Vermillion School Board

001you twelve or one i see yeah hopefully pulls through whatever he's dealing with yep that's why we sort out our multimedia feedback mechanism here we good with this okay good evening i will call this meeting of the brilliant school board to order attendance nordic olsen here d peterson here jay peterson vos ward all present please rise and join me in the pledge of i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all at this time we have our visitors to be heard we typically begin with our tanger happenings which we do not have the tanger happening officially but i do want to just publicly comment on the fact that every december for the past

002three years the school district has done a staff survey the purpose of that staff survey is for understanding the needs and strengths of the district it is circulated to the board members they received it about an hour ago in two different forms it is then discussed by the executive committee however since it is personnel related we don't discuss the specific results of that with public dissemination it's an internal document however i am going to talk a little bit about it we do ask a series of questions that i think are valuable for the board and there isn't anything wrong with sharing some generalities and then i'll let mr alvey talk a little bit about how he has used this in the past so in 2019 we began with a very short survey asking about the

003climate of the district and it includes a couple of questions the first question is the climate within do you agree that the climate within the school district is positive and one of the simplest maybe not the the most efficient but the simplest ways to look at this is simply to look at the proportion of our staff who report to agree or strongly agree with that and that number has over the past three years increased from 40 percent in 2019 to 51 percent in 2020 and finally this year to 64 and that is true for almost all of the individual items feeling valued for contributions has risen from 40 percent two years ago to 43 percent to 62 percent the supervisory communication has improved from 60 percent up to 76 percent this year and then finally

004the satisfaction with the instructional resources has risen from 48 percent to 67 percent certainly 67 percent for instructional resources and i view that as one of our very important tasks is something we want to continue to improve on because i do believe that is one of the key purposes of a school board is to make sure that its teachers have the resources they need we also ask some internal documents questions about the perception investment of the board the central administration the building administrators and their colleagues and those two show a positive trend but because those are used internally for evaluation i won't go through the specifics of that i will say for board members as you go through that document you have about 35 pages worth of comments which are often very informative we have

005a potential to do a little finer grained evaluation this year and so if you have questions about breaking out responses by type of employee please forward them to me and i will add that to the report mr alvey would you care to discuss briefly how you use this document you bet thank you um like dr peterson said we we try to use this information that we gather from our staff to sort of get a pulse of what's happening in the building sometimes when you work in different buildings you don't know always know some of the intricate details of what's happening in those buildings so our administrative team uh we review all of the results the same as doug had just done there we see the graphs and then we see the the comment sections as

006well and because it's an anonymous survey we can't always determine who the comment might be focused on or what the improvement might be needed if it wasn't geared to a specific building or a specific program so we do our best to identify that and then we work on solutions and our advisory team uh academic teams make up an action plan based on those in the information that we're gathered and then we share that with staff so if we've seen something that we feel for example let's say communication came up as a concern on an anonymous survey we uh interpret that that would be district-wide so we try to find solutions at every level to solve a communication error or communicate communication concern so some examples of that is the creation of our advisory council that

007meets um each semester to talk about specific things in the building they do that directly with me and the administrative team uh another thing that was mentioned was with communication they they like the fact of the weekly superintendent notes that come out to both the parents and the staff so those were things that we reflected on and grew that program so that we would make sure that we were reinforcing the things that were working well and then trying to find improvements for any deficiencies that we found along the way so we found it very valuable as well and it causes us to maybe create some changes if we find something especially if there's a pattern of similar answers across the board are there any questions about the process or anything else i look forward to

008reviewing the responses and uh am i correct that the parents are surveyed later in the school year or remind me of the calendar for for our other surveys that we conduct yeah that's typically end of the semester so end of the school year so in may okay at this time any member of the public may address the board on any issue that they so choose if you do so i'll please ask that you come forward to the microphone state your name and the issue please keep in mind that there will be no action taken on the issue unless it already appears on the agenda and please refrain from using personnel or student names in your comments so anyone who wishes to address the board very good we will then move on to item five approval

009of the agenda conflicts of interest so there are a couple of agenda changes so item i that reads approval of certified negotiations that will include approval of certified negotiations and contract terms for classified employees and then under new business we have l approval of amendment for the food service contract and that is included here is that right so you should have this packet at your station and then finally the first time we've gotten to do this since moving to a consent agenda we've had a request for a discussion on one consent agenda item and because it pertains to a personnel matter that will be discussed in executive session that approval of the consent agenda will come after that discussion pending whether that changes anything that would be in the consent agenda and so that is

010a complete we will move the entire consent agenda to after executive session so we will not be taking care of any consent items until that time any other changes okay then i need a motion to approve the agenda as amended motion to approve by rachel circuit second by carol all in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed nay abstentions amended agenda is approved second is conflicts of interest so pursuant to south dakota codified law 3-23 we state conflicts of interest that have not been previously disclosed or restate those that have been disclosed i think this is the first time in a while we haven't had someone who has a direct conflict because we don't have any since we're approving conflict contracts this is a one of the times you have a little more to say

011however i have reviewed the agenda and have no conflicts at this time rachel i have none jim i have none carol i have none shane i have none okay so that takes us now to unfinished business where we'll be talking about facilities and the elementary school so i believe we have sean online actually sean i have sean yeah sean is absent this evening in his place it was greg from tsp which i think believe you've met and of course steve from hausmann are both there so they're going to give us a brief overview of where we've uh where we're at and i guess i'll let you guys start off and take over and then we'll see if there's any questions all right um i can begin with um just an update on the schedule so

012we're issuing two bid packages over the next few months and you know the first bid package is to include the site work and structural foundations and then the second bid package which will be issued later will be the remaining portion of the work the architectural mechanical electrical this friday we will be providing a drawing set to hospital construction and they'll be starting to put together update the pricing in preparation for the final gmp set the final guaranteed maximum price set [Music] the final bid pack one construction documents are scheduled to be issued on may 10th and then the final bid pack two construction documents are scheduled to be issued june 23rd so each one after they're issued on the bid periods about three weeks for each one of those issuance then um just looking further

013out for the schedule the construction will take approximately two years so we're looking at um the building to be substantially substantially complete at the end of june july of 2024 so i don't know if you have any anything further see no that was a good recap um and really that's the majority of any update that i would have had um like greg said we'll have really a next budget update that'll reflect some of the things that we talked about at the last meeting last month as far as structural steel and studs versus some of the block and that sort of thing we'll have an update on that hopefully by next month's meeting once we get this next pricing set update from from greg and his team um i will add we had a little bit

014of dialogue last week on our weekly call with tsp and damon and kevin um just about the ability to get the school in there and plenty of time start moving furniture and such and i really have no concern with that um oftentimes we'll just start releasing the parts of the building that are substantially complete and punched out while we're buttoning up loose ends on the rest of this site i think that'll be a really smooth process and obviously we've got some time ahead of them to make sure we coordinate it and kind of prioritize critical areas first so overall i think it's a schedule that we're really comfortable with the only other item that i had was that just looking at the approach as we are developing the design you know we're making decisions we're

015working tsp is working directly with houseman in order to find the most cost effective approach to the design so there's um you know a few uh a few of the cost savings that we've already looked at and i think we've discussed already was that we've now committed to a steel stud construction um for those that exterior wall type and then many of those interior partitions will be in steel stud as well we've also committed to a hardened shell construction for kind of safe shelters we didn't take it to the level of a storm shelter but we worked with the city on providing that hardened shell construction and then just again working with houseman just defining you know how that potentially um how that roof structure goes together and how we can save money by providing

016a sloped roof structure versus just a flat roof so there's we're still working through that as we've done greg can you just quickly remind us that bid package one is really dirt work and all of the uh things to get the foundations prepared yeah um bid pack one just it includes um the majority of it's the site grading the site paving and the walks and then the site utilities and then besides the site work it would be the structural footings and foundations which go into bid pack one okay so our goal is obviously to get somebody on board early with the dirt work and and potentially start moving dirt as early as july for that project if we could get the bidders all in place right away after the after they're i guess uh vetted

017and everything correct okay correct yeah hopefully before july 1st things go well that by the end of june yep okay and then bid package two can you kind of explain is that everything else to follow correct um we'll actually issue all the drawings again including civil and structural but bid pack 2 big pack 2 then includes the rest of structural it's not just the footing but it's the structural steel and then it'll include the architectural and interior drawings and then mechanical electrical i i should also add we talked about the mechanical electrical plumbing rfp process last month with you all and that's that's in motion we've gotten kind of a check set or a progress set from tsp here in the last couple weeks so we've actually got that out on the street right now

018for perspective interested firms so hopefully that as well by next month we'll have an update and a big tab to review with you and to get those firms on board okay i'll see if the board has any questions here i don't know if there's any value that last rendering with the exterior i don't know if somebody has that to show the public what we look like or is that still premature yeah actually the the board has got the pictures greg that you sent me uh but we don't have a picture to show up on the on the screen at this moment but the greg's group is finalizing that same drawing that you the board members saw which will show three exterior looks of the building as well as the floor plan and greg's team is

019making our boards for that so that we'll get those updated and brought down i'll make sure dave gets the updated picture for the paper thank you i don't have anything okay thank you very much thanks guys that's all we needed thank you all right uh item b under unfinished business uh covet update yes as part of our annual review uh our our numbers uh the last couple weeks have been uh really really good last week when we took this report we had two uh cases one uh coast case in the middle school and one case in the high school we've had six cases in the last month so we've really done a nice job as a community to do our parts and people are staying home when they're ill and and taking care of their

020health our staff and and people in the buildings continue to do a great job of making sure that the environment is uh is clean and and great for hygiene and helping reduce spread so we want to thank everybody that's been involved with that of course now as we get to the end of the year we'll update our return to school plan uh prior to uh the reorganization meeting in july either next month or in june we'll update what that return to school plan would look like for next year in his course we talked about last month every six months this plan has to be reviewed publicly we do it monthly and if the board so desires we can continue to do it monthly but if you at the very least said we needed to make

021sure we we revisit the plan at least twice in the next school term through 2023 because now the the esser funds are linked with the return to school plans that schools have created so good news to share this month questions on that okay we're moving making good progress good weather always makes for quick meetings right just in case anyone is wondering there are a number of items on the consent agenda but with absent a need to separate one specific item the entire congen consent items including approval of minute spills will remain together and should we not need to make any change per our discussion it will be still approved at the end as a single item okay so that brings us to new business and discussion under policy jok so this is and i know

022the policy committee has met on this and we talked about it last time but we didn't have it listed as first reading and so we should have some of that discussion now so that we can uh formalize that should it go forward i'll just give some background obviously this is a policy this is our gender equity and access policy that the board created last fall and over the course of the winter the plant had really sat dormant while we were waiting for locker rooms and restroom improvements here at the district we were also waiting to see if there was any legislative action through the state of south dakota this spring to deal with so in the meantime all of our locker rooms facilities restroom facilities have all been updated that was part of our initial

023request at the beginning of this when we began talking about restroom equity access and so now as of about two days after last board meeting all of those things were completed so i'm happy to report that all of our facilities have been upgraded since last fall when this policy was created just for the listening audience our gender equity access policy after considerable discussion last fall the school board had determined this was a restroom policy that they would revisit in the spring about whether to include overnight accommodations or locker room access to that discussion and so in the meantime policy committees met and other committees have met to discuss that and that's really where we're at tonight so now we're here tonight to talk about uh direction any action and if there's any change to our

024current restroom policy which is jlk so australia would you mind giving a summary of our conversation that we had with the lawyer with ksb sure over the course of the last several months and working with brent our attorney as well as ksb and others in the field of i guess school law we talked to uh folks about what is the best way to handle policy change what's the best way to move forward with a policy or a practice for the district that still holds the intent of the district but as well as doesn't require necessarily any changes to what we've got currently in place that discussion basically with ksb law concluded that in their view we could keep jlk our restroom policy as it's currently written and that we could address any variances to that

025either locker room access and or overnight accommodations with a as case-by-case basis practically like we do now if we have a restroom access issue those things get dealt with through through the administration at the school if it's an overnight accommodation issue because uh the band is going on a trip someplace then if there's a request for certain specific accommodations to be made those are given to the advisor or the administration to be worked through so in essence this is really a continuation of what we've done but both policy members were were in that discussion as well so i'd welcome any input that you guys gathered from that discussion what i heard from our discussion with the attorney from ksb is that our policy as we have it without the words locker rooms carries the same

026weight legally whether that's included in the language or not so really the easiest thing to do is just to leave everything as is because the policy covers it we're covered legally in the same way so but you know the reason we have public discussion public votes public input is for transparency and the reason that we post our policies online is for transparency and students or families or administrators or counselors or board members to me make decisions based on what is written on what a policy says or what is out there and transparent we have the benefit had the benefit of hearing from an attorney and getting advice on specifically where the law is but someone looking at a policy online or an administrator or a parent is not going to have that benefit in the

027moment and i think it's our job to have transparent policies and our policy now if i were to read it and had not been part of the conversations or heard the legal advice i would think restrooms not locker rooms that's what would stick in my mind and i think that's what would stick in the minds of most people who would read the policy and be making decisions going forward so i think it's important to include the words locker rooms into our policy and when asked of the ksb attorney about including those words he you know certainly said the easiest thing is to leave it as is but it's the same thing if you include it or not so i would like to see us include the words to be as transparent and as helpful as

028possible in this case we don't need to hold our cards close to the best let's put out there what we want our policy to say so that was really i think specific to the locker room portion um versus maybe even the overnight accommodation portion so um so as the policy states mr really just because i'm looking at the version that has the yellow highlighted parts the yellow highlight parts is the proposed which would be an addition to our current policy which does not have locker room included correctly correct and then there's also a line statement says that overnight accommodations will be handled on a case-by-case basis and that is and also in addition correct to this policy so really we're looking at three words or three editions saying locker room and then another addition saying

029the overnight accommodations will be on a case by case basis so those are the two big really changes again just being transparent with it but again not necessarily necessary to have to have it in there i do appreciate that the locker rooms are kind of have been redone and have some more privacy added to them from what i understand and i'll add that those updates were made because of the conversations and the public input that came about as we developed this policy so i'm glad to hear that they're completed so tonight here you're looking for we don't have to have a vote necessarily it could just go to the second reading or can it get it has to happen it has to have a majority to move to second reading thank you so absent the

030you know the locker room change doesn't change anything that i mean the language is there for public transparency um the overnight accommodation language can that be handled on a case-by-case basis if it's not there yes it would be our procedure so it would be handled the same way just wouldn't be written in policy for both the locker room and the overnight accommodations correct mr elleny yes yes we're still correct handling it all it just wouldn't be written overnight accommodations is the practice that we have now for any student i mean on any on any team yeah so does the policy committee reviewed it have consensus what they'd recommend on this or because it's two things correct one is locker room add it to the policy or not as i read and then two you you

031do case by case overnight accommodations i guess i'm in favor of listening to what ksb suggested and leaving them out and doing them both as a case doing them as a case by case but not written in policy and what sorry can repeat what their rationale for leaving it out is if it doesn't change anything a couple factors one is is is there could be a situation if it's if it's in policy in black and white where somebody would argue that they would have rights to that uh accommodation and if they haven't gone through the procedures of that then they could still be denied if if it's on a case-by-case basis that makes that argument easier to take you know if they haven't followed all the procedures for the locker room or the overnight accommodation

032there'd be less standing for that grievance to be filed against the district second thing about that is is if you remember back from the beginning we we were taxed with or the task at hand was to create a restroom policy it morphed into locker rooms and overnight accommodations during the discussion it was never asked of this board to bring forward overnight accommodations nor the locker rooms it was asked that we would you address restroom issues from the students in the district that had asked so the the ask was there for that and then we went further than that ask which has created this discussion for the last uh six or seven months and this part of the discussion is much more sensitive than the discussion on restrooms because i think we would agree that we

033haven't had any concerns with the restrooms since we've uh put this in the policy but if you're talking locker rooms it's a totally different situation if you were to ask the public so that's the calls that i ask uh or that i get asked and the questions that i've been been asked to ponder as as we're working on this policy so i think it's just important to make sure all those factors are considered i would i'm wondering if clarification in the actual policy would help with the questions so my takeaway from from what has been said and correct me if i'm wrong is that the attorneys say that we're legally covered by not adding the language because it's implied that this is also applying to the locker rooms as long as a student is going

034through the process that's been established and working through the administration to get the approval to use those facilities is that correct so we we are supporting access to those students regardless of whether it's said locker rooms or not in this policy and that's why the attorney said well it's easier not to because you're already covering that basis in terms of establishing sort of respecting a legal right that's been established and not being in not discriminating on that basis correct correct so if that's the case then adding the words locker room doesn't really to me change the policy or expand it beyond the original conversation if the original conversation is already that students who work through this process as they're supposed to would already have the ability to be able to have access to those facilities

035and we've created the additional privacy to be able to have those given the concerns that we had articulated over the last fall both from parents who are supportive this policy and parents who are not it seems like having transparency about what the policy is so that you can make the best choice for how you want to navigate that situation like having that transparency makes the most sense so if i had concerns about this happening in the locker rooms but i didn't think it was because we didn't have the words locker rooms you know written there that to me seems worse than it sort of everybody being on the same page of this is the process that we have and if someone works through the process this is what this is what's being allowed and i

036agree that the overnight accommodations are too like or so like they're so individual and it's so big like leaving that and whether or not the language specifically says that i probably don't have strong feelings about that but if the process is such that this policy applies to restrooms and locker rooms for transparency's sake for everybody i think it makes sense to have that clearly articulated and that's why this is a board policy for the school board to determine and for the administration to administer what was the attorney or brett's recommendation or however we got because can somebody clarify that again damon i'm sorry just clarify what the attorney from ksb said so they suggested what i heard you say is keep the policy as is without locker room correct but then you do it case

037by case which is really more in your procedure right and just like carol said the weight of the law is the same whether it's a practice or a policy it's just a semantics of whether you have it in writing or if it's something that some as a practice that you you deal with on a day-to-day basis like the overnight accommodations we don't have that written down anywhere it's just something we do based on the needs at the time probably you know part of the discussion was probably uh based on the fact that knowing the the sensitivity of this issue and the fact that this board has already spent um nine months on that i'm sure that was part of it is not to to you know bring forth something that's going to divide the board

038or divide the community in general so those were all factors i think that was part of the advice [Music] yeah this is go ahead karen i feel we are doing a better job policy making which is our charge if we are clear in the policies that we pass and if the language if the policy carries the same weight with the words in there or not then we should err on what is best and easiest for the community to understand and to me that means adding in locker rooms and keeping case by case in the overnight accommodations piece that's what's presented in our packet and i feel that that is the clearest message and policy that we can put forth to our community and our administrators going forward it seems strange to me that we had

039such lengthy discussion about the locker rooms when it doesn't seem that that was necessary that's what i'm curious as to i'd like to hear from i mean i wasn't there with ksp so i i'm not sure how that came about and and they have offered um to be able to sit down with the entire board as well in an executive session or i think even public i believe i don't think this can be handled in executive sessions to attend a public meeting but my takeaway was adding locker rooms was not it was it was not a big deal well i think that the expansion right which was being discussed sort of how this ended up being expanded was when we reviewed and the policy committee can correct me but when reviewing language from other school

040districts who had already adopted similar policies that under our legal counsel at the legal recommendations at the time would be in alignment with current sort of judiciary rulings right sort of like here are the things that are covered so if you're going to have a gender equity policy not a bathroom policy but a gender equity policy like here are the things that you want to be thinking about in order to make sure that there's not a discriminatory policy even if the ask in this case was only for a specific thing because that student maybe wasn't worried about locker rooms at that time or sort of you know looking for access in that way so i think that's the way that it got expanded my concern with the discussion now is that in the fall we

041said you know we'll add in the locker rooms once we make the changes to the locker rooms and we have those in the facility and it seems like the advice now is like well you're already covered on the locker rooms and so it's just easier not to have a first reading and a second reading and potentially sort of stir feathers right like because you can continue to do it and it's like well that that seems disingenuous or just like easier for us to not have to have the conversation publicly by putting the words out there but it doesn't make it as transparent in terms of what we're actually providing access to students for so that they aren't being discriminated against well i would be surprised i mean i guess given the press and everything else

042if the public were surprised by this inclusion i understand the logic i think that there is as much potential perception from making this change at the very end of the school year as there is for leaving it the same i mean i i think either way those who wish to make an argument that we're trying to do something under the cover of darkness are going to make that argument um so whether we add it or don't but we're not only worried about parents paying attention now we're worrying about parents five years from now who have kids in the district that are able to see the policy and understand what the practice is and we couldn't expect that they would go back and hear all of the conversations that we would had and know that this

043would apply to locker rooms no i certainly understand that i but i can't envision what future boards may do to amend this or change it between now and five years from now either and we we can't make a policy that is protected from that and so my interest is making a policy that is solid enough to withstand those types of threats and this is where yeah i i want to i'm proud of what we've done and i want to see it continue i'm just i'm i'm a little perplexed by what seems like we removed something we wanted to see facilities and now the attorney's saying one thing you know that it would have been there anyway you know if that's the case why did we remove it and i guess that this is where i

044i'm in my mind i'm still really wondering is restroom really equal to locker room and in legal standing in south dakota there aren't any other districts that do this and there aren't any other rulings pe is a required course is that correct correct and locker rooms are part of pe uh yes sort of because some kids change and some don't okay so we are talking about facilities that are part of required curriculum if we chose to make them change clothes it would be yes but currently that is not a a mandate of any of our pe courses and of course based on the governor's signature of the women's fairness and sports act we don't have at this point a scenario where there'll be a an athlete of of a transgender athlete performing in another sport

045in the state until that's either contested or overruled but that only applies to um female athletics right it only applies to women's sports so you could have a transgender student in our district who's playing on a male sport that would need access to the locker rooms in that way well any any transgender student would be required to change in the in their um i guess the locker room of their biological sex just like we do now if we have a girl football player for example that plays football but there's there's a number of girls in the state that play boys sports but there are no boys biological males that play girls sports currently in the state of south dakota so if there was a female that wanted to play one of the boys sports such

046as football or wrestling wrestling they have their own section now but football is a better example they would be of course asked to change in the girls locker room um unless they're coming and saying they're a transgender athlete right right that's what i'm saying is that the governor's policy doesn't apply to transgender male students who are wanting to participate in a male team sport it only applies to because of the way that it was written it only applies to female sports so there is the possibility that we would have a transgender student wanting access to locker rooms for participation in a male sport potentially [Music] so are we down to the point we either leave it the same that's for time's sake we vote and if there is a vote it's to for whatever reason

047either change or this would be we go to the second reading of this policy with locker rooms or you keep locker rooms not in there but it's going to be on a case-by-case basis isn't that what we're discussing now well it's on a case-by-case basis regardless of whether it's in there because of the way the process is it's just whether we specifically say this is a possibility in the policy versus it's just being a possibility in the practice yes so we either say locker rooms of practice just like overnight accommodations or isn't it that's what we okay yes that isn't 100 in aligned with that right and and here is what i would like to know from the attorney is the language that reads absent a compelling specific and documented concern for safety the district

048shall permit a student to use the restroom or locker room so let's hypothetically assume someone brings a compelling concern for safety about locker rooms does that now repeal the restroom portion of this policy until it's determined i don't i don't want that but we're now saying that locker rooms and restrooms are equal we did not ask that to the lawyer thank you can i make a proposal here i would ask that you table this until the next meeting there's a discussion that i would like to have in executive session from a legal advice perspective not necessarily specific to the policy that i would like to refrain from having in public and so okay i can't adequately present my opinion without having that discussion first um and so i'll just leave it at that i realize

049that's happening no i understand so i think in you know fairness of that since the executive session would come at the end of the meeting um then that the tabling makes the most sense so we're not talking about bringing this back after executive session so that no one to the public thinks we talked with brent and then everyone went home because it's nine o'clock and we brought it back so this would simply table item a until may unless we were to have a special board meeting in may yes pending whatever we're not hearing yet i don't want to promise something because i don't i don't have any inside knowledge of what this might be okay so uh procedurally i will ask for a motion to table this just so that we have it so moved

050by jim second rachel all in favor of tabling until the first meeting of may or the next public school board meeting signify by saying aye aye oppose nay abstentions item a is tabled until the next public school board meeting okay so any final vote on new business will not include item a uh item b i don't think led lights will generate a lot of discussion but approval of bids for the high school middle school light project we had a re-bid mr alvey explained this to me i'll ask him to give you the 30-second recap you betcha thank you as you know we've been working on trying to get a bid out proposal for the new additional lights at the high school in middle school with that a month ago we had three vendors interested they

051looked at the specs came in and we had a wide variety of opinions on the position we had um a difference in the quantity of lights that we we were envisioning the project to entail we had two vendors that thought that there would be some ways to change the specs in terms of offering retro kits and some other solutions that would be equal to replacing all the lights and we had one vendor that was a hundred and forty thousand dollars over what we were allowing ourselves to be to spend on the project it was more than what we were getting in esser funds to put towards the project so all those things considered we reduced and rejected all bids um at last month's meeting and then we rewrote the specs with the help of uh

052our city folks helped us with some of those ideas as well as tsp light engineer and then we did a new walk through with the vendors and redid the whole process uh from that we had two vendors who came back with bids and our lowest bid was uh gen pro at 250 000 and some odd cents for that project that is to replace lights in the middle school replace lights in the high school this will be all new last classroom lights as well as shops uh gymnastics room and locker rooms all the places that we have those fixtures so uh that ended up saving us that rebid not only saved us the original 140 000 that we were over but as another additional nearly fifty thousand dollars on the rebid because now the bid became

053more competitive so uh in essence to save the district another nearly fifty thousand by the re-bid this will be a project that they'll be able to get done this summer they're working already at usd and so when they're working at usd and have time off there they'll begin our project in may june and july so we'll be ready to go when uh school starts in august so we're excited this is also the same type of lighting that will be in the new school as well yes yes any questions about the new bid i just like to thank finance was made aware i'd like to thank all the bidders i'd also ask damon and kevin kind of as you do more bids like this let's revisit so we know specs apples to apples going out the

054door so we didn't have to put them all through the process twice right and take their time then i i know in this bid we made sure that from the labor standpoint if something goes wrong that's covered under warranty yeah which we learned from that last time absolutely yeah in fact this uh the company that won the bid had a 10-year warranty on their labor and their product which was far superior to the other vendors which was a nice bonus for us as well okay any other questions okay so unless there's an objection this will be included as one motion at the end along with item c in your packet you have the bids for fuel and that would be looks like sorry i'm getting to it brunic yep brewing service and we have the

055bid from vermilion garbage service for the garbage for the fiscal year and then finally the bid for snow removal from 22-23 school year the bid for the fuel says for up to a two-year period do we plan to pursue this for a two-year contract or just the one-year contract because it just has up to it'll be it for two years this will allow us to re redo all these bids when we get into the new elementary school and that will allow us to do our snow removal as well as our garbage bins in a new location after we've vacated both austin and jolly so thanks for the clarification any other questions okay item d is the approval of bids for dishwasher replacement we had published in the last couple of papers a bid for dishwasher

056replacement at the middle school today was the day that bids were due and we had two bids with the low bid that we are bringing forward as a recommendation for approval from cash way distributing of eighty three thousand eight hundred and ninety two dollars uh the other bid what had some optional items on it and was uh just over 90 000 but it is an item that we need to take care of and we can do that um through our food service fund and that is just one dishwasher for eighty dollars a big dishwasher and that will be able to be at the middle school and they'll be able to handle the volume of the new the two schools how do i get one in my house like can i handle four kids awesome thanks

057rachelle so your your house model isn't going to do dishes this is fantastic 600 people everybody's just good just wanted to yes and as i'm looking back there i just wanted to thank richelle and carrie steele from lsi as they were very helpful with this process i'm sure it'll be a great addition to the food service program okay uh item e is i'm sorry are there questions about dishwasher okay you can see that when it's in if you like the calendar update under item e is related to a change that came out of negotiated agreement for next year it does not change the begin day or last day of classes correct it's it's added one more day which at this next school term would be placed on october 21st as a professional development day for

058staff we're going through a state accreditation process next year so we're going to need some more days to work on that so okay next we have item f approval of the food service proposal someone from either food service or some would like to yeah i guess real quick i'll jump in there we had a finance committee meeting last week and we looked at some scenarios for how to um handle price increases now we have been uh under a program that through covet we've been able to have free meals for a couple of years we are sort of picking back up and planning for returning to the national school lunch program and i'll let the finance committee kind of take it from there yeah so we met to talk about just like everything else there's been

059significant inflation in food costs over that point in time and so we're just needing to think about updating pricing for both the breakfast and lunch to be able to handle that difference now we are really lucky that for the next school year our school district has applied for a supply chain issue grant which is going to help cover some of the difference between the expected amount of revenue we would bring in at current prices and what the costs are going to be but that's only a one year grant and we don't expect that that's going to be available going forward and so a lot part a big part of the discussion was you know we're going to have to increase prices over time do we increase them sort of a lot right away as people

060are coming back to having to pay for meals you know right off the bat from having them free for a while or do we try to slowly transition into that because we have the ability to do that with this supply grant so what we decided was to have a modest increase for both the breakfast and lunch and i think that's 15 cents a piece at both breakfast and lunch that they would go up so that when we come back it'll be 15 cents higher than what people were paying three years ago when we were still paying so that's actually not that bad bad of an increase from three years ago but that's going to help us to cover the cost of that now it might have to go up again if the inflation prices and

061food prices stay up as they are the subsequent year and we don't have other types of grants and things but we thought we would we would start with a small increase that we can still absorb with that grant and then give parents a chance to kind of get used to that before we had to increase it again later so just so because we can see this the price of a lunch at the elementary school with this increase would still be under three bucks yes and at the high school would be three dollars and 15 cents so this grant has been approved already submitted and approved awesome for about looks like about nine thousand actually it's about twenty twenty thousand twenty twenty okay the nine thousand is the and just a a a caution as well

062as as you could make this announcement and we can put this pricing going forward if for some reason the federal uh national lunch program changes and it does go back to free that would circumvent this and of course we would go back to the free lunch program if the congress decides to do so but i think right now there's no inkling of that there doesn't appear to be that happening in washington at this point but never say never so i think it's just really critical to make sure that we're getting all the applications out there for free and reduced lunch and doing our justice to make sure we get everybody do we know if we will have a summer food program as well kevin uh i have submitted the application i have not uh heard

063anything in terms of an approval on that but we do know that we would have an eligible site so that's that's really the the biggest thing to take care of there and so we'll see in the application process so we don't know 100 but we're definitely moving towards that to be able to have that again planning a jolly if all goes as well that's the plan for this here yes chris thanks any other questions okay uh moving on then our membership in south dakota high school activities association needs to be renewed or we can withdraw from that and save a whole bunch of money on sports and coaching and drama and i don't recommend that item h is the approval of the summer work agreement so this is similar to what we've had in the

064past is it the same as past years or slightly scaled that's actually very similar i don't have the actual list of employees for you until next month this is more just a precursor that we're planning to do the robust summer school opportunity for kids again in both elementaries middle school and high school and it sort of out outlines what it is most of the schools are doing four week sections with teachers coming in and working with kids on a need base so they're being referred by teachers parents or by test scores to opt in to that program if they choose not to participate that that's okay as well we'll just make room for more kids but at this point it will look very much like last year's summer school program any questions about summer work

065agreement okay item i this is the one that is revised so you can see the specific details for certified staff um and classified staff so raises for all level of employees um i think we've done very well there you know certainly benefited from the generosity of the legislature but also from what the growth in the district has enabled some of this to do which allows us to offer some some salary payment that is in excess of the six percent from the state since the public probably can't see what we see do we want to list off at all you think we certainly can um so just you know out of sort of quickness the increase in pay for the certified staff so that's those that are teaching certified staff as well as others who work

066in similar positions we'll see 6.5 percent raises the base salary to be for beginning teachers and vermillion school district next year will be 44 000 there is also a longevity bonus uh that based on the number of years in the district between two and six hundred dollars and then something we began last year and continued with this year as we have increased the salary addition that comes with having a master's degree by an additional two hundred dollars and then there's some the language change for the 180 day calendar that we talked about which is part of that negotiated agreement and then once every four years we evaluate all of the what's called extra duty pay so assistant coaches drama music club advisors and that's done on a market analysis with other districts and so we

067had similar but actually slightly higher percent increases there because we've been four years without any increases and then four years from now we'll look at that again unless a future board chooses to do so at a different time in the classified area all classified employees will receive a dollar and fifty an hour a raise at the start of the fiscal year we do put a an increased differential for paras who work in one-to-one student support that that's a particularly demanding task and so they have an additional 25 cents and then we've added 50 cents an hour to our custodian pay uh to continue to compete in the market for custodians so i think the the increases for classified range between seven and 12 percent uh over this year so that's good i just want to

068thank the negotiations committee for doing that hard task and i've heard very positive things about how negotiations went this year and so i appreciate the work that you all did to make that happen all the credit goes to rachel i had to miss the meeting and i got there and she's like we're done i'm not taking that personally you did all the leg work years of leg work years of like work okay next item is health and dental rates for the 21 22 school year our health care plan remained flat i think dental had a very small increase if i remember correctly correct just under five percent just under five percent any questions there i will defer to kevin just to also note who will be our carrier going forward correct uh the pool that

069we are in with our health insurance is moving to wellmark and so that will be our carrier going forward um with the thought that it might lead to some potential expansion within the pool across districts in the state okay that then brings us to well you see a long list i'm only going to recognize for those of you who haven't read it the various employee and teacher of the year recognize so we'll begin with the classified employees for those of you that haven't heard this so for every one of these we certainly are appreciative of all of our employees but we do like to recognize those that stand out in each building and across the district so classified employee of the year for austin elementary was ben powell for jolly elementary was kevin millage the

070vermillion middle school rebecca cronizel and at the vermillion high school jamie mulheron teacher of the year from each of the buildings we're in austin elementary natalie frickel jolly elementary david lind middle school vermillion middle school roxanne olson vermillion high school gretchen skoblick and finally our teacher of the year this year from those is natalie frickel so congratulations to all of those people and natalie's in the house tonight so thanks natalie would you like to say a few words now so we'd like to thank all the people that nominated uh the staff and parents and students that nominated our folks and then um you know administrators and board reps that have to narrow it down to uh the final selection which is always hard because there's so many worthy candidates in our in our district but

071thanks for everybody who helped make all this happen i'll just say extra kudos to my mother-in-law roxanne olsen at the middle school and since we don't vote on that rachel did not need to disclose a conflict of interest there is a small cash prize that goes but i think it's below the disclosure amount and then item l is the addition so that's this amendment to renew food service price um is that that's not that's different from what we talked about the correct yes we adjusted the food the lunch prices this would be the amendment to the actual food service management contract that we do every year just based on cpi okay and that is the only change for this year any questions about that am i looking at right the cpi for 2022 is a

0724.542 based on the uh yes the whole midwest region food away from yeah food away from home midwest region cpi and that is what it results to be thanks okay so the motion will be for items b through j and l since k doesn't require any action so we will be approving the bids for the led lights the fuel the garbage the snow removal the dishwasher calendar update of one day a 15 increase in food service membership in south dakota high school activities association the preparatory work for the summer school work agreement the contract terms that i just mentioned the health and dental rates and the adjustment for cpi to the food service contract so moved second by carol second by shane all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed nay abstentions motion

073carries we now move to reports mr alvey basically just a few things here of course we want to thank all the chaperones who went on last week with our show choir students to florida they had a great experience i got an email as as did uh mr frye from uh a person in florida who happened to be on a bus with our kids and they wrote back and talked to us about how well-behaved our kids were in fact we had uh several of our students who got up out of seats on a crowded bus to allow other people to sit in their seats which i think is indicative of the the kids in our school district as well as the programs that they participate in and the supervisors so they had a great trip and

074and they represented themselves and our school district well also just a a quick congratulations to all the advisors and the kids for their uh prom activities this weekend everything went off without a hitch and as usual they looked uh super great all dressed up coming to prom we wanted to thank also sanford vermillion for sponsoring serene thin elk she's coming to talk to the high school tomorrow afternoon serene is a 2000 graduate of vermillion high school but she's uh also works in the mental health field and resiliency training so she's coming to talk to our students at the high school tomorrow afternoon before she performs at a women's event that sanford is putting on here at um here in vermillion but she's talking to our student body at the high school about mental health issues

075relationship challenges uh in today's world so she's going to share her perspective on that and we're looking forward to that we want to congratulate lsi our food service provider rachelle who's managed to sneak out of the room now she doesn't like to be publicly recognized but her and paula in our high school kitchen staff and all of our kitchen staff across the district uh they won the gold turnip award which is a recognition in the food service industry we want this about four years ago as well but lsi i was honored uh for this as well as our school district for their summer food service program last year as you recall they put together quite a bit of work with covet in the last two years doing sack lunches and many other things but their

076dress dress-up days the way they treat kids the nutritious meals are all recognized by this particular award and we were the only school in south dakota to receive that honor so that's pretty special for lsi for vermilion uh the whole department of homeland security uh has announced that they're finally getting the money for an anonymous app that we've been looking for for several months uh it will be in place for the start of the next school year but this app that the department is working on with school districts across the state will be an anonymous reporting app that if students see something in school that doesn't seem right something that they are concerned with whether it's a threat or something that doesn't look right maybe suicide they've heard things throughout the the district or in

077the hallways these students if they're fearful to report that to a person in district will be able to apply that information to an anonymous app which will then be forwarded anonymously to local school officials as well as law enforcement emergency management folks this is something we've been on our radar for about a year and been excited to implement it just had some snags with funding and some other delays but we will be assured to have that in place when school starts this fall which will be just another tool in our toolbox to help keep kids safe and to provide a good climate for students in our district of course our students are in the midst of smarter balanced testing grades three through eight eleven uh are taking the smarter balance test for the state of

078south dakota so if you're uh haven't heard about it or you're wondering about specific dates for your child you can contact your child's school for more details our administrative team i mentioned this at the beginning of the year when we were doing some goal setting with our school board this this year the school district administration team worked on a program called strength finders from the gallup corporation it's basically training that identifies the strengths of everybody on a specific team and of those specific skills and strengths you talk about how those things can be capitalized for you as an individual more importantly how can you couple your strengths with the people in your team to promote the organization so we concluded that a book study about a week ago it finalized our training there but just

079another neat way to show the assets of the people that are in your district and then complement their skills and assign tasks based on those skills so that was good of course we're working on our new five-year strategic plan within the district we'll be partnering with a local uh consultant to help us run that we'll obviously be getting uh board feedback in terms of what the board sees as important milestones or outcomes that they would like to see and we can put forth towards uh some needs of the district we'll gather input from of course the stakeholders most dear to us which are students and our parents and we'll be able to identify that uh outcomes and time frames to to achieve that five-year plan we're going to run that in conjunction with the accreditation

080that we will be going through with the state of south dakota over the course of next year so that this time next year we'll be through with accreditation and that will be the final steps of our strategic plan we assume that we'll see some things coming through our accreditation process that will be worthwhile goals for the district to to move forward with um recently i just wanted to mention briefly most of the most of you may have been uh reading the paper that the governor signed an executive order on critical race theory in schools in south dakota i wanted to just spend a moment to talk a little bit about what that means for k-12 education and in vermilion it really doesn't have a large impact in terms of the governor's executive order just as

081a review you know all of curriculum is a public process in south dakota so all the content standards are created by south dakota educators administrators and parents so in social studies for example when they're reviewing or establishing standards they will convene a group of stakeholders from across the state vermilion educators have been part of those talks in the past just like people from sioux falls or rapid city or bison or any any district in the state can apply to have representation on those committees so the standards are very much a ground or grassroots effort local effort in the state of south dakota whether it's math or science or social studies or language arts those are are created and studied uh at the state level by a group of local stakeholders once those standards are approved

082uh or gone through the draft proposal they are put out for public comment which any citizen in the state can get on the department of education's website and find out the cycle of what standards are being reviewed and they have a public comment time after it has completed the comment time the draft becomes its first proposal is eventually uh voted on it as addressed as a state standard for social studies for example that now becomes the basis of what schools teach in the state of south dakota for standards how you achieve those standards is still a local decision every district has its own decision on what curriculum will you use to achieve those outcomes so again if it's social studies most schools what they do is they find a curriculum that meets most of those

083needs based on the standards that they're trying to reinforce sometimes you have to supplement those with other things from outside of the curriculum you might have to buy another set of materials or library books or other materials to help make those standards uh viable and be taught to the fidelity after that point then those standards are taught in your local school districts under the supervision of the classroom teacher and administration school boards also have a a review of the policy that talks about when things will be updated in each of the districts so for example next year will be a math review in vermillion so we will be going through and discussing what curriculum is necessary for every grade level pre-k through 12 and then we'll address that through finding the curriculum that that meets

084those standards once we've done that if there's ever any questions about what's being taught that's a basically a concern from a student or parent or any stakeholder they can take that question directly to the teacher or to the administrator of that building and they should be able to find an answer that uh is a solution to their question uh where did we what are the standards where can i find the standards if i'm concerned about being what's being taught and and so those things are already in place in all south dakota schools but something that we take very seriously here in vermillion and of course if there are any questions about anything that's being taught then those become an administrative review and potentially even a school board review if necessary to to get that corrected

085so just in case you're ever wondering how the process works in vermilion that's basically a nutshell version of how curriculum and standards are created for for the students that we serve if there's ever a question about that door is always open we're only a phone call away to take those questions and try to address any concerns um and finally just a couple of things as you know of course we we have a couple of vacation days coming up around the easter break this coming week friday and monday are off we've got graduation on monday or on saturday the 14th of may it's at 1 30 at the coyote sanford center out on usd's campus we have our staff recognition event where we'll be honoring natalie and all the rest of our staff that are years

086of service award winners 10 20 30 year winners as well as all of our classified staff and that's uh on may 18th at the golf course and of course the last day of school is the 20th of may with a 1 30 disposal so that's my report okay other board committees i will jump in because i have dual roles on this one the i.t committee met to discuss what we would be doing with the departure of our head i.t individual followed up by a personnel discussion uh and i think the recommendation for both those committees is to open a search for a director of internet and technological server technology services for the district and so we'll be doing that sometime in the near future and like all administrative positions that will have board representation on

087the hiring search committee process i don't know if there's anything else from that it meeting that we really discussed you know we began just planning for the infrastructure for the new building but we a lot of stuff that we've been putting in buildings can move and then you know make sure we have the best capability at the time it's built and then three years later we'll be out of date other board committees i have some updates from the vermillion public school foundation that i'll share the foundation is offering scholarships for middle school students who are interested in summer camps and information about applying for those has gone out to parents so be thinking about those opportunities thank you to all of those who applied for the scholarships for graduating seniors the foundation is working with

088high school staff to select winners for those the foundation and the booster club will be collaborating to establish a core team of individuals who will be planning the all school reunion it will happen next year a reminder that the organization has about ten thousand dollars to award in teacher development grants so teachers who might be interested in taking advantage of those please apply and then also the president and executive director of our foundation recently attended a non-profit board training workshop that was sponsored by the vermillion area community foundation so thanks again to the foundation and all of their work and support to our district as i said doug mentioned we wrapped up negotiations so happy to see that process wrapping up probably the earliest that we've seen so contracts can get out here shortly so

089that was a great year thanks to the governor as well and and that increase so i do want to add the boys and girls club of vermillion is happy to announce we have hired an executive director her name is savannah sullivan she's actually worked in the yankton boys and girls club for about six years so she'll be starting that transition here at the end of april working on i believe here currently soon hiring some of the staff they have some training plans if they want to go work in the yankton club for the summer or do some hiring starting in july they anticipate the membership kind of packets going out here i believe it's early may i think around may 9th and that is for the start of the school year in august so excited

090about having a official executive director be able to join our team very good i think most of what we talked about in finance committee has been on the agenda so there's not really a whole lot else that that we discussed there on food services committee we did have lunch over at the middle school and in addition to learning about the award which was awesome we also got to see some feedback from the student survey and that's been sent out to everybody really positive feedback particularly when it comes to the friendliness of the staff and just the you know general student appreciation she did we did talk a little bit about ongoing supply chain issues and they're still being really creative and adaptive to try to deal with that but that has changed some student favorites

091and they're so working around that to try to make sure you know we have pizza when we're supposed to have pizza and those types of things they are working toward providing more vegetarian options because they've seen that on some of their surveys um and yeah so and then we got to meet we got to talk with a couple of students from austin about some of the things that are their favorites on the menu too and so we got some good updates there is there an actual gold turnip trophy okay i would have asked rochelle yeah but the turn up the beat gold award winner it's like turn up the beat and so it's like a double play on words that they have they could throw lettuce in front of that lettuce there we go if

092you carrot anyway i'm sorry other board reports okay then we'll move on to our financial report in your packet this month if when you were reviewing it you probably saw that we have not now got a new addition last month was the debt service fund this month is the capital project fund so we do have our funds now to begin payments on the project i wanted to touch on one other fund here as well just because if you pay attention to the difference from the previous year on those cash balances all of our funds are operating very healthy this this year in terms of of comparing those and for various reasons all of them are up except for one which is our special education fund and i wanted to explain that a little bit um

093the the way that the special education fund it kind of ebbs and flows a little bit because there is a three-month uh expenditure cap that that you can basically they they hold your fund balance based on three months of your previous year's expenditures so you don't get the full amount of state aid that you may qualify for if you are above that limitation so this just happens to be one of those years that we are spending down some of that fund balance and both with these new enrollment increase of um of students and the fund balance limitation since our fund balance will be lower this next year we will see an increase in state aid next year that will help us actually be on the positive end of it next year any questions okay we

094do have to approve this motion to accept the financials by rachel second second by shane all in favor signify by saying aye oppose nay abstentions approved please do not go anywhere we do have an executive session but future agenda items have we established our new community relations committee i can't remember the exact title of that but is that something that's still moving forward something that's still intended yes okay other agenda items no okay then our next regularly scheduled meeting is may 9th right here at city council chambers 7 p.m on that monday night we do have need for an executive session for two reasons as brent mentioned earlier and then also for discussion of negotiations for our administrators they are not included in the normal process so we will have that discussion which i believe

095and the consent agenda item that yeah the personnel matter in there so they're all pertaining to personnel i'm not sure which one pertains to what brent has to tell us okay 2 3. so the motion would be to enter executive session for 125-2324 and 2-1 all three of them yeah so we have personnel negotiations and then carol and jim all in favor signify by saying aye aye okay we are in executive session