001of the Lake Force Board of Education January 22nd meeting. Please live for the pledge of allegiance. Easy. Okay. Item 2.3 roll call of board members. Mrs. Rash >> here. >> Dr. Wyatt >> present. >> Mrs. McCloskkey >> here. >> Vice President Starky >> here. >> And James Ralph present serving as chair. All five board members are present. Item 2.4 approval of agenda. >> Make a motion we approve the agenda as presented. Second. >> Have a motion and second on the floor to approve tonight's agenda. Any question with that motion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? I opposed. Extensions. Motion carries. 52. >> 2.5. Approval of minutes. Make a motion we approve the minutes from the January 8th 26 meeting of the Lake Forest Board of Education. >> I have a
002motion and a second to approve the meeting minutes from January the 8th as presented. Any questions on that motion? >> Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? I >> opposed abstensions motion carries 5-0 and without even looking at the agenda I can tell that we have recognitions and prep house 2.6 Dr. Good evening everybody. We're going to start with our band. So, let me find Thompson. I guess they're making noise. >> They're walking around. >> All right, go on in and back. >> Tell us all about who you got coming and obviously. All right, this is Mr. Thompson, our awesome band director, and he's going to tell us who he's going to introduce tonight. Uh I'm uh Jeff Thompson, man director at Lake Forest High School and uh this is our
003high school marching band students that will be coming in a moment. Uh they had a great season. Uh certainly a building season. Uh we grew by about 10 students I think compared to last year. Uh this year we placed second in states in our in our class in our division. We had actually gone up the class in division because we grew in size. So, here's uh members of the Lake Forest High School March. Do you have a list? Sorry, >> I do. I didn't. >> Not all of them are here, so I'm just going to read from the list so I don't miss any of them. And we have senior drum major Hannah Boyer. Uh, junior drum major Sophia Campa Crosia Hunter Greer Silus Schroing, Christopher Serno, Kevin Felner, Ariana Vosquez, Grace Warren, >> Violet
004Smith, >> Clippinger, >> sorry. Uh, Avery Porter, Angela Hickman, uh, Alyssa White, Riley Moore. Oh, sorry, I mixed you up. Riley Matthew is a master getting large groups into very small spaces. Any parents want to come up and take a picture? You guys can feel free. I said smile. >> Thank you. Good job. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. How are you? >> All right. I'd like to introduce Mary Bul and Casey Bailey. >> You want us to do that? Can we do it down here? There are people >> good down there and then people still have them on the gauntlet and they're going to tell us about our wonderful Lake Force Community Education Foundation grant program. >> Good evening everyone. I think most of the people here are aware of the foundation uh and hopefully
005new members I think maybe are only a new member. Please go to our website if you want to learn more about us. I think lcef.org Uh, and you'll see a bunch of our grants that we've given away. We've been doing this for 22 years. Uh, thanks for allowing us to come and and award the grants tonight. And I want to introduce our new chairperson. I believe some new members. We'll say that we haven't we haven't actually had official election yet. So, I want to introduce a few new members to our our foundation. Last year, I have to I just wanted to let everybody know last year we weren't sure if we were going to be able to have a gobble wobble this year. >> We lost so many members. We only had a few people
006with the help of Dr. Lucas. Uh we did a call out to the community and we had several uh parents come forward and were interested in not only dog wobble wobble but also learning more about the foundation and all the most of those members are here tonight. Uh so I would like to Casey Bailey who's been phenomenal. She's taken over quite a bit of the lead in doing a lot of work for the foundation. Uh and we have Ana M4. >> And Megan Baver, uh Kit Schmemelling. Thank you. I knew I was gonna >> And then former members, we have Rhonda Swenson, uh Debbie Kevalader, and Donna Sharp. Um, so without further ado, we're going to tell you about the gobble wobble high election. Uh, this year, uh, you can you want me to just
007Yeah, there we go. Um, we had 559 registrants this year. That's a nearly a 30% growth from last year. It, you know, it it made me breathe because not only do you have a 559 registrance, we also have about at least a hundred plus participants who wa family members and friends that come and watch. So we had a wonderful turnout. We had good weather. Um and to give you an idea of how many of them finished, we had 490 of them actually cross the finish line. >> That's amazing. >> Yeah, it's pretty cool, isn't it? And and I also like to remind everybody is where we're one of the biggest races in King County. So that's shout out for Lake Forest. Um, so, uh, we always like to say where do our visitors come from
008where do our racers come from? Only 10% come from out of out of town, but we had some from Florida, Texas, and New York. Uh, those were and Virginia, and I think, of course, Maryland, and New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. We usually have folks from those states, too. Uh, and nearly half of our registrants were uh, like forest community members. I'll explain that to you in a little in a minute. Okay. So, jumping ahead. So, um our biggest growth really was in our teams, especially for our schools. with all all the schools had a team that they brought forward and with the help of Casey and I think the idea came from Megan to go out and see if we could get some uh competition going between the schools and they they came they came out
009you can see we had 180 registrants of just like four school district teams. >> Yeah. Wow. >> And then um of course you can see who the big winner was. They had 49 people cross the finish line. You had to you had to attend and cross the finish line to be awarded team basket. Then they had 49 members. They became basket. >> Just so you know, the lead there was a Casey did a great job. She found a lead person at the school who was enthusiastic and promoted it had flyers in the school. So, you know, it was really a a a true team effort by the school, each of the schools. So, how did we do? We raised uh over $22,000 in income. >> That was just that's just the money. We haven't told
010you how much it cost us yet. >> Um we we grew in sponsorships. Uh we grew in registration and um and our expenses were a little higher. And that's the next slide you'll see. So we make we um you know we give away awards in fiveyear increments which cost us a little bit more a lot more actually because we got hit with tariffs this year but um it cost us a lot more because usually races only give in 10 year increments but we want to get everybody to participate and we love to have winners. So, um I think it's one of the things that draws a lot of people back to us because they really feel they have an opportunity to win. And plus, we do have some really nice medals, we've been told. So,
011um what else can I tell you? You can see that our our um that's one of our biggest expenses though, and we're going to be looking at ways of bringing that down is is our prizes. Um and again, we we added youth prizes because we had so many youth in the past. We didn't have two categories and we added two categories because we thought that they were worth recognizing to plus we give away it's a go it's a turkey you know we give away a turkey and we didn't think of a 16-year-old would want a turkey so we thought we'd give him something else. Um, so our net profit, you can see was $12,126. And this was this is about $2,000 more than last year. And the reason that again that that because of those
012expenses, uh, we had to buy some new things this year. We this was our ninth year and our signage and our banners and now we're starting to wear out and so we had to replace those. Um, so sponsorships. Uh the next screen yeah we we grew in sponsorships um some some new sponsors and some old sponsorships >> and uh our new team has ideas to grow uh those sponsorships even even more especially for our 10th year 10 years of doing this. That's you know that hopefully will bring up bring in some more um businesses who are interested in helping us. Uh we got a lot from our inkind services. Uh again, the ladies went out drumming up uh support. Uh they're experts at it, I have to tell you. They um they did a great
013job getting food especially. So our our expenses on food were cut in half or more just because we had a lot of um donations. Our gift cards, we had quite a few gift cards. Um again this year we had over 30 gift cards, 36 total I think. we have and most of them were for $25 or more. So, we had some nice prizes, too. And of course, we can't do this without lots of help. Have to shout out for all those the community for helping us. The schools, Felton, the town of Felton, the fire department. I'd like to recognize Hunter Greer. He he also is in the band. He was here tonight. He has the um Lake Forest High School Amateur Radio Club. They've been in an added service um last three races and they
014actually are on the course and have CV radios and it's been a very nice communication um service that they've provided. Uh and he's very professional. Um I was just really impressed with um how well he did and um again his professionalism and doing the work that he did. Um and there were many helpers that you know volunteers not only the people that you see but also the people behind the scenes. Most of us have husbands who helped you know we have to recognize them. Um mine does mine does haul stuff and he takes down banners and you know he does all the backend stuff. He doesn't raise or run but he you know he's willing to help out with I mean we all know we need we need those extra hands. Um, as you everybody
015knows, our goal is our primary event um for the awards program. And at this time, I want to invite our um other members up and they're going to award the grants. Before you guys start, can I any questions on the go? >> I'll see you next year for the 10th one. Hello everyone. I'm Rhonda Swenson. >> I'm Kit Smalling. >> We are going to be announcing and presenting the grants for the Dela Early Childhood Center, East Elementary, North Elementary, and Central Elementary School tonight. Um the title of the project, its leader, and the amount awarded will be shared with you this evening. Um in in regards to time, please visit our website at www.lfcf.org. You'll find a full and detailed summary of each grant um on our grants page. So in in we're going to
016get to some of these great grants right now. When we call your name, the recipients, um, if you'd please come on up and we'll have a certificate for you and then at the end, I think we'll do a big picture. Is that corre? Is that correct? >> Did you want them to walk that way? >> If they could, we'd love to shake your hand up. Great. >> Yes. Come on in this way and shake hands with the board and then you come on up. Uh, our first grant is from the Delaware Early Childhood Center. The title is the Spartan Care Cubby. They're receiving $993. Project leader is Desiree Oliver and uh she's the family services coordinator. >> Our next grant elementary school, it's titled Cultivating a Community of Learners for $1,000. Kimberly Greer is the
017project leader, special ed teacher. She is not able to join us tonight, but Alexis Bailey, third grade teacher from East is going to be here on her behalf. Staying with Peace Elementary School, we've got Cultivating Connections with the Natural Worlds, $1,000 grant to project leader Mary Anne Quinn, art educator, >> elementaryaries. school is added again with as a grant entitled ending on a highum >> for $92655. The project leader is Alexis Bailey and joining Miss Bailey is Amber Landon and they are both third grade teachers at East So elementary school they really they really went out for these and we're very very pleased. Uh this is uh this one is titled making math counts. It's for $999.70. It project leader is Kaitlyn Donovan and she's the academic intervent $1,000. So that that I I love
018the less than 30 cents there. So, we're going to move over to North Elementary School for a grant titled Readers Theater. $996.33 for Sheniqua Hardley. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. Up to grant number seven now, Central Elementary School. Uh the title is LFCE Drama Club Scripts for $695. Project leader is Caitlyn Kerwin who's the director manager of the drama club. And joining Miss Kerwin is Haley Guthan's co-director co-manager of the drama Central Elementary School has one more. The title is active fee equals engage engaged learning for the amount of $424.85. Project leader is Ashley Hastings, certified occupational therapist assistant. So, at this time, I'm going to be passing it over to Ana who's going to do the next set of grants. >> Good evening everyone. I'm Ana Moni. This is Megan Beaver as Ron has
019said and I'm happy to be presenting the awards for WT Chipman Middle School and Lake Forest High School. We're going to start with WT Chipman and we have the Chipman weekend food bag program led by Aaron Bryan a multilingual learners teacher and it's for the amount of $150. Next, we have a safe space project led by Justina Ramduct, social worker at Chipman for the amount of $370. Moving on, we have Capital Connections expanding horizons in Washington DC project led by Ryan Ha, a sixth grade English teacher at Chipman. I'm also here tonight, I believe, is Mr. Carter, also a sixth grade English teacher and also the chair at WT Chipman. Thank you. >> Next up, we have the high school draft booking club at Lake Forest High School led by Angela Savage, a teacher at
020Lake Forest High School in the amount of $800. >> Who was it? Angela Savage. Yeah. >> Funny. Come on. Next, we have the ASPA conference led by Toana Profet Brinkley, a 10th grade school counselor at the high school for $1,000. >> Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Dress for Success Culinary Arts led by Jasmine Mayo, a family consumer science teacher in the amount of $94827. Next we have free voluntary reading in the French classroom led by Kathy Bo um a French teacher in the amount of $95564. also free voluntary reading in the French classroom. This project led by Benjamin Black, which is a Spanish teacher and chair of world language department at high school. $900.74 is a list. Congratulations. Thank you. >> Up next, we have the free voluntary reading in the Spanish one
021and two classrooms led by Dennis Enriquez in the amount of $997.15. Congratulations. >> Spanish back at it. We have free voluntary reading in the Spanish one and two classroom. This time led by Coleman Morris, also a Spanish teacher in the amount of $997.15. >> I didn't. Sorry. My apologies. >> Wrong note. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> And uh last but not least, we have the free voluntary reading in the Spanish at three and four classrooms. Viviana Nicholas is a Spanish teacher and the amount is $997.15. >> Congratulations. >> We get a picture of everybody that's received an award. We wanted to do it with our little check. Oh, >> we're still working three rows kind of probably have to leave a lot. There you go. Slide in. Okay. Squish this backwards. Come on up.
022Thank you. And let's see. We got it. Got it. >> Everybody in there. >> Can you see the photographer? >> I'm so quiet. >> Thank you. Before you spur out, on behalf of the board, I'd like to thank all the grant winners, I'd also like to thank Mary and her team for all the hard work you guys put into that event. Um, in addition to the work that goes into it and what it accomplishes. It's also a great community event because a lot of people look forward to it. Um, I'd also like to recognize your photographer who managed to snap a picture of me telling my son what direction to run. you as he was taken off, but he's a two-year, so he's tough. Again, on behalf of the board, thank you for hard work.
023It means a lot to the district. Thank you. talking Thank you so much. Have a great night. Thank you. Right. Turning back to our agenda. Item 2.7, citizens participation. I will read directly from board policy K. Public concerns and complaints. The public concerns section. The citizens participation item on the board agenda is an opportunity for interested citizens to speak publicly and address the board. Those who wish to speak publicly, whether in person or online, must complete and submit the public comment information form, PCIF, by 12 p.m. on the schedule or meeting date. The PCIF which is available on the district website must be completed in its entirety and submitted to the superintendent's office by the schedule deadline. The citizens participation agenda item is limited to 30 minutes and individual speakers are limited to three minutes
024per speaker. In the event interested citizens wish to speak on a particular concern as a group. The group should select one individual to speak on their behalf at the discretion of the board president or chair. Speaking time may be limited to two minutes per speaker to allow for greater participation. Approved speakers will be recognized by the board president or chair in the order in which their names appear on the approved list. The board values citizens participation and respects the right of all speakers to speak freely. However, all speakers should maintain a level of decency and decorum to ensure a public forum that remains productive and respected. The board should not expect excuse me the public should not expect discussion or responses to any speaker comments at the board meeting. And I do not believe we
025had anyone signed up by 12. So, we uh will close public comment for this evening and we'll come back at our next meeting. Turning to the report section, item 3.1, student council report. I believe we have Madison Buller for us tonight. Hello, Madison. How are you? >> Good. How are you? >> Good evening, members of the board, administrators, and guests. My name is Madison Bullard. Um I'm a sophomore at Lake Forest High School and I'm proud to represent student council. Tonight, I'd like to share some exciting updates and accomplishments happening in our school community. First, Lake Forest High School is introduc in introducing principal roundts twice a month. These meetings will include guests from across the school and district offices and will give students and staff the opportunity to discuss important information, school activities, and
026provide feedback to help improve our school. We are also excited to announce that SAT Saturday school is open to all 11th graders, including AP students. This will run for the next seven Saturdays beginning January 31st, giving students extra support as they prepare for college entrance exams. We would like to recognize Kaylee McDow and Gigi Rosano who will be honored at the Secretary Scholar Dinner in April along with Dr. Lucas and Dr. Rabelloo. Congratulations to both students on this outstanding achievement. Additionally, congratulations to our students who are earned placement in all state performing ensembles. Kaylee McDow, Ana Wright, and Thomas Spinfinger were selected for all state chorus. Aiden Wyatt earned a place in all state band. Madison Bullard was selected for all state orchestra. These accomplishments reflect dedication, talent, and many honors hours of hard work.
027During smart lunch, our school counselors will begin offering group counseling sessions to provide additional support for students academic and personal needs. Our JDG classes are welcoming guest speakers from the health initiative and the JDG corporate office, giving students valuable real world experiences. Several field trips are currently being processed for approval, including visits to the hairs potato chip factory and college campuses, providing students with hands-on learning opportunities. We are proud to share that Abigail Sweet, Jerusalem Howard, Alana Destin, and Bana Kellbball will compete at the BPA state leadership conference at Bali's and do on February 5th. They have been preparing for months in events such as law and ethics, extraneous speech, presentation management, graphic design promotion, broadcast news production, and health research presentation. Our Ed Rising program is also preparing for its state conference in February.
028This year, 12 students will compete and three students are applying to the state officers, which is a very impressive accomplishment. Finally, the Lake Forest High School Chorus is hosting its 10th annual singing Valentine's on Friday, February 13th. Students can send a song to a friend, teacher, or loved one during class. Each Valentine includes a song performed by a course student or group, a piece of candy, and a Valentine card. Sales will take place during smart lunch and in the course room. Valentine will be delivered during class periods excluding lunch. Please have the re recipients name and class period ready at the time of p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
029p p p p p p p p purchase. Thank you for your time and continued support of the Lake Forest High School. We are proud of our students and grateful for the opportunities provided to us. Have a great evening. >> Thank you. Any questions? >> I do. >> Yep. >> What instrument do you play? >> For orchestra, I play the violin. Nice. >> Congratulations. >> And what we know you're a sophomore, but what position do you hold on student council? >> I'm a just represented at Albert. >> I will add I am extremely jealous of that Hurst potato chip factory. I've actually had a chance to shap that and the warm potato chips at the end of our >> Thank you. Have a great night. Back to our agenda. Item sheet count two, our final
030report this evening. Mr. Kirk Kellum. Good evening, Kirk. >> Good evening. Uh for this evening, uh we've reversed the order for the final budget and the financial position report. So, we'll do the financial position report first tonight. And the other thing we've done tonight is we put last year's third quarter financial position report on the top and compare. So we have a comparison to the uh current forecast period for Q3 for 2025. So the way that you can look at this of course the top half of the screen is going to be last year's report and that first block of numbers is going to be basically what we have on hand in terms of cash and and and purchase orders and encumbered funds. And then of course what we're projecting in that second block in
031the center is the forecast period for the third quarter. And that third block over to the right is going to be the forecast for the fourth quarter. And you can see our local payroll at this time last year at the end of December was 900,000 and for this year it's up to 970,000. So big increase uh from last year. And then as we look at the actual unencumbered, that first column, that's essentially the cash we have on hand. And so from the local expense uh standpoint, you can see we do have additional funds there. The 13.1 million compared to 12.4 million last year. That's an improvement. But then in the other numbers, you see a decline. So the division 2 state cost uh funds there. We had a million last year. We're down to 172
032this year. The big reason for that is if you look a couple columns over, um the projected income for this first quarter for our current report is 565,000. And that is essentially that division 2 uh cash in that we did for the uh units cash in for the vacant units. And so that's happening now in January versus last year it happened in December. So that's why you see a little discrepancy there. And then division 3, you can see we had a lot more funds back last year, 622,000 compared to 188,000 this year. So that means essentially we're eating through our division 3 equalization funds quicker uh on the state side. And so then as we go in uh and we look at the projected income, it's pretty much uh on par or it's it's a
033little bit it's significantly higher. It's $600,000 higher than last year. And that's mainly that division 2 cash in that we're picking up. But when you look at the projected available income through March 31st, uh the numbers are very closely in line with the where they were last year. So then moving into the forecast period, really the the reason that we have this report is we're concerned about local payroll. And so when I look at this and the best thing that I could pass on to you is is we know that one month local projected payroll is 970,000. And so when we look at that projected salary in that middle section, it should look like three times our 970,000. So because we've got a projection for three months there with a 970,000, we should be at
034about, you know, 2.9 million. And sure enough, that's where we're at in terms of the projection for the salary. Okay. Same thing for that fourth quarter. We've got that salary projection. And that's the big concern because that makes up, you know, approximately 70% of our budget. And that's where, uh, Appequimate got in trouble. Um, 970,000, we're going to have that extra pay period in May. So, uh, project that out for seven pay periods versus six pay periods, which is essentially three and a half months. You can see that we would be at about 3.395 million. And so, we've got a projection for there for 3.4 million. So, I just want to push that out there. That's a way to double check these numbers to be educated so that you can see where we should be
035looking in terms of do we have enough funds. Um but the good thing is is that uh the top right number that's the projected balance of our local funds at at the end of the fiscal year. And so you can see last year we were up at almost 7.7 million. We ended up finishing the year with a little over 8 million. So, um, right now the current report, we're projecting about 7.8 million. So, if things would hold true, we would probably finish again probably north of somewhere around 8 million. Um, if we underp project here. Um, but again, this is um I think this is a better way to be able to discern any kind of changes or massive um changes from the previous year. when we look at, you know, comparing one fiscal year
036to the next. So, any questions on the financial position report? >> Any questions for Kurt on the financial position? >> So, now we'll move on to the final budget. And this is really just essentially a final adjusted budget now that we've had uh unit count numbers flow in. So, uh, revisions after the September 30th unit count are fairly minimal, uh, with the exception of a few areas, and I'll go ahead and point those out this evening. Uh, the first area is that division to all other costs. So, our final budget came in at 818,000. Um, I was a little bit conservative on that with the preliminary budget at 660, but 818 is still less than what we had our final budget last year. And that's because we did not cash in as many units this
037year. This is the first time in a few years that we did not max out our cash in of units. Again, that's a good thing because we have less vacant units. Um, that means we've got more teachers in the classroom. So, that's a good thing. uh in terms of state transportation. So at the time we did not have all the the data available in terms of our bus contracts and uh so the preliminary budget was essentially what our final budget was the previous year. U but you can see there's a big increase there in terms of 550,000. Some of that is driven by the bus contracts, but a large portion is also driven by our homeless transportation. And so when we were looking at our homeless transportation up through the end of December this year,
038it was it was nearly double what it was last year. So, uh, that's the second item there. Um, I want to point out related service. I don't know if your your hard copy has this. Uh, we just got that number in this afternoon. So, 146,000. That's what our uh our final amount is expected to be in terms of related services funding. >> Yeah. So, the copy we had, it did have it on there, but it was 126. >> Okay. >> So, it was not. And then uh unique alternatives >> 146 that >> yeah 146 >> and then unique alternatives um you can see that's up $400,000 for the preliminary budget. So that's our outside placements and special um settings for the the neediest of our our students. And so that's a case where I there's
039a state revenue number that I don't like to see increased because essentially they're covering 70% of that cost and we're covering 30% of that cost and so our 30% just went up as a result of that and so that comes out of our tuition tax dollars. Now that was all the significant changes on the state revenue side as far as the local receipts go. um very close to the pre preliminary budget with the exception of uh two areas. Uh the first being the current expense tax revenue and uh right now our our our receipts for taxes are coming in at about 2.2% higher than last year and that's about what we would estimate to be the growth in assessments throughout the district. So when I put together the preliminary budget, I did account for about
040a 2% increase in assessments. Um where the problem was is I had also had an increase last year that kind of inflated our senior property tax credit because um the state was late in paying us our prior year credit and that went into next year and so when I put 2% on top of that it kind of overestimated and so that's why I had to bring that estimate back down. So you see the decrease there in terms of the current expense tax receipts and then the other local revenue there's an increase there. um that's driven by we're seeing uh higher interest rate on our deposits this year. So when going into the preliminary budget, I was fully anticipating um the decline in interest rates throughout the year. Uh you know, I was anticipating declines with
041the Fed uh funds rate and things like that. So, but uh that has stayed elevated. And so I just received an email today from the treasur's office that in December we earned 4.59% on our in on our deposits. So, we're still at a nice elevated rate and that's why you see that number uh increase in terms of the estimate for the final budget. And then for the federal funds, uh again, that was a probably on your hard copies, the numbers are not the same as what you see up on the screen, but uh I noticed there was an error in the the uh the movement of the numbers over for the federal uh funds that we expect to receive this year. So, what you see up on the screen is the correct numbers. Uh just
042some minor changes there, but overall you can see the discretionary revenues are only up $11,000 total from last year, which is not a big increase. Any questions on the revenue side? >> Any questions if we've heard on state, local, or federal recipients? >> So, moving on to the expenditure side. Um no major changes on the first page other than aquatics. uh our life goal lifeguard payroll has been significantly higher than last year due to the first six months of this fiscal year. Um so we've increased the budget to account for that. Um and then moving on page two, there's been uh no changes there. Uh all numbers have been held over from the preliminary budget. And then moving on to page three is where we start to see some major changes. So at the very
043top of course the biggest of them all is our local salaries. Um and what you see here is is this is trending much higher for three reasons. The first is we processed 33 degree changes this year for our staff. 33 education lane degree advancements so that their pay increased as a result of those 33 degree changes. So that's the biggest factor that's driving up our local salary numbers right now. uh more uh teachers are earning master's degrees, more are earning masters plus 15, masters plus 30 and doctorates. And so that's what you're seeing there. The other factor that's in there is the Kelly subcost because that's included in that local salaries and OEC's. We we include our our sub costs in that line. And so um up through December 31st of this year, uh our
044Kelly sub costs are uh significantly higher than they were at this time last year. So, um, we're seeing a lot more sub requests for teachers and so forth. And then the last thing I'll point out is is we do have more teachers on staff. And so, compared to two years ago, we have 27 more teachers on staff than we had two years ago. So, um, those three areas combined is why you're seeing that that significant advancement in the local salaries. So, the next item down there that's highlighted in blue that showed a a larger increase is the tuition reimbursements. And so, um, we're seeing a huge increase in these tuition reimbursements and that's driving the the second order effect of that is it's increasing our local salaries. So, not only are they getting paid more
045on the state side, they're also getting paid more on the local side as well. Moving on further down, uh, the last item to address is the transportation, and we talked about that on the revenue side, uh, with the bus contracts and the increase in the homeless transportation. uh the state covers 90% of that cost. We cover 10% and with that increase that means our costs increase as well. So when we look at the budget itself um our expenditure budget has gone up quite a bit. You see uh 17.5 uh million compared to 16.7 on the preliminary. Um our anticipated discretionary revenue went up a little bit, not much, but that presents itself as a deficit of approximately 600,000. So, what does this all mean? Well, uh, the total expenditure budget is up 800,000 from the
046initial estimate. Um, total deficit 600,000. It it means that theoretically we would finish with a $600,000 deficit, but we know from the past two years that we've underspent our budget by approximately 3%. And so 3% of this discretionary expenditure budget would be about 550,000. So if we underspend at about 3% we're going to be really close to about a balanced budget on this one. So 3 years ago we underspent by 5%. So if we get in that territory although I don't think I think we're going to be probably trending more towards the 3%. So but that's what we're looking at right now in terms of um the final budget. Any questions? >> So I've got a few. So I'll start with the comment you just made. the 3% underspend. In a scenario like this where
047we know that we're not likely we're not going to to have a quote unquote balanced budget this year. Is there a directive that goes out to staff to try to be mindful of this so that we can make sure that we at least do hit that 3% under spend or knowing that we see these numbers is there any kind of direction that will go out to staff to be conservative given what we're dealing with? >> Well, we typically don't do that. um we have that scenario like this size in the >> Yeah, and I can talk to that. When I first got here, when our reserve balance was about 2.5 million versus the 8 million that it is now, you know, we did have some cost containment measures that we put out on an annual
048basis in terms of like travel restrictions and things like that. So, yes, if we think that it's in we're in a bad situation where we need to really cut costs, we will put a cost containment on. I mean it's I I just again I I'm from the mindset of just spend what you have and seeing that we're not going to have what we thought we're going to have just thinking out loud as to you know if we've had any kind of discussions like that. Um another question on the the big hitter which was the local salaries. Two questions there. One um you mentioned new staff a lot of new staff. Um were those new So these are new staff that came after the preliminary budget. So we didn't know about them at the time. Well,
049when I say new staff, I'm comparing to two years ago. So, we pay that over a 10-month period. So, some of those costs come in in July and August from a prior year. And so, we do have a little bit of a carryover from that. Um, but in terms of our staff increase from last year to this year, it's a much smaller increase. It was a much bigger increase from two years ago to one year ago. But that's why I say really the majority of this increase that's being driven here is is by education lane changes. Okay? So when you forecast the preliminary budget for this um line item, is there any cushion for potential degree changes or do we just eat every one? So for example, you know, like we cushion snow project potential
050snow days on our calendar. Is there any kind of projection for for example, we may have five lane changes this year. We need to add a little more for that. Or do we just we go with what we know we have as a constant and if we have that, we just have to eat it as an additional amount. Yeah, when we're when I'm doing the projections here, uh I'm pretty much looking at what we spent last year and then we we factor in we know that we have a 2% local scale increase. Um in this year's preliminary budget, I did try to account for increase in growth of staff. >> Um but I did not account for increase in growth of the education lane changes. And uh that's a little bit harder to project. >>
051Yeah. You know, that's why I was curious if because of just the unknown if there was any kind of, you know, >> anything built in for, for example, like we're going to have because I'm thinking historically like this is we have to have at least a few that happen every year, I would think, correct degree change. So, I wasn't sure if if in general with past budgets that that is something that has been built in two and three and this is a obviously a huge outlier with 33 of them. So, I was just curious there. Um just jumping back to the other column I think I heard the answer to my question but um that increase for aquatics 25 grand there that is directly attributed to lifeguarding increased costs. >> Yes that's what's driving those
052cost lifearting >> and is that bucket there is that that's is is that bucket for um the entire upkeep of the pool or is that just for >> so it does include our contract for um monthly maintenance things like that. Yes. For chemicals and all that. Okay. That's correct. All right. Um but I had one other question too. So on the water sewer um 65 in the prior budget 65k 75k was a preliminary we landed on 85. So that's a 13% this 13% increase this year but over two year periods a 31% increase. Um what what is what accounts for that? Like what does that it's just sewer and water with the county right? >> Yeah. What's that go to? When I first got here, actually, our sewer water sewer budgets were higher than the
05365,000. I think they were around 75,000. And so, in the process of trying to eliminate these inflated budgets, so to speak, I I started to bring the tolerances down on some of these budgets. So, that's one of those budgets where I tried to bring the tolerance down closer to what we thought we were going to spend. But now, we're back up to where we were uh, you know, four years ago in terms of spend. some of it too. Um I know we had a water leak at one point in South Elementary. So that can you know when you have a water leak like that that can inflate your sewer cost uh sewage and water cost for that month quite a bit. >> Okay. >> So >> All right. And then um I don't know did
054you touch on the the transportation match the 74,000 increase there as well? >> Uh yes and and I apologize. Can you hit that note up one more time for me? >> The increase there 74,000 increase there as well. >> Yeah. So, um, a little bit of it's driven by the bus contracts themselves. Um, I would probably say the majority of it's driven by the bus contracts themselves and then probably maybe I'm I'm just guesstimating probably about a quarter of it's driven by the homeless transportation increases. >> Yeah. I mean, in general, it's as you look back through all the school, it's the parameters of falling in line with what we budgeted is all there. It's these couple that are, and I know they're tough to nail down, and they're large numbers to begin with. So,
055if it skews a few percentage points one way or another, it's going to end up being a large dollar amount. So, um, okay. Any other board members questions? >> Just let me going back to that. Sorry, but like when people pay to use that, does that money go into that line? >> So I account for that as our other local revenue. >> Okay. >> Um but that's where um I think last year when we got towards the end of some of those monthly budget reports. I had mentioned that we were exceeding our cost and aquatics and and some of that was driven by the factor fact that we've got other schools using our pool, but they're also paying to use our pool. are where they're seeing an increase in in other local revenue there are
056>> I guess I just would be interested to see that increase in the lifeguard like do our life guard our lifeguards aren't used when other schools use they are yes >> so I guess I'm I'd be interested to see like what we're making >> with what we're spending on that >> cost increase cost >> yeah because it looks like we're just spending but if we're getting that money then >> yeah if you if you look at it just from that perspective uh the amount that we're getting from the increased revenue exceeds our increased costs so it's not being driven solely by that >> okay >> any other questions I guess we'll come back for a vote later this evening sir turning back to our agenda Item 3.3, superintendent of court, Dr. Lucas. Good evening everybody.
057Like to congratulate all our recognizes that we're here and gone tonight. Um really big thank you to the community education foundation for the great work that they do. Um Dav was a great success and we really appreciate our foundation. Um on a different note, just want to switch gears. We had one of our high school wrestlers, Dearan Russ, recently celebrated his 100th win just last week. So, congratulations to Dearan. And uh we'd also like to mention that we had our first unified home basketball game this week. That was pretty exciting. Uh that team is new this year, coached by our own Derell Jones, Dr. Derell Jones. So, good luck to them the remainder of the year. As we sit here, we're racing to the end of the second marking period tomorrow. Report cards will be
058available on the home access center January 30th. Uh and as I often do, I urge everyone to reach out to their students teacher, school counselor, or principal as soon as possible if you have any concerns about your students progress. Sure, everyone's keeping their eyes and ears open for the approaching weather. So, I ask everyone to watch your voice, text, and email for any necessary updates about potential closings. Social media will also be alerted of any changes to the school schedule. Always like to give some calendar reminders. So, here goes. This Monday, January 26th, rain or shine or snow. Uh we are closed for students for staff professional learning. Schools are also closed for the same reason on February 9th. Well, for parent teacher conferences, as I mentioned at the last meeting, please save the date
059for annual Black History Celebration, which is set for February 27th at Lake Forest High School. More details about that event will be published soon. Uh, finally, I want to send a shout out to our school counselors. Prophet Brinkley left us. She was here. Uh, next week is school counseling, school counselor appreciation week. Uh, we cannot do what we do without our school counselors. So, please take a minute to thank and recognize their contributions if you can. It's all I have this evening. I yield the floor back to President Ralph and the board for any questions or discussion. >> Thanks, Senator. Questions for Dr. Lucas. >> I am 3.4 L. Mrs. Hayes. Good evening. >> Um, good evening. First, I'd like to remind everybody about our scholarship initiative. Tickets are on sale beginning in February. and
060March we will have the raffle featuring generous donations made by community members and all support of graduating our seniors. Secondly, I would like to take a moment to reflect um back a moment in time when I began my career here in 1999 with Dave Santor. Um I remember a strong sense of family and within the district like any family as we grow in time passes the dynamic can change sometimes marked by strength other times by challenge. Even so, as the president union, I have value our relationship with the district and appreciate the collaborative work we do and to support our students, family, and colleagues. So, as we move forward with the negotiations and over the next coming months, we do so um with a commitment to continued collaboration, maintaining that positive working relationship that we've
061always had keep it high. So, we appreciate everything that you guys are doing and we look forward to the next couple months. >> Any questions? Uh, can we pay for tickets this evening or we got money for tickets store? No, >> not until I don't have the tickets until I drive. >> Sorry, just trying to jump together. Questions for Mrs. Hayes. >> I wish I wish I had the tickets. Not yet. >> We'll be looking forward to those. Thank you so much. >> You're welcome. >> All right, we are going to jump back to the agenda item six 6.1 board policies first reading. This is a discussion item. All right. Energy conservation policy ECM. Questions or comments? ECF has no recommended CHS. EB materials and equipment management. Materials and equipment management. Another one with no
062recommended changes. Any questions or comments? GVK staff concerns, complaints, and grievances. Questions or comments on GBK? See, true. Oh, did I fumble? I was given a stack this evening printed by the district. However, I had my own from my review and they did have comes when I showed the right ones. What? All right. Uh, policy GCB donated leave program for school district employees. Questions or comments on GCBE? Instructional resources and materials policy IJ instructional resources and materials. I JJ textbook selections and adoption. Another one with no recommended changes. I JJ question. >> Yes, this is Go ahead. Um I just had a question. I'm not even sure it needs to be in policy but I just have a question. Is there a time frame in which we review these materials? like what does that look
063like? >> It's normal. So, when I came into this seat, um I don't have my charts in front of me. Some of our core materials, math, ELA, hadn't been revisited in close to about 10 years. So, what I have done is put them on a cycle signing board policy of five years. And I have them all spaced out. your elementary math, ELA, elementary, your ELA, secondary and bass secondary. So, no, those are larger purchases, so none of them coincide on top of each other. Um, we were fortunate enough that we had some of the COVID money so I could space that out and get everything uh up to date. So, um it is not in board policy as far as a timeline goes. best practice. It normally comes up about every five years. That gives
064you enough time to once you adopt something, the PD to see if the data is starting to move to take effect so on and so forth. >> What What year are we in with our new math and language arts curriculum? >> Um, sorry, >> I have my chart. I can think of a chart. I have it all charted out real nice. So, math um would be our five-year contracts up on elementary math this year. We >> um secondary ELA has like a another threeear secondary math I want to say two and then the ELA elementary CPLA I want to say we're on four. Don't put me on them yet. I said 10. >> Yeah, I think so. I mean is there any benefit to putting a time frame in policy? I mean to at least
065review I don't know I mean I I appreciate Mr. D and the way he has you know made that schedule but will that always be the case? I mean >> suggest I don't know it would be be a bad idea to at least review it with a scheduled review. >> Yeah I mean I definitely feel like Dr. Lucas and Mr. D are the experts in that area. It was just a thought I had. Um but I I'm again I appreciate the way you have went from 10 years to 5 years and you've taken that initiative to do that. But will everybody do that? So I'm assuming you won't be here till kingdom come. I I definitely think it's a good suggestion. The way we've got it set up now, um it's kind of on a
066strategic schedule because the curriculum is not cheap. So, we obviously can't afford to place it all at once, which is why we kind of have a review cycle >> um set. And then also a lot of it ages out >> like our um licenses, what our typical license is about five years. Um so almost by by design we are um forced to view it when the license expires. >> That's great. >> Think we could have longer conversations internally about that and then >> have a discussion just to think of any unforeseen consequences by putting a timeline in or anything. >> I agree. >> Yeah, definitely to have dialogues. >> Yeah, because that doesn't just a review doesn't require necessarily us doing anything about it. says, "Hey, let's look at make sure we look at the
067curriculum every five years and decide if we're going to continue along that road." >> And the data associated with it was like >> good. >> Yes. >> Um I just had another comment. I just remember somewhere maybe it was another policy and I just I couldn't find it if it's there that a parent was a part of the committee. Am I not trying to think of different committees that we've formed? Um I'm trying to go through all policies in my head right now. Nothing nothing's jumping out. Um I'm trying to remember if we had a parent we had administrators intervention as every school well not every teacher but representative teachers from every school some of them serve as parents and teachers but they were there in a teacher role. Um, so we did feel like
068we wanted to put uh some parents >> listed and I just I just thought that somewhere I remembered the parent piece in there and that's what I was >> uh is it the board's will that we write in here five minutes? I can definitely we can definitely make that work. So, how how much time would you ask? In other words, >> it just depends upon what we're talking about. That's kind of like what I would think about like what do we say is the five-year review process? Cuz if I'm pulling I if we know we're going to pull a committee together like this actual committee what you see up here where we're choosing one it's about a six-month process of regular meetings bringing vendors in painstakingly going through lesson by lesson and is this what
069we want? So if it's the purpose of just saying, hey, is this working? Let's look at the data. All right, we want to keep on going. Or are we defining it as we're going to go through a whole adoption? If it ends up with the same curriculum, it ends up with the same curriculum. So it's just a big time commitment if we went through the whole process. If it's a some type of a quicker review to say, hey, we're on track. Let's just keep it moving. So I guess we would just need to define what the review would be every five years. >> I don't suggest we table this J together. >> So that was a question I was asking how how much thought you need because if the easiest thing for us to do
070is just be pull this one off table and then bring it back after think about that. So >> so we're going to table JJ. >> Now I don't know what happened with the copies that I had because I can already tell you I skipped over ECC and that's one that I had in. So, I'm going to jump back to the very first policy that's listed on the agenda, which is ECC buildings and grounds records and reports. I think I touched on that one, but I did have a change that I'm I'm going to suggest. Um, in the first line, I read the building and ground shall provide a construction report to the Lake Force Board of Education at one meeting per school year and upon request. um at at one meeting per school year and
071at additional board meetings at the request of the board or something like that is what I had written down uh because it it just the way it reads at one meeting per school year and upon request could be anyway I just I think the intent is for the board to request for example if something is going on and we want to have a report on X Y or Z um that's the upon request so I have to request the board or something to that effect I can give the exact same notice Apologies for that. >> I got you. And I apologize to the other board members because I don't think anybody got that pretty pretty policy. And if everybody can pull it up on the computer, take a quick look at it, see if they
072have any feedback for that. We can we can definitely make that change. Mr. Next one is JLD guidance and counseling first reading. JLD guidance and counseling. Any question on this one? Any questions? No changes were recommended. KHA public solicitations in schools. Another short one with no changes recommended. KHB advertising in schools with no recommended changes. And the last one I show is KHC distribution/posting of promotional service. Questions or comments on that or any of the ones we just All right. Thank you. other than the one change and the one we're going to table this could come back I believe in two meetings for a >> Mr. Stark. >> All right section 8 person make a motion we approve the personnel report as presented second motion and second on the floor to approve the personal report
073as presented. Any questions on that motion? I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? I opposed abstensions. Motion carries 501. >> Section 10 other business. I make a motion we resolution 10.1 school choice as presented. Second. >> Have a motion and a second on the floor to approve resolution 10.1 school choice as written. Any questions on that motion? Hearing none. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries 5. >> Section 11 field trip. So make a motion. We have to resolution 11.1 field trip for size. Second >> motion and a second on the floor to approve resolution 11.1 field trips late for high school. Any questions on that motion hearing? None. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? I >> opposed. Abstensions. Motion carries 5-0. >> Section
07412, uh, financial reports. I make a motion we approve resolution 12.1, financial report as presented. Second. Have a motion and a second on the floor to approve the financial report as presented this evening. Any questions on that motion? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. All in favor? >> I opposed. Abstensions. Motion carries 50. >> Section 13, board policies. I make a motion we approve uh resolution 13.1 as modified during discussion. Second. >> Motion and a second on the floor to approve resolution 13.1 first reading or policies. Any question on that motion hearing? None. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? I extensions. Motion carries. 5. Mr. Stark and Mrs. Mcclaus. Now we are turning to item 14 on the agenda 14.1. The orders is a chance for any board member to share
075anything or comment anything that was not part of our agenda. Does anyone have anything to say? All right. I have a few things. First, our next meeting will be uh see February 12th. It's right here at CBO. Um we have a an earlier start. We'll have a 5:00 executive session followed by our 7 o'clock meeting. And then after that one, just to give you a heads up, we hit the road. We'll have our second meeting in February at Lake Force East Elementary. Um two other things for me. One, as I mentioned the last few meetings, um it's that time of year school board elections. Uh the filing period ends Friday, March the 6th, which is prescribed as the first Friday of March by code. Uh it's a four-year term. Um we have two seats open
076this year. And as a check of today, I believe we have one person that has filed and that is Mrs. Amber Rash. up. And then the final thing I have is the board received an email from a parent at Chipman this week and um typically the board gets when we as you can imagine when we get emails it's about not stuff that you want to really read and it's that doesn't happen often because I think we're in a good place for the most part. Um but we love to get emails like the one we received and it was an email from a parent um reaching out to us on behalf of her experiences recently at Chipman and specifically with Mr. And I'm sure you are all shocked by this what I'm about to say and
077how good-hearted he is and and the extra mile that he tends to go. And it just it meant a lot to me to get that email because um it just it was it was about a lot of tough times and adversity they've handled in their personal lives with health and challenges and um for them to lean on the school and Mr. Milner and the things that he did for them to try to make their experience at the school such that it was conducive for the for this um student to continue learning and and have a positive experience while in school despite the challenges facing outside. That meant a lot. Um but I wanted to mention that to you guys because it's probably happening and none of you would know it. >> Um so thank you
078to the work that you guys do. Um, >> Mr. >> It's similar on a much smaller level as to why we do what we do because it just it's for these kids in this community and I thank you for what you guys do. So, thanks J. >> Can I read on that a little bit? Sure. Um, everything Jamie said about that email was was correct, but he talked about the part where, you know, there was these struggles externally going on that but she made it clear that no one knew about those struggles, right? >> And how that compassion was still there and then that made those struggles easier. And and I think sometimes we, you know, we're all caught up in how busy our lives and everything is because we all are probably way busier
079than we ever thought our parents were back in the day or we were. I mean, my parents just say, "No, you're not going." You know, now I'm like running 17,000 different places every, you know, they know. But anyway, um, and just how those little things have made a big change in just one person's life and that's one person to reach out and there's many other people that you guys are all touching that we will never hear from, you know, so but we know it's happening. So even the one email reminds us that everybody is is hopefully doing those things and um is is deserves recognition even though we may not even hear it. So >> yeah, it's about those connections and the impact you guys make. So again, thank you for your hard work and
080and those things that you're doing for these these people in our community that you may not even know about because the work you do means a lot. So thank you. And with that, uh I do not believe we have a need for um executive session, but I'll ask if we do. >> No, sir. Do not believe we do. >> So hearing none, I will entertain a motion for government. >> Second tissue. >> Have a motion and a second on the floor to adjourn this evening. Any questions on that motion? Hearing none, I will call for a vote. All those in favor? >> I I opposed. Extensions. Motion carries 5-0. Thank you very much for attending this evening in person and online. I will also pray and wish that you guys all stay safe this weekend
081with this potential big fun having. So, safe travels to you all. Thank you, >> James. That's fine.