Vermillion School Board

001we called the meeting to order for the Vermillion school district 13.1 meeting of February 11th Sheila would you take attendance here we join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance before you convinced of our January meeting Rachel under all those in favor say aye and we need to review the agenda and prove the agenda any changes mr. Allen no additions or deletions okay need a motion to approve the agenda and then we need to indicate any conflict of interest and then we're the section of the meeting where the visitors to be heard if there's anybody in that room tonight who would like to speak citizens who desire to speak before the board should use the microphone at the podium state your name and limit your comments to five minutes in duration no board decision will

002be made at this time hi Sam Jacobs jolly elementary principal just wanted a quick touch base on our elementary test scores for grades three four and five with math and then we'll move into our language arts as well with that in third grade our percentage of students that were proficient or advanced was 49% the state average was 53% in fourth grade our percentage was 46 and the state averages 47 when we got into fifth grade we were at 51% and the state average was 39% by going through the the claims and the targets for that during our data retreat that we had on December 5th we did find that overall this was across the board from three four and five our students really struggled with place value and geometric measurement and concepts another area was

003just understanding like properties so one thing that we've talked about as for grades two three four and five is just using more math technical language so using commutative property and and really hitting that home with the students that that's what it's called when two plus three equals three plus two or the identity property so anything plus zero is itself it remains itself so we think that sometimes the students they may get some of the concepts but when they're tested on it and it uses certain language we just need to be more aware of that as well when we moved into our elementary section for language arts we were for third grade 54% proficient or advanced the state average was 50% in fourth grade we were at 58% in the state average is 49% and then

0045th grade we were at 65% in the state average was 51% so our language arts scores were fantastic I think that one of the reasons why that is is our elementary staff overall from Joey I mean Austin bring it up to Joey does a nice job of identifying those students who need the extra support and get them into their Title Services and those early interventions so something that when we were looking at that that was across the board except for in 5th grade because in fifth grade they didn't identify any claims or targets of need because they were just it was high high scores in that for grade five something that we know we need to do is just and this is in a lot of districts from what I hear around the state is

005just reading informational texts so just instead of reading you know fables and that actually reading the the nonfiction titles and then another thing that we'd like to do is just get some more more writing within our within our curriculum as well so but I'll let mrs. Johnson take over from here thank you so then is t me looking at any of those next steps and I know definitely a factor we had to discuss was curriculum this particular group had just had one full year of the new math curriculum and we're into their second year so we definitely know research shows with any new adoption and any new curriculum focus it does take time often there's a dip before there is an increase the encouraging thing with that though is looking at both the new math

006and the new reading that started this year when we looked at those claims those targets those gap areas of concern they we've found they're very well addressed in the new curriculums for example the new reading has 50% informational text 50% literature so has a very balanced approach much more working with the informational text so that's very positive and then with the math we find that this new inquiry based early elementary curriculum that we went with in kindergarten first grade we're looking very closely at how it sets up that foundational understanding of place value and it's got a whole different approach much earlier much more rigor I can as I'm in the classrooms and watching those teachers teach that math I see how that place value is is much deeper and content and started much earlier

007so hopefully we'll see copiers down the road those scores just continue to come up keyboarding is another factor we did discuss as a team the fact that we no longer have keyboarding instruction at k1 and that it's smarter balanced being in an online test format and some short answer se that we think that may be a factor especially for those third graders third and fourth just getting used to what the test really looks like and that those technical skills in that testing format so good conversations good opportunities for growth discussions and looking ahead to making things even better for our kids so do you have any questions hey thank you thank you I'm Tom oh boy lime the middle school principal here to share our smarter balanced results from these 1718 school year we test

008the sixth seventh and eighth grade fellow Yotes that's heavier house tonight we test the sixth seventh and eighth grade and the state average for the sixth grade four percent of proficient and advanced was 42 percent where our fifth graders scored 55 percent for seventh grade the average in the state was 45 percent our seventh graders scored to 58 percent and eighth grade these state average was 44 percent and our eighth graders scored 61 percent and that's in math in English language arts the state average for proficient and advanced for the state sixth grade was 49 percent Vermillion scored 63 percent the state average was 53 percent in seventh grade Vermillion middle school scored 72 and in eighth grade the state average was 53% in Vermillion middle school scored 77 percent 1718 and then the final

009thing I'd like to share with you was first semester this year we had 80 of our students earn all A's so that's 28% of our student population all A's and has a lot to do with our faculty some are here tonight thank you um being that I'm leaving I won't be her next year I held down the fort and then I had Jason go to the data retreat so I'm basically gonna let him talk about the results they went through and and looked at that so forth the major concern I have with the smarter balanced testing at the high school is we only do one grade we do the junior class and that only represents 25% of our student body so it's kind of tough to make judgments about we in some areas we're low

010but is that a reflection of everybody and so it makes things a little tough but we still have to look at the data see where our low areas are and find ways to look at that the curriculum and try to match it up so that the kids can do better but I think the state has to come forward and maybe even do a freshman junior year or something like that but it's just really tough to to make any real concrete decisions just based on one class so I'll just let Jason talk about that nuts and bolts oh okay so you can see up there I taking a graph here of of how we did in the English Language Arts you can see that we scored a 76% mathematics is 39% in science is 50% now

011science is the first year of it so there's no comparison numbers there so we're not really worrying about that right now but if you look at the next the next slide there we go let's go all right now you can see here where it compares our school average with the district average as well as the state average so English language arts our school 76% district average 68% the state average of 55% we did look at on the data we looked at the target areas we had no target areas identified we either met or exceeded all those target areas mathematics if you look at that when school average 39% district average 53 stayed average 47 percent something that kind of jumps out yeah at first when you look at last year's scored we were at 36

012this year 39 we've looked at we've already started diving into some of those target areas looking at whether are they just a high school level curriculum issue are they district-wide saw there were preliminary look findings that some of those were all the way through concepts in algebra versus geometry and things like that so we're digging deeper into that to increase that mathematics one and then science like I said it's only one year but school average 50% district 60 and state average 46% there's kind of a performance over the last three years the top one being English and then the bottom one being the math where you can kind of see we dipped and then we're starting to kind of work our way back there on the mathematics part but that's that's why we do the

013data so we can identify those curriculum areas those content areas content standards and and look to improve those any questions from the high school do you think into things for next I think there's some things yes and we've already started in our PLT time we've already started addressing some of those things with with our math department okay thank you thanks to all the team for being here tonight is that that's all for yes okay unfinished business was some of the information about facility studies mr. Dijkstra can't be with us tonight so he'll come to the March meeting present that light audit information but mr. lvl talked a little bit more about the administration building addition up front or not but those in the board packet you noticed you had a picture of diagram there each

014month we've been trying to present something that's happening in a district wide ongoing plan of facility studies whether it's the light audit or if it was theater project improvements lighting at the high school different things that have been going on but an ongoing discussion with the building committee has been the potential for an addition at the high school for the administrative center the business office that's currently located downtown on 17th prostrate Prospect Street and and before you you'll see that our architect Sean who's been working with the building committee has diagrammed option one which is actually these are sort of flip-flop option one in my mind as is be there the one that's on your right and option two or option a is the one on your left and for those in the audience what

015we're looking at is we're considering in addition to the high school in some place in the front or near the the theater where we would be able to place the administrative offices that are currently downtown and during that relocation we had also considered moving the alternative school which is located on Cherry Street and relocate them back to the high school and some of the considerations while we're looking at this project is one is is that we lease both of the facilities we leased facilities for the administrative center downtown and we also lease our altschool building on Cherry Street for an approximate cost of about nineteen thousand dollars each for the year so we've got about 40,000 dollars wrapped up in lease agreements for those two particular buildings so if we're looking at the building on

016the right for those of your familiar that would be looking at the far right would be the parking lot and the very bottom there shows you the doors where you would enter the high school currently take the shaded area with all the boxes that you can't really see what they are at this point those would be the administrative offices for the superintendent business officials payroll accounts receivable the same office space that's currently housed downtown would be squeezed in there along with the resource officer and facility diagram on the far right also allows for secured entrance so that students now that comes up to our building have to be buzzed in looking through a camera to be buzzed into the office this way they build to come in through the doors check in to the office

017exit out through the next set of security doors and then be after the building like like they have currently for many many years the one on the far right shows how it sort of curves around the north side of the theatre and that's where the the big block that you see at the top of the picture there would be where the alternative school would be located so we would still have the alternative school segregated so much from the normal high school setting but it would have its own entrance and exit but it would also have the capability of coming right through the normal cafeteria at the school so that is kind of the design on the far right that is about six thousand square feet and offers a security entrance coming in from the student

018parking lot if you're looking at the view here which is option a that is at the direct door of the one wing of the high school most of you would recognize the very top of the pictures beware the bus drop-off is that and that location is being considered primarily because it's a little bit cheaper to build in that location than it is on option V over to the right it houses the same amount of amenities in other words the same office of space the same alternative school the same restrooms are located on the Left picture as the right picture it's just a slightly smaller footprint the difference is that we're studying at this point as one as the locations is one more advantageous than the other and secondly obviously cost is a consideration and when

019we're looking at the cost of either of these buildings the building on the right will be slightly more of dollars because we're attaching to the whole front side of the current theater and around the north side of the theater and it's sometimes more complicated construction wise to adhere to an existing building and you notice an option a there that we're only adhering to one small section of the current high school both of them offer us secured entrances both of them offer us having all of our staff underneath one footprint or one building and both of us are both options allow for the alternative school to be placed at the high school so at this point the building committee will continue to study both options and bring recommendations back to the school board a potential timeline

020for either one of these projects would be that we would study this for the next month or to have drawings of plans and bids raised before the middle of summer with the idea that we would be able to go out and bid these out and if they became they came back at a favorable cost the board could accept bids when school started at the fall of this year build over the course of the winter and by August of 2020 next school term its potential that we could have the addition of the administrative center at the high school now obviously a lot of things have to fall into place during that time to make that happen but the building committee is in the stages where they're looking at these pieces of this this project and bring

021it back proposals through the school board so just wanted to kind of get all of those options out tonight once again and take any questions if you have any parking on the first option or the option B yep parking kind of concern not really because if you've noticed during a normal school day we have a vast number of open parking spots we would probably need to secure some closer to the building for visitor or 10-minute parking for parents that are coming just to see kids or just to see the office staff we don't want them have to park way on the east side of the parking lot walk all the way across the lot for dropping off lunch money and then happen to walk all the way back but for the vast majority of times

022our parking lot would be sufficient but there are rare occasions that even during the day with we're hosting a region even tour oral and turf events that the parking about is full there would be some rare occasions where parking could be a little bit limited main entrance for security purposes I'm not fixing that at this point if we went only solely with option a we'd still have the availability to to do something with the entrance but most at this point we just plan to keep it the same which is the camera buzz system into the office like the students currently have the obviously the advantageous part of is a as most people Park in the East parking lot and answer through those doors and if we are located in the front it's going to be

023a little bit of a inconvenience to park and come find us or they have to park in the front of the school and come in through that way so that is a consideration the building committee will have to to look at so security was your top concern be kind of address isn't doing correct correct it will solve the traffic of students and adults completely on that one an option a only really solves the adult visitors section correct correct yep in our current facility there were about 2700 in my office downtown and then another twenty seven hundred or so at the alt school so this footprint would be slightly larger than both when you add the hallway space the bathrooms in the storage units that we want to have our storage space thank you moving on

024to new business we have items a B C and D I'll read through those if that's okay I'll accept a motion to approve those four items one is the approval of two home school students 19-5 one - HS and 19-5 two - HS item b is approval of BS a employment do we usually read them yes the names of those and I've lost it Lucas bottom thank you and that page similar in Madison do burgers subs okay so those two full or two two additions to the stations to an approval of an adult volunteer Rachel D ger and that's at John Jolley building reading and writing and other activities an approval of the school calendar update do you want to just describe that yes typically when we have missed a day of school the board

025has the option to waive the day or to add the day to the end and it's historically if we've missed one day we've made that up with students if sometimes goes into day two or three we typically use that for staff makeup days but obviously we have enough hours that the board could do whatever they want but the recommendation is that if we would go that way of the last day would be May 22nd on Wednesday versus Tuesday the 21st of May except may 22nd would be with students correct yep it's a recommendation so I would accept a motion to approve items a b c and d Doug and Rachel all those in favor say aye aye item Y under new business is discussion of some potential positions for next fiscal year next school year

026counselor position and integrationist hello in front of you to this evening you had some additional information that was outlining some of the the needs and some of the gaps that would feel like we've experienced at the k-12 level during the discussion obviously if you've got more questions or if the administrative team or a teaching staff would like to throw any information in please do so I won't read out all of the the items bulleted before you but I'll just review some of the things that we've had a discussion from in the past in regards to the school counseling position two years ago when we had the retirement of two high school veteran counselors it was determined at that time that we would go to one counselor to fill that position with the hopes that we'd

027be able to meet the needs and to still provide all the services that that we were accustomed to and we were lucky over the last couple years to find some really talented counselors to come into the district and work with us and but I just I think we're at that point where we've we've experimented with trying to make the reductions and not make the feeling that we're we're at the point where we're having a lot of pieces I think that that they're causing some of our student students to struggle and some of the things that we would like to provide we're not able to do just because of manpower one such thing would be we have a number of students in our district that like all school districts that need some extra services and there's

028times when our our wait for the counselors is quite extensive and we'd like to provide those services and a little more timely manner and be able to address students on needs in a little longer pattern right now I feel sometimes that we're putting out fires and being able to address situations and then we stop and we go to the next fire they put those out and once again our staff in our classrooms and in our in our departments and our administrative teams are doing a great job but I think that we can do better with with some of our services and I'd like to see us put in an effort towards the counseling position this year another area that this is showing up as in our state mandated test coordinator position one of the things

029that's required is that the data that the administrative team spoke of this evening is usually focused and funneled through one person at the district and that used to be the case here but in the last two years we've sort of filtered that out to each building level administrator and each building level counselor within filters it out to teachers it has proven not to be the most efficient way to to get information out and at at the end of the day it's probably not providing us with the best services for kids because we are not maybe a streamline and as efficient as possible so we'd like to once again get one of our people to be focused strictly on data and use them to administer all the emails and get the information to the places that

030they need to be in a timely manner another section did I think that the teachers might be able to back us up on is that we're asking our teachers are asking for more help in the classrooms today that maybe some of the time in our our recent history we have some challenges that face our district that require our teachers to come up with some specialized instruction and sometimes they ask for our school psychologist our school nurse or our school counselor to come in and do some observations and give suggestions on what would be good strategies for a particular students needs and our counselors want to be in those classrooms but sometimes they're tied up putting out fires or doing other duties that don't allow them to get into the classrooms as much as possible and

031I'd like to see us have that cooperation more that teachers can get back to teaching and having some of the resources at their disposal currently we have Lewis and Clark Behavioral Services of all of our buildings they're seeing students on a regular basis and I think that sort of demonstrates the needs that we're seeing in our society today that sometimes our young people come to school with needs and we just have to extra resources to deal with those and I guess finally just the last few things that that I wanted to address is that I think that we have found that in our situations with home school students in our district that sometimes if we had a better connection with some of our folks at home and we're able to intervene a little sooner that

032maybe we would see some of those young folks staying in our school district and not potentially choosing home school as a different alternative to public education and sometimes our administrators and our counselors aren't able to go do the regular home visits or to be available to maybe do interventions or try some of the things that they would like to try to do with students before they leave our school system so it's my desire that with this new counseling position we'd be able to reinstitute the home outreach program were those students that are most at risk in our elementary middle school and high schools would have a liaison at the school district that would be contacting parents and being a little bit more of a resource and maybe doing home visits and giving mom and dad

033some extra help and resources some of our folks are craving that and we haven't been able to provide that just simply because we're understaffed at this point and I'd like to think that if we have that outreach piece in place some of the homeschooling options that have been explored this year maybe wouldn't have happened and some of those students would still be in our building and and then of course you know that that's good for the student and that's good for us to have more students in our building so that's a nutshell of the counselor position that that we feel like we've been advocating for so I'll take questions on that specifically if you've got something or if you have something that the administrative state of team or teachers can answer that we've talked about

034it several times several years so the this would you would envision being placed at the high school correct I the administrative Lea we haven't completely outlined what this would look like but in an in small discussions we've figured this person would be housed out at the high school simply because that's where we've had our most serious mental health needs at this point but that person would be available to be at any of the buildings at any time that they're needed they would also be assigned certain tasks from the administrative team to to help with the test coordination or maybe they're part of a data collection team or maybe they're going to be working on some initiative but that person would be responsible to check in with each of the administrators and the counselors in those

035buildings to say hey I need a little help this week I've got a particularly tough tough case can you teach my guidance class while I deal with this family's issues or this students issues so this person would have a more flexible schedule did solve but trust me they'll be busy and what I'm asking for tonight if possible and if we're not at that point to be able to to approve it I would like to have the opportunity to start advertising for these positions so that I can snag the best person that's available rather than waiting another month or two to do so but if it's if we're not into available tonight to make the motion to actually move forward with it I'd like to be able to at least start sending the administrators out to

036start looking for some of these folks and seeing if we can't head down that direction if that's the direction that we seem to be heading my personal thought is is I'm comfortable with this position and in the manner you described we've got about a month of legislative session to go to know we think we know where the state's headed which is positive we don't know until they're done so I'm reluctant to commit but to certainly keep exploring and and see what potential there is there's a couple more in the packets are you prioritizing this one over all three or well that's I mean I you have a few more in here than I do if I were you know and I'll explain the the curriculum and tech integrationist position which is next and talk a

037little bit about that one but obviously the the vital concern is counseling because with the the items that some of our counselors are dealing with whether they're self harm or if they've got abuse and neglect issues those things are are happening in our district just like they are in other districts across this state and across this nation and kids are coming to school with a lot of hurt and we need to have some more help to try to deal with but at the end I'll wrap up a little bit and tell you about how how this the savings that we've incurred throughout this year could help pay for these positions so I'll wrap that up at the end so I'll move on to the curriculum and tech integrationist position that's a new kind of a

038new topic topic new term for many of you I understand what we're looking for in the tech integrationist and curriculum integrationist position is a person who will take our curriculum and our technology needs in the district and morph them together currently mrs. Johnson who serves as elementary principal for Austin elementary and k12 curriculum director the problem with that is is that we've tasked mr. Johnson with more duties this year and last year than we've had in previous years simply because we're having growth in the elementary which is outstanding we're glad to have that issue and we hope that it continues but it does create an issue in terms of her time and management of our curriculum so she uses the rest of the administrative team and department chairs at each of the buildings to help

039administer curriculum needs and we'd like to make that a little bit more streamlined and make it a little bit more integrated and we figured that doing that with a tech integrationist would be an ideal way to do so a tech integrationist is the person who we would have helped our staff develop the resources to teach at a higher level this year we added over 300 devices at the middle school Chromebooks with the idea that technology integration at the middle school would help raise achievement it will help make our teaching stronger and therefore it's going to produce better students the only downfall to that is we gave those instruments and limited professional development to our staff that we never hit the mark that we thought we might with with what those Chromebooks and those additional devices

040will give students in terms of learning because our staff hasn't had the opportunity or the time to do rigorous professional development just in computers they've got thousands of other things on their plate a tech integrationist would be able to meet with the English department on Wednesdays and say here's the top four resources out there right now for English language arts to improve instruction here's how you find them here's where they're located let's talk about them let's use them right now and then you'll be able to walk into class Thursday morning click on your computer and you'll be able to use your smart board effectively to teach this lesson right now our teachers try to do that thank you for doing what you do but to be honest they're busy and they don't have the resources

041sometimes or sometimes a skill level to to find and search and do all of those things themselves the tank integrationist would help to bring those materials right to the teachers fingertips how is that related to other areas of curriculum math scores we just talked about them tonight are there resources out there that are technology driven that a tech integrationist could help bring to our school there's a lot of websites out there there's a lot of good curriculum that comes with our our software that comes with our curriculum but once again do we use it to its full to its fullest I don't know if we are so I'd like to have a person who can help push that information to teachers teachers push it to students and then we would be able to to say

042we've explored on all these different ways to teach math or language arts or science whatever that might be how is he gonna help at our high school level attacking integrationist can be used to help deliver curriculum at the high school as well because this year we're going to be adding 300 new laptop devices to the high school that's 300 more devices that are our students will have in their hands that teachers will hopefully be able to use to enhance instruction but quite honestly mr. cruzi won't be able to handle the 300 at the middle school last year 300 that are gonna be added this year to the high school plus the other hundreds that are in our district now and so this person would be a local expert on technology and be able to put

043out small fires but also work hand in hand with mrs. Johnson for working on curriculum and so if it's social studies adoption mrs. Johnson and this person will work together to bring to the social studies curriculum to the teachers they would do their normal pilots and then eventually they would select the a some sort of trick them to go with and then together they would work on all the solutions to try to bring the best options to our classes the longest short of it is the curriculum tech integrationist will help to integrate all the technology that we're trying to infuse into our district and also help mrs. Johnson's need for you know more curriculum hands across the k-12 district wide so any particular questions about the curriculum [Music] absolutely would be best to separate because

044many schools that's how it is but I'll be honest schools our size don't typically have that a curriculum right person they'll have one or the other but they won't have both and the reason I think that we can we can do both is hand curriculum and technology and my mind go hand-in-hand if we're trying to teach in a 21st century learning environment these should not be two silos out by themselves they should be together the curriculum that's being developed by professionals to be taught in two classrooms should be morphed together with the best technology that we have and used daily if we're just given a kid a computer just to the type on they can do that at home but if we want to make our curriculum the best and give our kids the best

045chance to go out as freshmen or sophomores in college and use that technology then we've got to teach it and right now we don't have technology being taught at Austin at all we lost that position two years ago we've got 250 thousand dollars stream Labs sitting in our buildings that this tech integrationist could help develop and foster in and in use and so we've got an opportunity to really push to the next level what we want now the big question is if I was you I'd be gone that sounds great how does it all happen well we've identified enough savings that I think that we could pull off both of these positions we've had some people that have left our school district and retired or gone other places and we haven't built some of those

046positions we've asked people to do with less we've asked people to do things differently and to to take on more responsibilities and in some of those cases we haven't replaced people and when you take all of those savings whether it's insurance or people or other issues over the course of time we've created a savings there that I think that we could explore and look into a little more deeply with the Finance Committee and find out if that is an option with 300 new devices at the high school for next year what are those laptops okay so they don't replace the iPads will be moved to the Elementary's so the current high school iPads will be reconfigured stripped and taken down to the Elementary's where they'll be putting on math games and ela games and science

047games and infused into the classrooms so they stay in the disk yeah so they those bills district are those devices don't go away and those 400 will still be here just a views differently so what's a degree requirement and typical salary for Kentucky integrations that is varied depending on where you're at if you're in a large school district it's like a curriculum director if it stands alone you might have a curriculum director or a integrationist that makes fifty to sixty thousand dollars and that's or more depending on which district you're and of course and that's why you saw that I put down the curriculum and instruction our job description in there for you to just show you what Kim does some of the things that are listed there would now become the work of the

048other person whoever would take that so I don't know what that position is here but if it's a fifty thousand dollar position probably probably a nine and a half months for sure the reason being is they might have to wrap up at the end of the year or we might be taking straight teaching contract and just say it's just gonna be nine months they need to be wrapped up when school's done and they need to be ready when school starts so this would remove the load from Kim Kim would have some of this she's talked to little Kim is there something that you could speak up that you would foresee this position being able to relieve you of we expand our one-to-one technology for students the digital curriculum has the power to have a greater

049impact when we have someone who can help facilitate it teach teachers how they can better utilize that help with increased training for them and also work with the students how they can get the most from their devices with the curriculum personalized learning there's there's so much there that we would have potential to look more into as well with the technology the Windland devices and the digital supports with the new curriculums any new adoption has a strong technology piece that's just the weight that's we it is anymore so we adopt curriculum now and it has those licensures and all those components who does all that work now well between Steve and I you know we we have to try and find time to work that in when we purchase text with digital supports so we have

050the physical book but we also have the e-book and all those resources those licenses each year have to be repurposed so we have X number of licenses that we purchase in a 7 year adoption cycle no next year depending on you know which grade has some more student population we have to move some licenses around so that's something that we have to figure out I'm each for each new school year how we're going to repurpose those licenses things like that uploading student rosters I'm often the teachers end up having to help with that if mr. Cruz is too busy at the start of the year with all the new new things going on so I just think having one person that streamlines that process would be powerful and easy very busy don't feel bad that

051we'd take anything away from me oh oh the sad well I think a key component here is mrs. Johnson I've talked a little bit about this and it does not remove her as the curriculum director necessarily but it does give her a partner to take some of that work and concentrate it she could still take some of the curriculum parts that she loves and be a charge of it focus and be dedicated passionate about that but the person that is hired to to be a partner with this might have a passion and the other half of this and then she could have work with that person to assign what they're both passionate about and get things out there where people can be really efficient and passionate and hopefully I guess better at their positions so

052what is that solving Kim's problem doc completely doing I mean are we better after removing it Drako curriculum from her title and making that director of and then sitting that person on the admin team right I mean that solves Kim's problem of our volume at the Elementary's that's certified reaction in the new and I guess that's so you so you're basically saying to whoever said hired in this position just becomes the curriculum correct yeah I mean that's certainly an option as well yeah that's something that we call our plate but everybody plays a role in it so yeah we haven't discussed that thoroughly but that's up we could and I know this is a lot of information tonight too did you have to swallow a look at so I know you're gonna take some time

053to to review it and sleep on it I guess the key components that that I would ask you to do is is after you've you know thought about some of these and looked at some of these questions you call back and ask us to research and find some questions about costs availability what this might look like in our buildings you know there's a lot that has to be answered that can be just answered tonight but I guess what I'm advocating for tonight is the thought that there is some real potential to to integrate or to change some of the delivery of our of our instruction I feel like this district has put a concerted effort towards improving the technology base in our district you've put a lot of money and resources towards the improvement in

05421st century teaching skills what I'd like to do is make sure that we have the resources to help classroom teachers and administrators to really put that forward and really be able to say that we have you know the 21st century student in mind here this is what it looks like and these are the types of things that we want to send them out the doors of the high school with we've got so many great offerings and I think that this would just be one way to enhance that social worker yes yep but to be honest I have not a great study in terms of the comparison of cost between those two social worker versus Celts or either one would be a an asset because they could both bring a skill set to to help some

055of the situations that we're dealing with so I can just bring like an MSW or some good question yeah I think the council I need is clear want to see the savings and everything yep I would probably looking at other things we're doing try to move the testing and component away from that maybe move that into whatever this other position is the the technology one I'm very mixed on at this point and it's I I trust and think the classroom instructors they know the content and we should never let the technology drive the objectives of what you're doing with your students that always has to be what I want to do and then find the technology to serve that I understand that's what this position does but when I look at that salary and I

056think well what if we had 25 mm dollar grants you know within three years every teacher could cycle through that program and have a pretty good professional development opportunity and then we would actually have eighty someone you know people who are specialized in content and have a technology development for their content so that's where I won you know I think about it there are a lot of things that are broader than that the stream labs you know I've talked to you I want to see us using those more and more how we do that so this I just want to think a little bit absolutely this there's pros and cons but the counselor I think is something we need to move on sooner rather than later question as long as the admin team is here

057just a question for me a couple of you were here when we did have full-time admin team dedicated curriculum director thoughts was that was that better when that was a peer or was it better when you controlled it within your building per se with the assistance of Kim just any any thoughts McKim I don't remember timing-wise were you principal for any years prior to taking over curriculum or not always for you okay I couldn't remember timing thank you so tonight really I just wanted to present this if I feel you out right then I'll start asking the administrative team we'll start looking into the counseling a little more seriously start putting some feelers out there or social worker type person and we'll continue to keep you informed over the course of the next month the

058integrationist and a curriculum section maybe will morph that and looked at that a little more and you send us some homework and some questions to search out if you think of something that we need to do and we'll just maybe bring this back in a future meeting to you know to see where we're at and obviously we understand that the district gets pulled in a lot of directions with a lot of needs with the legislative session still ongoing and I'm not knowing future enrollment there's a lot of things that we have to consider with all of those pieces but I do think that we've got a really strong teaching staff and teach a curriculum here that we would like to just see this maybe go back to what Jason talked about be a leader again

059with some of the things that we were really proud of that people knew us for and get some of that swagger back and and see if that's one of the things they can do that so just thanks for the consideration on that the other thing that's great for me that we need to vet out more as we go through this is how that works together with the current IT staff that's fuzzy in my editor I don't know what that looks right okay I'll make sure I guess at this point that's what if the person that that we would hire for this has a strong technology background we hope they would then they would be the first line of defense whatever building they're in if they're in Kim's building right now instead of calling Steve to

060come over and troubleshoot some things that person might take care of it or Eric's right well we've talked a lot about that you know my feelings on on some of that is is is teachers maybe this is a chance for you to help talk about do you would you rather call support or would you rather call somebody in the building to to ask your questions to because my view is is that is that you know we've got a relationship and again Erikson's treated us very well done some great things for us I just don't think they're to solve all of our technology issues if I'm having a problem with my promethium board I don't stop to call somebody and I go and get help I call Steve and Steve's there five minutes and we've got

061it solved teachers somebody help with who sure just so I break it here if you don't thank you I didn't know this was even gonna be discussed at the meeting tonight so this is totally off-the-cuff and I hope I don't say anything that embarrasses myself um I'm Hannah mustard and I teach third through fifth grade computers seventh and eighth grade tech mods and eighth grade foundations of technology I've been teaching those various positions are most of those positions since 2008 actually a few for students over here I can tell you that I've spoken with a few of the administrators they've heard many times of my feelings on the need for more tech integration in the district you know a if body language says anything could see me over there just leaning in and listening as

062soon as you guys started talking about this possibility of a tech integrationist in the district because I see a lot of potential with the stream labs that we have and I know that this was already discussed a little bit but our district has so much potential but I feel like there's maybe a little but not as much structure on what we're actually supposed to do with some of the things that we that we have available to us like those stream labs and - Doug suggestion of of multiple small grants that's I see where you're going with that I would maybe bring it back to the idea of what we were talking about the testing person you know having when you when you sent that out to the multiple buildings maybe communication didn't get as far

063as it could or got jumbled so you were saying how having one person in charge of testing information would be a more streamlined approach and I feel like that's similar with the tech integrationist position as well having one person that can kind of organize it and help teachers versus you know different teachers doing what they feel like they can do which obviously teachers do have the the knowledge and the drive to do it but again sometimes it's nice if we can just have some some general guidance I can say the idea of the integrationist position from my standpoint I love that because I feel like it would be someone advocating for technology in the district along with the curriculum we have currently I'm I teach a computer at jolly and I see my classes once

064a week for 30 minutes by the time they come in sit down get logged into the computers and then of course at the end of the class it log off in line back up it's about 25 minutes or so of instruction and that's once a week and most districts when I've gone to professional developments and mentioned that to them they kind of are shocked at that and I'm not saying that the tech integration this position would would necessarily change that but it might allow us to streamline a little bit of more of that curriculum and figure out well where can we take some of these computer class things and bring them out into the other classrooms so that maybe they can be a be helping get some of that information out not just the 25

065minutes a week that the computer teacher has and as mrs. Johnson said we don't have anything at Austin now and they have the technology there but they don't have anybody to guide them with it so I think I feel like it would be a really really great thing to consider for a future position thank you yep okay do you have what you yep appreciate the discussion very much and then we'll move into reports mr. Rowley thanks first of all there's not enough cookies for everyone so whoever can get to them fastest gets to have a cookie this is a school board recognition week is actually next week the state of South Dakota and the associative school boards takes time to honor those public servants those three of the five are here tonight our board president

066Shanna Fairholme is only tonight and Jim Peterson is traveling for business but on a typical night you would find our five board members here serving once a month and capacity but the other days of the month are serving in the capacity of keeping the informing the community of the needs of the district or attending district events and promoting the welfare of public education through their daily lives and so a small token of that is this is Armbrust class made cookies for the school board tonight for recognition and we want to take a minute just to thank the school board for their efforts and thank you for leading the school district in a positive way so thank you for and then I guess the rest of things on my report there are just lots of thank

067yous to the supporters of all of our activities we've got a number of folks I won't name them but that come to our events there they're there at everything that we offer they support their children and they support other people's children in our district so without those people you know our activities wouldn't be nearly as successful I want to thank all the people and do that on a daily basis for our district of course I want to thank mrs. Armbrust and they've culinary class for making cookies for the board appreciation tonight just a couple legislative actions things to be watching out for we've asked our administrative team teachers to be kind of watching what's coming out of here to case there's something that we need to be on top of House bill 1109 talks about

068excluding wind farms from the other revenue for funding formula that'll be an interesting component we'll see where that goes at this point that was lumped in with all other revenue so I'm not really in favor of them starting to pull things out because if they pull one out what's the next thing that's coming out so we're advising our representatives to vote that down and are not support that we think that the funding formula should be kept intact House bill 1066 requires high school students to take the civics test before graduation in our school district they currently do take the exhibits exam they don't have to pass it to graduate but they are students in our school district are exposed through civics from elementary through high school and have a chance to see the immigration test

069before graduating so it's not a big factor to our district because our our teachers already take of that but that's just one that we're watching House bill 1008 prohibits certain gender identity instruction in schools gender identity enter identification continues to be a topic that's of discussion whether it's a heist collectivity association or through legislation like this once again we're sort of watching to see what happens there House bill 1230 to lower the compulsory attendance rate from 18 to 16 about four years ago they made the mandatory age to attend high school through 18 after 18 a student was able to quit at that point there is some discussion about lowering that back to 16 it's been an interesting argument in peer there's some that have argued that they've seen more dropouts at 18 than they

070did at 16 because 16 year olds that wanted to drop out had left school attended a turn of school or dropped out and at age 17 found out that they weren't getting jobs had no life thinking back and attended school at 17 18 and 19 graduated so there's actually discussion on both sides of this because at the beginning it looks like a slam dunk that you would never want to lower that rate but there is a serious discussion going on up here about the merits of that so that's one of the watch would be interesting to see where that lands some table bills that were interest to us was Senate bill 60 which would require a statewide threat assessment in schools that was driven by a lot of local effort here Chad passuk and our

071Vermillion Police Department as a big believer in that he's worked closely with me and some others in our school district to do assessments not only locally but promoting at a statewide level but it has been tabled to the forty first date doesn't look like it's gonna resurrect this term Senate bill 49 declare void the South Dakota High School Activities Association's transgender policy that one has has at this point been pushed to the forty first day but that might resurrect itself some of these bills find a way to get life again sometime so that's just five or six of a bit of interest here in Vermillion as sorry to interrupt but I saw an email today came through that it made it out a committee that would get the two-year averaging Wow yes is there discussion

072positive discussion the the funding formula one of the concessions we gave up when we had the half cent sales tax increase three years ago was that we would lose the two year funding average which is beneficial in the sense that if you have declining enrollment it will take the higher of your if you're going up you get the higher level of enrollment if you drop down you get an average of your high in your low which it's advantageous for all schools to have that so we would obviously pick you for that but I'm surprised that it's being discussed seriously because there was a pretty strong indication from the governor's office that they didn't want to monkey with the funding formula however the other revenue is being discussed at this time too so we'll see where

073that lands but at this point it would be nothing but good for our district school districts so we'll see where lands last month we talked a little bit about the discussion with dole lunch is being served at the high school during the semester test scheduled December the administrative team we discussed that it's been that policy or a procedure at the high school for a number of years simply because a lot of high school kids have the option to leave during semester tests and we found that there was a lot of students taking advantage of the lunch program however and discussion with the with the high school administrators we are in discussions back with lunch time to solutions to see if they would like to provide a trial again to bring that back whether it's sack

074lunches or lunch on a smaller version just simply because we don't want to have a full-scale lunch and six kids show up for it and you prepared for 300 so we have to work that out but LSI is is interested at least investigating that again one of the things that came out of our discussion at last month's school board meeting as well was about the participation participation and extracurricular activities how do we handle students who might be economically challenged and can they find their way into working into extracurriculars and we did a survey of our staff about what's being done that our school district to help students who are in that particular position and what we're finding is advisors and fellow athletes and seniors graduating tend to leave a lot of stuff for those kids

075that are needing it we have football players that leave cleats and and other equipment we've got kids and show choir to leave dress shoes or you know the school district has instruments that we could loan and rent to people so that participation is greatly enhanced because we've removed the obstacles so that was a question we had last month and I'm proud to say that talking with our advisors and our teachers that there's always been a way it's found when a student wants to participate whether it's in fine arts or athletics or oral and Terp then we were able to find dress shoes or a dress shirt or cleats or whatever it was that that student needed so that's kudos to the people in this community in our school district for making sure that poverty is

076not an obstacle for kids participating in activities so that probably to report that tonight another question that came out of last month's discussion was asking how parents can access Infinite Campus to make their own changes and through the Parent Portal system parents can make it update their own emails there are old text messages and their own phone numbers because sometimes when we're doing messages parents tend to maybe not get the message and so we've always tried to chase around how do we give parents the information they need and we found out that through the Parent Portal system they can do that but most honestly most tend to call us and just say hey changed my number to this number which the secretaries or or the administrators do so that works out either way lots of

077questions lately on inclement weather what's our policy how do we handle getting in and out of school or late starts or whatever there's no hard and fast rule in terms of weather most of the time it's based on the conditions at the time that we evaluate by going checking roads we take all of our information from the local agencies of the National Weather Service is a big contributor they send us alerts they send us grant graphs and pictures and and they keep us well-informed but at the end of the day it comes down to a decision how things are locally and so we go out and check roads if the roads are good we go to school because our mission is to be here and not have kids staying home with what they might be

078left home alone some of our students stay home the houses that maybe don't have enough food for them to eat in so I'd rather have them at school that being said safety is still the number one concern and we try not to put anybody at risk but if there's an event I always stress that if the temperatures different where you're at the road conditions are different are at parents make the final decision whether to send their children to school and they just need to call let us know where their children are at that they're safe and we'll move on without them and welcome back the next day but ultimately temperature road conditions all of those things are considered for making the decision and usually a lot of sleepless nights prior so when do your video

079coming out well yeah I'll tell you the guys that are doing those good videos I can't outdo that song so but yeah thanks to all the people that they call in and tell us how things are and they're part of the district that helps us when we're making those decisions so last few things they're associated school board's legislative day next week and peer if you're interested in going let us know I think Shannon might be going to that of course parent-teacher conferences this week and no school next week on Monday for Presidents Day and we are working on our principal interviews for the high school principal Jim position we have got some outstanding candidates and we're looking at February 21st some of you are involved with that and some of the community members and teachers

080are part of that and we're we're finalizing some details onto some candidates but we're looking at the 21st of February which is a week from Thursday recent accolades oral Terp and one-act play guys did really great at their the contests over the last two weeks and gymnasts finished eighth as a team this weekend so lots of great things happening in the district and we're proud to tell the story of our kids and our staff any time so thank you thanks mr. lb Sheila did you have any business manager reports okay thank you other school board committee reports I can report out for the Finance Committee Jim and I met last month and this month we talked about I think we'll delve into it in detail during the executive session and I some of the specifics

081talked about you know which way the legislature may leave us so some different options we have talked about once we have a recommendation from the building committee then and we've got I think some very good options for that and things that the community can be proud of other I know Shannon has a nice list of all the committee's I don't have that list so if you guys have anything to the building committee we would have heard about the LED lighting switch ina are the building committee heard that report and thought that it was certainly worthy of consideration both in terms of better lighting in the schools but also in the long run some cost savings pretty significant energy savings if we can make that transition we talked a little bit about the plans and you

082know kick that over to Finance and said we like this find a way to pay for it the public school foundation had their strategic planning retreat and I think that was the 26th or so of January that report will ultimately trickle to this body when it's finalized met with negotiations Duggan I sort of pre-planning yeah and then I'm on policy and IT and I'm just coming back from maternity leave so we'll get those meetings here scheduled soon it's good if I think we talked about her a couple meetings ago but the foundation has a new website so if you haven't checked that out it's I enjoyed visiting with the consultants that we're helping the strategic planning session very interesting we're very fortunate to have a public school foundation that's very supportive and they're looking for

083always looking for input who needs money and who might be donors so that's we're very lucky to have them and a lot of community members give a lot of their time to make that happen I don't think there's any other reports Sheila you want to do the financial reports report I don't have anything specific to know for those shorter answer any questions I'm moving on is just the cash balance and also the tax comparison informational also in your packet is do you do every year and that's just the tax assessed evaluation in comparison to the previous years you'll be able to see actually what we went up as far going into 2019 and that was 3.46 the please do begin on page 17 so don't think there's anything out of the ordinary motion to approve

084the financials second first from Rachel's second from Doug to approve the claims to be paid all those in favor say aye aye none opposed thanks for the report Sheila and we did claims anything that you have to request of attrition that's a busier time the year's legislature and we hit all the highlights next meeting is March 11th right back here at the L Neuharth Media Center like to thank everybody for coming appreciate your interest and commitment to the district very much that that's what makes a difference for the community with that I'll entertain a motion to move to executive session thank you for negotiations citing STC l1 days 25 - 2 subsection 4