001It is 6:30. Roll call, please. Balmer Nelson here. Lower here. Yates here. SM here. Mson here. Wagner here. All right. Uh, item two is public comments. We will have another public comment section when the regular board meeting occurs. So, we only had one person sign up. So, we'll have to wait. That's all right. Okay. Um, there's no board comments listed, but I would like to take the opportunity to tell Julie thank you for all your service and all the great things you brought to the to the board and your time as a board member. Um, you know, some of the things that we do now as a board we didn't do before you were put on the board and uh went to the all the meetings and said, "Hey, we're not doing things we should
002be doing. brush up on my Robert. You're very instrumental in our committees being formed before you came on board. We just did it all as a whole board and we didn't get a lot done very quickly. So appreciate all that you've done for us. So wish you the best of luck and we'll see you all. Item three. Um, I just wanted to have one comment and I promise I won't take forever, but um, I wanted to say something before I go. Um, so being a school board member is difficult, stressful, and sometimes even heartbreaking. But it's also wonderful when you're benefiting students. There's nothing better than seeing the accomplishments of Mercer County students, whether it be academically, musically, athletically, or in the community. Uh, when I first decided to run for school board in 2012,
003a former member who I didn't know at the time had reached out to me and said that they were praying for me and believe God wanted me to be on the board at this time. That confidence has been great motivation these last 12 years. Uh tonight I'm thankful to have my family here. If you've never met my parents, Doug and Diane Hman, you're really missing out. They're pretty awesome. Um mom is the reason education is so important to all our family. Some people are born to teach elementary kids and she's definitely one of those. She taught elementary all of her life at Taylor Ridge, New Boston, and then Jefferson Elementary in Musketine. To this day, she has former students come up to her and tell her how wonderful it was to have her for a
004teacher. Just last summer, she came to an Eliza softball game, got talking to one of the families there, and found out she had been the second grade teacher of Miss Player's grandfather. Uh, but she was also our but she was also our family's first teacher. She made sure education was number one in our house growing up. And maybe that's why I wanted to be a teacher, too, since kindergarten. Now, there's a history of serving on the school board in my dad's family. Dad served on the Wester board when I was a kid through a really rough time of consolidating the three Wester elementaryaries into one. Tiny, minuscule budgets. You think the budget's bad now? uh and student walkouts. There were a lot of angry phone calls about school issues at home, a lot of criticism
005of decisions, but he was the most steady, even keeled, wise presence on the board. And yes, I am biased, but it's still true. Um it wasn't until I was an adult that I learned that my grandfather was the board president of the Eliza Consolidated Community School District. That was when they built the Eliza School. And then my great-grandfather was the board rep for center school on the the township board center school is the one room schoolhouse near my home. Um, both my sisters are here too and became teachers as well. Jill taught English composition at Joliet Junior College in MCC and Joy taught Spanish in Springfield and then Rockidge for 17 years, but now both have stepped out into a new teaching experience teaching people about Jesus. I'm so proud of you and happy for
006both of you to have this opportunity. Finally, I'm thankful for my immediate family being here. My kids served as inspiration to always put students first in board's decisions. They have been patient with me being gone for a lot of school board events. And I want to thank my my biggest cheerleader, Scott. He has had he has had to listen to me go on about school related things I was excited for and vent about things I wasn't. He has had to take on extra duty when I've been gone or busy with school events, as every board spouse knows. and he's been a he's a great sounding board, but the absolute best thing he's always had my back no matter what. So, I wanted to thank you uh say thank you to the community and schools of
007Mercer County for giving me this opportunity. It's been an honor to serve. [Applause] Item three is the approval of vote certification. Mer county clerk. Um we have four spots open for people. So I would entertain a motion to approve the vote certification. Gates moves. Is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Roll call, please. Nelson, yes. Lower, yes. Mson, yes. Smack, yes. Wagner, yes. Yates, yes. Bomber, yes. Swearing in of new board member, Zack Frick. You have your little We'll do the board member oath and conduct. So each board member before taking his or her seat on the board shall take the following oath of office. So we'll say it together that way if one of us screws up. All right. I Billy swear that I will faithfully discharge the duty of member of
008the board of education in accordance with the constitution of the United States the state of Illinois and the laws of the state of Illinois to the best of my ability. I further swear that I respect taxpayer interest by serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets and others privacy students authority of the board while retaining rights as part of the board of education accept the responsibility for my role and quality education of every student in the school district. I shall foster participation high school district environment designed to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain maximum potential organizational framework to ensure students achievement conditions of our children state law. I shall serve as an education on behalf of students in our schools district. Thank you very much. Have a seat. Thank you. [Applause]
009You guys are welcome to stay. I would entertain a motion to adjourn sign. Is there a second? All those in favor say I. I. Yates second that. All right. So now on to the board of education reorganization. So um we will call the meeting to order at 6:39. And roll call please. Lower. Mson here. Smok here. Brick here. We here. Bulmer here. And Nelson here. All right. And now we will appoint a president prom secretary prom. I would move to the president prom and the secretary. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All right. Motion carries. That then we'll move into the election of officers to term entertain nominations for president. any other nominations. All right, we'll do a voice for Billboard president. All in favor? Motion carried. It's back in your
010hands. Uh so vice president, I would entertain a motion for vice president. All right. Any other discussion? Then I would uh I will voice vote. All those in favor of Don the vice president say I. All those opposed. Entertain a motion for secretary. I would uh move to I would like to nominate Jason. I couldn't get that word out. Second. Anyone else? All right. Any discussion? All those in favor of Jason Mson as board secretary say I. I. Oppos. Same. motion carries. In your board packet, there was the committee assignments based off of what folks had messaged me that they wanted. I tried to give everyone All right. So finance will be Zack Frick, Jason Mson. Building and grounds, Don Yates, Jake Lard, Nelson. Negotiations, Don Yates, Zack, Lorie Nelson. Wellness, Jake Lower, Talmer, Bill.
011Transportation, Jason, Bill, Talmer, Protocols, Lorie Nelson, Doug, Jason, Jake, Talmer, and Zack. Anyone have any questions or concerns or objections committee assignments? All right. Then we typically have do our uh recording be our recording secretary for the open portion of the board meetings. I would entertain a motion to Keep on as secretary. Eight seconds. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. Oppos. Same sign. All right. Carries. And then we need to reaffirm district treasurer which is Scott Petri and the attorneys which is yeah and then our district architect which is we actually have two changes Or if there's any that anyone would like pulled out, we can pull them out individually. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Same sign. Motion carries. Um reaffirm dates and locations for regular
012school board meetings. I would move that we keep them on the third Wednesday of every month at 6:30 in this location. There are five exceptions to that as these dates are in our main. The exceptions are June and September each year. So that we put our our budget and any amended budget on display. And then in March of 2026, the third Wednesday falls on spring break. Any questions? made the motion and Balmer second. So I there's no further discussion. All those in favor say I. I opposed. Motion carries. And then I would entertain a motion to adopt the existing policies and regulations of the school district and school board. All right. Motion second. Second. All those Oh, any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right. Then I would entertain a motion
013to adjourn the reorganization part of the meeting. I I moved Bmer second. All those in favor say I. I. All right. And now we will return to the regular board of education meeting, but we will need to do a new roll call. And we are at 6:47. Yates here. Bomber. here. Mson here. Nelson here. Smok here. Frick. Now we're on to the public comments section of our meeting. I'll read off the little our little blurb that we have about public comments. Uh the board of education welcomes public comment during the public comment portion of the agenda. Those who wish to address the board shall state their name and limit their statement to five minutes. Comments are not restricted to items on the agenda. However, comments regarding specific student discipline cases are not allowed during open
014session. Generally, these types of comments should come to the board only after they've been referred to the teacher, principal, or administrator who close to the situation. All other avenues for resolving these items have been exhausted and the issue has not yet been resolved. You may request to address the board usually during In addition, please refrain from using derogatory comments about staff members at this time. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I hope you all know that I appreciate the time and care that you give for our children at our schools. I am not here because I'm angry. I'm here because I care. I apologize. This is difficult for me. Know that I'm very concerned. I must add that just today a board member suggested that Mike and I meet with Mr. Corker before
015speaking, but and we are open to doing so. Um, we attended the community forum for the referendum and we truly appreciated how we handled what was at times a very contentious atmosphere. Um, it was it was great. Um, I had already decided to speak tonight because we felt this was the next step. So, I'm here. Perception is that both the superintendent and the board are involved in hiring decisions. Perhaps that is inaccurate in this case, but we still believe you all carry the responsibility for ensuring safety for our kids. So, I'm here and I'm here asking you to reconsider the decision to hire the new Apollo nurse after Becky Hay is retired. I ask that instead you post the job now and hire a time for the new nurse to train with Becky while school
016is in session. They of course would not start full-time till fall, but that is generally understood in most positions in the school setting and would be understood hiring. I unique vantage point. I am a regular substitute teacher at Apollo and I observe Becky shop in that way. Additionally, our 10-year-old son Patrick has multiple life-threatening food allergies. Let me be clear, Patrick has experienced anaphilaxis more than once. And yes, he has had to be injected at school and taken to the ER. We still do not know what caused the reaction, but Becky because she knew how to recognize his reaction was able to ensure he was treated promptly and he is okay at baseball practice. Without going into great detail, food reactions are tricky. Patrick often presents with multiple mild symptoms. We've been in more than
017one ER where the doctors and nurses think the reaction is not severe because the stroke is not closing. In reality, it is when your whole body is having a reaction and symptoms can present in any number of ways. Ultimately, if not treated promptly, our son's body could shut down and die. While we have the support of a wonderful staff at Apollo, I cannot overstate the importance of an adequately trained school nurse. The new nurse needs to be trained in assessment and using Patrick's plan and overseeing that his plan is being followed to ensure safety. Other nursing backgrounds don't necessarily prepare you for these things, but hands-on training with Becky will prepare her as much as possible. Even if you hope Becky would return to training this new individual, she is retiring. It is not guaranteed
018she will do this further. Being trained in an empty school is not the same as working with Becky on school days. Training is the crucial piece of ensuring that our son and others like him come home from school safely. In a crisis situation, there are no doovers. Immediate action is needed. Death is final. Please understand, it's not easy to say and it's worse to think about it, but it's a fact of life for us. It's not just about Patrick Patrick. Roughly, there are 25 children with food allergies. Six to 10 with asthma and three who have seizures at Apollo. An additional three children with seizures come regularly from the junior high. And I know not from Apollo, but I know that there's a child with diabetes coming in the fall. This does not include the
019kids who take medicine or the if you need her for unexpected illness and injury. All of this in addition to the many other jobs. Our amazing nurse does many important things and she's the only one to do them. I cannot imagine walking into that position without hands-on training, let alone the training needed to handle anaphilaxis, seizures, and so much more. This job can be overwhelming. The idea of an untrained overall nurse should concern all of us. Schools, the administration, and the board are held to a high standard when it comes to keeping kids safe. I'm so ful for the increased safety at our schools in recent years and I fully supported the referendum and all the safety that was going to come with it. However, the nurse's role in safety is equally important. She has
020contact with every child at school. An estimated one in 14 students suffer an injury at school each year nationwide. For our child and others like him, he is not safe if our new nurse is not fully trained before day one of school. Please understand parents are counting on you to keep all of our kids safe. I don't with whom the decision ultimately lies. But I believe you can all influence this matter. I know everyone is in this room because they care about kids. I understand you have reasons you have waited to hire. I am asking you kindly but emphatically to now reconsider. Hiring now so a nurse can train with Becky has no downsides and no risks. Please think about my child and the 40 other children with major issues at Apollo who need the
021best nurse possible. Think about about what can happen if the new nurse is not fully trained properly. Think about your own children and how you would want them protected. We have great faith in all of you and we hope you make the right decision. Thank you. Thank you. Number three, board comments. Is there any board comments? I have one. Um, and I know some of the principles touched on this in their admin reports, but I wanted to congratulate the students as well that were recognized um for the Illinois Principles Association's leadership award. Uh, Wilkins, Troy Davis, Lexa Lane, Clay Kester, uh Keegan Benson, Zack Hoffender, and then also our junior high principal um being honored as the junior high principal of the year, Tim Cam. So, I wanted to make sure everybody here recognized uh
022the good things we have going on. So, we appreciate that. Congratulations. Any other comments? Otherwise, we did have two correspondents going around. They I don't know if they got over there. They were moving on to the consent agenda. Hey, Bill. Can I say something? Uh, I'm not on the I'm not on We typically we don't unless you sign up, but is it long? Nope. Okay, I'll sign. Why don't we have you put your name down real quick? That way we got record. Yeah. Okay. I don't have nothing written down, so shouldn't be long. First time talking to a school board meeting, huh? First time talking. Yes. First time talking in a school board. First time ever, I think, being in a school board. But I have a question and it's about my wife. Her foot
023is they had surgery on her foot. Her Achilles tendon had bone spur removed and she's in a boot. She's working in in a boot and they sent her to to Boston to take I think Teresa Shell's place and that's fine. I mean I I don't work here so I don't make the rules. But anyhow, she come home last night and where they had done surgery on her heel, she took her sock off and it was bleeding through. And if she could stay up here at the junior high and do light duty, she could sat on the chair, wash off trays, and you know, she can sit down every now and then. But down there, she's in charge and she's on her all day long and I don't think that's right. And I guess I got
024a question for you four guys right there. What would you do for your So I got to stop. Yeah. Um so typically for public comments we don't back and forth. We don't because we don't want but what I'm going to suggest is that you either call me or call Mr. tomorrow morning and we can kind of go through everything. I'm not fully like brought up to speed on the situation and I don't think anybody else probably Mr. Porter I'm sure is but um it's probably in a open session we try not to get into staff just for lots of different reasons but yeah that's okay that's okay I I didn't know what you were going to you know come to talk to us about but we just don't want to talk about staff issues in
025Yeah. Are you open first thing? Do you have time to swing by the office first thing? Uh, yeah. I got a doctor's appointment. Thank you, Danny. All right, so we will move on to the consent agenda. Is there anyone that would like anything pulled from the consent agenda? If not, I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. Lower moves to approve eight seconds. Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mson, yes. Nelson. Yes. Smok. Yes. Frick. Yes. Yates. Yes. Bulmer. Yes. Lower. Yes. All right. Motion carries 70. Uh committee reports. The finance committee report is in the packet. Anybody have any questions or were there any highlights that the committee would like to point out insurance? The only recommendation was just to approve the bill as presented. Then we did not building and grounds committee
026meeting. So there's no report from that. There were no other meetings or committee meeting. Um moving on to theformational discussion items. Item seven 7.1 foyer request. Did we have any foyer requests? Yep. And I'll roll up the slide. I always like to start with district goals. Um our five buckets. Student achievement or I'm sorry student academic growth and achievement. two goals to continue to strengthen K through8 literacy matchricular instructional approach and to continue to modernize our curriculum uh in programs and services to continue to strengthen social emotional student supports and increase targeted pathway based course opportunities in district and community relations to strengthen community involvement in schools and continue to solidify and expand positive brand under facilities and accessibility. Our goals are and implement long-term capital improvement plan, solidify security, safety, and district crisis. And
027in finance, our goals are to develop and implement long-term budget levy projections and plans, increase operational deficiencies, keeping students first. As far as foyer requests, we got hit with a bunch of them recently. You can see the array of items that requested request under academic and improvement planning. I'd like to turn things over to Miss Cooper if I could to talk about a few things. So, you want me to talk about first just scheduling in general, right? How Yep. So, we're in the process of working on scheduling. I say we like I have a lot to do with it, but right now Miss who's working on scheduling. So, all of our students have registered, sheets are turned in. We're working on creating the master schedule, working on getting our special education students scheduled first to
028make sure that they get all their needs met, and then we start with seniors, and then move back from there. So, that's going well. I think you said you just finished juniors, right? About five juniors left. So, seniors are done, juniors, and five. It's always our goal to get a first schedule in the students hands before. So, And we're excited we'll be able to offer all um same classes we've offered before. So we still have a wide variety of dual credit enrollment opportunities, AP enrollment opportunities, lots of electives, and we we have a wonderful course handbook for a school district our size. So excellent. As far as spring assessment goes, ACT and preACT are complete. I complete and we still have some makeups somewhere with we still have another day on the timeline, but our
029building's done. I'm guessing everybody pretty much wrapped up tomorrow. Tomorrow science assessment uh is in motion and we have college board AP exams coming up. We haven't taken any AP exams. No, they're the first two weeks of May. So knock on wood all of that will be complete IP black. Sure. So we've been in a lot more discussions with Blackhawk trying to ensure that we can offer lots of different opportunities for students whether that be um like an IT I think we're focused on it here but other aspects as well but Blackhawk does have three different options a network plus um Is the other one called A+? Yep. So, programs that are um preparatory work for those certification exams. What are they called again, Mr. Lord? Compia. CompTIA. Thank you. For the CompTIA exams. Um
030and it's also college credit that they can earn toward um yeah, different IT routes that they want to go. So, we actually sent out a survey to all of our student um sophomores and juniors, I believe, of students who are maybe interested in IT fields. high school and then had some meetings with those students to talk to them about the different opportunities that are available to them whether it be Blackhawk and then we've got one coming up um once we get somebody from DIY that can help us with DIY as well and just explaining all those options to students. So we're anxious to see how many students we can get enrolled in some of those IT courses for next year. With the variety of balls in their court, we signed agreement with them. We're working
031with the board of higher education to make sure everything is in place. Once we get that done, we'll get our kids in touch with folks and walk through the um as far as math curriculum and instruction update. Mer, you want to talk a little bit about the math course progression? Yep. So, we've been doing a lot of work um with Mr. Sedan as well with the junior high and high school. We know our math scores are something that as a district we need to improve or we really need to focus on. So, we've wor been looking at um particularly at the high school level that progression that students go through um and how many students we can try to get through algebra at least through algebra 2. So, they're in the state of Illinois one
032of the new college career readiness indicators. not new. They're a couple years old, but um they're starting to be a part of our report card data starting this year, but is how how many students get through algebra 2 content. So, really trying to encourage students um to get to that point. So, right now, we do have students that start high school in pre-alggebra, then they'll take algebra and then take geometry, and we require three years of credit so that they're not making it to that algebra 2. So, we started discussions with the junior high of aligning and making sure that we're in alignment with our standards and benchmarks that we're hitting to try and get more eighth grade students ready for algebra uh pre-alggebra and algebra so we can have our high school students starting
033at least at algebra 1 because if our high school students can start at least at algebra 1 then they'll hit that algebra 2 benchmark. So actually next year the plan is to reduce the number of sections of pre-alggebra that we're offering by half and then the following year it hopes to not have any pre-alggebra offered at the high school um and getting our kids ready for that. So and that's looking doable. You know we looking at lots of metrics with our incoming freshmen current test scores current grades um multiple different test scores I MAP current grades and talking with some of our high school math teachers of kind of the preparedness of students who come in the past and Now, with our advisory time at the high school, we have a lot more opportunity to
034offer interventions for students as well to help them even if they're maybe not quite ready, but we can put them there and then give them the interventions they need to help them be successful. In conjunction with that work, we're going to start digging into our curriculum K12 on the math side. We're working to assemble three to five member teams at each building that'll do that work throughout the course of the next school year. That work will correspond with ISBY is working to put together a new plan that should be released next spring around this time which is pretty similar to the lit. Do you have a question? I do just a second. As a percentage of our graduating classes, what where are we at in relation to the algebra 2 right now? I should have
035looked at that and I don't have that information. I'm just curious if it's probably like 30% 40% maybe 30%. We do have right we did assemble some data to try and and Miss Dornan assembled this this data for us trying to find similar schools nearby with similar demographics and analyzing eighth graders the rate at which eighth graders are passing out one ninth grade on track IR meets and exceeds and I believe this is for junior high you lost your connection shake your mouse Yes, Miss Miss Jordan actually was going to be here to talk about this. She went home sick today. Um, but she the information that she compiled that'll hopefully be up in a second is the eighth grade information. So, junior high information and she took all the schools in our current conference.
036That's what it looks like. Anyway, the moral of the story is You're almost there. The moral of the story is we know that we have room for improvement with regards to math skills. Looks like the data though for our eighth graders kind of right there with everybody else. Is that correct? Um it's 26% there's 153% but everybody else is kind of maybe with everything except for you know significant what was That's just eighth grade. That's only eth grade. Yep. No, that's all that's all. 26% is eighth grade. Is that or No, that's different. That's not those are kids enrolled in algebra one. So like in four or five years ago, we did not even have algebra one at the junior high that was added. And we're roughly, like you said, 26% of our population gets
037from advanced math. Advanced math doesn't sixth grade really. Um but yeah, that's the eighth grade last year. So we know we have work to do across the board. Um so that's academic improvement planning three funds update. Um so we have as of July 1st we had money remaining in esser 3. The way ESSER was designed originally, institutions were given the charge to spend their money by September 30th, 2025. And you could extend that and have a liquidation extension. I think last entire 2025 calendar year. I'm not sure exactly what the deadline is, but I know we could apply for a liquidation extension at least through the summer. So that's what we targeted. $240,000 worth of projects. Now, in order for us to get that liquidation extension uh is being the federal government mandated that we
038had sales orders in place. We got two sales orders in place. One with Northwest Mechanical for $100,000 for $140,000. Northwest Mechanical was for a portion of the HVAC project at the Vote Center High School and the Willy Go portion Um, we were notified that's been within the last two weeks. There was an announcement made by the US Department of Education followed up by a letter to school districts that were involved from ISBY that the US Department of Education is revoking their grant extension. according to the US Department of Education no longer giving us access to promised funds. We have contracts in place. on those contracts for we are part now of a Illinois is part of a multi-state lawsuit to try and release those funds as promised to be how that impacts us is for
039us if we do those projects um without er money it'll come out of open er money all the money here has been targeted in the ed fund so even though those were going to be you know capital expenses We were using the fund to flow because we had to have sales contracts extend which was the first thing that we attempted to do was to extend this money into summer school like has been happening at least for the last couple years. So we'll see where the lawsuit goes. If those funds get released to us as promised uh then we can do a little bit more summer work various sites. If not, we'll have to be a little bit more concerned. With that in mind, the capital improvement plan update uh 2025 summer project plans. Uh none
040of this has changed. The only thing I'll go ahead and walk through. So at the ELC, we've got some izing of the HVAC and domestic water plan. We've got that contract in place. We've got security in place, contract in place, kitchen contract in place. Concrete I have highlighted because that would be the item that I would put pause on if this money doesn't exterior lighting and landscaping still for Apollo New Boston. We've got building demo prek classroom finishing parking lot playground and the new Boston PTO has been helping a lot instrumental design of that playground and doing some additional fundraising gather in order to get the best we can at the junior high security. Uh that contract is in place in conjunction with follow. Again, concrete would be something we will put on hold just
041a little bit while exterior lighting landscaping will continue to move forward and probably shelves the potential tweaking of Hback controls. you know, that's been an issue for years. And then at the high school, we're moving moving forward vocational HVAC. We're going to do replace the lighting in both shops while we're doing that. While we have lifts here and running wire and duct work, I'll elaborate a little bit on the plan at the Apollo kitchen. Um, so if you remember, these are walk-in cooler and storage upgrades. Uh, continue working on that exterior door, which we feel like we have to replace right now. Look at the range as far as being replaced and potentially reposition space. Recently, we've replaced a can opener in the kitchen and we're trying to get the dumpstered as well. I think
042there's a decent amount of broken glass as far as a district design team update. Um just a quick before and after pick of the case work in the high school art room. Um so really would like to thank the district design team for helping us coordinate this project. We've got design that's fluid from one building to the next. Those cabinets, the case work themselves, the design is exact exactly what was installed. The counter top is a slight variation just because they didn't have the exact. Another thing the district design team was working to do, uh, we have shingles that need replaced. The roof needs replaced at our little storage garage between this campus and Apollo. Um, planning on doing that with a metal roof. We've got two other metal roofs on this campus. One is
043a blue, one is a like bronzeish goldish. So, just looking What is what is the best color of metal to install that roof design? Um, moving down to referendum information sharing. So, this slide just contains um the vote as far as yes, yes, no, or people that did not vote that cast a ballot in the various townships of our school district. Um the you know the blue and the gold swaths directly correspond with the townships in those areas. Um so if you look in the middle the blue that represents all Mercer townships and Pington Township and Ohio Grove. Those are all the townships where the yes votes outnumber the no votes. If you go Looking at the screen to your right, we're to the east of Alo. We have a few votes that were cast
044out from residents in our district boundaries. And you can see how they voted yes, no, or didn't vote at all. Um, when you head to the townships west of Leo, there you see, and you can see them listed in the table or you can see them all that vote aggregated out to the left. We had 26% of folks vote in favor when all the smoke cleared about 46.8% of the folks voted in favor um community engagement district goal setting. Um, so what I intend to do is collect staff and community feedback uh via Google form and uh work to put us in position to adopt FY26 district goals in July. Entertain feedback, you know, from from anyone informally. Feel free to shoot me text a call or an email if there's an item that you
045would like to be a part of the Google form. For the most part, what my plan is to take the goals that we currently have um and you know have an opportunity for anybody filling out the form to add something that's not on there, but then also to kind of rank the goals in order of importance as we currently have. So there opportunity for open text input to exchange new ideas or ideas for new goals and then an opportunity to rank for Okay, the last thing on my discussion list, community eligibility provision. This is part of the school lunch, federal school lunch program. Um, I bring this up. We are in I believe it's year two. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong of it's basically free breakfast, free lunch for all and that's the
046C program. So we qualify for that through this community eligibility provision. Um it's a USDA approved alternative to collecting, approving and verifying eligibility for free. We are a part of that districtwide. So all buildings are under that provision. Um the benefits that they uh market for this program uh for students uh everybody gets breakfast and lunch offered daily. There are no reimburseable meal charges. Uh it ensures that they're ready to learn and there's no differentiation. Everybody goes through the line the same way. For parents, they don't have to file paperwork in order to qualify for free and reduced lunches and there's no cash payments like takes place. As far as the school goes, it just streamlines, you know, all the paperwork is associated with the school program. I'm mentioning this because all indications are the
047department of US Department of Education may be looking to change this program or eliminate this program. So, we just need to be ready to have a discussion on what we want to do locally should this program no longer be funed. by knock. Is that separate from like before we cainif that's the All indications are that the US Department of Education would be interested in ending this program of maintaining some form of free. The tricky part is that does go back to parents have to certify Anyone have any questions about any of that? Moving on to eight uh the action items 8.1 county high school vocational HBAC agreement drawings and specs are in your folder. It's broken out by space. So you can kind of see the contract that we've engaged with and then the drawings
048and specs they released. Just looking for formal approval of those drawings and specs knowing that electrical roofing and structural structural engineering will come at additional cost as needed. Something to note there was a different for this project that we pivoted from and the original design the estimated cost was $514,000. This comes at a considerable savings. And just a refresher that this is the project that the district applied for last year and got $50,000 in school grant money to help fun. So is this outside of we get $50,000 $50,000 we've already received this project and ideally we'll receive $100,000 this project and then that would leave us you know probably leave us less than 10 grand for this part and then any of the electrical construction so I've total these um sales orders up to 186,242.
049So, our motion should be for 156 242. Yeah. Yeah. I would ask for present. Okay. All right. I'll entertain a motion. All right. Is there a second? And seconds. Is there discussion? All right, roll call, please. Nelson, yes. Rick, yes. Yates, yes. Bulmer, yes. Lower, yes. Mson, yes. Motion carries 70. Next is the 2025 2026. Is college career path out. Absolutely. So, one of the things the state is encouraging um and it's going to be mandated within a couple years, but to have verified through the state a college career um pathway u gosh important part endorsement. Thank you just my brain shut down. Um, and we applied with the state to go ahead and have our first one approved for next school year. Um, but the area that we were going to have that in
050is with where one of our new teachers will be next year. So, we decided to opt out for next school year, do it the following school year, give that new teacher a chance to get a little bit of her feet underneath of her before she has to do a bunch of paperwork to the state about what she's doing in her class. So, this is not a state requirement by next school year. Not a big deal at all. Um, the state you said, "Hey, we're going to do it for this school year." In order to then go back and opt out, it has to appear on a board agenda. Board has to be discussed and then we have to submit that um information, the board agenda, the notes and everything for that. So, so our plan
051is 100% to have it. We actually would love to have two or three of them in the future approved by the state. Um but that work will still start next year. Just because we're opting out doesn't mean we can't actually do it. Um, we'll we'll start the work on it, but then hopefully officially do it the following school year. Do I have a motion to approve the college? I'll move. Any discussion? All right. Voice vote. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right. Motion carries. Administrative reports. I'll start with the district. Some of you might have noticed we do have there's some internet work, some some fiber being around. Hats off to to Jeff Long and his team and Mr. Petri, you know, lining up the opportunity for us. We're getting fiber to
052New Boston. It's not the way that we wanted. You know, we we tried to get that bead funding in conjunction with Bola Fiber so that we could help get fiber through Joy down to New Boston covers as well. Um this fiber is going through Joy to New Boston, but it's a closed circuit for us only. Um, so this will mean all of our buildings will be connected on one fiber network and all the work of Mr. Pet. I'm hopeful that in the back end we can still figure out a way if not this year down the road for Viola Fiber to be the internet provider because the one part that I don't there are two parts I don't like about this that are less ideal than if we have fiber to be positive a it
053doesn't affect any of our homes so we don't have low cost high speed internet to the to our students homes which and then b the back end of This internet right now is being provided by a company that's not local. So I would much prefer the back end to be provided by a local company like fiber so money can support additional bills in Mercer County. So we'll work to get there. It's not perfect. It's not bad. So that's district update. There she is. Anything from something called station un Mr. Robertson is out today. We've had some people come into the building today. We had ballet come in. I know Paula had them also. Our students were enthralled. I mean, they watched 30 minutes of ballet and all of our students were in there watching. It
054was wonderful. I wish you could get them in there more often. And then um we got a lot of field trips coming up to the zoo or students are really excited about that. And you know, you mentioned our our two IPA Troy Davis and Savannah Wilkins for recognized Blackhawk IPA. And I want to say it was actually a pretty it was pretty difficult decision. Especially in the fifth grade this year, fourth graders coming up. You know, it is not easy to go, "Oh yeah, I know this too." I mean, we really have to think about it. I just I want to brag on our students. They are just doing a really good job at really focusing and I say this tomorrow will bring now that I'm saying it but they've been doing so wonderfully. So
055I just wanted to take a second stole the thunder. I was just going to say the idea of finishing state testing is always a big time to have that done. Um keep us in your thoughts as we're entering field trip season. from the high school. Um just I mean all of our sports teams, athletic teams and our music groups and all all do a wonderful job. Um but some things to highlight recently. Our band and choir got all division one and two ratings at organizational contest. Our softball team is undefeated. I don't know the scores at the moment, but that's the last I knew. They were defeated to start the season and they beat Rockbridgeidge which I from what I understand is the first time since like the 80s that we beat Rock which is
056awesome. Um so great start to the season there. Um I told Mr. Murray in spite of their coach they're doing a wonderful job. Not at all. He's doing did an awesome awesome job. Um and we are just three full weeks away from the last week for seniors. So we're end of the year is coming quick. So we're in full swing end of the year activities. graduation. Good stuff. 125ish. We're gathering together and about 20 of our teachers are going to get a whipped cream on their face. Come on down. Students have to earn tickets out of a bucket of a teacher that they chose. because I got to pull the ticket. No, no, I missed. All right. Well, that brings us to close session. So, we have few items on the personnel report. So, we
057will I'll entertain a motion to go into close session. Yates. Is there a second? All right. First