001Thank you for joining us in person and those who have joined us online. We are going to resume the October 9th committee lake board of education please allegiance and then I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. >> Item 22.3 on our agenda is a roll call of board members. Uh Mrs. Rash >> here, >> Dr. Wy present, >> Mrs. McCloskey here, >> vice president Sarby here, >> and James Ralph serving as chair is present. We have all five board members present. Item 2.4 uh approve the agenda. Make >> a motion we approve the agenda as presented. Second motion and second on the floor to approve the agenda for this
002evening. Any questions on the motion? Hearing none. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? I opposed. Extensions. Motion carries 50. >> 2.5 approval minutes. Make a motion we approve the minutes from this September 25th, 2025 meeting board of education. Second. Have a motion and a second on the floor to approve the meeting minutes from the September 25th board meeting. Any questions on that motion hearing? None. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Abstension. The chair abstains. The motion passes 40 with one abstension. 2.6. We do not have any recognitions or presentation this evening. Turning to 2.7 citizens participation. I will read directly from board policy K public concerns and complaints. The citizens participation item on the board agenda is an opportunity for members of the community to
003speak publicly. Those who wish to speak public with the board must complete the information form provided at the board meeting and submitted to the board secretary prior to the opening of the meeting. The form should clearly state the reason for addressing the board. The public should not expect discussion or responses at this board meeting. Comments are limited to three minutes per person. In addition to that, we've also placed on the line uh consistent with the new legislation, there is a a box we fill out um an application to speak tonight as well. Um as mentioned previously, we are in pro process of updating our policy which will be compliant with the new legislation and that should be done here soon. The late first meeting is at our meeting next week or is that in November?
004Next, next week. Next uh next meeting. Do we have anyone online or in person? We do not. So that will conclude this evening's public comment period for tonight. I will open the floor for citizens participation again near the start of our next board meeting. All right, we'll now turn to section two reports. First one is 3.1 financial reports. Mr. Kirk, >> good evening. We have the uh monthly board financial report as of the end of September. So we're a quarter of the way into the fiscal year. Uh starting off with the revenue side of the report. The only change we have in the state side funds is the minor capital improvement. We did receive our enhanced minor capital improvement funds. And so that's the only change that you see in that top block there. Um
005we got the first of our larger tax deposits there that's showing up there. The next one will be I should get an email in the next week there uh or so uh indicating what our largest tax deposit of the year is going to be that ends up getting deposited right around October 31st. So, um, and then we still have not received our federal funds, although we just did get approval from DOE for our consolidated grants. So, that should be coming over within the next week, I would estimate. So, we've received uh 48% of our discretionary funds compared to 50% last year and 68% of all funds compared to 66% last year. Any questions on the revenue side? >> Any questions for Mr. Cman on revenue? Uh moving on to the expenditure side. Uh I'm going
006to start with the punch line first which is basically um we have on the discretionary side 70% of the budget remaining and that's compared to 77% last year. And so that is a number that makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck and kind of make me look further and investigate why are we off by seven percentage points from last year. And so looking at last year's board financial report from the end of September, um five of those percentage seven percentage points was due entirely to the amount of money that we encumbered on purchase orders. So what you see in the bottom of that um under encumbered amount for the total discretionary which shows 1.179 million um that was like in the 200,000 last year. And so that just goes to show
007that we put a lot more money up front on purchase orders this year. Um whether it's the Kelly Services substitute contract that we hadn't put on at this time last year. And so there's really having investigated further, there's really nothing to be too alarmed about. This is this is kind of common this time of the year. They're just kind of getting ahead of the game and putting a lot of this on purchase orders out front. The other 2% is so nothing unexpected, just timing essentially. Yeah, exactly. And so the other 2% is really just I mean you could attribute it to the 2% increase in our local salaries. So um um but overall not too concerned there. Uh but again 70% remaining compared to 77% last year. Now all funds 77% remaining compared to 81%
008last year. Same thing when I look at the encumbered funds were over twice what we were last year. So just a little bit of a timing thing. So, any questions on the expenditure report? Any questions for Mr. Thank you, sir. Turning to item 3.2, our superintendent. Good evening, everybody. Always like to start by reporting good news, and there's always plenty of good news in Lake Forest. First, I want to thank and congratulate all of the schools for their participation in spirit week. Uh it's great to see homecoming being celebrated across all the schools in the district. Still have two more days left and our parade will step off at 6 pm tomorrow evening in Felton and the football game at 11 a.m. Saturday morning in the stadiums. The homecoming dance is Saturday night at Lake
009Forest High School. Thank you to the many staff and community members who are making this week possible and I wish everyone a safe and enjoyable homecoming weekend. Next, October is National School Principal Month. So I want to send thanks and congratulations to all our school principles and assistant principles. School principles and assistant principles make up a tiny fraction of our district employees but they are entrusted with a wide range of limitous duties, enormous responsibility and they serve long arduous days and many nights. Can't say enough about the great work uh that our building administrators do and along with me I ask everyone to thank them for the great service to Lake Forest. I always like to give a few reminders. So here goes. Hopefully everyone will be able to have was able to access their
010uh progress reports last week as the first marking period. Interim date was uh October 2nd. If you were not able to access that report or you have concerns about the marks, please reach out to your students teacher, school counselor, administrator, or administrator as soon as possible. We're still early in the year and want to get be sure and get ahead of any concerns. The end of the first marking period is right around the corner, November 3rd. that is really rapidly approaching um quickly. And of course uh just a reminder, there's no schools for students tomorrow, October 10th as a statewide professional learning day. Tons of great events going on in October. Book bears, literacy nights, PTO and PTA meetings, the annual Battle of the Bell next Friday night in Milford, and um Lake Forest will
011be again hosting haunted hallways on October 31st. So make plans to be there. As always, you can find the district calendar on our district website under quick links. So, I encourage you to check that out. And that's all I have this evening. I move the floor back to President Ralph in the board for any questions or discussion. >> Thank you, Dr. Lucas. Any questions for Dr. Lucas? >> Any [clears throat] positive or negative feedback about report cards and >> I've got no negative feedback and then the um uh I checked most of the staff members. I'm sure district they um especially like the um detail that we get from the new system. >> So, uh anecdotally, we've gotten just generally positive and even negative >> and all the infle campus stuff worked well. Yes. >>
012Uh well, thanks to >> eventually >> thanks to really a lot of physical labor by people like Mr. Bulichek, Miss Dawson, Mr. Dweller. Um, I mean, literally there's a I I'm sorry I started Mr. uh Mr. Loveven and his team. Uh, it's it's taken a lot uh it's it's not it wasn't it wasn't a very automated and user friendly kind of transition, but a lot of hard work and I think we're I don't know just if we turn the corner or what do you think? >> I think so. And I mean if you kind of I think once we get through um unit count then it's [laughter] we'll see. >> But yeah it's it's much smoother now than it was three or four weeks ago. >> Yeah. I think it's like any news any other
013news system. You really don't know till you go to look for something and then you're like this is somewhere else. But >> uh kudos to the many great folks who who've done any work with some long days in the summer getting that making that transit in the north. >> We certainly would know if it wasn't. [clears throat] >> Any other question for Dr. Roots? Thank you, sir. Thank you. We will now turn to item 3.3 in our report section. uh CN support. >> Hi, thank you for having me today board Dr. Lucas and the huge crowd in the back. Um this is my annual, you know, catch up with you and let you know what's going on in child nutrition. So, um a lot of you that have been here in the past um know
014some of these slides, but I kept them in there for uh Mrs. Rash so that you would get same information. So we'll go through the department structure, funding sources, programs, and events, participation, and community eligibility provision. So this is our first slide with our our department structure. So you have a picture of each of our kitchens there. We have six kitchens, of course, and one satellite location that South sends food to, which is deck. So um we have 41 employees. Each school has a manager, two cook bakers, and general workers to fill in the rest. And of course, student body and meals per labor hour is how we get our size for our staff. So the next slide kind of explains our funding sources. Um the food nutrition service of the USDA administers the program
015at the federal federal level. Then uh department of education nutrition department monitors and supports us from the state level and then um we work with they work with each school food authority each district to operate the various programs. So the funding is uh federal for reimbursements and grants. Um state supports our labor and then some other income comes from all the cart and catering events. So, our main programs, the school nutrition program, and that's our breakfast and lunches, uh, we receive cash subsidies and USDA food and reimbursements through there. Our reimbursement rates are based on the percentage of students determined to um, qualify for free and reduced meals versus those who get a paid meal. So, who's eligible for the free and reduced meals? they, you know, they participate in the federal assistant programs like
016SNAP and TANF or they are on our homeless, migrant, runaway or foster children list. And then you'll see below there um SFSP which is our summer program, CACFP which is our afterchool program and we'll get into those a little bit in the next couple slides like this one. So some of our programs I wanted to highlight um are summer and after school programs. uh summer, of course, we're trying to bridge the gap between the school years to reach our community to feed our children some uh breakfast and lunches throughout the summer. Um we got some big numbers this year and we'll get into that on a future slide, but there is a small picture down in the corner there. Uh we had distribution again just like in the COVID year years and um so we
017had a lot of participation in that program this year. um afterchool program, child and adult care food program. Uh that's covers our afterchool snacks, girls on the run, um drama club, tutoring, anything that happens after school hours, we provide some snacks for those students. And we're trying to get into uh athletics even more. Uh uh something that is not mentioned on here but I thought was important was our fresh fruits and vegetable program which is a grant program that we apply for every year for our elementary schools and that provides um fruits and vegetables for them to sample in the classroom with educational uh component to it and um we hope to influence them expose them to new and different healthier choices that they can hopefully carry through. So um for the fresh fruits and
018vegetable those are based on the school's enrollment and availability of funding. So um something that's fairly new is uh collaborate collaboration with life skills. Um so students working with our cafeterias um I'm going to focus on Shipman uh that seems to be one of our bigger programs in the district. So, life skills in cafeteria. There's a picture at right in the middle on the right hand side. You see Roxan, some of the students in Roxan's group there at Chipman. Uh so, they are doing everything from folding laundry, bagging cookies, uh they're breaking down boxes, they're helping count um the breakfast carts as they come back for inventory. So that they are growing in work ethic, in teamwork and leadership skills. Um really coming out of their shells, a lot of them. Um so we're very
019excited about that. Roxanne says she she feels like she receives just as much if not more than the students do. Um it's really dear to her heart. She loves she loves doing this. Um the last one that I was going to talk about well close to last uh farm to school. So, this is something we keep trying to get involved with and especially being down here, um, we really want to reach out to our local farmers and be a part of the community that way. So, um, one of the ones we've been talking about last couple years is going to our state fair and auction for beef. So, um, I think we all remember a couple years ago when we bought our first one. Does anybody remember his name? >> Jack. Yes. [laughter] So Jack
020was our first cow. Um we went to the national conference that year a week before the state fair, found out that we could do this and came back and with the help of Shelley Simpson, um we were able to jump right in and start bidding on our cows and she's been helping us ever since. So first year we got one, last year we got two, this year we got four. So um we did have some concerned community members that got a hold of Dr. quiet and I'm not sure who else but myself worried about, you know, they hear that we're spending $20,000 on some cows. They want to know uh is this referendum money that they're we're spending on cows? Are the children going to get these uh get, you know, to actually have this
021as part of their lunch? And absolutely, yes. And again, you know, our money is not from the referendum. So, I've tried to spread that word and hopefully this will help that. So, um we the reason why we did it, I kind of went over there less processed. I mean, this has got to be healthier than just about anything we can get from, you know, most vendors and stores. The price was actually competitive. even with getting it processed, it ended up being cheaper than a lot of places where we we get the meat. And you know, again, we're we're supporting local farmers, especially some of the FFA students. So, we're very excited about that. Um, a new one that we've participated in, and you'll see that picture right in the middle. You might recognize somebody there.
022Um, this is Amber Rash and her daughter, what's her name? >> Amelia. Amelia uh appropriately dressed in her watermelon shirt for watermelon Wednesday last week. Um we had Marble Farms donate too many watermelons. Um so we were able to have enough at every school to sample those with the students and give them away as an extra little treat. So um Dr. Wyatt and Miss Brash came out to South and visited us during that along with Dave and his sister Ann from Marble Farms. So that was a fun little way to get out and see the kids. So um on a smaller note real quick, I didn't want to say that we are trying to pay it forward with other dietetic interns. Um and we do have them come in. We try to do it every
023year at least one intern a year. So that's most of our programs events and um next week we are celebrating National School Lunch Week and this year we are doing Taste the World. So we're trying to get some different ethnic dishes out there. We usually have um coloring contest for the kids and they can, you know, get their artwork put up and voted on and maybe win some prizes of all the card items, that sort of thing. Um, another one coming up this month month is a botchi ball tournament and that's with our special Olympics here at the high school where we serve snacks, we serve lunch for the kids outside on the field and we um put a little extra uh special treat out there with some hot cocoa and hot apple cider and
024we have fun celebrating out there with them. Um, celebrity server is something that we have. I have one picture down there of Miss Parker at East helping us serve up some Thanksgiving. Uh she's decked out in her hairet and gloves there. So, we invite teachers. We send out a little spreadsheet. Have everyone sign up. You're welcome to join us if you want. Uh we do this for our Thanksgiving meal and Christmas meal. We might um do something special around Easter spring break. So, we'll be hearing more about that. Um, for the last three years, we've uh collaborated with Harrington McDonald's to do Pi Day at the high school. And I've never seen them smile so much over there, but when they come in and get uh McDonald's hot apple pies, they're very happy. And we
025do that every year on Pi Day, March 14th. So, they've donated at least 600 pies every year. Very excited about that. I love Lake Forest Day. We u enjoy bringing our van out and parking right at the entrance. So, we get to say hi to everybody as they're coming home. And um we have our spinning wheel there. We'll give away some prizes to the kids, uh sell some food, and just say hello to everybody and thank God for good weather on that day. Um and tomorrow, uh we're we're doing our second year in the homecoming parade. This time we're going to attempt to have a float in it as well. So, uh, I hope to be contending for that prize. [laughter] So, the next slide is my favorite. Um, this is our participation. Boy, that's
026very small. But, um, the first one, the smallest section over to the right is our afterchool snacks for the last three school years. Um, then we have our summer program and then with the blue background is our regular school nutrition program. So, I just like to see that the last bar is the tallest and that means we're doing something right. So, I'm happy about that. So, uh the snack program we've increased from 22 23 to 20 23 24 to 24 25 by 44%. Um our summer program because of our boxes and distribution we shot up 150%. So, we've really um just skyrocketed on that one with uh 17,000 additional meals. So, we capped out at 28,000 meals for the summer program. Uh SNP the percentage doesn't sound good, but we are still um increasing by
02710,000 meals last year over the year before. So, that's an extra 60 meals a day for those students, for our students. All right. And this last slide, um, community eligibility provision has put us on a roller coaster the last few years, but we're we're doing very well, I'm happy to say. Um, so this, uh, lets us qualify for free breakfast and free lunch for all of our students. So, we don't have to do meal applications and, uh, it reduces the stigma, the paperwork, you know, and everything in between. So it's identified through um a student percentage and these are the direct searchs that we kind of mentioned earlier and then it used to be that it had to be 40%. So the numbers up above here when we started in 15 we were good at
02845 then it got to 40 and 19 then it started dipping down to 23 just in time for them to lower that percentage to 25. So you know got in by the skin of our teeth there. Um, and now with the way they've changed the way uh Medicaid is kind of tracked, that's also helped us. So, we're we're getting additional reimbursement and that's bumped us up to 47. So, we're happy about that. We use that extra reimbursements to get some newer equipment to replace some older aging stuff. That is our last slide. If anybody has any questions, I'll be happy to try and answer those. >> Question, but just for me, I just would like to say thank you for that report. Um, I'm sure there are a lot of people in our community that
029uh think of your department and envision it as lunch and sometimes breakfast for our students and that's it. And clearly that's way more than that. There's a lot of good work that's being done there. So, appreciate everything you do in your department as well. >> Thank you so much. All right, we'll turn to the last item in the course 3.4. >> Hey, good evening everyone. Um, so tonight I'm going to do our annual unit count um, presentation. So, just an overview of unit count. It's the annual headcount that happens at every public school in Delaware. Uh, it takes place every year during the last 10 school days in September. So, this year that was from September 17th till September 30th. So, it just ended last week. Um this is how our schools generate their state
030funding. So every student is um classified in a funding needs category and that's tied to the calculation of the units that we receive. Um this year for the first time we use Infinite Campus. So the data was um collected in Infinite Campus and fed into EDFI and then into our unit count application which is in the data service center. So, our units, uh, depending on what category you fall in, um, each of our students falls in determines how many units are generated. So, they're all listed down here, but, uh, for example, uh, students in grades 4 through 12 who are regular education, it takes 20 students to generate one unit. Um, whereas if you look down to our complex special education students, it only takes 2.6 students to generate a unit. So, uh, there are
031three categories here, basic, intensive, and complex. And those are really just based on the level of need that those students have. Um, and obviously as you see the numbers go down, the more complex students, the more complex their needs, the more uh that we need more staff for those students. So unit count is um attendancebased. So all schools must validate their attendance of all students during those uh 10 days. Um essentially daily classroom attendance is taken by the teachers and then it's validated by the attendance clerks and by the administrators and um basically unless there's a reason that we believe during the 10day period that a student's attendance is fleeting or momentary then if they are here for um all or part of that window then they are enrolled into our school for the school
032year um based on that last day of September. So our unicount support team um includes myself and Mr. Helman as well as Miss Alman and Mr. Leven and our visiting teacher Dr. Jones. So our allocation of the units after unit count wraps up, we go through and we uh work on allocating the units that were earned to each of the schools. Um so essentially our goal is to um uh house each school with 98% of their units. So I'll come back to the waiver portion in a minute. This is the spreadsheet that Mr. Kellerman and I work on. Um that starts over here on the left. You can see our enrollment per school. Uh we added this comes from our unit count application in data service center. And we actually add a column down here
033for high roads. So we pull out our high road students uh because we cash those units in separately. So we had one student from east, one from North and six from Shipman that come down here to account for the eight students in the high roads classrooms that are at North and Shipman. Um, if you move over to the right a little bit more, you can see our categories here for basic, intensive, and complex. And that is essentially how many units were generated for each of those schools based on the needs category that were identified for each student. Our vocad is only for middle and high school. That's our CTE programs and how we generate units for those. And uh, we come over here to this blue column which is our total earned. And what we
034do is uh we give 98 our goal is to give 98% of the regular and basic to the schools and 100% of the units earned for prek intensive or complex. So the next step is we look at how we are staffed as of that day as of September 30th um when we end and look at the difference which comes over here to the entitlement. Um, so we have over here how many we would allocate and this column is essentially where it says release post 9:30. That's our next step. So the next step would be to look at what we have generated, look at the percentages and meet with the schools to determine what their needs are and how they could possibly use additional units. Um, and so this column over here, the percent of entitlement,
035this is if we were to get to the 98%. Um, you can see that most of our elementary schools are staffed or all of our elementary schools are staffed at 100%. North is sitting at 110% right now because they did lose some units this year. Um, it was really from uh a decrease in special education students, not necessarily enrollment. Uh, they had quite a few third graders in the intensive and complex categories who moved on to Central. So, when those students moved on from North total units went down based on that funding. Um, so when that happens, of course, you can see our Chipman and the high school are not um they're not at 100% of the 98%. Uh, but right now, what we are working on is looking at um we have about 2.92
036units that we can uh give back to them. So, we'll be meeting with them to talk about and discuss the possibility of using those units and um what we could possibly staff there to help get closer to that 98% And so the waiver uh we would have to apply for that by December 1st. So that if we would need to go to the 98% waiver, we would come back to the one of the board meetings in November um to request that. As of right now, it looks like there is possibly a need just because we see that North is overstaffed and so that could create some issues with getting all the way to the 98% even if we get close for the secondary schools. And we also look at K to3 class sizes. Um and
037so for uh kindergarten through grades three um we are not supposed to exceed 22 students. And that is as of the last day of October. So right now uh we generated um through infinite campus the rosters for the home rooms for each of the three K K3 schools. And we only have one school right now that is over that is East. uh their third grade, all four of their uh third grade classrooms are over that ratio at this time. They have three classes at 24 and one class at 23. Um all of the other schools right now are technically at zero, but I did make a note that at South uh right now they have three kindergarten classes at 22 and one first grade class at 22. So that's something that we'll certainly keep an
038eye on as we move forward um with that because again that waiver would be due December 1st. So, we would come back to the November um board meeting to request that waiver, which we know at this time we will need to because of the class sizes for third grade at East. >> Any questions on unit count for >> any questions for that? Because we're on this um it will but not until November. >> Thank you. Starting to solution items amendments. Mr. Start second. >> A motion and a second to approve resolution 7.1 as written. Any questions? Hearing none. I'll call for vote. All those in favor? I opposed abstensions. Motion carries 5. >> Section 8 personnel. I'll make a motion we approve resolution 8.1 as presented. >> Second. >> Have a motion and a second
039on the floor to approve the personnel report for this uh this evening. Any questions on that motion? >> Hearing none. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? I opposed abstensions. Motion carries 5. >> Section 10. Other business. I make a motion we approve resolution 10.1 school choice as presented. >> Second. have a motion and a second on the floor to approve resolution 10.1 school choice. Any questions on that motion hearing? None. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor? >> I opposed. Abstensions. Motion carries 5. >> Follow other business. Financial report. Motion to approve resolution 12.1 as presented. Second. >> A motion and a second on the floor to approve resolution 12.1 the financial report for this evening. Any questions on average? None. I'll call for a vote. All those in favor?
040I opposed extensions. Motion carries by zero between Mrs. Starky and Mrs. Section 14 uh board reports discussion items 14.1 Del.2 to legislative committee. Dr. Wyatt, >> hi. A couple of things. We met on October 1st and some of the things that have now been signed into um background checks have been expanded a little bit for anyone who works uh into the school systems. Um there were some cracks where people who really should not have been allowed to get into the school system and so part of the legislation was to make sure that that did not happen. So some of the employment agencies didn't do the full rigor of checking. So that's been taken care of. Another piece of legislation that we looked at was um that passed was our school constables. Sometimes depending on where
041the school is, they may have to step out into the road to direct traffic and they were not covered under the existing contract. So, they've now extended that to make sure that they were covered with our Harrington schools. It was covered by the the officer from Harrington, but just in case a constable had to do it, they would would be covered. And then the other piece that I thought was notable was any disruptions on school buses. Um, this piece also passed where if there is some kind of interference with the school bus um and or refusing to obey the orders of the school bus driver, that student could be charged soon and that would pass and assigned by the government. >> I I believe Dr. Why? That that does not cover students. It does cover
042non- students. >> Non- students. It's people who've come onto the bus for whatever reason. >> Yes. >> That's all. >> Any questions for Dr. Wyatt? Yes. February [clears throat] 4th. >> Okay. Does everyone get all board members, do you guys all get the email from them when they send the minutes out? >> No. No. >> Could we um just I just forward them to um Charlie and have her post the minutes with the committee report. That way anyone that does want to see those minutes, that's what I do when I was when I was here. >> Okay. >> I thought that they were sending all of us. So, >> all right. Thank you. We'll turn to 14.3. go to the order this opportunity for any board member to uh raise a question or concern that
043was not covered by any other agenda item. Does anyone have anything to go to the order? Right. Some legal stand up at this table. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Is there a need for any board member or Dr. Lucas to enter executive session? Uh no sir not. So hearing that I will now entertain a moment a moment a motion to adjourn. >> So move second. >> Have a motion and a second to adjourn for the evening. Any questions on that motion? >> Before I call for a vote, I will thank I'd like to thank everyone for coming out tonight. Um safe travels home equal stand. I will say go leaves the plane right now and go flyers. >> All those in favor please say I. I >> oppose. Extensions. Motion carries. I was getting some dirty
044looks from my Eagle Danny comrades. Go Eagles. There we go. Thank you everyone. Our next meeting is October 23rd uh right here at Eagles Crew. Thank you for jamming is very