which i'll run through new hires bills so we have the minutes from our april 11 meeting the following resignations were included in your board packet jeremy hill english elizabeth martin disney destiny hawk madeleine werkus kevin howe taurean taurian gayden mackenzie briggs from special education jack mccarty is a part-time custodian nicole kirsch as secretary and john robertson has the title six uh yeah and then we have the following new hires taylor davis for

004fifth grade sierra juffer and jenny gatto for fifth grade excuse me taylor davis was fourth grade sierra jeffer jenny gatto for fifth grade danielle schonbaum elementary counselor paige felk and julian severson special education ashley jacobs as the tech director and then amelia howard as high school english and do you have you do have one of these out here okay are there any requests to remove any items from consent seeing none we can approve all of those in one motion motion to approve by rachel second second by shane all in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed nay abstentions consent agenda is approved a few notes sorry ah that brings us to unfinished business uh where we have our facilities discussion about the elementary school construction so behind me is no not behind me well while

005uh well don is getting um sean from tsp and steve from houseman construction i guess both guys are up can you hear us guys that's right excellent all right i'll let you uh you guys go ahead and just share what you have and then we'll take any questions from the board here if there are well i think first of all uh greg sent some images but i believe everyone in the room has seen those previously so i don't think we necessarily need to go through those unless you want to do something to review uh something you've already seen beyond that we appear to be well on schedule um as of tomorrow we'll be wrapping up kind of our design development set of documents uh what that ultimately means that we've got a lot of the

006details worked out they're not full construction documents just yet but they have a lot and in fact almost all of the decisions have been made and there's a lot of good information in there and it's detailed enough that housman will be able to generate a guaranteed maximum price from these documents the gmp for those of those those of you who are in the field and ultimately we also have the bid package for package number one which is the site development site preparation footings foundations and starting to get some work done on site while we wrap up the rest of the documents anything you want to share steve beyond that no that covered it pretty well the only other thing that i'd add is uh i think the last couple times that we've met we talked

007about our process we're going through an rfp to get mechanical electrical and plumbing on board so we've received those proposals back the good news is that electrical is a few hundred thousand dollars under budget we're kind of going through and finishing up scoping that to make sure it's complete but it looks good so far the mechanical proposals we got are both from uh reputable firms but both over the budget that we had hoped for so we're going through and vetting that out we think there's really good opportunity in that to look at other manufacturers and some other things to get it back on or close to budget so more to come on that but i think all positive so far any questions no okay oh can i register yes since i've been spending a lot

008of time at soccer um so just to make sure i'm right we're moving that shed to like the north side where we're on this drawing mr ellie will that kind of um if you were to be looking music room north of the music room yes it would be the shed that we're moving is currently sitting about right where the auxiliary gym sits that's the middle school garage so we are moving that straight north and you can't quite see it on this picture but it's going to be right on the curve where people would be pulling in on the bus lanes north of that right music the right music room on on that picture there so if you're looking at the aerial picture it would be up um near the north west corner of the middle

009school by the evergreen trees so it'll face to the west with the garage doors opening towards the school towards the new school and that will be moved out here in the next week week and a half so that we'll be able to fence off that construction area when they need to start tearing up dirt and we'll have all of our school stuff out of there so yep thank you good question any other questions okay i have one quick question um in reading through the comprehensive plan um it do we have any uh or any plans to have like assistive technologies for hearing support in the classrooms or in say the auxiliary gym uh yeah great question actually we have currently most of our classrooms are already audio amplified but with our s sur two sr3

010grant we did secure all new audio lightspeed is what they're called redcat devices for all the new elementary school so actually we're going to order them now and we'll be able to use them in the new buildings because they are portable so yes now the auxiliary gym we haven't talked through the or even the main gym what the amplification in those two facilities will look like so that'll be something we'll need to share with our electrical mechanical guys uh as we move forward that's a good question i guess um is there any more there does no sorry good maybe as the board is considering any other questions i'll just sort of inform everybody too that that every week that we meet with houseman construction and of course tsp representatives in the last few weeks we've

011met on all the mechanical and electrical we've met with civil engineers to talk about the um the layout of the facilities and the compaction of the soil and removal of of things in the park and working in conjunction with the city with that um part of that will be a moving the accessibility for the uh the tennis courts and the pickleball courts that are currently at the middle school facility once those are closed down those will be accessible at the high school so we're doing a little work at our own courts to make them more user-friendly and make sure people know they're there and can be used uh and then we're going to be talking this week with the interior finishes folks the professionals that will be lining up the potential materials for the inside

012the carpets the the types of tile being used the color coordinations and those things so there's been a lot of action behind the scenes the last two weeks to start to get these bid packages uh into a shape where people will start to be able to put dollars to them so we really appreciate hausmann and tsp's help on that to give us some expert advice on that we've also been working with our own local our tech department but also the people that provide security for the school to talk about the layouts of the cameras that we'll want for both the inside and outside of the building and how those will be integrated in with the middle school and then also talking about the door access the of course the fobs and the electronic devices that

013we use that we can track and monitor guests through those those systems so those are all pieces that are happening behind the scenes that are pretty exciting once we have all those details we'll hopefully get some good numbers from some prospective bidders so that's the update that i have i don't know if there's more questions from the board or not or steve or sean if you've got anything else to close with i think that covered it pretty well damon okay thank you very much do we i guess it's maybe for them maybe do we have any idea on ground breaking are we planning a groundbreaking we are planning a groundbreaking and obviously we want to make sure that members of this board that help make that happen are available for that but we haven't set

014a date but i guess steve uh and sean maybe that'll be on our wednesday agenda uh this week at least think about uh getting the gold shovels out and start planning a nice little opening so yeah i think setting a date early is a good idea damon and then we can get it advertised to the public so we can get chamber of commerce and whoever else would like to attend that uh advanced notice to let them know when we're thinking okay thank you okay next item on an unfinished business is a covet update uh yes uh as of course we're winding down here at the end of the year this last week we had four cases within the district we had two elementary at jolly and two at our middle school previous weeks prior since

015our last board meeting we've been averaging one or two cases per week so our numbers are in really good shape there which we're proud of and want to thank um again once again everybody that's been doing the the heavy lifting there which is the kids and their families and the staff that are that are working in the buildings to keep that next month in june we will we will have a more formal review of our return to school plan as you're aware as part of the esser grant dollars that the federal government relay down to schools part of that is that we always have a six-month review of our esser return to school plan uh so our essay plan excuse me our return to school plan for covent uh even though when we return to

016school we hope it'll largely look normal we'll never completely vacate that plan it'll always be there for us to be able to take a look at but uh we'll obviously make some tweaks based on that current data that will allow us to put it into action meet the requirements of the grant and then as well be able to flip it into action as much as as soon as necessary again once we have data from our nurses and our administrators over the course of the next month we'll have that plan prepared for you guys and ready for the june board meeting to discuss that but overall things have gone really very well the last few months we are seeing um you know we're working on with families on an individual basis we're having some uh pushback

017as you can imagine on some of the things that are happening now with wearing masks and this time of year and things like that so we're working with people and and meeting them where they're at they're trying to help um you know finish the final two weeks of school on a positive note and hopefully without any more covet cases creeping into the district but right now good news is we only reported four last week so that's much better than january okay any questions very good so before we move into new business i will circulate it's a thank you card from the middle school for the ice cream sundaes so you can look at that or pass it on the envelope okay we'll move on to new business our first item is title vi grant and

018i believe jennifer olefson is here to enlighten us good evening um we have been applying for the se grant each year for the title six and this year we were awarded sixteen thousand for our one hundred and forty dollars um allocated out fourteen thousand for um an ambassador or slash teacher and then a club manager at the high school professional development we put 500 in that fund and supplies for students 640. and then for any other student activities we put a thousand dollars in that fund that grant just asks you to kind of chunk those out where you want to spend them but they are fluid so we can kind of move them around a little bit if we need to um we're thinking about revamping that title six position just because we've had issues

019keeping um staff in there and um the large reason is just that it's hard to keep them from year to year so if we can find somebody kind of hoping to maybe recruit somebody from usd a student there that may be looking at education or native american studies and then moving that to the after school program with the boys and the girls club we thought maybe that would help they could put in 10 to 20 hours a week some things that we would ask of them is to meet with kids take meaningful field trips uh look at supporting the kids not only in homework but also within the community and the school reaching out to parents to get them a little bit more involved in those parent board meetings run that parent board meeting and

020then invite and host families to the meals i know we've done that in the past where we've offered meals to them both in the fall and the spring and we haven't been able to do that just because the staffing so we'd like to bring that back as well as any other activities that we feel that would support our native american students and get them all the way through to graduation so any questions on that or anything mr l or doctor i'll be here yeah i guess i would just add for those who don't know about that that program it's really serves our native american um students and and as a result in the last four years we've developed a native american parent group um carol sat in on some of those meetings with us and

021that's really been a nice liaison because over the years sometimes those clubs kind of pick up steam and they're very well attended and there's other times it sort of falls below the radar and it goes away for a while and then you get people energized again and it comes back so our goal of course is to keep this very much on the forefront and active a couple nice things that have been a result of that parent group and the group of the teachers and administrators working within that group is obviously we meet monthly to try to find ways to enhance the the graduation rate of our native american students the club native american club that joe devoe helped start at the high school has really i think helped with that we brought in speakers with

022the help of sanford we brought one of our former vermillion girls back and she talked directly to our student body and did a women's evening event and those were both very positive impactful events uh but probably one of the best ones that's come forward was brand new this year which is a native american honoring ceremony for our native american graduates they've obviously always been part of the baccalaureate in the graduation ceremony itself but we've never done a special event just for our native american students so through the work of this organization and the club and and jennifer and her troops we now will have a special honoring ceremony for just our native american students and their family so just lots of things going on behind the scenes that sometimes people don't know are happening because

023it's just a small grant that we we put people in place and try to make some nice things happen and we're just trying to report on that and so this is just one way to do it so thanks jennifer thank you i have one question i guess i'm just wondering about the um the rationale of offering the services in a setting that's outside of school i mean i understand that it's a limited position and limited hours but um i mean there would be not all students not where they are yeah so i guess you know if there's has there been some thought yeah one of yeah one of the things and i'm sorry jennifer i'll let you jump in but one of the things we've had um in in the last four or five years

024is just uh we've been trying to get folks that could come to us where we have kids in the buildings and and taking kids out of classes and meeting them in study halls and other times and that's been successful to some but largely it hasn't been as successful as maybe we'd hope so then we thought well maybe we need to have it more of an after hours type program whether it's at the native american center on a saturday offering tutoring and other things and so that's what jennifer i think was referring to is we're just looking outside the box to see what did we did we have a narrow focus with the people that we were hiring for that and it was too confined for their needs or the students needs so we just sort

025of said well this year we've got to kind of open it up because in my five years we've had five different directors in that spa in five years so clearly we need to look at trying to find some ways to broaden that or do something different so that jennifer's kind of looking into that this year yeah and by pulling them out of class sometimes then they're missing that instruction in the classroom as well and so we're kind of taking away from that and some of them also are special education students so then they're getting pulled out twice versus just the one time so just trying to think outside the box and what what what we can do and maybe attract more so do we have any feedback from the previous directors about things that didn't

026work as well with the position or things that would have made them stay do we have any kind of feedback from people who've had the position about ways in which we could fix it um i have not had any um i think the last gentleman that was in there just got kind of wrapped up in some other things and then it just didn't work out in his time schedule when krishna was in there i felt like that was probably the best run situation but with her experience and where she wanted to go in life she wanted to go outside of the school district so i think she would have stayed had it fit better so and i don't know about the previous ones i just know about krishna yeah kind of the same thing we

027did have students from usd that were part of the native american community that graduated from college and then went on to life and did other things so it's really been different for everybody but because it is a limited um amount of time and offerings and some of the combinations of people's life schedules have changed that so um but we should reach out and we can find some of those folks and ask if there was something that particularly that led to them leaving more than just a life schedule but some of the folks like i said we've had really good people doing them those places but just we've never been able to sustain it over time which of course like any program is what you desire so and i don't know the details but i'm thinking

028that there is an another type of grant johnson o'malley or program that maybe we had been eligible for in the past or that we had received in the past but we no longer receive i mean are we in a position that we might be able to apply for that program again in the future that's something that we discussed at that last group meeting um and both jennifer and i have reached out i don't have a big uh description about all the pros and cons of the johnson o'malley there are other requirements and there's a board requirements and some things there that we'd have to sift through but i'm not certain why six seven years ago the district had funds prior to that and then whether it was because the people went away and then therefore

029nobody organized it it went away i'm not 100 certain but yeah we are we do have some feelers out there about that grant and when i checked in with them last year they told me that i'd have to wait three years because they didn't have any open slots for another a new district to come in so just something for us to think about absolutely yeah because this would be the couple more years and hopefully and i can reach back out to them again at the end of the year here and see if there's anything more and then we can look through requirements okay thanks thank you and i don't believe there's any action we have to take on this so it won't be included in a vote at the end item b is the preliminary

030school district budget that's in your packet from pages 37 to 42 and then obviously there will be a budget hearing as we get to the middle of the year i think july at our july meeting but we have to publish this in advance of that are there any questions or kevin would you like to say anything about this yeah really this is just our starting point for the fy 23 budget uh by south dakota codified law we do need to have it presented to the school board at the may meeting and that is what is included in the packet just real real high level you know with the general fund in the special education fund receiving additional aid from the state and with some additional students this year it does present some opportunities there as

031well as with our capital outlay fund and with our new capital projects fund we will be working for the next couple years there with the elementary school project those are the two those are really some of them the main highlights that will be reflected in that but we will get into greater detail over the next couple of months on that are there any questions when we met in finance committee it was really a continuation of the discussions that we've had about how we're using capital outlay funds with the new school building the increase that we have from the state thinking about our enrollment numbers and thinking about caps that we have on you know certain requirements but everything was in continuation with what we've been talking about all year i the one thing that i

032would note is and i'm sorry to to ask this the section on insurance is very hard to follow and i don't think presents to the public just how much we spend on health insurance for our employees sure since the insurance did not actually it's only a very minor change it was pretty well just included in there but in terms of an actual budget impact from one year to the next i had very little impact so it really would not be an area that we would need to highlight all that much okay either way just uh another quick reminder as well this year we're asking for the board to set the board budget hearing for it'll be the regular school board meeting in july which i believe is on the 11th but rather than do it

033in the middle of the meeting like we've done traditionally we would ask that we would start the budget hearing at 6 30 and have its own meeting during that time and then start our regular school board meeting following that which at seven o'clock and that that way we are not starting a meeting and being in whatever business we're in and just stopping cold turkey and starting to talk about budget i think that budget deserves its own due diligence for a hearing of its own people interested in that could then leave and not stay for the meeting if they chose to uh but i just think it's a better organized way of presenting the budget and then just to compile what everybody else has said the only other things that we've talked about besides esser we've

034had a lot of influx of esser dollars which has been a nice gift for us to deal with this year we're working on how those dollars are can impact our students whether it's additional staff for the next couple of years in terms of title one staff and and some of those things but we've also considered uh school psych we're looking into those the curriculum director's long-term um direction as well as facilities director so just having those discussions and then we'll come with a proposal at some point if we have tried to if we did differ from what we've seen in the past okay do we need any formal action on that preliminary budget it just needs to be presented to the board yes just an acknowledgement that it was received tonight some of us are

035coming off the board yeah you don't have to sit through the budget hearing be in place for that or do you no you just have the budget hearing and then you put into the book okay so we're extending your meeting one more budget hearing jim fine okay i think that brings us to item c which is to set that so this one we will actually be voting on so it will be july 11th 6 30 p.m and we confirm that this room is available at 6 30. uh yes okay so here in the city council chambers with a regular board meeting to follow at 7 p.m so moved oh we can do that well let's just take it out that's fine um motion by shane second second by rachel all in favor signify by saying

036aye aye opposed nay extensions okay we have officially set the school district budget hearing for july 11th so we'll move on and i think all the rest can be handled with a single motion the 2022-23 comprehensive plan i'm sure you gave it lots of review this is a report that is filed every year uh and so uh i don't know if there's anything you want to say about this you know if you didn't have an opportunity to get through it all uh the it's on your google drive you're welcome to see jennifer i or any of the principles about that at any time but basically it's our plan to develop uh district needs and then how we're going to deal with special services at you know at the district level so it just outlines and

037follows the compliance that we need to do for the state and the federal government so any questions okay item e is a transfer request from sarah savon to the middle school counselor position no questions or concerns about that item f you saw a copy of the 2022-23 school calendar so there's a small change to that mr alvid yeah basically the last month we had approved the exact same calendar with having friday september 23rd as a teacher in service day our football schedule changed since we published that and now we would like to have our in-service on the 16th with no school no staff should be no students in school but the staff would report and then the following week we'd host that football game on friday would be homecoming week so we basically just flip-flopped

038a week there because of uh just it worked out better for our schedule okay so there no school on the 16th day of school on the 23rd correct item g you have oh sorry yes is that when d days is this year the d days is late isn't it i thought i don't know did you look at that i did not i'm more so concerned about the parade and yeah all those details for doing it on the same weekend i honestly thought that they were back to towards the end of the month but yeah end of october like the 22nd 23rd i thought our homecoming and usd homecoming will be the same sorry ours is ours should be september 19th oh god yeah i thought they were okay i thought they were a few weeks

039behind us yeah thank you for checking them okay moving on then we have the approval of adult volunteer brock boss and he'll be working in the weight room helping any supervise no okay uh and then we have the approval or sorry rescind the approval of the dishwasher replacement bid from our april 11th meeting followed by the approval of a new dishwasher replacement bid so that's items h and i and you have a copy of the bid for a very good dishwasher it is just to detail the situation a little bit uh digging we've discussed the with the finance committee digging into some of the final finer details of the original bid uh it was revealed that the original bid that was submitted as the low bidder did not have a couple of the elements that

040were required under the specs so we worked through that for a couple of weeks and we are bringing forward tonight for approval the bids submitted by is restaurant ron design equipment and supply for ninety thousand three hundred and sixty dollars and ninety one cents for the dishwasher that will be in the middle school but will be then there to uh to serve for the new elementary as well any questions okay item j is the esy summer employment agreement along with all of the employees and this is sr funded again some of them are esser some of them are our special education our extended school year kiddos that our our staff has identified through their ieps that might need extra services every year have these anywhere from birth to three through high school but there are

041special teachers in here that are working with esser funds which is our austin jolly middle and high school all have those summer school experiences which we outlined for you guys last month with the dates so those that information is being sent to their specific schools through their principles so students that are being identified as at risk could be invited into those summer school experiences this year and we will have esser funds to pay for those any questions okay then we have seven uh south dakota high school activities association amendments and the administration is recommending yes votes on six of them and a no vote on the item damon do you want to just you betcha some of these are pretty minor little things but there's one that yeah the very first six are really uh

042amendments to the south dakota high school activities association's constitution amendment one is basically they just want to make sure that the superintendents are signing off on the application for memberships in the past it could be principals or others they just want to make sure superintendents are the ones signing off on that so that's kind of a slam dunk easy yes vote there amendment two is uh basically asking that uh the dues that we pay for the being a part of this membership in the schools they've uh at least i don't know how many it is it's been a number of years since they've charged the schools any fees uh so that's been nice of the activity association but they want to have a policy in place that once that has to go away they don't

043have to go through an amendment process this will just give the activities association an opportunity by policy to structure the dues so we have no no issues with that as well so that's a i recommend a yes vote amendment 3 is has language for children under the no child left behind act so just like our policies they were going through policies and found out that these are no longer statutes that are relevant so they're going to update that so that's a yes vote amendment number four is similar to that they're changing some of the basically the the ways that students can waiver or appeal out currently students that might have a need to ask for a waiver or a an appeal out of a situation for example maybe you have moved to a new district

044and missed the deadline for participation so you would have to sit out that sport in the fall if i'd moved in by a certain date that student could then appeal with the help of the school district to the activities association and say hey i was a part of a divorce case in another state i'm living with foster parents in south dakota and of course we did not know these regulations existed that appeals process would work its way through the activity association and they would approve that what has happened in the past is or some examples of what have happened is sometimes those appeals go on with the activities association and activities director and the board of education and or the superintendent aren't involved in that so they if you see the red writing on your

045notes that i gave to you uh the the red writing talks about the superintendent needs to be involved and sign off on any appeals that are going and forth through the district which makes good sense so at this point the the level of of things in there to protect kids and give them a chance to be successful is something that we'd absolutely support because kids need to have an appeals process that they can they can waver in and out of uh the next one was dealing with amendment five is adding alternative instruction students to the bylaws this is just to update the bylaws because this year there was state statute that was passed at the legislature to include that so that's just cleanup language for that amendment number six is the same it just clarifies

046that seventh and eighth graders can play up on south dakota high school activity activities association uh standards and they must be able to submit transcript to make sure that they're grade eligible those students in the middle school are required to meet the same standards as a high school student in terms of their grades and that they've they've made i guess satisfactory progress and then number seven is this amendment is basically asking for an enrollment i guess multiplier for free and reduced students the the ask of this is the that if you have a certain percentage of free and reduced students in your district they would have a qualifier and a multiplier to associate a number with those kids and then those kids would count and you could take up the 30 kids off of your

047enrollment so that you could possibly slide down in enrollment for example now this is not vermilion because vermilion is very solid in the eight class so a movement of kids would not impact us so we really don't have a dog in this fight however if vermillion was a smaller a school and we had a large free and reduced population they could use a multiplier that says we're not going to count 30 of a million students for average daily membership and now in basketball they get to play down a division and in the theory i think it's a well-intended amendment that doesn't really solve a problem for south dakota schools in my opinion they weren't able to give us the schools that this would impact or nor the reason being brought forth at this point but

048i think what they're that they're hoping to do is try to level the playing field for schools that have a large free and reduced population and they think that by letting those schools uh participate in a different category that they might be more successful more kids might participate and it would build enthusiasm and such i am not convinced that that's the case so my my recommendation is a yes vote on the first six amendments because they're slam dunks and they they meet specific needs the law number seven in my opinion at this point hasn't passed the mustard test for me to who would it benefit and why is it being brought forward and if we're searching this from other states then we should be able to get data from other states how it was helpful

049and useful so that's my recommendation to the board is amendments one through six are yes votes amendment seven is no um and ask the activity association to go back to work and clean this up more thoughts are discussion on any of those damon i noticed that the amendment 7 was submitted by the athletics association native american advisory council does that give us an indication as to like which schools this would help or is this more of an issue on reservation schools or other areas yeah i would assume it's it's probably a probably a reservation impact um i imagine that although i haven't heard that but because it was brought forward from that group i assume that that's where the need is at but because i haven't seen that i can only just guess that that's

050the case and so i think what they're trying to find out is participation levels on the reservation school is apparently lower and this is maybe a way that they're trying to spearhead some ways to make those improvements but i i i didn't talk to anybody at the activity association that was able to give me that answer but that's very well likely when it's more did you read the rationale shane part basically it's saying for those that are reading it um we have a number of schools in the line between classifications with large populations of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch in general those schools and students have severe discrepancies and access to equipment and school personal access to outside training opportunities compared to similar school with low population students who qualify for free

051and reduced lunch so they're trying to bring them yeah i i i can't speak because i'm not an administrator on one of those those locations per se but i've been to some very nice schools that had equipment as good as ours or better but i can't say what drives kids to participate on the uh on in every school's case so i'm not sure what that might be but at this point it uh to me it didn't uh it did not satisfy my curiosity about who and how and why on why we would do some of these things without a better explanation but every school in the states voting on this tonight so that it's very likely they'll be you know 100 and you know there could be 150 uh yeses and one no and there

052could be 75 yeses and 76 knows or vice versa so i don't know um what other groups were doing but i just know everybody in the states talking about this at this point i also see that aside from the native american advisory council it's also put forward by the staff of the association so i guess to me that is uh does that mean that they've put this forward the association has put is putting this forward it's not just one special interest group right it is the association yeah pushing like forward just like something not a small part of it correct just like some of the other ones here were developed from their staff and pushed forward yep i'm supportive of a no vote until unless more information could be provided as you've requested other thoughts

053i think the spirit of it is good it seems like the financial issue is not addressed by simply classing schools down what i was asking for is if we modeled this from another state then tell us how it's successful it has been there we don't have that i think they modeled it after something someplace because i think there's 13 other states that do this but i don't have an answer to if they've been very successful or if it was a token that hasn't developed like they hoped i really don't know how successful it's been it may be very successful i don't know that either so is it possible to follow up to see if they have that information before we cast a ballot or before we cast our vote the votes do now actually we

054do have to the end of the month i mean um but we have to have a special meeting to vote on listen yeah i don't believe we can we can vote by we could do a teleconference but we can't vote by email i appreciate that it is a proposal put out by the association to open up some access or to address some access issues and so if we would like further information i would encourage us to seek it out and learn more context before casting our vote okay i agree i'm hesitant to vote no on something that won't have an effect on us but has been requested by other districts that are facing issues and so it would be nice to have a little bit more information before casting a no vote i'm not opposed

055to waiting i'm i'll be quite honest i'm reluctant to vote for any policy that equates a person to less than one that feels very wrong to me um historically it doesn't amount to very positive things but so let's find out what we can find out if it's been successful in other states and so here we go okay so the final tally of votes will include under item k amendments one through six with tabling of amendment seven pending additional information from other states okay that brings us to item l first reading of policy d n and i g d g j a um athletic uniform policy is easy the updated rotation for new uniforms the investment policy i will turn over to either the policy committee or someone in legal or finance we are bringing forward

056this policy for uh consideration tonight it is required by state law to have in place prior to investing the funds that we have for our elementary project uh something of potentially a higher rate now we are still restricted by law to essentially take on no no risk investments here the what would be included there would extend to checking savings accounts cds and then anything backed by the us government but we do need to have that in place prior to being able to move those funds into something that might be able to earn us a little bit higher return so we can get some additional funds for our project uh while we are working on that for the next couple of years so no bitcoin uh no i don't did not pass are there questions on

057uh policy dm or the athletic uniform policy this again is first reading so it'll be you know next time if i may interject doug this is this is one that we would ask that there's only one reading um that's we typically do two readings for every policy there are although that is not required we we feel it's a good practice we have in time um if it's a policy such as the uniform rotation basically that one or curriculum we typically have just reviewed them and just updated them after one rather than carrying them forward and we'd ask the same in the investment policy just simply because uh we want to get investing with this stuff right away so we don't we there's potential to lose out on thousands of dollars if we wait another month

058to do the allow the investors to take the money and go so because this is mirrored with the policy that you guys provide in july which is where we do our banking and the types of investments that are made this is just really another checks and balances to that to make sure that no one within the district can go rogue on investments in risky uh you know money markets or other places so we'd ask that you could do both of the dn and the igdja in one reading this evening any objections to approving these after first reading we did look too at the asbsd they had some sample information then also included more from the south dakota law for go to fit so added that information as well so kevin did some work on making

059sure it had all the necessary pieces that we needed so i feel comfortable with both okay so just for clarity's sake then i'm going to ask for a vote on this item so that we know the policies in place i do have a question about the uniform replacement is there a reason why we have this in policy as opposed to i mean it seems like the language at the end where you know it makes sense to be in policy that they'll be replaced as needed to ensure safety and athletic standards and it makes sense that we would have a schedule but it seems a little silly to me that we have a schedule with dates that has to be updated on a regular basis maybe an example is maybe i'm in a girl's basketball and

060i want to make sure girls basketball gets their uniforms as equally as some of our other sports so but i mean we could have a schedule where that was in place but but wasn't in our policy manual do you want to say anything carol that i think based on previous history and recommendation from our lawyers it's it's basically my understanding that uh it should be in policy it needed to be in policy and it is in policy and so we'll continue to keep it in our policy we had we had the same discussion during that why does this have to be in here i can see it you know especially for junior high track or junior high versus high school and just making sure we barely have a great rotation and now we're gonna have

061to add soccer girls in there did you put that in there by the way that's awesome yeah no not yet not until we're so you'll plan to redo that in a couple years yeah very good question okay so i'll ask you any objections i didn't hear that so i will ask for a separate vote on item l primarily to make sure that there's no confusion about our investment policy being approved uh by the board so that we can get that money invested um so is there a motion to approve policy dn and i igdja so moved by shane and carol all in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed nay extensions motion passes so item l and that brings us to item m first reading of policy j okay policy committee attached policy is one

062that we've been looking at um with the couple additions for restroom adding the and locker room um in three different places and then an addition with the overnight accommodations will be handled on a case-by-case basis we did spend quite a bit of time with brent and asking his opinion so would you like to maybe take it from there brent on how you feel with this policy or how you feel with all those items stricken and leaving as our current jlk policy as i spoke with the policy committee basically it's leave it up to the board is the brief summation as it the current policy sits i feel that it is adequate to cover for a locker room situation in which the individual as is outlined in the current procedure addresses the administration as is outlined

063in the policy i do not agree that restrooms and locker rooms are synonymous my logic would be that all locker rooms are restrooms but not all restrooms are locker rooms the district has also taken certain steps with the privacy of the locker rooms which as a whole is just basic good privacy all around as far as the overnight accommodations that's essentially just memorializing the current practice and i don't feel that leaving it out of the policy would subject the school to any additional legal liability the only caveat to that is if you leave the locker rooms out of the policy it is possible as a directive to administration that maybe it gets overlooked and the policy is misapplied that would be the one copy out there but if the policy is implemented as it is

064stated the current policy does allow for the locker room usage subject to the current outline procedure my concern is that a reasonable adult might read the policy without the locker room language in it and make the determination that a student would have access to a restroom but not a locker room so i support putting the locker room language in there for clarification and transparency it's probably like me i call my parents all the time it's probably right every chance i get making a phone call um i would i would also support carol i think after hearing from brent it really stands either way and i do think just having that clarity in there would help um just future the policy is going to be the same way either way so i think that's important to

065note but i do think putting it in there does clarify that way if people are needing to make any accommodations they know they need to to make an ask let's say for overnight accommodations they know they can they can go to the um the process that we have in place and it's kind of written there in policy so i do find that it's clearer i think just for future administrators it's easier to to see and to follow knowing that that is the standards the intent again is based on legal whether it's in there or not it stands i would agree with both of you i think especially given the conversations that we had when we adopted jok initially i think that if someone was following those conversations it would have been reasonable to assume that

066we were specifically excluding locker rooms because we said we were explicitly excluding locker rooms until we could make privacy accommodations and that we would wait to change the policy until then so i think making it clear and transparent what is that that that is a part of it in a way that um leaves no room for misunderstanding is important and is there any concern about that second sentence i mean that was one of the questions that i had is what constitutes a compelling specific or documented concern for safety i know when we wrote this we had one thing in mind i just want to make sure it couldn't be interpreted in other ways that might come back and undermine the intent of the policy i don't think that'll be interpreted in a different way to

067undermine the policy it is a judgment decision by administration right as is outlined in the procedure it does not have to be the safety concerns for solely the transgender student right it could be other compelling concerns for any individual right whether that's staff another cisgender student it's what would amount to legal standing right you have to have a legitimate interest it's not you know somebody from yankton has a compelling concern or something right and the language here is specific to students so this does not apply to the general public entering the buildings correct okay i i think aside from this policy i think from what i'm hearing from the public too is we have some efforts to do on just bathrooms in general um whether it be bullying or vaping or whatever the bathrooms are

068going on i think let's get this policy wrapped up and let's try to see what we can do to kind of fix those issues building more bathrooms is not the solution um fixing the problem so i would love to get to that direct issue and really work on just access so all feel comfortable going to whatever bathroom it is that's closest they can they can take care of their business and have it done in a safe place so for all okay other comments questions on the policy so it's my understanding the way that policy is written today is really restrooms or implied and can go or we would do locker rooms so it really applies to both today but it's more maybe discretionary from administration how they enforce that today that that would be correct

069right so if we put it locker rooms in there just more clear maybe and damon you could comment is that more consistent is that easier for administrators to then consistently administer it doesn't matter if because what we're really saying it's even if it's not in the wording or not it's there legally legally it's there yeah right in practice the policy allows for this yes it doesn't explicitly provide for it but it would allow it allowed so that's where i don't know what's best for your administrator damon if you have a comment you know the they've been um sort of in limbo for the entire year working on this so um you know i they we always like clarity so having it written down will not help us or hurt us in terms of that um

070we'll be we'll be crystal clear with our expectations but once again just to make sure everybody understands the locker room would only impact an athlete or a student that's going through one of our programs that would offer locker room so you know i mean the locker room is not a restroom so an average citizen is not walking down using the restroom but if we had a transgender athlete or a transgender student going in one of our pe classes that chose to change clothes because in our district they're not required to change clothes for pe so we have a fair number of students that they'll never go into a locker room so that situation would never be addressed here unless they chose to use those facilities and they'd get too other thoughts okay so this the

071motion at the end includes the approval of the first reading with a second reading to be held at the june meeting uh then we have the new item item n which is the approval of the network upgrades under e-rate grant damon you want to give us a little update on that and you have yes everyone has a copy of that basically what you have in front of you is just a placeholder we have gone and partnered with a connecting point there one of our providers for much of our wired and wireless access points and patchwork in our in our district if one of the new uh federal regulations when you're using e-rate money e-rate is free federal dollars that we get to apply towards projects such as this in this particular case we've got a

072contract to work with to wire wireless activity access points and patches for a value of about a hundred three thousand dollars in this technology initiative and the e rate that we would apply for will take care of about two-thirds of that so at this point we will move forward with connecting point at this point we had already started this project a couple months ago but because we're using a e-rate dollars we had to make sure that we now have it board approved which is something we've never had to do before it's probably another oversight for grants i suppose that's coming our direction but in the past we've just applied for and received e-rate and applied it to whatever needs we had but at this point you would be voting to basically approve that acknowledge that

073we're going forward with that project and using e-rate funds so that helps clarify why the letter was written in february nothing can be stalled prior to april 1st and it's may 9th okay but we haven't we're okay because we have until september 30th right okay and then e-rates in general um you get we kind of have a contractor that helps really be the one to kind of understand all this and keep up with all the regs and to be able to be knowledgeable great question yeah there's the e-rates like many federal grants have got some really complex issues to them so we partner with a a lady that helps write these for most of the schools from dakota valley all the way up ia-29 and she basically goes out and searches for us all the

074regulations dots as our eyes and crosses our t's and then she gives us the information that we can bring forward when we partner up with a connecting point or a dakota pc warehouse here in town or whoever we're partnering with wherever we apply those dollars she helps us get to that point good question okay any other questions okay so unless there is a request for a separate vote on any item the motion will include item d while i'm acknowledging that we have received the primary district budget we've already set the budget hearing um approval of the comprehensive plan the transfer request for the middle school counselor the change to the 22-23 school year the approval of one adult volunteer rescinding our prior dishwasher bid approving the new dishwasher bid approving the extended school year summer

075employment agreements the first six amendments to the south dakota high school activities association and first reading of policy jok amendment and the e-rate grant second well done doug been moved and seconded to approve all of those items by carol and rachel all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed nay abstentions motion passes that brings us to reports all right thank you uh just a couple quick things uh thank yous to the pto for providing a great carnival experience last week to the community um and thanks to the pto that they continually donate things to our school and our kids they offer scholarships for teachers to be able to provide things for their classroom so thank them for the partnership i want to also thank deputy armstrong and the others from the clay county

076sheriff's office who helped teach dare this year to our kids in fifth grade they had a great graduation exercise last week and carson i'm sorry mr carson's last name the quarterback from usd was the was the keynote speaker camp camp yeah very very nice talk to fifth graders and teachers about his experiences as a young man and using those good decision models that that their program helps to foster just a reminder of the summer school events there of course austin has some in june and july jolly is through june and july middle school is through the month of june and high school has the two sessions one in june and one in july uh so if any parent were to question about getting their kids enrolled or specific times and dates please check out your

077child's school or your principal at that school we want to get as many kids into those programs as possible we also want to congratulate micheline adams she's a speech-language pathologist forward for us here at the district worked with us a number of years we knew she was a rock star but others have recognized that too the child first award is given from the south dakota school for the deaf in recognition of of a slp's work with deaf and hard of hearing students and michaelene adams was their award winner this year for that so we've she got a nice little recognition from that group about two weeks ago we wanted to thank her for that um we've been working with the department of labor you've heard us talk a little bit about our internship classes the

078last three years that we've been working on to one grow but also just get kids more diverse internship opportunities mrs armbrust at the high school teaches a great course there and we've been working to expand that and one of the ways we've done that is the department of labor has partnered with us to offer suggestions and help and get involved with our kids but this is even above and beyond that they're going to place a person in our building next year to spend about three days a week working with our cte folks as well as our students uh preparing them for the world of work not necessarily internships but just being available for a resource so they'll find a place to camp out a few days a week at the high school get to know

079our kids and just be another face and resource in the building besides our counselors and our cte folks about getting into the world of work so we wanted to thank the group from the department of labor for working and finding that person and the funds to help us out they've been instrumental with the yankton program for a number of years in the last three years they've been partners behind the scenes with us and now it's starting to culminate and get some nice traction which we're happy with um uh i guess basically the last thing was just to talk a little bit i didn't put this in your announcements forgot to to mention the uh teachers you saw the the middle school note that uh certainly appreciated the the board's gift of ice cream treats this

080week uh in the fall you typically do uh meat and cheese trays or cookies or something for recognition of american education week but teacher appreciation week was last week and of course we call all of our appreciation weeks all staff appreciation weeks because without all of our staff our school wouldn't be able to function very well and so whether you're working with kids directly or indirectly or support staff we want to thank the board for making sure that we had treats for that week but also the board wanted to make sure we thank the teachers for all the work that they do every day with kids and we celebrate teacher appreciation week with some little things in the buildings and of course the treats always go a long way so that's all we have today

081oh by the way the picture up there is just uh last week i reported on our administrators were doing strength finders training over the course of the year this was our culmination activity where we had to place down some pros of the district some some things that we were very proud of and some things that we're continually working on can't see much on the posters but we had a really good discussion we wanted to thank sue galvin who led that charge with us former jolly principal here in the district she is a gallup trained strength finders coach and works throughout the state and south dakota nebraska but she came to us for free and and did all that just because for her love for the district so i want to thank sue for that and

082our admit team had a fun time getting to know each other's strengths so it was a very worthwhile exercise i'm gonna go next while you're working please do sorry well i just wanted to thank um mrs rosdell i wrapped up my junior achievement second grade art community class here last week and she has been doing jar community for 16 years so as she gets ready for retirement i just wanted to say thank you for her support of junior achievement it's been great to go i think i've been going in about six or seven years with her particularly and she's just a wonderful teacher so just want to say thank you to mrs rossdale and supporting and welcoming all our ja volunteers and just in general as well into the vermillion school district so it's always

083welcoming to go into the district other board committees i'd just like to say congratulations to the vhs seniors who were recipients of the vermillion public schools foundation scholarships they were announced and received their awards at a scholarship ceremony last week at the high school so congratulations to those recipients and congratulations to all those who will graduate coming up very soon yeah um i the community relations committee isn't much of a committee but i do have a meeting scheduled with a couple people from the university as soon as grades are finished we usually take care of all the finance committee stuff in in meetings so we've kind of covered that we have decided we'll do our last audit in july so that we get the full fiscal year there but otherwise i think everything else was

084reported out and the personnel we hired hired our technical director technology director i think it might be a good idea for the i.t committee to meet with ashley um probably in the next month maybe let her get settled but perhaps even before steve is gone get a collaborative meeting together any other committee reports board reports okay we will move on oh yeah sorry yes that is um basically a placeholder in the past uh tim sweisenger always um was the board rep who um sort of ran with the idea last year we just sort of did it from our office uh one we wanted to see if the board wanted to have a august picnic return to school night usually sometime that first week of school usually after a workshop day we would go to one

085of the parks we had food delivered in an inflatable and sort of enjoyed each other's company with families and stuff so one is if somebody's interested in running with it great if you're not we'll take care of it from the office and two if we have the board support we'll start planning on a date and typically hot dogs hamburgers and beans and chips and just a nice little night so if you're good with us running it we will do it if you want to run with it that's okay too i'll nominate shane and i to discuss it i would like to know too um if it's valuable for the staff and when that we do it um just because i know i think it's a lot i think we do it the first week of

086school yeah and i think it's just intense you know they've already been in their classroom it's just a lot i just really want to hear from them we want to do something i think for sure the matter is when does it work best for them i love all the buildings getting together i think that's great meeting some of the new staff i love um it's always great to have the kids go play on the bouncy houses and all that stuff but so more so just want to be curious about that time do you want to send something to us to send out or if you have a few questions we can send them out through the the staff email and okay absolutely thank you we'll do something i'm really good at cotton candy from my

087pto carnival days so i don't like sugar like that okay any others sorry i missed the financial report included in your packet again this month i really don't have much to highlight so unless there's any questions the tax receipts have leveled off as you might have seen on there so we don't have that necessarily to worry about anymore except make a motion to accept the financial report question by rachel second by jim all in favor of accepting the financial reports and claims funds signified by saying aye aye opposed nay abstentions approved future agenda items so back in december we had a conversation about our our frustration with our outdated and clunky evaluation policy and that it didn't really sort of provide it didn't really assess the things that we thought were the right characteristics to

088assess and that it didn't necessarily provide the right information for us to be able to assess those things so at that time we said hey we should do something about that before next december so if maybe personnel wants to take a look at that so that we don't come back next december and realize we haven't done anything yet i agree i had one i don't i think we could follow uh came up in our finance committee where that's where we just got kind of doing the better monitors whatever four should be on right now for the restrooms due to some concerns in the restroom of vaping or other just kids being kids so i would just like a follow up with that are we planning to put a monitor outside at least short term and

089see if that helps i don't know if we need to do it here but just somewhere we close the loop and talk about that yeah we'll certainly bring it up at friday's admin meeting and see because i know at the at the high school level what they've done is uh just ask more uh teachers to be available just randomly stopping in and doing things um john i don't know if there's anything that's been a positive result of that or if we've seen anything that's been noted there but it's both the middle school and high school we seem to be having these these two issues so but we'll certainly bring that up obviously with the last um you know week and a half of school we'll have to do something with our own staff inside there

090and talk about for next fall next fall what would we start what what could it look like with our staff with our staff or i know we're adding a couple extra people and resources those folks maybe redeploy them we talk then you've got a good one or two months soon as you start the school year everybody knows maybe you nip it right away and it helps so asking for kind of a review of this year and then an action plan for next year yes okay well put i guess just as this is a good segue one of the things that our admin team has been working on to prepare for you at our summer retreat is to talk about some of the the challenges that the staff is facing in vaping and and behaviors attendance

091and things like that or some of those so this will fit in nicely with the things that they're already discussing so we'll be able to put this into the plan and share some sort of direction with you guys thank you one more two maybe just a follow-up on the carport that the school has made and then curious if we have any talk about just as housing is a hot topic and how crazy prices but if we have any intent from the cti to go back to that housing house i guess project that we've done in the past so more just like an update sure maybe throughout the summer or something finish the projects um have some good support and show off i guess what they have done and then some future i can share a

092little bit now if you have a second well i want to see pictures oh okay what i can't well i can tell you is is we do or the student wants to come in and tell us about what they did or learned or just our kids had done uh completed a five-stall carport which we've been trying to do for over a year and finally got it worked out and our building that we partner with ams the house will be moved out we hope on friday friday or monday it's up to the movers from sioux falls or madison or wherever they get those guys it will be placed on franklin street it's obviously an ams supported project they come and work with our kids so if you see a house moving down main street on friday

093stay out of the way because it's it's moving but we'll get some more details for you yeah if a student wants a presenter or something they'd love to show off what they did and then one other thing i know you have some comprehensive planning planned for this summer but i wonder if it's possible that our board retreat could be a bit longer it felt this past year like we we just sort of got started with conversations and then kind of got rushed and weren't able to finalize out some of those details so maybe if that means it's a two-day retreat or and i know that there's some scheduling issues too if we could get that on the calendar around people's already scheduled vacations and other types of things but it seems like there's enough issues

094for us to be able to have a little bit more time especially with two new board members to work out yeah well i think that one of the challenges is you won't we will know the outcome of the election before the july meeting where they're official board members but by the time they come on that leaves a compressed window in which to meet but at least start getting those dates planned with everyone who needs to be there and i do think you're right it did feel rushed and even having that break allows you to sleep on some things and come back with some questions okay that's the most active future agenda session i think we've had in a long time okay anything else we're on a roll oh very good then our next board meeting

095is june 13th here in the city hall chambers city of vermillion and then after that the july 11th and that budget hearing will be at 6 30 with the regular board meeting to follow at 7. and then i do have a request for executive session regarding matters of personnel contract i don't know which number that is current hopefully you can tell me which one of the two i think is 125-2 part one okay so i need a motion to enter executive session by jim second by rachel all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed nay okay we are in executive session you